I am watching NC2A basketball tournament and remembering a time I played basketball. I was a freshman in high school and not yet the shortest person in my class. The coach kept telling me that cross body blocking was not allowed. Watching today, it seems to be ok if you are large, but not small. The coach also said that holding on to the opposing players shorts when he jumped up was not ok. There were too many rules that were subjective. Basketball is a good preparation for life. Subjective rules and too many violations not acknowledged.

The idea that we need healthcare reform is like basketball. Too many subjective rules, too many players violating the rules and no "Impartial Referee" to blow the whistle.

If you have not expressed your view to your elected representative and senator, please do so.

Rewriting History

The winners of all wars have written the history of their glorious victories. The losers never write history, well almost never. The Germans are trying to rewrite the history of WW2 and leave out the part about what was done to the Jews. I wonder what will be written in history about Iraq, and Afghanistan. I hope to be around long enough to read about those as history instead of current events. But not only do winners write history.

In Texas the State Board of Education rewrites history. According to their view of "History", Cesar Chavez never existed. The constitutional separation of church and state has disappeared. I wonder where it went? Capitalism also disappeared only to be replaced by "free enterprise system". Thomas Jefferson was not a writer who inspired late eighteenth and nineteenth century revolutions. I wonder if the Board of Education has informed the French of this? The "christian right" in Texas has gone too far. Unfortunately, they are making our grand state a thing of ridicule by the rest of the world. My daughter was fed up with the lack of tolerance they constantly exhibit. She left and will never return. I too am leaving. Not because I am giving up the fight, but the Governor canceled all new faculty jobs at Texas Universities by cutting the budget for higher education. I go where the work is. It is poetic that Texas will have fewer faculty to educate students in colleges. With the rewriting of history by the State Board of Education, the students will have to relearn history and that will require more teachers. Unless, of course, the state rewrites history at the university level also. The "christian right" is rewriting history and trying to make the separation of church and state disappear. I fear they will try to make academic freedom of thought disappear. If that happens, I will not be lonely in being a former Texan. It makes me very sad.

An interesting day.

It has been an interesting day. I spent most of it writing/revising my personal development plan. What in the world is that? It is an effort to convince my new employer to support my research. Translated that means to assign me to teach fewer classes so I can continue my research. I may have to sell my financial reporting fraud model. Worse could happen.

I was working on my dissertation today and looked at the word count. Jenifer wrote 50,000 words in a month. My dissertation is just shy of 25,000 words that I wrote over a twelve month period. I have trouble putting that in perspective. My dissertation will be posted for the world to see. Jenifer will not share her thoughts other than on her blog. I suspect her thoughts are very valuable, she is. I feel good because my journey to a doctorate is coming successfully to an end. Even though I have had many ends to passages in my life, it is still scary. What will happen next? I do not know. We take one day at a time. It is really difficult to take days two at a time like we do stairs. If you figure out how to take days two at a time let me know. There are times that I would like to do that.

Life is scary because tomorrow is unknown. We can only live in the present even though we seem to keep our thoughts on the future or the past. I stop every now and then to remind myself that I need to be in the present. It helps. If only I could do it all the time.

Texas Independence Day Elections and a heavy heart.

This week Texas celebrated Texas Independence Day by having an election. We should be happy we have a democratic process that allows elections. We should be equally unhappy that we have so many uninformed voters that believe propaganda presented in television ads. The senator running for governor was painted with the brush of Washington and voting for earmarks. She did over the eight year period that this country had a Republican in the White House. She did in order to get money for Texas. How do people think Washington works? Until we have a line item veto it will continue as it has for the last two hundred and thirty-four years. Get educated people! Understand the realities of the political process!

So instead, our next governor will likely be the same person as our last governor. The last Democrat elected governor was elected after the Republican running against her said; if a woman was being raped, she should just lay back and enjoy it. Fortunately the voters decided that anyone with judgment that poor should not be governor. My concern is that if the last governor is elected again, we, the people of Texas, will be embarrassed in the same way the people of Illinois were embarrassed by their governor after their senator was elected president. Do not be surprised if it happens.

My heart is heavy. I will be leaving my beloved Texas in a few months, because of the budget cuts mandated by the governor. I hope to return in four years. I wish the best for those of you who remain behind.

Tired of Politics as Usual

I have gotten very tired of the Republican right thinking they have the only solution after turning the economy into chaos. The heads of the party fortunately agreed to not require a "purity pledge" from candidates. I used to think that I was a Republican. I think independent would be more accurate. I voted for Jimmy Carter (not a great choice), Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush (a pathetically poor choice in retrospect). Since the Republican party became the party of those that were conservative, "Christian", and refused to allow women free choice on abortion, I can no longer be an Independent, which has become a euphemism for a middle leaning Republican. I support President Obama. I am tired of KKK leaning email garbage accusing him of not being an American. I do not know if the efforts he has made to revive the economy will work, but I want him to have the chance to try.

My research is directed toward detecting financial reporting fraud. Guess what? It is still rampant. I cannot release any recent research because it needs to be in the hands of the Treasury. I have little confidence in the SEC's ability to regulate Wall Street. I do hope that the Obama administration will make an improvement. An improvement is a move toward control of the greed that is evident on Wall Street. I think this is a direct result and a legacy of the deregulation of the Bush administration.

If I have offended anyone, I suggest you take a long hard look at why you are offended. I do not apologize and have not been as strident in my expression as perhaps I wanted to be.