A small hat and a cow

 

Mother's Day roses from the Burtons
Aren't they wonderful?

In Texas we talk derisively about people who are all hat and no cattle. Lest I be accused of that, I have taken a small step toward acting on the principles and politics I espouse so loud and long. I am part of a class action suit being brought by the Texas League of Women Voters against Senate Bill 1, the bill known as the voter suppression bill.

This came about almost by serendipity. When the local independent newspaper, Fort Worth Report, was collecting information about voters’ problems with mail-in ballots, I emailed them about my experience—had to apply three times for approval of my mail-in status and then, my ballot was rejected, as was my Correction of Information form. The result was that my voice was not counted in the March 1 primary election. I was one of nearly 23,000 mail-in voters whose ballots were rejected, just across Texas. Governor Abbott and the Republican-controlled legislature passed obscure new I.D. laws to ensure election integrity. (I have since voted twice, successfully, by mail—at least I assume it was successful.)

The problem with that? There was negligible evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 elections. Experts called it one of the cleanest elections this country has ever seen. Nonetheless Republicans did their usual: spurred by trump’s “big lie,” they created a problem where none existed. I am well-educated and a conscientious voter with some strong opinions, especially about Texas politics, so I pursued. Think how many folks in my position might have been discouraged and decided it wasn’t worth it. That was the whole point of this dishonest maneuver.

Maybe a couple of weeks ago, I received an email from a lawyer with ACLUTx, asking if I would tell her my story. I did, by phone, and she asked if I would be part of this suit. I did what any mother would do—I consulted my lawyer-daughter, who said, “Go for it!”

So today I had a Zoom interview with a young—oh so young!—legal fellow from ACLUTx. Bonus: daughter Megan sat in on the session. The young woman, Ashley, reviewed my declaration, asked a lot of questions, which I thought I handled truthfully and easily—at the time I never dreamed the information would be needed, so I made no record of the sequence or sometimes whether the voting office contacted me or I contacted them. But Ashley seemed satisfied, and Megan later said she thought it went well. According to Ashley, the state will depose me, probably the last two weeks in May, but it too can be remote. Apparently, ACLU will provide counsel for me, and Megan said if they would do that, she would prefer to remain unofficial.

I may have posted earlier about the time I spoke boldly to a friend, a retired political science professor no less, about my opinion that it was not fair to criticize current politics and a party without doing something to be part of the solution. Being part of this class action suit is my way of putting my words into action, and it feels good.

No, I am not satisfied, and I will still not be silenced. I hope I never get abrasive, but I feel compelled to speak out. I see a rigid minority taking control of this country, enforcing their beliefs on us, and I want to be among those who fight back. What, I wonder, happened to the separation of church and state. The three trump appointees to SCOTUS (rue the day that ever happened!) are said to be originalists—which means they interpret the constitution as it was originally written and without any acknowledgment of changing times.

This means they support the second amendment, written in the time of militias formed to defend against natives fighting encroachment on their lands, a time when men fought with muskets which had to be hand-loaded between shots, a time-consuming process. The amendment has no relevance in the age of automatic and military weapons in the hands of civilians, and the “organized militia” it calls for in no way means the vast number of yahoos wandering our streets with automatic weapons, both concealed and openly carried. It is an out-of-date concept. The separation of church and state, however, is not outdated, and we are seeing today the very thing the Founding Fathers feared—bold moves toward a theocracy which would put a perverted, right-wing Christianity (I can barely stand to call it that) in dominance over the country.

Voter suppression is but one small step toward their goal; so is the abolishment of Roe v. Wade. With their dirty little, puritanical minds fixated on what should be private between two individuals, they will next come after contraceptives, interracial marriage, gay marriage. And it will go from there. The Handmaid’s Tale was unfortunately prophetic.

A part of me wants to say, “I am old, and I only have a limited number of years on this planet,” but another, better part of me worries about my children and grandchildren and the world in general. There is so much good about America—yes, even Texas which, as a transplant, I love except for the politics—that I don’t want to see this great experiment in democracy fail.

I hope you’ll join me, whatever size your hat and however many cows you want to claim.

Weather, podcasts, voting, and oh my goodness!

 

Doesn't look quite this bad this time--

but just wait

My first instinct is to say this was an average day, with not much going on in my little world. But in retrospect that is so wrong. The weather is the lead story, as far as I’m concerned. Have you ever been so cold? I shiver inside my well-heated cottage and worry about the people of Ukraine. It’s a demoralizing gray outside, and though it’s been cold all day and there’s a bit of ice, I understand it is to get worse tonight. It’s not only when they cancel school a day ahead, but when they cancel garbage pickup, you know you’re in trouble.

In this weather with icy roads, old friends from San Angelo arrived in the Metroplex, here for a meeting. Preston and Harriet Lewis came by for a visit this afternoon, and I was almost surprised to see them. I had thought they would change their minds about traveling, but they are brave. Preston said he was only worried about other drivers—a good caution in North Texas. I probably haven’t seen this couple for twenty-five years, but we were once all active in Western Writers of America (Preston and I are both past presidents). We had a high old time talking about people we knew back when, although sadly several are no longer with us. Still, we laughed a lot, and it was a good visit. Our friendship is also a great example of renewing old ties through Facebook, because that’s what we did. Preston has written some terrific westerns, including comic ones. And he told me today he is the world’s expert on cats on the western frontier. I told him everyone needs a niche.

