East Bernard Express (East Bernard, Tex.), Vol. 70, No. 2, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 10, 2013 Page: 4 of 8
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age 4 Thursday, January 1 □, 201 3
East Bernard Express
Bill Wallace, Editor & Publisher
bwallace@journal-spectator.com
Keith Magee, Managing Editor
kmagee@journal-spectator.com
Burlon Parsons, Associate Editor
bparsons@journal-spectator.com
P.0. Box 111 • Wharton, Texas 77488 • 979-532-0095 • 979-532-8845 fax
Periodicals Postage Paid at East Bernard, Texas 77435. Annual
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Wallis; $39.00 per year elsewhere in Texas; $59.00 per year out of state.
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Fiscal cliff may call for fiscal penalty... to Congress
If you were a momma and the
Congress was under your watch,
and you encountered this fiscal cliff
fiasco, you’d probably at least put
them in timeout.
Maybe even wash their mouths
out with soap.
What is this brinksmanship?
Though, that may be a misnomer to
have the “man” in there. It seemed
like a long, long time before enough
members of Congress could “man
up” and do the things necessary to
allow the country to work.
The Texas Founding Fathers
were pretty direct about their desire
for their lawmakers to get the work
done.
When they wrote their post-Civil
War constitution in 1876, they tried
to make legislators work efficiently
by ceasing to pay them after a cer-
tain time.
That constitution set their per
diem for living expenses at $5 per
day — a little more than $100 in
today’s dollars — for the first 60
days the legislators met. And then,
the per diem dropped to $2 per day
thereafter.
Get it done, the Founding Fathers
said, and then vacate Austin to get
back home. Or, if you’re going to
hang around Austin, do it on your
own dime.
That arrangement was tinkered
with over the years — partly be-
cause the Founding Fathers hadn’t
anticipated the impact that special
sessions would have.
As the 60-day limit came, legisla-
tors would adjourn, and then have
to be called back in special session to
continue their business.
In 1930, legislators were awarded
an annual salary of $4,800. And, the
per diem was adjusted to $12 per
day — about $160 in today’s dollars
— for the first 120 days of regular
legislative sessions, and for the first
30 days of special sessions.
But the no play-no pay idea in
Texas persisted into the mid-20th
Century.
There’s a current national effort
to bring that stern momma pressure
to bear on the Congress.
It’s ramrodded by a non-partisan,
or multi-partisan, group called
“No Labels.” More about that in a
minute.
As late as the 1940s, Texas voters
attempted to make their legisla-
tors work, and then get out of town,
by paying their higher per diem
through the first 120 days of their
regular biennial session, and then
cutting it for the days thereafter.
The no play-no pay finally petered
out in the Texas Legislature a few
decades ago. But the idea is gaining
some traction at the national level.
The co-founders of www.nolabels.
org include Texas’ own Mark McKin-
non, of Hill+Knowlton Strategies.
The group aims to help spur mem-
bers of Congress to reach for coop-
eration, by cutting their pay if they
don’t avoid the Fiscal Cliff.
McKinnon is a media political
consultant, who has ranged the
political spectrum from working for
Democrats Lloyd Doggett and Ann
Richards in the 1980s and 1990s, to
Republicans George W. Bush and
John McCain in the later 1990s and
2000s. He’s also consulted for cyclist
Lance Armstrong and singer Bono.
An email from McKinnon for No
Labels on New Year’s Eve, while the
cliff was still out there, started like
this:
“The fiscal cliff is a disaster.
Washington dysfunction is at its
worst - and we’re up against the
deadline.
“It doesn’t have to he like this. Our
leaders can — and have — worked
together to accomplish big things.
“No Labels has a strategy to make
it happen. We’re putting pressure
on Washington by pushing for No
Budget, No Pay — legislation saying
if members of Congress can’t pass
a budget and all spending bills on
time, they should not he paid — and
calling for common-sense reforms to
our government to give them space
to work across the aisle like having
members of Congress actually meet
together every month.”
McKinnon says No Labels has
already gotten more than 90 mem-
bers of Congress signed up to carry
legislation to make the pay for mem-
bers of Congress contingent on doing
their work — on time.
As is to be expected, “No Labels”
is also trying to raise money to
spread its message, as you’ll find if
you go to their website.
That said, it’s time for a push to
try to end the dysfunction in the
Congress, wrought by congressional
redistricting having pushed the
representation to the poles of the
political spectrum.
It’s time for stepping up to deal
with education, health care, trans-
portation, an aging population and
other matters without a blood feud
over everything.
