Port Aransas South Jetty (Port Aransas, Tex.), Vol. 42, No. 12, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 24, 2011 Page: 3 of 20
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Co-Publishers
Mary Henkel Judson
& Murray Judson
Editor
Mary Henkel JiinsnN
EELY
Port Aransas South Jetty
Letter parallels
‘Alamo’ missive
A West
Texas school
superinten-
dent seized
upon one
historic
calamity to
call attention
to a current one.
The historic event was the fall of the
Alamo, after a famous letter from William
Barret Travis pleading for reinforcements
failed to produce them in time to defend the
fortress from Santa Anna’s Mexican troops.
The current event is the apparent inten-
tion of Gov. Rick Perry to cut spending for
schools rather than raise taxes, or use the
Rainy Day Fund for the 2012-13 budget.
Below is the open letter that John Kuhn,
superintendent of the Perrin-Whitt Consoli-
dated Independent School District, sent to
legislators who represent the area north of
Mineral Wells on US 281.
Kuhn spoke passionately, and read his
letter, at a March 12 capitol rally of more
than 10,000 education advocates protest-
ing Perrys apparent intention to push even
more responsibility for school funding from
the state to the local level.
At the end of this column is Travis’s origi-
nal letter from 1836.
Kuhn’s letter:
To: Senator Estes, Representative Hard-
castle, Representative Keffer, and Represen-
tative King during these grave times:
Gentlemen, I am besieged, by a hundred
or more of the Legislators under Rick Perry.
I have sustained a continual Bombard-
ment of increased high-stakes testing and
accountability-related bureaucracy and a
cannonade of gross underfunding for 10
years at least and have lost several good men
and women.
The ruling party has demanded another
round of pay cuts and furloughs, while the
school house be put to the sword and our
children’s lunch money be taken in order to
keep taxes low for big business.
I am answering the demand with a
(figurative) cannon shot, and the Texas flag
still waves proudly from our flag pole. I shall
never surrender the fight for the children of
Perrin.
Then, I call on you my legislators in the
name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything
dear to the American character, to come to
our aid, with all dispatch.
The enemy of public schools is declaring
that spending on a shiny new high-stakes
testing system is “non-negotiable”; that, in
essence, we must save the test but not the
teachers. The enemy of public schools is
saying that Texas lawmakers won’t raise 1
penny in taxes in order to save our schools.
If this call is neglected, I am determined
to sustain myself as long as possible and
fight for the kids in these classrooms like
an educator who never forgets what is due
to his own honor & that of his community.
Make education a priority!
With all due respect and urgency,
John Kuhn, Superintendent, Perrin-Whitt
CISD
Member
Texas Press Association
South Texas Press Association
Texas Gulf Coast Press Association
National Newspaper Association
Thursday, March 24, 2011 PAGE 3 A
And Libya
makes three
Libya’s re-
cently resigned
ambassador
to the U.S., Ali
Aujali, is op-
timistic about
the outcome of
the bombing
of his country.
He tells me
he thinks dictator Moammar Gadhafi will
be ousted, that free and fair elections will
be held and that a new government will be
pro-Western.
From his lips to Allah’s ears.
Given the history of the Middle East,
such a notion requires greater faith than
that possessed by the holiest of holy men.
Spring Break, wise ideas, changes
In contrast to Gov. Perry’s “me no Alamo”
assertion that state officials weren’t respon-
sible for firing or hiring any teachers, a pre-
vious Republican Texas governor, during the
oil bust in 1987, signed a tax increase of $5.7
billion. That would be about $11.7 billion in
today’s dollars - about half of the estimated
shortfall in the 2012-13 budget.
Gov. Bill Clements had pledged to veto
any tax increase higher than 2.9 billion. But
then-Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby and then-House
Speaker Gib Lewis visited Clements at the
governor’s mansion to plead that he step
up for the school kids. Present was top
Clements aide George Bayoud, who Hobby
described as “the voice of reason.”
Hobby said he and Lewis left unsure what
Clements would do. But Clements signed
the largest tax bill in Texas history.
Among legislators who voted for that bill
was then-State Rep. Rick Perry - back when
he was a Democrat.
Travis’s 1836 letter:
Commandancy of the Alamo......
