TEXAS' EXISTING HOME SALES DROP, PRICES RISE

TEXAS (Real Estate Center, CNNMoney.com) - A total of 22,511 existing homes were sold in Texas last month, a 4.8 percent decline from July 2008, according to MLS data compiled by the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. The median price increased 0.6 percent to $153,800 during the same period, and the state finished the month with a 7.4-month inventory of existing homes.

Here is how select Texas cities fared in July (data current as of Aug. 28, 2009):

Additional home sales data for these and other major Texas cities are available on the Center's website.

Nationally, sales of existing single-family homes last month were up 5 percent from July 2008, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Real Estate Center Online News August 28, 2009 Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. Material herein is published according to the fair-use doctrine of U.S. copyright laws related to non-profit, educational institutions. Items attributed to sources other than the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University should not be reprinted without permission of the original source.

Statement by Governor Perry on Toyota’s Production Line Relocation to San Antonio, Texas

August 27, 2009

AUSTIN - Gov. Rick Perry today made the following statement regarding Toyota's announcement to relocate their Tacoma production line to San Antonio, Texas

"Today's announcement reflects the depth of the ties between Toyota and Texas while underscoring the strength of our state's workforce and job climate. Even in the midst of a national economic downturn, major employers continue to bring jobs and investment in Texas.

"While we are sympathetic to the hardship of the NUMMI workers in California, we know that Texans will continue to benefit from policies we've pursued that have made our state so attractive to employers.

"Following on the heels of major jobs announcements from Caterpillar, Farouk Systems, Medtronic and other employers, the good news from Toyota affirms my unshakeable belief that Texas is the best place to do business."

Created Wednesday, 26 August 2009 21:56

Dr. Herff, Medicine Man - Or Ferdinand and Hermann's Excellent Frontier Adventure.

by Julia Hayden

The practice of medicine in these United States for most of the 19^th century was a pretty hit or miss proposition. Such was the truly dreadful state of affairs generally when it came to medicine in most places and in all but the last quarter of the 19^th century - patients may have been better off having a go with the D-I-Y approach. Doctors trained as apprentices to a doctor with a current practice, or read some books and hung out a shingle. Successful surgeons possessed two basic skill sets at this time; speed and a couple of strong assistants to hold the patient down, until he was done cutting and stitching.

But in San Antonio, beginning from 1850, there was doctor-surgeon who became a legend, for his skill and advanced ideas. Doctor Ferdinand Ludwig von Herff, who dropped the aristocratic ‘von' almost immediately upon arriving in Texas, well-trained and exquisitely skilled - and also an idealist, one of those rare sorts who are prepared to live their lives in accordance with the principals they publicly espouse. He came to Texas in 1847 as part of a circle of young men called the "Forty", who had a plan to establish a utopian commune along the ideas espoused by social critics of the time.

Like the 1960s variety, most of Ferdinand Herff's companions were students of various German universities. Hermann Spiess had already toured through the United States and Texas before returning to Germany with all kinds of ambitious plans. Originally they planned to establish their community in Wisconsin, but when one Count Castell, an original member of the Mainzer Adelsverein heard of it, he offered them funding and support if they come to Texas instead. In mid-summer of 1847 the "Forty" arrived in Texas, led by Herff, Spiess and Gustav Schleicher, a trained engineer who would eventually oversee building of the rail system throughout Texas. They had brought along a huge train of baggage, supplies and equipment, including seeds and grapevines, mill machinery, a small cannon, many dogs, one woman - a cook/housekeeper named Julie Herf (no relation), Doctor Herff's complete collection of surgical impedimenta, and a good few barrels of whiskey. By late fall, they had moved all this and a herd of cattle to a site near present-day Castell. They set up tents, built a long building to use as a sort of barracks and common-room, planted crops and named their little town Bettina, after a leading star-intellectual of the day... and settled in to live their dream of communal living close to the land.