And next, we might think about
having members of Congress live
under the same systems of health
care, retirement, and other entitle-
ments, or lack thereof, as most other
Americans —just to know, and
experience, what it’s like.
Contact Dave McNeely at dav-
emcneelylll@gmail.com or 512-458-
2963.
Inspiration for 2013
Some of the regular emails I receive
come from the Patriot Post, The Essential
Voice of Liberty. They are well worth sub-
scribing to.
I thought you might
like a taste of inspira-
tion shared in this past
Monday’s Patriot Post. It
quotes a news item writ-
ten by Lee Cowan of CBS
News:
“For most parents,
when a child leaves the
nest it’s usually for good.
But at age 51, Tony Tol-
bert has come home again.... He announced
he was moving back home, because he
was giving up his own fully furnished L.A.
home, rent free, for a full year - to a fam-
ily he’d never even met. You don’t have to
be Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or Oprah,’
Tolbert said. We can do it wherever we
are, with whatever we have, and for me, I
have a home that I can make available.’ But
to whom? Tolbert sought out a shelter for
homeless women and children called Alex-
andria House. It was there he found Felicia
Dukes. Needless to say, she couldn’t believe
the offer when she heard it. ‘They had a
young man that wanted to donate their
house to you for a year,’ Dukes recounted.
‘And I’m looking at her, like, what? Like
- Are you serious?’... Tolbert also became
emotional when he talked about the life les-
sons he learned from his father, who is now
suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. ‘Kind-
ness creates kindness. Generosity creates
generosity. Love creates love,’ he said. ‘And I
think if we can share some of that and have
more stories about people doing nice things
for other people, and fewer stories about
people doing horrible things to other people,
that’s a better world.’ Not a bad thought to
begin the new year.”
Another inspiration for me came during
the holidays from reading 1776 by Pulitizer
Prize winning author, David McCullough.
Of course, most of us recognize 1776 as
the birth of our nation with the signing of
the Declaration of Independence in July of
that year. Rather than that event, Mc-
Cullough focuses on the much less known
military maneuvers — and near defeat of
the American cause that year.
While a great victory for the colonists
came in March as the British evacuated
Boston, after the signing of the Declara-
tion momentum shifted dramatically. The
Americans under General Washington
were defeated on Long Island at the end of
August forcing a retreat. Throughout the
Fall he was repeatedly outmaneuvered and
ultimately had to evacuate the New York
City area. And an attack on the British
in Canada had ended in
failure in 1776. Those
defeats as well as lack of
food, clothing and pay led
many American soldiers
to leave as their enlist-
ment periods came to an
end.
But while Washington
may have been outma-
neuvered by British
commanders with much more military ex-
perience than he, Washington tenaciously
believed in the cause of liberty and worked
tirelessly to rally his troops. Having re-
treated to New Jersey he knew that the
enlistment of many more of his troops was
scheduled to end at the year.
Scheming the almost unthinkable,
Washington planned a surprise attack on
the enemy at Trenton. To do so it took a
crossing of the Delaware River planned for
December 25th at midnight. McCullough
writes that where they crossed the river
was about 850 feet wide “and the current
strong, the ice formidable, as all accounts
attest....About eleven o’clock, the storm
struck a full blown northeaster.” With the
crossing of the river and further travel the
attack on Trenton did not begin until about
8 a.m. but resulted in a rousing victory for
the Americans. Then rather than rest on
their laurels Washington struck again at
Princeton at sunrise on January 3rd and
again came out victorious.
McCullough concluded, “From the last
week of August to the last week of Decem-
ber, the year 1776 had been as dark a time
as those devoted to the American cause had
ever known - indeed, as dark a time as any
in the history of the country. And suddenly,
miraculously it seemed, that had changed
because of a small band of determined men
and their leader.”
Two different examples of men living
for a just cause. As 2012 ended and 2013
has begun, Tony Tolbert’s generosity and
George Washington’s tenacity and persis-
tence have provided inspiring examples to
continue to press on for right causes.
Peter Johnston, an East Bernard resi-
dent, earned a history degree from Cornell
University and is a former high school his-
tory teacher. He can be reached at colum-
nist.peter.johnston@gmail.com.