Bejar Fby. 24th 1836
To the People of Texas & all Americans in
the world------
Fellow citizens 8c compatriots——
I am besieged, by a thousand or more of
the Mexicans under Santa Anna-----I have
sustained a continual Bombardment & can-
nonade for 24 hours 8c have not lost a man
.....The enemy has demanded a Surrender
at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to
be put to the sword, if the fort is taken.....I
have answered the demand with a cannon
shot, 8c our flag still waves proudly from the
wall.....I shall never Surrender or retreat
Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty,
of patriotism 8c every thing dear to the
American character, to come to our aid,
with all dispatch.....The enemy is receiv-
ing reinforcements daily 8c will no doubt
increase to three or four thousand in four or
five days. If this call is neglected, I am deter-
mined to sustain myself as long as possible
8c die like a soldier who never forgets what is
due to his own honor 8c that of his country
.....Victory or Death
William Barret TravisLt. Col. Comdt
P S The lord is on our side- When the
enemy appeared in sight we had not three
bushels of corn— We have since found in
deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels 8c got into
the walls 20 or 30 head of Beeves—
Travis
*******
And So On.... To hear Superintendent
Kuhn’s capitol speech, search on the internet
for “Perrin-Whitt John Kuhn Alamo.
Contact McNeely at
dwmmdyUmmmLom or (512) 458-
A little scattershooting here - mostly
because I am in a decidedly scattered state,
what with the changes we’ve gone through
recently (reformatting of the paper and the
new deadline).
Let’s touch on Spring Break, hurricane
readiness and, well, wevll see what else crops
up during this little visit.
Can you believe the weather we had for
Spring Break? Sunny skies, temps in the mid
to upper 70s, no rain. That’s the weather we
so often have the week before Spring Break.
This time it held on through the biggest
week of the annual holiday, and although
there’s little to no Spring Break traffic this
week, the weather continues to be especially
nice. A little breezy, but, hey, it’s March.
All that good weather resulted in some
sun-fried Breakers reaching for the aloe.
The big crowds meant we locals stepped
back and let Spring Breakers take over. Left
turns were mostly not an option on the main
thoroughfares. If you took a cruise down
11th Street, you’d have seen why the improve-
ments the city is floating a bond issue to pay
for are way necessary. It’s a little tight, to say
the least.
I always have to hit the Family Center
(IGA) at a peak time just to take it all in. It
was a zoo, but in a good way. What stood
out there, and along Alister Street, was the
number of families we attracted this year.
College students were here, of course, but
families ruled - at least in town. This has
been the target audience for the chamber of
commerce for years, and it looks like their
efforts are paying dividends.
What’s really good is that there were no
major accidents or tragedies. I think that
may be due to the large number of families
that decided to spend their break in Port
Aransas, and, in at least some measure, we
can thank a strong, positive police presence.
Let’s hope our summer will be as busy and
relatively peaceful as Spring Break.
And summer brings us to hurricane
season.
Kudos to the city council for signing on
Letters to the Editor
Fabulous ferry art
The artworks on the ferries are so beauti-
ful and refreshing to see!
Riding the ferries is such a special unique
part of Port Aransas and the art is quite an
enhancement. What a wonderful idea to
have a contest and display local creations.
I miss seeing the artwork on the wooden
Winter Texans
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Tho
(c) 2011 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES.
with emer-
gency manage-
ment consul- *
tant Randy
Sijansky.
I’m a little
superstitious,
and I always
figure the more prepared we are, the better
our chances will be for not having a hur-
ricane.
It is difficult to fathom the level of devas-
tation that Japan is suffering from the earth-
quake and tsunami, even after reading about
it and seeing all the coverage. How do you
begin to recover from something like that?
The hope is that we won’t be hit by a
catastrophic hurricane and find out the hard
way, but we certainly should be prepared,
and that’s what Sijansky will help us to do as
a city. As citizens, homeowners and business
owners, we should be prepared as well. The
“trickle down” effect of having an expert in
emergency management should be of benefit
to all of us.
So, let’s all be Boys Scouts and be pre-
pared.
Back to all the changes here at the South
Jetty. We were excited that we would get the
paper on the newsstands much earlier than
usual last week, and we did, but not as early
as we anticipated. Spring Break crowds kept
distribution manager Leslie Willey Jr. cool-
ing his heels on the JFK Causeway for about
an hour, and it took more time making
deliveries because the newsstands were so
busy with Spring Breakers.
This week should be a more realistic expe-
rience of what that delivery time will be like
on a regular basis.