It didn't last beyond a year, of course - being long on ideals and enthusiasm, but short on relish for back-breaking agricultural labor. The community foundered on the rocks of human nature and self-interest, but not before Doctor Herff performed a single amazing feat of surgery. This took place within weeks of his and the "Forty's" arrival, during that halcyon period when Meusebach's peace treaty with the Comanche held between the two peoples. A Comanche with an advanced case of cataracts appeared at Bettina, asking to be healed. Dr. Herff had already been treating various Indians who presented themselves, and would eventually become fairly fluent in the Comanche and Apache dialects... but this was a tall order and a touchy situation. They did not dare turn the Comanche away. Amazingly enough, Dr. Herff had brought the latest in ophthalmologic instruments with him and had performed cataract surgery - in Germany.

There were certain other challenges to be met; they would have to use ether to anesthetize the patient, and Doctor Herff would have to have sufficient light to operate. Ether being flammable, there was no way to light the surgical site with the usual sorts of lamps and candles with reflectors. He would have to operate outdoors. Being a fastidiously tidy sort of man, he insisted on it being a clear, dust-free, windless and insect-free day, and boiling the water used to irrigate the eyes of his patient. A dozen of the commune members stood by, armed with palm-leaf fans to keep flies away... and Dr. Herff set to work, probably knowing that this was an operation that could not be botched.

Fortunately, the primitive surgery was wildly successful, the patient was ecstatic at being able to see well again, and as he departed, promised the doctor the most generous reward at his command - a woman. One can imagine a great deal of jollity at Dr. Herff's expense over the next three months from the other young men of the "Forty" - but at the end of the time, the Comanche appeared again, with a young Mexican girl in tow, and handed her over to Dr. Herff. Who promptly handed her over to the care of the only other woman in Bettina, the housekeeper/cook, Julie Herf. The girl's name was Lena, or Lina; she had been a long time with the Comanche and was never able to recall enough about her original family to return to them. Eventually, she married Hermann Spiess.

Dr. Herff practiced medicine tirelessly for most of the next sixty years, establishing San Antonio's first hospital and several medical associations and serving on the Texas Board of Medical Examiners. Generally, if there is a surgical "first" anywhere in Texas during the last half of the 19^th century, he was the surgeon responsible. There is a historical marker on the San Antonio Riverwalk, about halfway between Las Canarias and the Texas Land and Cattle Restaurant marking the site of one of his homes.

New traffic, criminal laws set to go into effect Sept. 1, 2009 in Texas

Information for the News Media, Media Relations Office

August 11, 2009

From the Media Relations Office of the Texas Department of Public Safety

HB 2730 is the DPS's Sunset Legislation, and many of the DPS-related bills this session were included in HB 2730. Notable traffic and criminal laws that go into effect on Sept. 1 (unless otherwise indicated) include*:

Seatbelts:

HB 537 requires all occupants of a vehicle, no matter their age, to be secured by a safety belt, no matter where they are seated in the vehicle; changes the definition of a passenger vehicle to include a passenger van designed to transport 15 or fewer passengers including the driver; removes the current exemption for third-party Medicaid transportation provisions regarding the use of child passenger safety seats; and prohibits a motorcycle operator from carrying a passenger under the age of 5 unless the child is seated in a sidecar attached to the motorcycle.

SB 61 amends the existing statute regarding child passenger safety seats. The bill requires that any child younger than 8 years of age be restrained in an approved child passenger safety seat unless the child is at least 4 feet, 9 inches in height. The fine is no more than $25 for a first offense and $250 for a second offense. The law also creates a new court cost for conviction of an offense under this section to be collected and used by TxDOT to buy safety seats for low income families. The law becomes effective on Sept. 1, 2009, but tickets for this offense cannot be issued until June 1, 2010. Police officers are allowed to issue a warning before that date.

Driving:

HB 55 makes it illegal to use a wireless communication device in a school zone unless the vehicle is stopped or a hands-free device is used. Cities or counties wanting to enforce this law must post a sign at the beginning of each school zone to inform drivers that using a wireless communications device is prohibited and the operator is subject to a fine. It is a defense to prosecution if the operator was making an emergency call.

HB 2730 increases the penalties for driving while intoxicated with a child passenger by adding an automatic driver license suspension period for first-time offenders and an increased suspension period for repeat offenders. The driver license re-instatement fee for completing an education program will rise from $50 to $100. Closes a loophole so a person who commits an offense as a minor cannot circumvent the driver license penalty if the person turns 21 before their court date.

