San Antonio Election 2005

Lone Ranger or Don Quixote? Marcus Tullius Cicero Unmasked

2005-06-15T11:57:00.000-07:00

Some of you have already figured this out, and have up to now respected my wish to remain temporally anonymous, and for that I thank you. For the rest of you, it would not have required the deductive powers of Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery. There were plenty of clues for those had the curiosity or initiative to find them.

Clue #1
The name. San Antonio Election 2005 sounds a lot like SAElections.com.

Clue #2
The first blog entry entitled “A Good Place to Start” just states http://www.saelections.com/

Clue #3
The first link under recommended Links is http://www.saelections.com/

Clue#4
In a city with precious little interest by its vast suburban populous, and even less by its City government, in its cultural institutions, San Antonio Election 2005 seemed to be virtually preoccupied with references to its museums and to have special knowledge about their workings.

Clue #5
It clearly states on http://www.saelections.com/ the identity of the producers of that site.

Clue#6
From http://www.saelections.com/ there is a link to my curriculum vitae and anyone who read it would find that I am an art historian and museum professional that has spent a good deal of his career working in various capacities at the San Antonio Museum of Art. Due to the contents of some of my posts, it is unlikely that I will ever be employed at my trade again in this town. This is something I sincerely regret, not that I retract one word of what I have said, but I have a profound affection for, and loyalty to the missions of, these institutions and would have loved to have spent the rest of my life serving in them in some way. But alas, one cannot bite the hand that feeds them and expect to continue to eat too, even when that hand has been bitten for its own good.

Clue#7
Late one night I made a comment post to The Red State where I directed readers to http://www.saelections,com/. In describing that site I referred to its producers as “we” and inadvertently signed the post “Cicero.”

Clue#8
The geekier among you might have trace routed my email address to determined the registrant of the domain and find my wife’s name. If I had been really up to mischief I would have secured this backdoor.

I promised I would reveal my identity and here it is:

Joseph Bravo, Media Coordinator for http://www.saelections.com/.

As most of you already know, this is the website that provided a “One-stop shop for San Antonio elections information.”

SAElections.com was produced single-handedly through the prodigious talents and heroic efforts of my wife Lori Bravo. Her website claims to be “non-partisan information for people who vote.” In fact, by all accounts from voters, candidates and their campaigns from all political persuasions throughout the city of San Antonio, it is just that.

For the record, although sponsorship to the http://www.saelections.com/ website was open to anyone except candidates and PACS, only one local businessman, T.J. Connolly, saw fit to actually come forward with $300 for an advertisement. For this he is to be commended. (Shame on the rest of you!) He bought it early in March after visiting the site. The transaction was done through his office and we never had contact with him again throughout the campaign season. We did not know Mr. Connolly before we produced this site. While he is active in San Antonio political circles, I suspect he, like others, occasionally found the information presented at http://www.saelections.com/ a little inconvenient to his own personal politics. He in no way had any input into the content presented at http://www.saelections.com/.

Other sponsors included Adam McManus at KSLR radio. This was an in-kind contribution where he agreed to mention http://www.saelections.com/ on his radio show and in return received and ad slot. Neither Lori Bravo or I are regular listeners to his radio show (or anyone else’s for that matter,) nor should his sponsorship be construed as our endorsement of the views expressed on his program. He had no input into the content of information provided at http://www.saelections.com/. As with others, I suspect that occasionally information provided there did not serve his political agenda either.

360 Degree Virtual Real-estate is a venture owned by the parents of the technician who operated our server. He is a lifelong friend, who offered his services for free, but we offered him an ad as remuneration and he requested we put up one for his parents’ Wisconsin-based real-estate photography services instead, so we obliged.

You don’t have to have earned a PHD from the Chicago School to gather from this, that Lori’s positive cash flow for this entire venture was a whopping total of $300. This is all the financial remuneration she received in return for well over a thousand hours of dedicated, highly skilled labor. (Again, my words, not hers, shame on the business community of San Antonio, I know thousands of you read her newsletters and burned up all the fiber in town accessing http://www.saelections.com/, her web stats prove it!) In addition to her time, she spent cash out of pocket to repeatedly contact candidates in writing who, for whatever reason, would not respond to her telephone or email requests for information about their candidacies. Initially this was most of them, until they began to look conspicuous by their absence from this well visited site.

On that note, special kudos for courage go out to Kevin Wolf and Cynthia Test, who were the only two candidates, out of the forty-four running for office, who linked to http://www.saelections.com/ from their campaign websites. None of the three frontrunners in the Mayor’s race ever personally acknowledged the existence of the site, even after Castro’s CFR debacle. What were all these free publicity-hunting politicians afraid of? Lori’s web statistics showed that the majority of the campaigns were hitting the site almost daily. I guess they, like their colleagues at the City Hall and at the local media outlets, who statistics also show extensively and regularly checked http://www.saelections.com/, thought it was their secret espionage tool, for checking out the opposition. Various media outlets used information they found at http://www.saelections.com/, including direct quotes from the site, as the basis for numerous articles and stories they published or broadcast with nary a citation. So much for journalistic ethics. It appears that Wackenhut is not the only cat watching canaries. Regardless, Lori assures me she has no regrets and believes the voters were entitled to her services, since nobody was going to provide them if she did not. I concur.

When she first started http://www.saelections.com/, Lori received email from various campaigns that presumed she must be a member of the politerati and was concealing some pernicious secret agenda. Nothing could have been further from the truth, and all information presented at http://www.saelections.com/ was on the level. Lori’s endeavors were solely motivated by a desire to assist the citizenry in voting. She believes sunlight is the best mechanism to achieve this goal. The only people that had an aversion to her efforts were, by definition, the more vampirically inclined among the political class.

I may be biased about this one issue, but I believe that the entire city of San Antonio owes Lori Bravo an enormous debt of gratitude and a three-cheer salute for her tireless and conscientious efforts on their behalf this election season.

I also think several of the media outlets owe her an apology for claiming credit for her impressive work as if it were their own. For these people all I have to say is, “May your intellectual property become popular in China.”

My role as Media Coordinator for http://www.saelections.com/ was simply as cheerleader. Lori is shy and her talents (like most people’s) lie in areas other than public speaking. I on the other hand…well you’ve read my postings. I was interviewed by Chris Duel on KTSA radio, by Jeff Coyle on WOAI television, and jointly with Lori by Jaime Castillo at the Express News. Shame on the rest of the local media, (that means you Fox News at 9, KSAT 12 and others), for your excellent impersonations of a flock of ostriches! These “News” outlets should realize that when they bury their heads, they leave the rest of us viewing their most flattering asset. Due to my relatively public role in promoting http://www.saelections.com/, revealing my identity earlier might have lead to misperceptions and the more cynically minded to cast unnecessary dispersions on Lori’s endeavors.

I could not sit by and listen to my wife’s discoveries night after night and not form any opinions on events taking place in this election. I’m an objective observer, not a mineral. But http://www.saelections.com/ is not a venue for opinion of any kind, even Lori’s or mine. I did not want her admirable efforts to get guilt by association with my personal views, which do not necessarily reflect her own. It is for this reason that I created my own blog to vent my growing frustrations with the embarrassing mess that generally constitutes a San Antonio election. I chose to remain anonymous so nobody would use what I said here to discredit the facts presented at http://www.saelections.com/ or impugn the integrity of Lori’s noble undertaking.