Change is always difficult, but we hope
you’ll like our new look and that, over time,
we’ll all get into the rhythm of the new
deadline.
Mary Henkel Judson is editor and co-
publisher of the South Jetty. Contact her at
southietty@centurytel.net. (361) 749-5131
or P.O. Box 1117, Port Aransas, TX 78373.
outhouses that used to be on the beach; so
this is such a treat. It would be wonderful to
continue for more than two years.
Thank you to the artists, the Texas De-
partment of Transportation and the Port
Aransas Chamber of Commerce from a
Winter Texan!
Sue Taylor
Port Aransas and Hitterdal, Minn.
at possessed Dy tne nouest or noiy mi
After first displaying indecisiveness
about Libya, President Obama touted his
shotgun marriage to a “coalition” of nations
attempting to dislodge Gadhafi. In Brasilia,
Brazil recently, the president used the word
“coalition” five times. Was this an attempt to
align himself with former President George
W. Bush, who advanced a “coalition of the
willing” against Saddam Hussein in Iraq?
President Obama seems to be channeling
his predecessor. He signed an order closing
Guantanamo prison as his first presidential
act, but recently announced it will stay open
and the military tribunals established by
President Bush and supported by Congress
will resume. And now, instead of Saddam
Hussein, Obama is going after Gadhafi. Is
this the same man who delivered a stem-
winding, anti-Iraq war speech almost nine
years ago in Chicago when he was a state
senator?
That speech is worth revisiting.
State Senator Obama said on Oct. 2,
2002, that he isn’t “opposed to all war,” only
“dumb war, rash war.”
Substitute Gadhafi and Libya for Saddam
Hussein and Iraq in this excerpt from that
speech: “I suffer no illusions about (Moam-
mar Gadhafi). He is a brutal man. A ruthless
man. A man who butchers his own people
to secure his own power. He has repeatedly
defied UN resolutions.... He’s a bad guy. The
world and the (Libyan) people would be
better off without him.”
Here is Obama in 2002, with his ultimate
argument against the Iraq war. Again I
substitute Libya for Iraq and Gadhafi for
Hussein: “(Gadhafi) poses no imminent
and direct threat to the United States, or to
his neighbors... the (Libyan) economy is in
shambles... the (Libyan) military (is) a frac-
tion of its former strength and... in concert
with the international community he can
be contained until, in the way of all petty
dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of
history.”
If Obama believed what he said in 2002
about Iraq and Saddam Hussein, doesn’t
that seem a good rationale for not commit-
ting any more treasure — which we have run
out of — and possibly more American lives
with no greater goal than unseating Gadhafi
in the hope that someone better will take his
place?
What is this president’s foreign policy?
Does he have one other than pressuring
Israel not to build more “settlements”? A
“no-fly zone” will not depose Gadhafi and
his sons. They must be overthrown, but that
is not our announced objective. Does the
president seriously believe a Gadhafi-free
Libya will suddenly embrace Jeffersonian
democracy? If so, he is a bigger amateur on
the world stage than some suspect.
President Obama says, “humanitarian
reasons” are a motivating factor for using
American and allied forces to topple Gad-
hafi. What makes Gadhafi worthy of special
humanitarian concerns when many other
governments similarly oppress their people?
Gadhafi can’t live forever. The actuarial
table will soon catch up with him. What’s
the rush, especially if a power vacuum is
created in Libya that terrorist groups are all
too happy to fill, as they might do in Egypt
and other countries in the region that are
now experiencing revolutions? Former
Ambassador Aujali strongly doubts that will
happen, but no one can be certain.
If Iraq qualified as a “dumb war” in
Obama’s mind back in 2002, what is smart
about starting a third war against Moammar
Gadhafi today? Is the United Nations, rather
than Congress, now the authority for such
action? That’s what Democrats asked when
President Bush was in the White House. It
remains a valid question under President
Obama.
Contact Cal Thomas at Tribune Me-
dia Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite
114, Buffalo, N.Y. 14207, or e-mail at
tmseditors@tribune.com.
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P.O. Box 1117, Port Aransas, TX 78373
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Judson, Mary Henkel. Port Aransas South Jetty (Port Aransas, Tex.), Vol. 42, No. 12, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 24, 2011, newspaper, March 24, 2011; Port Aransas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth505939/m1/3/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Ellis Memorial Library.