HB 2730 allows a new Texas resident to operate a vehicle without a Texas license for 90 days instead of the current 30. (This provision went into effect on June 19, 2009.)

HB 2012 creates two new punishment enhancements: a Class B misdemeanor if a person drives with a suspended license and without insurance; and a class A misdemeanor if the person driving without insurance or a valid driver license has an accident and someone is seriously injured or dies as a result of that accident.

SB 129 authorizes neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs) to be operated on roads with a posted speed limit of 45 miles per hour or less. The bill authorizes driver license holders to operate NEVs without having a motorcycle endorsement, clarifies that drivers and passengers in such vehicles are not required to wear helmets and specifies that enclosed three-wheeled vehicles as described in the bill are authorized to operate in preferential lanes.

Concealed handgun:

HB 2730 amends numerous provisions regarding concealed handgun licenses (CHLs), including eliminating student loan defaults as a disqualifier, to clarify that DPS must suspend or revoke a license when the licensee becomes ineligible and mandating that a magistrate suspend a CHL held by the subject of an emergency protective order.

HB 2664 provides a defense to prosecution if a concealed handgun license holder carries a concealed handgun into an establishment that gets 51 percent or more of its income from the sale of alcoholic beverages, but has failed to post the statutorily required notice that it derives 51 percent or more of its income from the sale of alcoholic beverages. (Under current law, a concealed handgun licensee can be charged with a Class A misdemeanor for doing this.)

HB 2730 removes DPS authority to suspend a concealed handgun license (CHL) for the holder's failure to display the CHL to a peace officer on demand. It removes associated penalties and suspensions for the failure to display.

Driver license:

HB 2730 requires that all applicants under the age of 18 take the driving skills exam to receive a driver license. The law also requires that a provisional driver license (under 18) or instruction permit expire on an individual's 18th birthday, removes the requirement that a provisional driver license or instruction permit be renewed annually and increases the fee for those licenses from $5 to $15. It also extends the current phase-two restrictions for holders of a graduated driver license from 6 months to 1 year. These restrictions include limited night driving, prohibited use of wireless communication devices and a limited number of passengers.

HB 339 increases the total hours of behind-the-wheel driving instruction a teen receives from 14 to 34 after TEA develops criteria for curriculum. (Goes into effect May 1, 2010)

HB 1317 creates a six-hour driver education course required for driver license applicants 18 years of age or older. It also mandates that applicants 25 or under must submit to an approved driver education course. (Goes into effect March 1, 2010.)

SB 328 gives DPS the power to suspend a minor's driver license if they fail a breath or blood alcohol test while operating a watercraft. Chapter 524 of the Transportation Code also clearly defines the suspension period for an individual who was under the age of 21 at the time when the offense of boating under the influence or driving under the influence of alcohol occurred. The law also increases the reinstatement fee for a license suspended under sections 49.04-49.08, Penal Code from $50 to $100.

HB 2730 increases the driver license sanction from a one-year CDL license disqualification to a lifetime disqualification if a person uses a motor vehicle to transport, conceal or harbor an alien. If a child is engaged in conduct involving a severe form of trafficking persons, a judge at a juvenile hearing is required to order the juvenile's driver license or permit to be suspended.

HB 2730 prohibits DPS from issuing a driver license or identification card to a person who has not established a domicile in Texas. The law specifies that an applicant may receive a driver license at a post office box only if the applicant's residence address has also been provided, with some exceptions.

Crime:

HB 558 allows minors to be charged with public intoxication.

HB 2386 allows courts to immediately seal juvenile criminal records if the juvenile successfully completes a drug court program, or another special program ordered by the court.

HB 1282 makes it a Class B misdemeanor to steal a driver license, commercial driver license or personal identification.

SB 554 makes it illegal to own or possess dog-fighting equipment and establishes that such equipment and property where dogs are found to be engaged in dog fighting is contraband and is subject to forfeiture. The law also makes dog-fighting subject to the elevated penalties authorized in the Texas Penal Code, Section 71.02(a), in an effort to deter organized criminal activity.