For me, the purpose of San Antonio Election 2005 was to provoke thought about the issues facing San Antonio this election season. I have tried to be objective, and an equal opportunity critic of the local political establishment. Undoubtedly, just about everybody found something here with which they would take exception. I did not endorse any candidacy because, as you might imagine, none of them would have been very likely to endorse the opinions offered on this blog. From this, one should not have construed that I thought all the candidates unfit to serve or equally inappropriate choices to hold office. My goal was to make voters think about their choices, not to make those choices for them.

I want to thank Cincinnatus at the Jeffersonian for his fine analysis and tolerance. Also shout out to the Red state and Off the Kuff for their attention to this blog as well as their fine work at their venues. Special heads up and good luck to Cernig at Newshog whose site is always provocative and insightful. Of course thanks to the rest of the blogosphere who dained to read the musings found here this season.

I hope you found the views expressed here interesting and occasionally a source of edification. Thank you for having taken the time to consider them. For now, Marcus Tullius Cicero/Joseph Bravo will be signing off in this venue, perhaps to appear elsewhere, who knows?

San Antonio Election 2005 will continue to exist as an archive as long as its server remains.

Thanks

Another One Bites the Dust

2005-06-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

San Antonio’s election season has come to an end and to the surprise of no one and the dismay of some, Phil Hardberger is the next Mayor of the Alamo City. I wish him the best of luck, he’s about to learn that having a thing is not so nice as wanting it. A little late in the day for such lessons, but better late than never.

Regardless, I suspect for the next couple of years San Antone will muddle along much as we always do. Developers will continue to pave the aquifer with abated taxes, City staffers will continue to award contracts to insiders who pay to play, lobbyist will continue to deliver faite au completes to our elected officials who will continue to oblige if they want to raise funds for their reelection campaigns.

This is not Phil’s fault it is ours. The same would have been true if Julian had won, even if he might have hoped otherwise. Citizens in our historically underserved communities feel that they have heard it all before and they have little hope that our leadership is really going to come to their aid and do tangible things to improve their quality of life. Hence they are understandably disengaged, unregistered and apathetic. Northside Loop Landers feel no sense of place or civic loyalty. They are absorbed in their big box shopping and soccer mom universes. The only time they get activated is if they feel their property values are threatened or their taxes might be raised. They bought into the developers’ line of bull that any limitations on unrestricted paving of the aquifer constitutes a threat to homeowners’ property rights and undermines most families’ primary source of savings. This is of course hogwash, but is so widely accepted among Northsiders that it qualifies as a suburban myth.

San Antonians pretty much get the quality of government we deserve, and we don’t deserve much. We neglect our school children at rates that put our kids amongst the lowest performing in the nation. We acquiesce as for almost a third of our young men the Bexar County Jail is a more likely career path than UTSA. We pay our workers less than almost anywhere in the country and we expect less out of them so they remain compliant. We neglect our cultural institutions into oblivion when we are not running them directly into the ground. We let our leaders play Anglo off against Hispanic as if Justice was a zero sum game. Our leaders may not be the best and brightest amongst us, but most of them are typical representations of what constitutes a San Antonian and for the most part they accurately reflect our stated and unstated priorities. If things suck its because our priorities, not our votes, are misplaced.

San Antonio is the land of unfulfilled potential. We are geographically placed to become a center of trade and cultural exchange for the future. If we only had the right set of priorities our denstiny could be promising indeed. But in order to fulfill that destiny we must pull our heads out of our collective asses. We must realize that “our children are our future” is not just a pop lyric. We must demand that out of town corporations that come to our burg to exploit our cheap labor and export the profits they make in our community must at least pay their fair share of taxes for the privilege of punking us out. We must realize that sustainable development is not just some left-wing jargon but the only alternative to environmental and economic collapse. We must come to understand that economically integrated residential development is good for our property values, good for our community and essential to ensuring the health of the polity. We must invest in our cultural institutions to help establish our brand identity as a tourist destination not because the arts are touchy feely and pinko, but because they are essential to successful economic development. That they increase and intellectual and spiritual quality of life is just the icing on the cake. We must not be content to return to our homes and families as if our front doors were sufficient to keep the troubles of our community at bay. We must all become more activated politically and bring our ideas and values to our politicians as well as our money to their campaigns. We must demand more from our elected officials in terms of competency and accountability. We must insist on transparency at City Hall. But mostly would must demand more from ourselves.

So Much for Carroll’s 18 Pounders

2005-05-26T13:52:00.000-07:00

Surprise, surprise, Carroll Schubert has endorsed Hardberger for Mayor. The other shoe has finally dropped, but as for Schubert’s testiculos, they are still awaiting the arrival of fuzz.

Apparently Carroll feels there are enough Anglo Republicans out there to ensure his political career without the need to pander to folks he really doesn’t like anyway.

The Mayor’s race is likely to be close, but a betting man would probably put his money on Phil. Big money and power tends to trump ethnic unity every time. This is especially true when that ethnic pride has to unify around a coconut.

Castro’s professed policies would probably be better for San Antonio than those Phil’s old guard Concrete Mafia cronies have in store for us. But what Julian professes today will likely change with the political winds. This, not his age, is his true Achilles heal. His constant equivocation puts the status of his cojones in question at least as much as Carroll’s.

As far as Hardberger’s manhood is concerned, given his age, he is probably running mostly on gall and Viagra.

Why Is Schubert So Coy?

2005-05-15T00:09:00.000-07:00

Schubert is withholding his endorsement, but why? Does anybody really think he is ideologically inclined to support Castro? Until his tantrum during the debate, everyone would have expected Julian to throw his votes to Hardberger in the event he didn’t make the runoff. Did this provide an opening for Carroll?

Carroll got shut out, so Julian’s bluff was never called. But what is really in the offing? If Schubert does the obvious, he endorses Hardberger and Phil wins. But Hardberger feels pretty much entitled to the remnants of Carroll’s base so he probably wouldn’t view this as a substantial favor. But Castro could really use the help broadening his appeal, especially with the likelihood that some portion of his base might not show up to vote in the runoff. If Carroll throws his weight to Julian, Castro is liable to be very grateful.

So why would Carroll be interested in gratitude? Well, if as some suspect, he is really planning to run for County Commissioner, then support from Castro could substantially increase Schubert’s appeal with the Latino voters. Could Carroll Schubert be looking for a quid pro quo from Julian that Hardberger cannot really match? This would be a risky tact for Schubert to take, but it could make for a very close race in the final hours.

Of course it presumes that his conservative Northside constituency would follow his lead, which they very well might not. In this event he discredits himself with his own base, alienates Hardberger, Castro loses anyway and has no quid pro quo to offer. This would leave Phil up a creek with out a paddle of any kind. He might once again look to the state Republican political machine for support, but they couldn’t even get him into the runoff, so putting all his eggs in their basket after he has alienated his base would probably prove worse than futile.

It seems Carroll is flirting with disaster if he is willing to bet the farm on Julian. But this would be an incredibly bold move for a man whose campaign could be described as anything but bold. But maybe a close up look at defeat has made him remember where he left his cojones. If Carroll does ultimately endorse Julian, then they must be eighteen pounds apiece and solid bronze. Keep watching and we’ll see what Schubert is really made of.

How Could City Government Help the People?

