...must approve the readings first. “The pressure to be bland and middle-of-the-road on everything is less prominent in a college textbook,” says Foner. “High school textbooks are largely written to satisfy the Texas school book commission.” Foner’s reference to the Lone Star State is not without substance. With a schoolbook budget approaching $600 million, Texas is second only to California in textbook purchases. Because of...
...aring gaffe-prone heart. Like Bachmann in Iowa, Perry exited the race in the same place where he entered it – South Carolina. Yet, unlike Bachmann, Perry also tumbled out of the race as the same character that entered it: the Texas cowboy. In his concession speech, Perry stated, “As someone who has always admired a great Texas forefather – Sam Houston – I know when it is time for a strategic retreat.” While Perry was right in saying that his time...
...president Lee Bollinger. The topic of affirmative action, and the many ways in which the phrase is used, has become particularly relevant since February, when the Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari to hear Fisher vs. Texas. The case challenges the use of race as a factor in admissions to the University of Texas in addition to Texas’s “Top 10 Percent Program,” which grants automatic admission to the top ten percent of high school classes....
...ight financial fraud before he participated in a question and answer session with Columbia president Lee C. Bollinger where Holder discussed a wide range of issues from Holder’s time at Columbia to the upcoming Supreme Court Texas affirmative action case. In his prepared comments, Holder cited various convictions and settlements that the Department of Justice has won against corruption in financial institutions, including the recent 25 billion d...
...ontinuing power of gun crimes to captivate national attention, as did Jiverly Voong’s April 2009, shooting spree at an immigrant center in Binghamton, New York, and US Army Major Nidal M. Hasan’s armed assault on Fort Hood in Texas last November. Can it be that, in spite of these isolated tragedies, the issue of gun control has been largely resolved? Since 1984, the number of US households with guns has declined from 47.5 percent to 36 percent, p...
...rse, more nuances to the practice of electoral college politics than pure numbers – after all, it is not likely that Romney will expend much political capital in New York and California, nor that Obama will put up a fight for Texas. Both candidates have already ceded defeat in many of the fifty states, for the simple reason that such states side so consistently with one party that any major attempt by the other to win those votes would be futile....
...ed opportunity—and making a political bet that others feel the same way. Bad Service DAN TOUFF Unlike some of the GOP warriors who now carry his water, President Bush was never an anti-service ideologue. As governor of Texas, he supported his state’s AmeriCorps-affiliated national service commission. Vague but seemingly heartfelt notions about service and civic commitment featured as part of his “compassionate conservative” appeal in the 2...
...e wins the election. And he’s up by and average of 2-4 points in all three of those states. Bill Clinton is the only candidate to have lost a state after being up more than 2 points, with less than two weeks to go. And it was Texas in 1992. Was Texas ever really gonna go blue? So forget Gallup, forget the national polls. You can even forget Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, and New Hampshire (all states Obama has leads in). Remember: Ohio, Wisconsin, and...
...ry recitation of major headlines. The camera captured Cronkite and Kennedy sitting awkwardly on the beach in front of Kennedy’s “Summer White House” (somehow even harder to take seriously than Bush’s “working holidays” at his Texas ranch) in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. The most striking part of the interview for anyone under the age of fifty is how uncomfortable both men looked, but it’s more evident, surprisingly, in the famously telegenic Kenn...
...arco Rubio and House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ross-Lehtinen, are both Floridians of Cuban descent. Politicians need to engage a wider swath of the Hispanic vote, putting electoral vote-rich states like California and Texas in play. The Hispanic vote could be the key to achieving this. I’m not asking for a repositioning of “hard-power” like we are seeing in the far Pacific. I’m just asking for the same thing our southern neigh...
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