HB 1813 makes it a third-degree felony to tamper with forensic, medical, chemical, toxicological and ballistic reports, as well as reports of certification, inspection or maintenance of instruments used to examine or test physical evidence. (Currently, someone who does this can only be charged with a state jail felony.)

HB 358 allows law enforcement authorities to store only a small part of gambling machines that have been seized, instead of storing the whole machine. They would be able to remove and store just the computer chips in gambling machines, which are the core of the machines and contain the information necessary for prosecutions to go forward.

Registered sex offenders:

SB 689 restricts Internet usage by certain registered sex offenders, and requires registered sex offenders to provide information about their e-mail addresses when they register.

Motorcycles etc.:

Senate Bill 1967 requires that applicants for an original class M license or class A, B or C driver license (including commercial driver licenses and permits) with authorization to operate a motorcycle, provide evidence of completion of an approved motorcycle operator training course. It also repeals the helmet exemption sticker program. Current law requires a person be covered with a minimum of $10,000 in health insurance for injuries incurred in a motorcycle accident to be eligible for an exception for the offense of operating or riding a motorcycle without a helmet. As of Sept. 1, the minimum amount is removed. The bill requires the Texas Department of Insurance to prescribe a standard proof of health insurance for issuance to persons who are at least 21 years of age and covered by an applicable health insurance plan. The law also increases the penalty for failure to yield the right-of-way if there is a crash that results in injury to a person other than the motorcycle operator.

Miscellaneous:

HB 2730 increases the fine for a parking violation at the state Capitol from $10 to $25, and increases the late fee from $2 to $5.

SB 1188 authorizes a Texas resident to buy firearms, ammunition or firearms accessories in any other state, not just those contiguous to Texas, to reflect updated federal statutes.

SB 589 requires that window installers place a vehicle equipment safety compliance label on a windshield, side or rear window stating that the window tinting complies with the appropriate provisions of the Transportation Code. Failing to place the required label on the vehicle could now lead to a $1,000 fine for the window installer.

* Please keep in mind that this is not a complete list of all laws passed in the past legislative session.

### (PIO 2009-40)

My Son got a Job! San Antonio Unemployment

by Mamie Carter

My son found a job, Yee-haw! and he starts this week, Whoopee! He worked for San Antonio's largest financial firm for four and a half years until his job ended April 30.

Then he joined 69,599 other unemployed San Antonians. "I felt bummed out but liberated," he said. "I didn't have to show up for work every day."

According to the San Antonio Express-News, our city's unemployment rate is 7.1 percent. That was a 10-year high in July and the lowest rate of Texas' largest cities. The national average is 9.4 percent. San Antonio, which employs folks from eight counties, has a work force of nearly one million. Of those, 912,200 are employed, and the rest are looking for jobs.

The newspaper quoted Keith Phillips, senior economist with the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas, as saying, "There are some straws in the wind suggesting things are going to turn."

Straws indeed. If you've noticed, a few storefronts display signs reading "Now Hiring" and "Help Wanted." Classified ads advertise service jobs for makers of beds and sandwiches. A couple young men on busy street corners wear cardboard signs that proclaim, "20 to 30% off" for stores' going-out-of-business sales.

With copious time on his hands, my son placed his resume on four internet websites. He attended three job fairs and interviewed by computer, telephone and in person. But he couldn't find a job that fit.

So my son and his girlfriend, who also became jobless two months later, cultivated obscure "ghost" peppers, swam in San Pedro Springs swimming hole and walked Austin. They rode their bikes because it was cheaper than driving and borrowed the library's movies. My son enrolled in a free Texas Department of Agriculture cooking class and learned to make vegetarian hamburgers. My offer of a recipe for beans and rice soup was declined.

"You don't eat out as much," he said. "You reuse things. You make a dollar go a bit farther using coupons. I cut corners anywhere I could." By and by, he missed cash jingling in his pocket and a health plan that paid for doctor and dentist's visits.

Recently an international package shipping company offered him a job in internal sales. He accepted with pleasure.

"It feels good to be a productive member of society again," he said. ""I am happy to wake up in the morning and have somebody looking for me at work. They're enthusiastic about my showing up."