2005-05-12T18:41:00.000-07:00

Everyone has their own take on this, here is mine:

1. More beat cops on the street in crime-ridden areas.

2. Stop giving tax abatements to oligarchical businesses that pay minimum wagish salaries for part time, no benefits jobs from which the employees will be laid off before they ever retire. The “no benefits” constitutes a transfer of wealth from the taxpayer to the corporations. These employees perpetually remain among the working poor and burden the social service system despite their industry and hard work. The abatements also come out of my pocket as my house is reassessed every year to pay for new people with children moving into my district.

3. Lobby the state to means test parents who avail themselves of the Public School system. My Dad was a government mule at Kelly. On his meager salary he paid my tuition to Grace Bible School, San Antonio Military Academy and Keystone. Every day I drive past Churchill and see a parking lot full of $40,000 cars driven by teenagers. This amounts to a redistribution of wealth from the lower and middle-middle class to the wealthy. Why am I paying for the indoctrination and substandard education of the children of the elite, simply because they don’t care enough about their own offspring to sacrifice that extra condo in Aspen for the sake of tuition? The elite’s parents abdicate, I pay and Johnny can’t read. I could go on about this, but suffice to say that means testing would be a boon to private schools, would free up much needed resources in public schools, and be a general benefit to school children everywhere.

4. Reform Zoning laws to improve economic, ethnic and political justice in society. Subdivisions with houses from the $75s-$125s, $175s-$350s, $250s-$600s, $500-$3,000,000s, are the problem. Such developments segregate us by wealth, ethnicity and political interests. They undermine civic unity and create ghettos for the rich where the rest of the community is out of sight and out of mind. If we zone for real economic integration with a mansion, a 4-bdrm, a 2-bdrm, a duplex, and a 4-plex on every residential street, this would avoid concentrations of poverty and wealth. It would increase social access and upward mobility, both economic and social. The current model provides only an illusion of security as your precious gated communities are surrounded by apartments filled with folks who find the wall no obstacle to burglarizing your home or selling drugs to you unsupervised youth. It is only a barrier to coming to know you and learn to share your much-vaunted work ethic.

For those who say this is not what the buyers market wants, I cite you property values. If you try to buy a 2,000 sq. ft house on say Lullwood or Mistletoe between McCullough and San Pedro, you'll pay about $200,000 for a home that needs a new roof, new foundation, new paint, new fixtures, new electrical etc. That brings it up to about $350,000. This is in just such an economically integrated neighborhood as I’ve described. If the buyers market is willing to pay this much just to be in such a neighborhood without good schools why not build more development like this?

It is just such economically integrated neighborhoods that are the most contested in local elections reflecting their relative political diversity as well. If there were more such communities, this would lower the stakes in gerrymandering and reduces the incentive for the shenanigans that always emerge in the process.

5. Stop building freeways and spending millions rebuilding their intersections. This only serves to concentrate traffic flows, create gridlock, and the traffic jams that are the real source of big box revenue. Big boxes have extraordinary start up costs, roughly $3.5 million for an Olive Garden. They have to recoup these costs competitively with the stock market, not just the restaurant market. That means you have to sell a lot of spaghetti real fast. Your business model relies on building a $500,000 sign that will be viewed by about 2,000,000 drivers a day. Without these 2,000,000 car passes your model falls apart. Who subsidizes the huge expense of this model? The taxpayer, federal, state and local does. This is yet another transfer of wealth from the working and middle class to the corporate coffers. Maybe if we got back the two hours we spent in the car everyday we could supervise our latch key kids and cut down on STDs and teen pregnancies to boot.

6. Continue to improve local drainage. Make under-served areas that have been waiting for a century the first priority and move new developments to the end of the queue.

7. Stop spending money subsidizing the negative cash flow to the community that professional sports create. I like sports as much as the next guy. In particular I like fencing, shooting sports, equestrian events, Grand Prix automobile racing and motto cross. Imagine the outrage if I asked the citizens of San Antonio to provide $200,000,000 to subsidize my athletic interests. The horror, the horror!

8. Instead of trying to be a second rate Houston or Dallas, we should zig when they zag. This is the first rule of establishing a successful brand identity. These capitals of mammon are not going to play fair with San Antonio and we will never compete with them at their own game. We should play the culture card. If done right, this would leave them in the dust and be a boom to our local economy, for more on this check out some of my posts.

9. We should reform the charter to end term limits, but keep short terms of office. We should extend ethics reform to the lobbyists and make them report how much they receive and how they spend it. The City should deploy effective technology to make this information available and make sites like SAElections.com obsolete.

More on these themes to come.

NFL: Beatify This

2005-05-11T16:11:00.000-07:00

Hardberger’s at it again, more pandering to the mook crowd. San Antonio Saints? Not likely, more like yet another cynical move by an NFL owner to extort more money from his hometown through threats to leave New Orleans. They can keep the Saints in New Orleans. If we get the losing franchise, then it will be San Antonio taxpayers that are, like clockwork, subjected to such periodic shakedowns.

To New Orleans, “Keep your losers. We know there are no Saints in the NFL Owners Association, only thieves."

At least Castro got this one right. Julian says the Saint's are welcome so long as they bring their own checkbooks with them. So where were his cajones when Soccer punked him out? This guy flips back and forth so often, I'm beginning to think he's a hermaphrodite.

Paradigm Shifts and Ideas

2005-05-11T05:09:00.000-07:00

A certain little punk at another blog complained that there is a lack of address to ideas at this site. He said Hardberger is an Old Guard Democrat with outmoded leftist views from the 70's. He suggests there has been a paradigm shift, and the current candidates fail to reflect the new mood of the country.

Let’s examine his premises.

This site is in fact about ideas. It is about one idea in particular that has been beaten like a big base drum, namely that “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” That’s it in a nutshell folks. Power in San Antonio is concentrated in the hands of a few dozen people who determine the fate of the rest of us without the slightest concern for the general well being of the community. This has been a running theme throughout this blog. It may not reflect recent paradigm shifts, as the Religious Right now snuggles up to power oblivious to its inherent moral challenges. Smugly confident in their own righteousness as defenders of the unborn and crusaders for public decency, they content themselves with the Pharisee’s prayer. Unfortunately for them, it will fall on deaf ears.

Is Hardberger an Old Guard Democrat with outdated ideas?

Unfortunately, although it pains me to throw the nameless dog a bone, he’s right about this. Don’t look to Phil for the vision thing. He’s one of those tax and spend liberals that thinks spending money is the same as doing something. But this is not exactly a News Flash to anyone that has followed the campaign. It also probably won’t seriously bother the majority of citizens in a city in which the have-nots outnumber the haves by 2000:1. This may not reflect the nationwide paradigm shift, but it does reflect the disparagement of opportunity in San Antonio. Tough luck to the New Right, but the democratic process will continue to trump paradigm shifts so long as injustice so self-evidently prevails. The tragedy for the historically underserved communities in San Antonio is that Hardberger will content himself with spending money tinkering around the edges of the status quo. Their plight will continue unabated, the homeowners’ taxes will continue to rise unabated, and the big box retailers who come to town will continue to get their abatements on schedule.

What are the implications of the Paradigm Shift with regards to local politics?

First it means cutting funding of groups like Planned Parenthood that offer abortion services, as well as women’s health services, to the underserved areas of town. Is this a good thing? That depends on how you feel about abortion. Regardless, it will mean a decrease in health services to some of the people who need it most. But Neo-Cons suggest that these services are more aptly the responsibility of the non-profit community who they assert provide them more cost effectively. Other budget cuts to social programs that are less ethically charged would also be in order, with the similar transfer of responsibility to the non-profit sector. This sounds good on the surface, but scratch that paint and you’ll find rust eating away at the social fabric.