How to reach your elected/public officials
TEXAS
WHARTON COUNTY
• Gov. Rick Perry
• County Judge Phillip Spenrath
P.O. Box 12428
309 E. Milam St.
Austin, TX 78711-2428
Wharton, TX 77488
Phone: 512463-2000
Phone: 979-5324612
Fax: 512463-1849
Fax: 979-532-1970
Email: www.governor.state.tx.us/contact
Email: judge.spenrath@co.wharton.tx.us
Website: www.governor.state.tx.us
• Pet. 2 Commissioner Chris King
• State Senator Glen Hegar Jr., District 18
P.O. Box 399
P.O. Box 1008
East Bernard, TX 77435
Katy, TX 77492
Phone: 979-335-7541
Phone: 281-391-8883
Fax: 979-335-6029
Fax: 281-391-8818
Email: d.chris@co.wharton.tx.us
Email: www.hegar.senate.state.tx.us/#form
Website: www.hegar.senate.state.tx.us
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Happiness like a butterfly
Henry David Thoreau said, at some point
in his life, “Happiness is like a butterfly; the
more you chase it, the more it eludes you,
but if you turn your attention to other things,
it comes and sits softly
on your shoulder.” I like
keeping this pithy apho-
rism on one of the little
shelves in my memory
bank, to help me avoid a
chase that goes nowhere.
During the post-
Christmas letdown, many
folks chase after ways to
rekindle the fun of the
Yuletide Log season (especially if burning the
Yule log is one of your Christmas traditions).
However, once the magic of Christmas is gone,
it’s gone ... until next year.
I suppose that’s why Queen Elizabeth I
(during the time of Shakespeare) held elabo-
rate celebrations each of the 12 days of Christ-
mas, just as her father did before her. With
dances, revels, concerts, ballets, banquets,
masked balls, cocktail parties, and plays,
there was an attempt to make the happiness
of Christmas last way beyond one day, to
squeeze every drop of mirth out of the sea-
son. This of course did not make the Puritans
happy.
But it seems like all of the Elizabethan
fan-makers are kind of jumping ahead of
themselves. Before we can make plans and
pronouncements about happiness, we must
first be able to define what it is. Isn’t happi-
ness rather relative? While watching a play
by Shakespeare might be one person’s idea
of happy bliss, dancing and drinking oneself
into oblivion might be another’s. No doubt
that’s why Thoreau calls happiness an elusive
butterfly. He should also have added that it is
also rather ephemeral — unless of course he
was talking about the eternal kind, which I
rather doubt!
Back in Dime Box in the 1940s, while there
was no hope of attending a ballet or partici-
pating in a revel, my grandparents who were
farmers would have enjoyed a day of rest
from picking cotton. Lying in a hammock on
a pleasant Sunday afternoon before picking
cotton by hand started again Monday at dawn
would have been pretty much the ultimate
happiness. For us kids it was cranking the
old-time ice cream maker and gobbling down
the frozen joy while the adults snoozed away.
Having spent more than one summer
picking cotton for my grandparents, I came to
understand why going to
church on Sunday morn-
ing was such a joy. Sitting
on the pew singing and
praying and going forward
for the blessed Sacrament
were just a whole lot more
fun than shelling corn,
slopping pigs, milking
cows, carding the cotton
not ginned, feeding cows,
chickens, ducks, and geese. I knew teenagers
who thought doing farm work was just about
as happy as it gets, but I assure you I was not
one of those.
Some folks think getting married is a way
to go for happiness, and so that’s the main
reason they tie the knot. “I married you! Now
make me happy!” Thoreau says that if you
turn your attention to other things, happi-
ness, like that elusive butterfly, comes and sits
softly on your shoulder. But of course if you
haven’t first defined “happiness,” you may not
recognize what’s on your shoulder as happi-
ness! It might be a mosquito and you smash
it.
One of our great thinkers said that unless
you carry happiness with you, you will never
find it. But here again you have to know what
it is you plan to take with you. For most teen-
agers, I would say it’s their cell phone. Since
most texting is sort of mindless drivel, can we
then say that “happiness” is “mindlessness”?
It just occurred to me that many of my
male friends would define happiness as watch-
ing a Texans game on TV, and watching it in
Houston, heavenly bliss. Now that’s not a but-
terfly that’s going to come sit on your shoulder
— I mean, you have to know what channel it’s
on, and you have to get the beer and popcorn
before you turn it on.
Bay Spitzenberger serves as pastor of St.
Paul Lutheran Church in Wallis, after retiring
from Wharton County Junior College, where
he taught English and speech and served as
chairman of Communications and Fine Arts
for many years.
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Wallace, Bill. East Bernard Express (East Bernard, Tex.), Vol. 70, No. 2, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 10, 2013, newspaper, January 10, 2013; East Bernard, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth787569/m1/4/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Wharton County Library.