An Ode to the World's Most Perfect Breakfast Food

By Julia Hayden Sing, Muses, of nature's - and San Antonio's most perfect breakfast entree, the food of the Gods, infinite in variety and nourishment! Unhappy mortals in less blessed locations may sing of their croissant and cafe au lait, the mixed breakfast grill, or toast with honey, jam on bread, even disgusting concoctions like sausage gravy, as vomitous in appearance as in taste ... but little do they know of the sublime perfection in the simple breakfast taco! By the breakfast taco, I mean the real thing, the honest, southwest concoction served in thousands of little eateries scattered along the San Antonio highways and byways, painted in bright pink, aqua, yellow or lavender, with a Virgin of Guadalupe painted inside or out, hand painted advertisements for menudo and barbacoa, and a corrida blasting out of the radio in back. This is not the fake, processed muck wrapped in something that might be white cardboard and oozing orange grease, foisted off on those deprived mortals who have never, ever tasted a real breakfast taco, oh no. This is fluffy scrambled egg and a scattering of browned country sausage, enfolded in a tender, home-made fresh tortilla, irregular as to shape, two delicate layers baked swiftly on a griddle, a spoonful of roasted tomato and jalapeno chile salsa dribbled onto the eggs. There is the potato and egg variant, the chorizo version, the egg and bacon variety, the sub-category of chorizo-bean-and-cheese, infinite diversity in infinite combinations, all wrapped in a fresh flour tortilla. With salsa on it, you have the major food groups in one simple package. This is the breakfast of the 21st century, combining solid nourishment, gustatory satisfaction, and unmatched ease of consumption. Until you have eaten a real breakfast taco, you cannot say that you have really, really had breakfast. Every major avenue in San Antonio has at least three places serving breakfast tacos in every block, and at least one of them will offer drive-through service. You will know them by the construction pickup trucks parked out front, by a gathering of automobiles at every hour, by hand-painted signs in the windows, by the delicious odors wafting forth, and by the people departing them bearing away paper sacks bulging full of the bounteous and sacred tacos, each wrapped in a square of tinfoil, and accompanied by handful of little plastic cups, each containing a spoonful of thin red or green sauce ... oh, be careful of the sauce, the home-made variety is nuclear-fission in a cup, but it wouldn't be a breakfast taco without the sauce.

Southtown - San Antonio Arts District - First Friday

By Mamie Carter

First Friday is like a huge block party with contemporary art as its centerpiece. On the first Friday evening of every month, several hundred mostly college-age people and a few families swarm the Blue Star Arts Complex for a free evening of gallery hopping. Located on the corner of South Alamo Street and Probandt in San Antonio, Texas, It's an occasion to see and be seen at exhibits of contemporary and beyond-funky art.

Grab a pale ale at the Blue Star Brewing Company, lean against one of the cars parked on the six-acre campus and watch the passing scene. A three-piece band on the brewing company's deck includes a xylophonist who loves a good riff. See that guy with the dreadlocks below his shoulders? Wonder where he works? Maybe he's one of the artists. Maybe he created that coffee table with meat-shaped neon under glass. It's entitled "Neon Porkchop," and it sells for $1,200. In the same space you can score a photo of a tropical flower for $10.

Speaking of flowers, what about the brunette in her LBD (little black dress), zebra patent handbag and black patent heels? Maybe she attended her sorority sister's rehearsal dinner earlier this evening. And those wicked tattoos on that guy's arm...

Years ago the site housed the downtown warehouse terminal of the MKT Railroad. The warehouses were purchased and renovated to house contemporary and non-traditional art workshops and galleries. Some artists are well-known, while others are lesser-known locals and students.

Outside the galleries sits a one-story-tall expression of an artist's devotion to painted bricks and terracotta drainage tiles precariously banded together by black wire. You wouldn't want to lean against it.

Inside one gallery are wall-sized paintings of cubes in chaotic formations. Another gallery features colorful paintings of swoops, swirls and darts. If it was in your living room above the sofa, it probably would grow on you. Galleries holding opening receptions serve wine and nibbles to assist your envisioning their art in your home.