The reality of the non-profit world in San Antonio is that the philanthropic fundraiser is about as welcome in the halls of wealth as a dentist who forgoes the use of anesthesia. A typical fundraising event in San Antonio goes something like this:

A bunch of rich inbred old biddies sitting on a Board of Trustees make up a guest list to a fundraising party. They carefully scratch names off the list so nobody on the social outs gets in, regardless of their inclination for giving. The biddies occupy all the time and resources of the management and staff of the organization for three months as they plan their party. They need catering, flowers, interior decorators, live music and hot and cold running chambermaids scurrying in every direction. All these expenses come out of the operating expenses of the non-profit organization in question. Frequently these expenses may add up to as much or more than ¼ of its annual budget. Party night comes and a bunch of old rich folks and their useless scions attend a $300,000 bash at the organization’s expense. A speech is made calling for donations. At the end of the evening, if the party has been well planned (if not, the non-profit may go into the red on the event), they raise $350,000 and congratulate themselves enthusiastically. The Chairman of the Board and head biddy now uses this meager $50,000 to beat the institution’s Director like a rented mule until the next fundraiser 12 months away. In the meantime a feud ensues regarding the size of the print and position of the names on the bronze plaque that is to be erected in honor of the generosity of these so-called philanthropists. Eventually it is agreed that whether you gave $500 or $10,000 your name will be the same size. The people who gave less consider this a most important victory and congratulate themselves on their shrewdness, since the more foolish generous individuals paid too much for the same amount of prestige. Lesson learned, in the future write a smaller check and stick to your guns when fighting for credit.

Counting on the generosity of San Antonio’s aristocracy is like counting on the generosity of the mugger who just stole your wallet to buy you dinner. It ain’t going to happen! If we cut public funding you cannot rely on the generosity of San Antonio’s misanthropists to pick up the slack. If you don’t believe this just ask anyone working in the non-profit sector.

The second note of the Neo-Con local mantra is that property rights trump all others. This is a pernicious bate and switch. Fear mongering tactics are used to scare the middle class homeowners into thinking their interests and the Developers are identical. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Developers thrive on fear. In particular they feed on fear of the encroachment of Hispanics into the Northside suburbs. They sell homes with the catch phrase good schools to mask their hidden redlining agendas. Bad news for the Northsiders who fear their brother more than they love him, U-haul is going to continue to rent trucks to Latinos and every few years you’re going to have to sell your ticky tacky house and move yet further north if you don’t rid yourself of your contemptible racial paranoia.

The Neo-Cons real agenda is big box development as far as the eye can see, aquifer be damned and they won’t let anything come in the way. What is deplorable is they are selling us Fascism and calling it Libertarianism. It’s not, it’s a hoax based on fear and greed. Ever notice how you almost never see Bill’s Flower Shop, Steve's Garage or Wally’s Restaurant in these big box strip centers? That’s because they are designed and priced to keep these business models out. Say goodbye to the middleclass entrepreneur, as we all become a nation of wage slaves gerrymandered around our racial fears and prejudices.

How’s that for ideas, rattled brains? Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.

Castro and Hardberger Aren’t That Bad

2005-05-11T00:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry if that last post sounded, well a little strident, but Rattled Brains had it coming. His harassment has made me realize that in fact, the biggest jerks in town aren’t the one’s running for Mayor.

San Antonio will stumble down its mediocre road regardless of who wins the runoff. The developers will continue to pave the aquifer. The City services will be expensive and inefficient. The historically underserved communities will stay underserved.

Julian will come to learn the depressing fact that there is nothing this town resents so much as vision. It doesn’t matter what the relative merits or demerits of a particular vision are. In San Antonio it is vision itself that is universally viewed as at best suspicious and worst intrinsically pernicious.

In 1994 I came to the citizens, business and nonprofit community and shouted to anyone who would listen, “The Internet is coming! The Internet is coming!” San Antonio’s unanimous response was. “Go away kid you bother me. The Internet’s a fad. Nobody will use it.” Or the unfathomable,"OK, I'll take a one page website, but I don't need email." It might surprise some readers that at one time in 1994 and early 95 there was more information on the Internet about San Antonio than about New York City and Los Angeles combined. No Bull! It is true folks. But as usual San Antonio squandered its opportunities and waited until it was the last one to board the train. Anybody remember The Coffe Gallery down on Commerce St.? How many realize that the 3rd Internet Café in the world was opened in San Antonio less than one week after the first one opened in San Francisco and the second in London? Yeah, I didn’t think you knew that. But sad as these facts are, they are true, and they reflect the malaise that is San Antonio culture. Julian will inevitably learn what many who have come before him already know, “A prophet is never loved in his hometown.”

Phil is about to learn that San Antonians are not going to just do what they're told no matter what it is you tell them to do. You could command a bunch of San Antonians to evacuate a flaming theater, and they would hem and haw and shuffle until the last person burned alive. He’s also about to find out that they don’t play nice together either. San Antonio’s power base skipped kindergarten and headed straight for the Fiesta Balls. Hence sharing was a lesson most of them missed.

As a financial capital San Antonio ranks somewhere between El Paso and McAllen, yet we have more chambers of commerce than we have successful business ventures in this town. There’s the Greater Chamber, the Northside Chamber, the Hispanic Chamber, the Alamo City Chamber, the Women’s Chamber etc. etc. There are more chambers opening up constantly in the outlying areas. These are a lot of chambers for a town that’s claim to fame is that it is where successful businesses come to fail. Unless you’re selling tacos, automobiles or a new house, your business prospects in San Antonio are bleak at best. So why so many local chambers? Because divide and conquer is an effective strategy and it is the one that has been exploited for decades by San Antonio’s elite business and political power brokers to their own resounding success and extravagant profit. These folks already had a meeting, and they had it without Phil. Whatever policies he attempts to deploy will run into a concrete wall as they hand him a fate au complete. If his resistance is more than token, he will find himself a one term Mayor and his ultimate legacy will be that he was thanklessly thrown out of office by the same people who put him there.

It is not the uninspiring candidates that are going to be responsible for San Antonio’s continued slump into mediocrity; it is the fault of San Antonio itself. As long as we are determined to be a village of sheep rather than a city of lions, we will continued to be ruled rather than governed. Our destiny will be determined by the handful of elite power brokers who will continue to mismanage our prosperity into oblivion.

I'm Sorry Rattled Brains Is Such A Jerk.

2005-05-10T01:49:00.000-07:00

I apologize to the whole blogging community for having been an attractive nuisance to this poor deluded fool, Rattlerman. I am truely sorry if he has been a pain in your collective butts. But now I must lay this punk out once and for all.

Ok, Rattled Brains, I've had about enough of your crap! That was your last post here.

Endorse Hardberger? Hardberger apologist? Basta! Put down the aiplane glue. Open a window. Pull your head out of your a**. Do someting man. your oxygen is clearly cut off.

What blog have you been reading?