The other highlight of my day was that a gentleman named Dean Jones interviewed me for his podcast, “The Well-Seasoned Librarian.” As a librarian, he is of course interested in books, but he is particularly interested in the food angle, so we had lots to talk about. I got all gussied up—clean hair, makeup, a good sweater—because the link was to Zoom, and I thought it would have video as well as audio. Not so. I could see him, but I couldn’t tell if he could see me or not. He asked great questions, and I had a chance to talk about everything from the transition from Chicago to Texas to retirement and my conviction that one retires from a job but never from writing. Dean promises a link when it’s up, and I will share that, should anyone be interested.

Moving on to voter suppression. It took me three, determined tries to get a mail-in ballot. Today I was told that my ballot was incomplete, and for it to count I must go in person to the voter registration office. When I explained that I am mobility challenged and don’t drive, they best they could offer was curbside service. (I worked hard to let the nice lady on the other end of the phone know that I was angry but not at her, and I hoped she had a pleasant day.) The hitch is a new requirement that you put either your DL number or the last four digits of your social security number on the outside of the envelope. The voice on the telephone assured me that when you seal the flap the information is hidden from public view. The problem is that the requirement is apparently in tiny print amidst all the print on those envelopes, and those of us who have filed by mail for years simply didn’t look at it. There has been no public campaign to alert voters. Wouldn’t you think if government—in this case Texas state government—wanted to encourage the vote they would mount a campaign about all the changes in ballot requirements? Instead they’ve snuck them in, in small type, and alerted no one. I only heard about it, after I mailed the ballot, on Facebook. Can you spell voter suppression? I have again talked to the independent newspaper that tells me they are still working on an article. And just for the record, I will register a complaint with the Texas secretary of state.

In other state news, Governor Abbott is practicing medicine again without a license. Wonder where he got his medical education? First he exercised his vast medical expertise (and apparent moral superiority) with a series of orders to physicians caring for women that absolute ignored the physical and mental consequences of exceptional pregnancies. Now he has ordered physicians to report to the department of child protective services (or whatever its proper name is) any case where parents are providing transgender healthcare to their children. It is, he says from on high, child abuse. His edict is awfully close to invasion of privacy. And he is more than ever a mean little man who seems to think he is a dictator.

A bright note on this wintry night: Christian made wonderful tortilla soup, and Jordan made chocolate chip cookies. When the going gets tough, you can count on Jordan for chocolate chip cookies. I’m so blessed.

Facebook, politics, and—oh, my!

 

Last night, one of my closest friends, a woman who has lived in small-town Texas all her life, whose late husband is buried in her town, who has many ties and memories and friends here, told me she’s thinking of leaving Texas. She just can’t stand the politics. I sympathize but I can’t—or won’t—leave. I am too old to start again, my beloved family is all in Texas, my career has been built on writing about Texas. Where would I go? I like living here—except for the politics, which are horrifying. My big thought about all that is that it is terrible what Republicans have done to my beloved adopted state.

By now many of you have discovered I spend too much time on Facebook and too little time writing brilliant fiction. Many of my friends are disparaging about FB—it’s too vitriolic, it’s a time suck, you can’t convince those you oppose, only old people read it, etc. A long list of objections. I am not here to defend Mark Zuckerberg. In fact, I think he does a lot wrong, from pushing advertising to censoring. But still, I find it informative and useful.

I think you must be discriminating—click through the gossip, the accusations, the conspiracy theory folks, even the advertising. Underneath all that, you can find some cogent political discussions, and these days, that’s what I’m looking for. No, I do not expect to convert a trumper by my words or even a lifelong Republican who doesn’t realize this is not your father’s Republican Party. What I hope to accomplish with my posts is to bolster those who think like I do, encourage them that we can win against the Republican gargoyle that has Texas and the nation in a stranglehold, spur them to action.

I know how to pick and choose the posts I read. I ignore obvious right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists, but I learn from posts by rational conservatives and progressives. And every little bit of knowledge helps me understand what's going on. I am sometimes moved to action, as I am now with the terrific walk-about by the Texas Democratic legislators which, at least for now, killed the draconian voter suppression bill. I intend to write my state senator and representative tonight to express my outrage over several of the measures passed by the Texas legislature in the session just ended—the harshest anti-abortion bill in the nation, the “constitutional carry” gun law, the law which allows carrying open liquor containers out of restaurants, the unbelievable law that restricts what teachers can say about American history. A history of racism? Us? Oh, no, you must mean another country. Talk about blindersl

But the voter suppression law is perhaps the most egregious, clearly racist to the point that no Republicans dare deny that. The bill is praised for ensuring safety of elections against fraud—but absolutely zero fraud was found in an analysis of the 2020 election in Texas (and precious little in the nation at large). Still, Republicans are terrified by the rising tide of blue votes. So they wrote a law that was clearly aimed at persons of color—who coincidentally mostly vote Democratic. The scariest part of that awful bill is that it allows a judge to overturn the popular vote. Whoa and wait a minute—wasn’t this country founded on the sanctity and privacy of the individual vote? It is, as President Biden said, an attack on democracy.

Gov. Abbott, the emperor who has no clothes, will call a special session to push this voter bill through. Those of you who join me in horror at it must actively fight against it—write your senator and representative, speak out on social media, do whatever you can. Democracy is too precious to lose it to a bunch of power-hungry old white men.

Sorry for the political rant, but it comes from the heart. Tomorrow I’ll get back to telling you about the goings on in my small world of the Alter/Burton compound. Not much happened today anyway—too rainy and dull.

Stay safe—and think about righteousness in this crazy world.