The Bike Shop attracts attention by showing an outdoor film of a bicyclist riding through an urban area and encountering mishaps when he doesn't watch where he's going. Inside are bicycles designed to look like the originals from the 1950s. The bikes are painted bright pastel colors and decorated with flowers or stripes. Those on display cost $500 to $700. A young man with a lightning bolt shaved in his hair sits on a bike and nods with approval.

Nearby, glasses tinkle over conversation from Joe Blue's Contemporary Cocktail Lounge. A man driving a River City Pedi cab jingles a bell to attract passengers to his empty seat. A Southern Pacific train passes behind Blue Star on its way west. Folks who live in rented studio apartments above the complex are sitting in chairs on their balconies and crowd-watching for entertainment. The smell of beer wafts through the air.

The breeze, still sweltering in the night, reminds you of your need to try a Blue Star amber beer. There's a nearby bench. Your memory drifts to an exhibit you saw here some time ago. The artist placed hundreds of individual slices of Velveeta cheese on the hardwood floor of a gallery. Some art never changes its form. The cheese, however, first developed small, white pools of sweat on top of its slices. Next, some slices grew hard, crusty edges that curled upward. Others resembled crumbled-up pieces of yellow paper. You could actually witness art responding to its environment!

A number of galleries are closed this evening. A middle-aged woman in a black and white polka dot dress cups her hands around her eyes to look through the glass door of the Joan Grona Gallery. Inside, an artist displayed random objects on an oriental rug, but the woman can't quite see what they are. "I don't get down here very often," she says to a stranger, "and now that I'm here, some spaces aren't open."

Policemen are noticeably present at the complex and on south Alamo Street throughout the event. At 9:50 p.m. they start shooing the crowd out of the Cactus Bra Space and other galleries. People file past the Jump Start Theater, which stages avant-garde or alternate-style performances. Showing August 20-30, 2009 is Uncle Vanya, a theatre comedy by Anton Chekhov, but tonight the theater was dark. (Performances Thursday - Sunday)

Across the street, blue light from the Pioneer Flour Mill Tower guides the departing crowd. They migrate on foot north toward Southtown, where the party stretches along several blocks. Lighted tents house vendors selling clothing, political buttons, jewelry, canvas art and more cold libations.

The Chisholm Trail and Other Texas Legends

The classical free-range cattle-ranching and long-trail-drive west that we know - or think we know from pulp fiction, B-movies and television shows actually only lasted for about twenty years, from the end of the Civil War to the mid-1880s when bad weather and a glutted market spelled the end of those ways. The cattle-towns usually shown in movies and television actually were limited to a very small time and space: Kansas, the terminus for those long drives from Texas, as the railroads crawled west. Abilene was the first of them, and Dodge City the last; in between there were others like Hayes, Ellsworth, Newton and Caldwell - some of whom only thrived for a single gaudy, and raucous season as a cow-town.

The legends had their foundation in the years just after the Civil War. Large-scale cattle ranching had been going on in Texas for decades, especially in those parts of Texas unsuited for agriculture. But Texas was also full of restless former soldiers and their families whose farms and businesses had been disrupted by the war and subsequent Reconstruction. A desperate need for cash was coupled with an acute surplus of cattle in Texas, and which then met head-on with the advancing trans-continental railroad.

Well, not exactly met, since the cattle were in Texas and the railroads were advancing at a good clip west from Chicago and St. Louis; the Union Pacific, the Kansas Pacific, and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe. The actual tracks were stretching ribbons of iron track across Nebraska and Kansas, which put the four-dollar-a-head Texas cow a considerable distance away from that forty-dollar a head market in Sedalia, Kansas City or Abilene.

Out of that not inconsiderable distance was born the enduring legend of the long-distance cattle drive. In the twenty years after the Civil War about 10 million cows walked north, most to the Kansas railheads, but a smaller portion went farther north, into Wyoming and Canada to be used as brood stock for ranches that eager entrepreneurs were falling all over themselves to establish.