At this blog I've called the Judge a greedy trial lawyer repeatedly. I've said his $300,000 loan to his own campaign is tantamount to a license to accept over a quarter of a million dollars worth of bribes for the next two years. I’ve accused him of being disingenuous and pandering regarding the NFL in the Alamo Dome. I’ve decried his desire to make City Hall more open to business as the equivalent of throwing gasoline on a fire. I’ve questioned what a trial lawyer knows about business anyway. I’ve stated that his motivation for running is an ego driven attempt to put yet another notch on his belt and create his final legacy. I've asserted that he is vacuous and a cynical panderer for Chicano votes when it comes to the Arts. I've written that he is old and out of touch when it comes to technology. I've said that he thinks he can just tell people what to do and underestimates the difficulty of forming a real consensus. I've accused him of being beholding to very much the same interests as Schubert. These same moneyed interests that will now undoubtedly throw yet more of their corrupting support behind Judge Hardberger.

Hell, at this point I've accused him of just about everything short of grand larceny and alzheimer's. I’m just hoping a posse from the Hardberger campaign doesn’t meet me in a dark alley some night. If they do, I’m sure it won’t be to thank me for my loyal support.

How many ways do I have to say, “The Judge is a pernicious old fart, don't vote for him,” before a dim-witted myope like yourself gets the point? Or a life for that matter? My position is that there is not a dime's worth of difference between any of the self-serving, ambitions, social climbing, money grubbing, shyster lawyers who would run this town for the profit of the elites rather the benefit of the citizens. Let me make this perfectly clear: I do not endorse Judge Phil Hardberger!!! or his adolescent coconut opposition either. If you want to be Schubert's bitch that's your choice, but I ain't catching for anyone.

If you think I’ve been playing favorites in the Mayor’s race, you are alone in that presumption. As evidence I offer this email I received from J.J at 12:25 PM on May 5:

“I wanted to let you know that I really appreciate your posts. You give all the candidates a good knock-around, and I'm actually of the opinion that it's really good for the process…”

You want to talk about blind prejudice. Lets talk dipwad. Lets talk about the blind prejudice of all those Republicans who think all Democrats are Godless Communists. Let's talk about the blind prejudice of all those Democrats that think all Republicans are money grubbing, self righteous, war mongers. Lets talk about the prejudice of both parties toward anyone that refuses to swear unconditional allegiance to either. Let's talk about the way most partisans dismiss all dissenting voices as static created by idealistic cranks. Yeah, I'm prejudiced. But I'm not blind. I'm prejudiced against any who would seek political power by sleeping with big money interests. You cannot accurately judge the content of a man's character by the color of his skin. But a close look at his friends and financial backers is usually a pretty damn accurate indicator of what a person is really made of. I don't know, but I'm guessing your friends are a** holes at the very least, but more likely, they're just few and far between.

Regarding "the trappings of power behind the written word..acting like one grabbing the power he likes."

What a load of horse pucky! Geez your grandiosity is revolting. I would be surprised if more than a dozen different people have read my blogs since I started. What's more, I'll eat my hat if a single one of them didn't have their mind made up on who they supported long before my first post. Most of the bloggers are partisans in case you haven't noticed. Since most of what I have published is guaranteed to offend most of them most of the time, its not likely that I'm winning many friends or influencing many people out here. If these are the trappings of power, I need a new tailor. As far as "grabbing the power I like," what a load of crap. The quickest way to get power is to go where the power is, and tell people what they want to hear. The power isn't at Blogspot dumba**, it's at those Schubert and Hardberger fundraising parties. If power was what I wanted, that's where I would have headed. But instead I headed here to exercise my free speech in a pint sized-venue. What do I find here? Power, prestige, literary fame? Hell no, instead I find a little self-important trouser snake like you. This isn't power, this is pathetic.

Regarding "somebody has to watch the bloggers:" (Yeah, this numb nut actually said this folks, can you believe it?) Who died and made you the guardian of the blogosphere? Who are you watchin for punk? Why don't you just let the bloggers do that, since they seem a hell of a lot better informed than self righteous radio personalities who think they're too clever for their own good. I'm willing to be judged by my own peers, but not by interloping posers in internet drag trying to disguise the fact they're from another medium. But then I'll wager your pretty comfortable in drag, aren't you sweet cheeks?

Regarding my identity: There is no grandiose conspiracy you self-important paranoid jackass. Lay off Lori Bravo. Lay off SAElections.com. Lay off Cincinnatus. Lay off yourself or you'll get a rash. What they do at their respective venues has nothing to do with what goes on here in this blog. Cool it with your wild speculations. I noticed you didn't take up my offer to email me with your identity and meet me in person to call me a liar to my face. That was probably a healthy, if predictably cowardly, choice on your part.

I will very shortly reveal my identity to anyone who cares. But I will do it in my own time, in my own way, punk. But I’ve got a $20 bill that says that when I do, nobody but you will give a tinker’s damn. I’ve got another $50 that says you won’t be so anxious to reveal your own rattled identity and meet in person to call me a liar to my face. I’ve got yet another $100 that says if you do, you sure as hell won’t do it again. To be honest, I don’t really give damn who you are. It is more than clear to everybody in the blogosphere what you are.

I have not lied to anyone so far in this campaign, I just haven’t told you what you want to hear. But if you don't get off my a** and stick to your own sorry excuse for a blog, I may have to return the favor and start making you my special project. Unlike Carroll, I won't kiss you first.

David “Dracula” Earl Can’t Stand Light of Free Speech

2005-05-08T19:56:00.000-07:00

Apparently what’s good for the goose is not in fact, good for the gander. David Earl is no fan of free speech. The Stop David Earl sign at the corner of Dreamland and Vance Jackson was vociferously destroyed and its pieces disapeared by a vandal this morning. Could this have been done by David Earl, or was it one of his “Associates?”

David Earl’s client, Chris Petit, put up unsigned Stop Art Hall signs throughout the neighborhood. Then Bert Cecconi signs appeared over night and Art Hall signs were torn down and thrown into bushes. Then the Stop David Earl signs appeared and lasted for less than 48 hours before the Dark Lord’s henchmen came and tore them down as well. They even tore down the graphic sign that justly portrays their influence as Fascism, even though it mentioned no one by name. But I guess they knew who they were even without a direct reference and they don’t want you to know what they’re up to. So they tore down the signs.

This kind of crap is why someone needs to Stop that shyster-lawyer-lobbyist-backroom-wheeler-dealer David Earl. He and his Associates hide in the shadows with their money tempting and intimidating our elected officials and perverting our Democracy. Down with this hidden power! Down with the influence of opaque money in government! Down with David Earl and all he and his traitorous pernicious ilk stand for! Down with tyranny! May he and all those like him suffer the torments of eternal damnation for their misanthropy!

This is America, damn it! This is not Putin’s Russia and we do not have to tolerate a tyranny of oligarchs who subvert freedom of speech, intimidate our elected officials and shake down the remaining honest business people of our community. Who do these moneyed elites think they are? Where do they think they are?

This is just the kind of behavior Mussolini’s Black Shirts pulled in Fascist Italy. It is what Hitler’s Brown Shirts did in Germany. For those who say it can’t happen here, I’m here to tell you it is happening here, right now. The Germans thought these people were just a bunch of punks that could be dismissed, but they soon came to regret their naivety. Beware of Fascists who don’t want you to know that’s what they are. Beware of people that think secret money influence, the kind that’s not reported on CFR’s, is their tool for maintaining power. Beware of those who would subvert your liberty with impunity. Beware of that sorry SOB David Earl.

