Friday, September 15, 2006

An Open Letter to Gropers Everywhere

I yelled about this for a long while last night, and I thought that was going to make me get over it, but it didn't, so now you people get to listen to me.

Gropers, grabbers, pinchers, and other perverts of various and sundry persuasions, listen closely. It is NOT, I repeat NOT okay to walk down a street and grab, stroke, fondle, or otherwise handle any body part of any other individual. Ever. If you need to reach out and touch someone, touch yourself, but leave the rest of us alone. Even better, seek some professional help. It's not a funny tic or a silly sort of game, it's frankly disgusting and demeaning and makes the person on the recieving end of your bullshit want to rip your hands off, douse them in gasoline, and set them on fire.

And to the piece of shit who grabbed my ass in Dupont Circle last night - if I ever see you again, I sure hope your scary ass girlfriend who thought you were so funny last night is there to protect you, because you'll be half the man you used to be once I'm done with you.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

A Life Well Lived

I remember a June morning about 3 or 4 days after school let out. My dad got me out of bed early, fed me breakfast, brushed my hair, and then took me on a little road trip. Governor Ann Richards was visiting West Texas for the day, and my all knowing father decided that even if I didn't have a full grasp on what she was doing, I should probably meet her anyways. Since my favorite game at that age was 40 Questions (a variation of 20 Questions that I don't think I ever quite grew out of), my dad spent the majority of the car ride explaining to me all the important things Governor Richards had accomplished. At the time, I didn't understand what all the fuss was about. I didn't understand why it was such a big deal that a former housewife and school teacher had been elected governor, because my parents always told me that anybody can be anything that they want to be. I didn't understand why it was such a big deal that she was the first governor to appoint minorities and women to so many important positions within the Texas government, because my parents always told me that intelligence isn't based on a person's race or gender. I didn't understand why it was such a big deal that she stood up for people in Texas who other people didn't want to defend, because my parents always told me that you have to help those who might not have the means to help themselves.

What I did understand was that Ann Richards was incredibly witty and unendingly kind. She gave a short speech that day, and even though I don't remember what she said, she was plain spoken enough to make me laugh. And even with a room full of people to meet and mingle with, she still took 5 minutes to stop and talk, not to my father, but to me. She had an enormous impact on me that day, and I feel so fortunate that I actually had a chance to tell her that. I met Ann Richards again while I was working in Austin at the House of Representatives after college. Even though I know she couldn't possibly remember meeting one little snot nosed kid all those years ago, I wanted her to know that her ideals had influenced me, and that she really had helped set a path in one person's life.

Ann Richards passed away yesterday afternoon after a battle with esophageal cancer. While it's saddening to think that such an important part of recent Texas history is gone, it's hard to dwell the death of someone who lived such an inspirational life. Regardless of your politics, it's impossible not to admire her courage, her spirit, and her example to women everywhere that you really can do it all.


September 14, 2006

Ann Richards, Ex-Governor of Texas, Dies at 73

By RICK LYMAN

Ann W. Richards, the silver-haired
Texas activist who galvanized the 1988 Democratic National Convention with her tart keynote speech and was the state's 45th governor until upset in 1994 by an underestimated challenger named George W. Bush, died Wednesday at her home in Austin. She was 73.

Ms. Richard died, surrounded by her four children, of complications from the esophageal cancer, the Associated Press reported.

Ms. Richards was the most recent and one of the most effective in a long-line of Lone Star State progressives who vied for control of Texas in the days when it was largely a one-party Democratic enclave, a champion of civil rights, gay rights and feminism. Her defeat by the future president was one of the chief markers of the end of generations of Democratic dominance in Texas.

So cemented was her celebrity on the national stage, however, that she appeared in national advertising campaigns, including one for snack chips, and was a lawyer and lobbyist for Public strategies and Verner, Lipfert, Bernhard, McPherson & Hand.

"Poor George, he can't help it," Ms. Richards said at the Democratic convention in 1988, speaking about the current president's father, former President George Bush. "He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."
Her acidic, plain-spoken keynote address was one of the year's political highlights and catapulted the one-term Texas governor into a national figure.

"We're gonna tell how the cow ate the cabbage," she said, bringing the great tradition of vernacular Southern oratory to the national political stage in a way that transformed the mother of four into an revered icon of feminist activism.

Dorothy Ann Willis was born Sept. 1, 1933, in Lakeview, and graduated in 1950 from Waco High school where she showed a special facility for debate. She attended the Girl's Mock State government in Austin in her junior year and was one of two delegates chosen to attend Girl's Nation in Washington.

She attended
Baylor University in Waco — on a debate scholarship — where she met her future husband, David Richards. After college, the couple moved to Austin where she earned a teaching certificate at the University of Texas in 1955 and taught social studies for several years at Fulmore Middle School.
She raised her four children in Austin.


She volunteered in several gubernatorial campaigns, in 1958 for Henry Gonzalez and in 1952, 1954 and 1956 for Ralph Yarborough and then again for Yarborough's senatorial campaign in 1957.

In 1976, Ms. Richards defeated a three-term incumbent to become a commissioner in Travis County, which includes Austin, and held that job for four years, though she later said her political commitment put a strain on her marriage, which ended in divorce.

She also began to drink heavily, eventually going into rehabilitation, a move that she later credited with salvaging her life and her political career.

"I have seen the very bottom of life," she said. "I was so afraid I wouldn't be funny anymore. I just knew that I would lose my zaniness and my sense of humor. But I didn't. Recovery turned out to be a wonderful thing."
In 1982, she ran for state treasurer, received the most votes of any statewide candidate, became the first woman elected to statewide office in Texas in 50 years and was re-elected in 1986.

In 1990, when the incumbent governor, William P. Clements Jr., decided not to run for re-election, she ran against a former Democratic governor, Mark White, and won the primary, then later fought a particularly brutal campaign against Republican candidate Clayton Williams, a wealthy rancher, and won.
Among her achievements were institutional changes in the state penal system, invigorating the state's economy and instituting the first Texas lottery, going so far as to buy the first lotto ticket herself on May 29, 1992.

It was her speech to the Democratic convention in Atlanta, though, that made her a national figure.
A champion of women's rights, she told the television audience: "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels."

In 1992, she was chairwoman of the convention that first nominated
Bill Clinton.
Two years later, she underestimated her young Republican challenger from West Texas, going so far as to refer to George W. Bush as "some jerk," a commend that drew considerable criticism. Later, she acknowledged that the younger candidate has been much more effective at "staying on message" and made none of the mistakes that her campaign strategists had expected. She was beaten, 53 percent to 46 percent.


Her celebrity, however, carried her onto the boards of several national corporations, including J.C. Penney, Brandeis University and the Aspen Institute.

She also co-wrote several books, including "Straight from the Heart: My Life in Politics and Other Places" in 1989 with Peter Knobler and "I'm Not Slowing Down" in 2004, with Richard M. Levine.


On her 60th birthday, she got her first motorcycle license.

"I've always said that in politics, your enemies can't hurt you, but your friends can kill you," Ms. Richard once said.

Survivors, according to The AP, include her children, Cecile, Daniel, Clark and Ellen Richards, and eight grandchildren