Trailing cattle out of Texas to profitable markets elsewhere was not, by that time an entirely new phenomenon. Texas longhorns were brought north beginning in the 1840s, along what was called the Shawnee Trail between Brownsville and variously, Kansas City, Sedalia and St. Louis. Another trail, the Goodnight-Loving trail went from west Texas to Cheyenne, Wyoming, following the Pecos River through New Mexico. But the most heavily trafficked trail was the many-branched Chisholm Trail. Its tributaries gathered cattle from all across Texas into one mighty trunk route which began at Red River Station, on the river which marked the demarcation between Texas and the Indian Territories of present-day Oklahoma. The Chisholm Trail crossed rivers which, thanks to storms in the distant mountains, could go from six inches to 25 feet deep in a single day and skirted established farmlands farther east, whose owners usually did not care for large herds of cattle trampling their crops and exposing their own stock to strange varieties of disease.

Once into Kansas, the trail split again, over time as the railroads crept west. The end of the trail came variously at places like Dodge City, Newton, Ellsworth and Abilene - depending on the year, how far the railway had come, and the exasperation of local citizens with the behavior of young men on a spree after three months of brutally hard work, dust and boredom. The cattle were loaded into railcars, their drovers paid off - and next year, they did it again. The tracks can still be seen from the air, all across North Texas and Oklahoma.

It was a bit more complicated than it looks, watching an old TV show like "Rawhide", with a great many more interesting characters, a lot more hard work and not nearly as prone to theatrical but stupid gunplay and bravado. As one of my characters reflects, in "Adelsverein - The Harvesting", "The cattle drive was uncommonly like the Army. The days combined long mind-numbing stretches of tedium interspersed with back-breaking labor and the occasional moment of innards-melting terror; all of it in the open air and in the exclusive company of men, day after day after day."

Gov. Perry: Federal Health Care Proposals to Cost Texans Tens of Billions of Dollars

August 18, 2009

AUSTIN - Gov. Rick Perry today emphasized the importance of state developed health care reform rather than the costly, expansive, one-size-fits-all mandates being considered by the federal government. The governor spoke at a press conference announcing the results of a study about federal health care proposals conducted by the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF).

"It's clear Washington has no interest in allowing states to develop their own tailored solutions to problems that affect their citizens," Gov. Perry said. "Instead we have a federal government bearing down on the states, preparing to take greater control through mandates and trampling innovation through runaway costs. The health care reform legislation currently being considered not only poses a serious threat to patients and providers, but will also cost Texas taxpayers tens of billions of dollars over the next 10 years without significantly improving care for Texans."

The governor noted that aspects of our healthcare system need to be repaired and reformed, but issuing top-down mandates on a break-neck timetable is a surefire way to make things worse. He cited the Medicaid waiver request that Texas submitted in 2008 as an example of how the state is seeking solutions to health care reform that meet the needs of Texans.

In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius last month, the governor reiterated his request for a federal Medicaid waiver that would help transform health care in Texas from a heavy reliance on hospital-based care to increased access to primary and preventive care. The plan is centered on state-specific solutions to eliminate costly federal mandates and use those resources to provide more low-income Texans with insurance, reduce expensive emergency room visits for basic care, and make it easier for the working poor to buy into employer-sponsored insurance. This reform waiver was originally sent to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in April 2008.

"Current proposals based on President Obama's policies would worsen the system, increase costs, further escalate medical price inflation and add more than $285 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years," said TPPF Senior Fellow Donna Arduin, a partner in the economic research firm Arduin, Laffer & Moore Econometrics. "Clearly, these reforms are not a cost-effective way to expand health insurance and the news could be worse for Texans. If the federal government chooses to pass the financial responsibility for covering the expansion of lower income individual's health insurance coverage to the states, the cost to Texans could be higher than the national average."

Additionally, according to Arduin, legislation that would provide an additional $1 trillion in federal health care spending would not only slow both the Texas and the national economy, but also leave 30 million Americans uninsured.

Current federal proposals include significant Medicaid expansions at the state level, individual and employer mandates to purchase and offer qualifying insurance plans, and federal takeover of some current state insurance functions such as rates and coverage exclusions.