Some of you who are asking, “What’s Cicero’s personal beef with David Earl?” The answer is, "I don’t have one." In fact until a few weeks ago, I had never even heard of David Earl and Associates. I was at the City’s website where I saw a link for registered SA Lobbyists, I was curious so I downloaded the PDF’s there. What I found was shocking. David Earl and Ass. had more clients than all the other SA Lobbyists put together. The disproportionality was striking. His former partner Brown, P. C. has a fairly impressive list himself, although if appears he got the ugly children in the divorce. More appalling was the identity of the people on Earl's registered list of clients. They were a Who’s Who of almost every major player in the development industry, the construction business, the concrete establishment, the biggest realtors, bankers and car dealers in town. In its totality the list was quite revealing about how your City government really works.

You need a zoning variance for your new parking lot? Call David. You need to avoid a pesky tree preservation ordinance? Call David. You need to eminent domain a stubborn landowner to make way for a big box development? Call David. You need a golf course over the objections of the electorate? Call David. You want legislation passed in the dark of night in Austin to facilitate a secret deal you’ve got working behind the scenes at City hall? You got it, call David. David Earl is the Fix-it man downtown. We elect our officials to do one thing, then someone else puts David Earl and Associates on retainer to see those pesky voters and their amateur elected officials don’t get in the way of the big boys agenda.

This is the kind of shady, hidden influence that undermines voter confidence in our officials and is responsible for the epidemic of apathy among San Antonio voters. If you think a 17% voter turnout for a heated election is pathetic, blame David Earl and Associates. It is David and his cohorts that make our votes irrelevant. We vote, they buy, cajole, intimidate and sue. You go more than three rounds with these guys and you’re going down. You either pay to play with these lobbyists, or you don’t get invited to any more reindeer games.

Hitler and Mussolini never did anything to me personally, but I still don’t like them and I will tell anyone who will listen how loathsome and evil they were. David Earl and Associates have until this morning never done anything to me either. But I detest those who would thwart the voters' will and game the system for personal profit. So I decry the pernicious activities of David Earl and Associates and of all those Fascists who would sacrifice our liberty on an altar of unrestrained greed. Schubert, Hardberger and Castro have all promised fiscal restraint in City spending. But, if only we could get rid of the exploitative influence of parasites like David Earl, we could afford to spend money like drunken sailors to address the real needs of the decent hardworking citizens of San Antonio, and still balance the budget.

A first step to ridding ourselves of these sebaceous cysts on the body politic would be for the City to require them to publicly list not only their clients, but also how much money they receive from each of them, and like the candidates, how they spend it. Wouldn’t this be revealing? The skeletons that would come flying out of that closet would look like the final scenes from Raiders of the Lost Ark. That’s probably why you’ll never see it in your lifetimes.

Transparency in the political process is not something that ends with candidate CFR’s. It must extend to all those who would influence the process as their professions and livelihoods.

Call or email our newly elected officials and let them know to avoid David Earl like the plague. Because that’s exactly what he is. Let them know that you will view any affiliation with him or his associates unfavorably and that you will remember their alliance with his evil on the next Election Day. Between now and the runoff contact both the Castro and Hardberger campaigns and let them know how you feel about hidden money influence in government. Tell them if they do not denounce the influence of lobbyists at City Hall, especially David Earl, that you will actively campaign against them over the next few weeks. If they don’t, it won’t matter whom you voted for on Saturday, or who you choose for Mayor. David Earl and Associates will just buy, threaten and sue their way around your interest to pursue their own agendas. Hell, if you have the cajones, just write David Earl himself at 111 Soledad, San Antonio Texas 78205 or call him at 210-222-1500 and tell him where he can go. If you don’t, the status quo will remain. You vote, David Earl decides, and profits in the bargain.

Great Work San Antonio Bloggers, Take A Bow

2005-05-08T00:52:00.000-07:00

Congratulation fellow San Antonio Bloggers for a great days work. Special kudos go out to The Red State for his live blogging. Also honorable mention to The Jeffersonian for his accurate prognostications. Honorable mention to Burnt Orange Report for covering elections across the state. Honorable mention to Matt for recognizing discretion is sometimes the better part of valor. Special kudo for Newshog for calling a spade a spade, and last but not least, a very special raspberry for anonymous who went to the Salsa Net debates.

Also congratulations and salute to all the candidates and their staffs who have been busting ther humps motivated by optimism and a sense of civic duty. Hats off to you all win or lose.

Get the quick-n-easy results here.
Get Official Results here.

Speaking of Signs

2005-05-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Art Hall, but I meant what I said about liking the idea of the signs. If your driving down Dreamland, at either end you'll see a pair of signs that look suspiciously different from all the others. Keep an eye out for these:

Propositions Pass

2005-05-07T20:59:00.000-07:00

Looks like all the propositions passed. Tax breaks to the elderly in a military retirement town proved more than a little popular. If this portends the future, when the boomers retire we will all be working 25 hour days to make up for their entitlements and self-created tax breaks. I like old folks as much as the next guy but what are we going to do when that's 75% of the poulation? Anyone want to bet on the Me Generation sacrificing its retirement for the benefit of the next generation? I suggest younger workers open up their IRA's sooner rather than later because they will be paying for the retirement of two other people in addition to themselves. Start saving now!

Signs Didn't Stop Art Hall

2005-05-07T20:52:00.000-07:00

In District 8 Art Hall has 50.94% of the vote. Let that be a lesson to you David Earl. The people have spoken, They said no to David Earl and Associates and yes to Art Hall. 50.94% may not be a resounding mandate, but it ain't bad in a 5 man race.

It Takes a Majority of the Whole City to Win. Duhh!

2005-05-07T20:41:00.000-07:00

According to The Red State :

9:41pm - Final numbers: 98.48% reported, Castro 41.81%, Hardberger 30.13%, Shubert 26.43%This was always Casto's to lose. I believe Hardberger has the momentum to push ahead while Castro will have to regroup to figure what to do next. You have to win the city by taking the city, not just a part of it.

This seems to be the lesson of the season. What is hard to fathom is how so self-evident a fact escaped two out of the three overeducated lawyers running for Mayor. It boggles the mind.

Hooray Schubert Conceeds!

2005-05-07T19:31:00.000-07:00

Schubert just conceeded to Hardberger. Why not to Castro, who last I checked was in the lead? Hell, I don't care who he conceeds to as long as he appologizes to all the citizens of San Antonio for his pathetic excuse for a campaign. I guess he wants his votes to go to Hardberger. This was to be expected, but it still does not bode well for Julian in the runoff.

Hardberger's Strategy Paying Off

2005-05-07T18:57:00.000-07:00

Here's a quote by Hardberger from The Red State:

Hardberger: We will continue with our strategy. Julian focused on his base and the Westside. Shubert worked District 8, 9, & 10 and nothing else. We were the only one who worked all 10 districts.I don't see them getting anymore numbers just working the base.

This sounds like it was taken directly from a coiuple of recent posts at this blog. I'm sure it wasn't, but still its interesting. Maybe its like I said, "your going to have to get up early in the morning to head off Phil at the pass."

Amen Brave Heart

2005-05-07T17:58:00.000-07:00

Over at Newshog A very wise Scotsman has made some observations that bear repeating:

"In the main, I would say local media coverage has been singularly uninformative about the various platforms and issues, especially the TV station news. Other than the fact that one mayoral candidate likes to change places with his twin brother at official functions and another is upset about potholes in the roads, the TV told San Antonians nothing about where each candidate stands on the issues."

This is regrettably quite true. WOAI has made an effort with its Follow the Money segments, but the other stations have been deplorably derelict in their duties. Worst among them has been KSAT 12, whose viewers won't know there has even been an election till they read it in USA Today.

"The best coverage by far has come from local bloggers, like the San Antonio Election 2005 blog, The Jeffersonian and Band B blog - but as always the number of people reading blogs is limited."

Who would dispute so self-evident a truth?

"Truthfully, the cult of glorious ignorance here in Southwest Texas stuns me. It stuns locals who managed to get a mind well enough prepared with facts to have a basis to work with too It is particularly bad amongst men, many of whom regard education as somehow unmanly. You can't be a man unless you remain ignorant of all the world's knowledge that doesn't involve cars, football, basketball and the proper use of a barbeque."

If he thinks it stuns a foreigner, try being an aspiring intellectual local male growing up in such an environment. It can actually be hazardous to your health. Ignorance has indeed reached cultic proportions among men. In fact, to use too many big words (these include little words their unfamiliar with) is reason enough to question ones sexual preference. To be interested in culture or history or philosophy is somehow considered effeminate. Witness the declining population of males in Humanities departments at universities, or at universities all together. The Feminist are going to get their wish to rule the world because the cult of the Mook has caused men to abdicate completely. I doubt they’ll do much better than we did, but at least this time it will be their fault.

If you doubt the pervasiveness of Mook Anti-Culture, note that even in this elite bloggosphere, where even the folks I disagree with are smarter than your average bear, when I wrote on the prospects of a San Antonio NFL franchise, the fiber lit up all over town. When I wrote a couple of posts about the Arts… nothing but the sound of crickets. By the way where were you on those posts Newshog?

"Then there's the schools, also known as day-care. The standards of education in Texas are poor by the standards of Georgia. Just ask my teen daughter who has experienced both in the last 12 months. The teachers mostly agree that standards have been dumbed down to the max, but daen't stick their heads up to say so. Texas is not a "right to work" stateYou know, there is something wrong with standards when my daughters school can proudly tout the fact that 930 out of 2,700 pupils got straight "A" grades in every assignment and test for English in the last 12 months. Have school supervisors never heard of the Bell curve? If over a third never failed to get less than 90%, then it's the grading that is wrong, not the students who are doing well"

I wouldn’t mind them constantly raising my property evaluations to pay for public schools if Johnny could actually freaking read! But they take my money, curve the grades, cheat on standardized tests, water down the curriculum, hire incompetent teachers and then hog tie them, pump all the cash into sports and send me the bill. F#*% that. Send me your kid and I’ll teach them to read. (but not to cuss) What's more I’ll see that your kid knows the names Washington, Da Vinci, Socrates, and Moses and can still hold his own if a Mook tries to kick his little butt for it. I might even go down to the little ignorant bully bastard’s house and hand his Daddy his own a#%, for not keeping his little turd in check. What really cheeses me is when I drive by Churchill high school and see all the Cadillac Escalades in the parking lot. Why again am I subsidizing the substandard education and indoctrination of the ignorant spoiled brats of people a hell of a lot richer than me?

Amen to Newshog ! I don’t know why it takes a foreigner to tell us what’s right in front of our faces. Shame on us.

One caution to Newshog though, don’t make the mistake that many carpetbagger Yankees make about the South. Slow talking does not necessarily mean slow-witted. Many a Yankee has lost his wallet that way. Then again, I'll wager many an Englishman has been fleeced due to a similar miscalculation.

Ranten N. Raven's Bash

2005-05-07T15:49:00.000-07:00

Did any one make the blogger's bash at Pavilion #2 at McAllister park? Sorry I missed it. I failed to check The View from the Nest for a couple of days. My bad. Let me know how it was?

Red State Live Blogging Hardberger Campaign

2005-05-07T15:29:00.000-07:00

For a view from the Hardberger offices checkout The Red States live blog at Continue reading "TRS inside the Hardberger Campaign"

From the looks of things, they're going to be feeling pretty upbeat over there.

Don't Vote Euclid: Outsource Instead

2005-05-07T08:12:00.000-07:00

This is a respose to Euclid. If you are not Euclid and are tired of me droaning on about the Arts just click over to Cincinnatus or Charles K. for something more to the Canaanite taste. (No offence to these fine folks intended.)

Great name, by the way. Are you familiar with the painting by Raphael located in the Papal apartments entitled "The School of Athens?" In it, he portrays Socrates as Leonardo da Vinci, but in a grouping of figures in the upper right, he portrays himself in a self portrait as Euclid. So you are in good company.

RE: Which of our mayoral candidates is thinking about art in terms of Santa Fe-like?

None of them are!

Julian sees Art solely in political terms. He views its relevance through the prism of Chicano Art. In the 70's this movement arose as a means of expressing minority resistance to what was believed to be the tyranny of majority culture and its exclusion of minority voices. Unfortunately, this movement was mostly ignored by the New York-based mainstream Art establishment because it focused on the visual narrative and frequently dealt with religious themes. This made it out of step with the Modernist and Pop markets. Besides, the New York scene already had a minority of choice, namely the Queer Art movement, with its highly charged homoerotic imagery. The innately controversial nature of so-called Queer Art's subject matter makes it shocking, and as everybody knows, shock sells. So Chicano Art remained mostly in the barrio preaching to its choir.

Since most Art collectors are wealthy Anglos, Chicano artists have had some difficulty selling their works on the open market. Hence they have tended to focus on murals and Public Art projects for funding. This is where Julian comes in. He sees the role of the public sector as one in which municipal funds are provided to create public works that advocate a particular political point of view. Chicano artists tend to have some pull in their community, so appeasing them is a necessary act for any politician seeking the Chicano vote as his base. But even in this context, Julian's approach is token and self-serving. He would provide some public funds to directly subsidize the livelihoods of a small portion of his constituency. He has no real appreciation of the role of the Arts in general in the community at large, but sees its function only in a parochial context. That this irritates los gringos, is just an added bonus.

I was involved in the production of two of the most significant Chicano Art Exhibitions ever mounted, Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation and the recent exhibit of the works in the collection of Cheech Marin. While I personally have a great appreciation for many of the works produced by Chicano artists, to expect that wealthy Anglo Art collectors are going to be flocking to San Antonio to acquire Chicano masterpieces seems unrealistic. I for one, think this is a greater loss to the Art collectors and museums than to the local Chicano artists. One day the locals will sell their paintings and the Anglo collecting and exhibiting world will come to regret its lack of forsight. Hence Julian's approach is at best insufficient as a means to turning San Antonio into the Santa Fe of Texas. At worst, it represents pandering to ethnic animosity at tax payer's expense.

Phil Hardberger views the Arts as cultural desert. A nice way to top off a day of spending millions on pouring concrete, but ultimately an expendable commodity that represents an unessential economic dietary indulgence. He doesn't know the difference between Chicano Art and Santa Fe style, and unless he is decorating a new country house, he doesn't care. He falls into the "finger-painting is cute when children do it" crowd. As a trial lawyer it takes big money numbers to get his attention and as such, the numbers presented for the Arts don't make his radar. The funds generally proposed amount to pissing in the budgetary ocean. He thinks that resisting such trivial spending is in bad taste and unnecessarily isolates him from potentially encroaching on Julian's base. He would probably not object to throwing a few bucks out there for the occasional Chicano barrio mural as long as he doesn't have to drive by it everyday. As far as a vision for San Antonio as a Cultural Capital of the Southwest, don't look to Phil. If he gets a jones on for culture, he will fly his tax abated jet to a real Cultural Capital somewhere else.