Extending Medicaid benefits to uninsured citizens at or below 100 percent of the federal poverty level will cost Texas an additional $2 billion in general revenue per year, in addition to the $19 billion in general revenue the state expects to spend on Medicaid in the 2010-11 biennium. This type of federal government spending mandate would erode the state's economic viability without containing health care costs or improving health care quality and access.

Hill Country Bibliothek

By Julia Hayden

Of all the American towns and small cities I have ever had much to do with, two stand out as interesting hybrids of America and the European homeland... well, three if you count Savannah, the other two being Santa Fe, and Fredericksburg. All three are, to be honest, a little self-consciously touristic with the charms, a touch too dressy for the occasion and location... but charming.

Fredericksburg is the smallest and the least-known of these three, and of course it is the one I am the most familiar with, although there are other Hill Country towns just as pleasant- Comfort, Wimberley, Kerrville- tucked into the limestone hills and steep valleys braided with that dear commodity in South Texas- clear, cold streams of water. William and I sat in a small courtyard this one lovely springtime, sharing a bakery cinnamon roll, and marveling at how it had a definitely European feel- a sort of cloisterish ambiance, sheltering buildings along four sides, well and fountain in the middle, nice comfortable benches, stone paths and all... but three of the sheltering buildings around this small courtyard were the generic Texas clapboard and metal-roofed structures, only the fourth building had any claim to stone and mortar permanence.

My mother insisted, after a visit to the Hill Country, that it looked more like Pennsylvania. This was not just a an accidental geographic coincidence, since the Hill Country is all rolling hills and oak treks, but because it was settled by the same sort of people; stolid Anglo-Saxon or Germanic farmers, devoted to hard work but the higher things as well - learning, free-thinking,  and libraries being amongst them.

The public library in the town of Fredericksburg is on Main Street, right next to the Gillespie County Courthouse, on an open green square- the Marketplatz that is the heart of town. The police and fire departments have a building along one side, most of the old, major churches are not far away, the Pioneer Museum and the Pacific War museum are in walking distance, and one can happily while away an afternoon just walking around and looking at lovely old houses, and shops and sampling local foods and wines. I have done so many times, since I moved to this area ten years ago; William is very fond of the place, and it is only an hour or so drive from my San Antonio home; we drive up in the springtime, enjoying the fields of wildflowers on the hillsides and highway verge, and a nice meal and meander through some of the shops. The library presents a most arresting appearance:  pure and lavish late 19th Century Beaux Arts style, all porches and tall windows, steep-domed towers, ornate iron lacework along the roof ridges and balconies- the whole effect being something that one can imagine would be the Addams' Family local public library branch. It is all the more amusing, since the courthouse next door is one of those severely 1930ies Moderne efforts, like a table radio of the era, made large. I've never been inside either building, but I just know that the courthouse has WPA murals and industrial linoleum floors, and both of the buildings must and should have those heavy, blond oak tables and chairs that used to be an institutional staple before Bauhaus-style clubbed us all over the head and left us all aesthetically the poorer for it. But the library... ah, the library must have something more special.

/It must have shelves, and shelves of books, and not on those nasty modern industrial metal-grade bookshelves that dent as soon as you look at them, with shoddy adjustable shelves. No, the Fredericksburg Public Library should have heavy, bespoke built-in shelves, as solid and permanent as the building itself, none of those laminate moveable shelves that will begin to sag after a decade or two under the weight of books and books, and books, and more books. This library should have odd little nooks and corners, with window seats and carrels built into them, where a child could curl up with a book and become lost in another world for hours, given access to a place where every volume is a doorway and a passport to that magic land of imagination. Such a perfect place to read, and read and read, all those wonderful worlds accessed through books.

/I told William that the Fredericksburg Public Library would be the perfect venue for a kids' adventure book. It looks from the outside as if it could contain every one of those elements for a perfectly ripping yarn, juvenile division. A secret room, or hidden passageway, a benevolent ghost, a hidden treasure, a mystery... a story that should encompass friendship and adventure and a sense of the wonderful things that lurk just beyond this all too prosaic world... things that are just barely imaginable just beyond the doorway of a place like the Fredericksburg Public Library... or any other public library, any other town in this seemingly unimpressive but potentially magical world of ours.