Carroll Schubert is just a philistine. To Carroll, Art is something that concerns queers and Chicanos only. Since he doesn't like either of these groups and they don't vote for him, his attitude is F#%* them. That Western Civilization was built on cathedrals and the Renaissance escapes him entirely. He will not allow one thin dime to be "wasted" on what is to him, at best a capricious indulgence, and at worst a means of subsidizing the undermining of his right-wing political base's ideology. His shadow never darkens the doorway of a museum, so the only thing he knows about the Arts is what the queers and Chicanos tell him, and he doesn't like what he hears. Schubert can be counted on to denounce any investment in the Arts as wasteful, despite the fact that like Hardberger, wasting money by the millions on lining the pockets of developers bothers him not one bit.

Even the cultural elites who sit on Boards of Trustees and various Art Councils around town view this as a hobby. Almost none of these people have a vision of San Antonio as a Cultural Capital. This would put the focus on the Art instead of on them. That would be viewed as counterproductive to their real agendas, namely upward social mobility in their petty little country club worlds. "Civic pride" to these people means having the tailor let out your Cavalier uniform for Fiesta. Unfortunately the outlook for the development of San Antonio as an Art Mecca is bleak at best. At worst, any such endeavor would be actively fought by almost all of the interested parties.

When it comes to the Arts in San Antonio, in essence we're screwed by the bunch of Art-loathing, no-talent, ignorant, dim witted, visionless, unimaginative, parochial, backward, condescending, inept, incompetent, illiterate, bibliophobic, inbred, arrogant, corrupt, miserly, moronic, tasteless, greedy, petty, vain, egomaniacal, misanthropic, mean-spirited, sociopathic, self-dealing, self-serving, self-enriching, self-obsessed, self-deluded, social climbing, glory mongering, peasant stomping, concrete pouring, pencil-d#*k philistines who rule my home town.

Maybe we should just outsource our local government to the folks who run Muleshoe, Texas. At least this would be a step down the road to upward cultural mobility. We might even get fiscal responsibility and clean water to boot.

Sorry if this was more than you wanted to know, but as you can tell, this is my hobbyhorse. When someone puts a nickel in my ear on this subject, I tend to go off like a pachinko machine

Here's More Headline Hoots

2005-05-06T01:58:00.000-07:00

Here's some more jolly juxtapositions for your amusement:

Carroll Schubert Vote for ANYONE but THAT Guy SALightning 4-19-04
Pair Say Offer Bono Job - Express-News - April 15, 2005

Mayoral Candidates Face Off - UTSA Paisano - April 18,2005
The Mean Season Begins - SALightning.com - April 15, 2005

SA Mayoral Candidates Highlight Their Visions - WOAI.com - Mar 14, 2005
Seeing Double in San Antonio - Off the Kuff Blog - April 25, 2005

'Turn the Alamodome into a casino' Ex-News 4-26- 05
I’m Shocked, There’s Gambling in Here SAElection 2005 4-20-05

It's Getting Dirty Down Here - The Jeffersonian Blog - April 17, 2005
CA Stubbs: Are You a City Hall Sucker? - SALightning.com - April 4, 2005

Who Won the Debate? - San Antonio Elections 2005 Blog - April 16, 2005
Mayoral Race - None of the Above - SALightning.com - April 18, 2005

Mayoral Hopefuls Evaluated - SA Express-News - April 11, 2005
Mayoral Hopefuls 'Acting Silly' - MySa.com - Mar 3, 2005

Can Voters Sort Out Mixed Propositions? - Express -News - April 3, 2005
Lesser-Known Mayoral Candidates Clueless on Ballot Propositions - MySA.com - April 2, 2005

Rattlerman: Stay Away From the Brown Acid

2005-05-05T22:31:00.000-07:00

You are so bluffing. What blogs are you reading? Cincinnatus and Cicero would have to be simultaneously bipolar and have multiple personality disorder to be the same person. I don't always agree with his opinions, but he seems like he is of sound mind to me. I can only speak for myself, but it seems Cincinnatus would have to be transgender as well, to be Lori Bravo. I'm hoping Lori's a girl here, otherwise he's going to kick my a*#. I checked at http://www.saelections.com/, and just like they promised, no endorsements there. You keep right on guessin’, but for now it seems you’re just talking out of your rattle.

Given the poor salary and meager prestige of the Mayor of San Antonio, any of the leading candidates for the post would by definition be masochists. So I guess any one of them might interpret some of my recent posts as an endorsement. The $64,000 question isn’t who is Cicero (because you sure don’t know,) but rather, for whom is Cicero voting? I’ll bet you don’t know that either. Stay away from the brown acid.

SA Rattler Needs New Zebco

2005-05-05T13:40:00.000-07:00

Come on Rattlerman, are you bluffing or just fishing?

Castro’s Charm Can’t Cut Caca

2005-05-05T00:16:00.000-07:00

As the saying goes, "Money talks, bull pucky walks." According to recent stats provided by The Jeffersonian the candidates relative financial status looks like:

Phil Hardberger- $219,006.60/$275,786.81/$106,602/$300k
Julian Castro- $111,905.10/$98,349.57/$55,280.08/N/A
Carroll Schubert- $158,115/$397,723.99/$72,476.98/N/A

If you’re going to be out fund raised better than two to one, you’re going to have to get a lot of free publicity to make up the difference. At the beginning of this campaign, Julian seemed to have more than enough intrinsic political capital to contend with this handicap with more alacrity than any other candidate could have reasonably expected.

Julian is charming, young and good-looking. He has a twin brother in politics so he has connections to the machine, and a novelty hook for the media. He is well educated and charismatic. He seems, at least in his own mind, convinced that he has the vision thing down. He can run as an incumbent on the City Council and as a reform candidate simultaneously. He seems to have a promising political career ahead of him, so he is attractive to power brokers who might want to get in on a good thing earlier rather than later. So what has happened to the Barak Obama of South Texas?

Youth, inexperience, hubris and carelessness have lead him to squander his innate political potential. He has received all the free publicity a candidate in his financial position could have hoped for. It just hasn't been exactly the type of free publicity a more seasoned campaigner might have garnered.

1st, he under-reported his campaign finances in January and promised to clear things up on the next filing. When the next filing came in it was far worse than the first, sloppily filled out by hand and riddled with errors. He asserted that it would all be cleared up on yet another re-filing, but this one came in so late that it severely reduces the functionality of such reports to people who concern themselves with such things. His campaign handled this affair at best amateurishly and at worst criminally. That he claimed "personal responsibility" meant little since he blamed anyone who criticized him for this for challenging his integrity. He insisted it was merely incompetence on his part. Since he was a champion of Campaign Finance Reform while on the City Council, this was a definitive case of being hoisted on one's own petard. Julian, like many young men, does not seem to fully realize what "take responsibility" means. Those aren't just words. They mean you must suffer the consequences of your misdeeds, not simply poo poo them.

2nd, when Hardberger called him on this, Julian peevishly lashed out at him in the debate. He took a professional castigation personally and looked petty, immature and politically disingenuous in the process.

As The Jeffersonian notes:

In some news that I found funny, it looks as if campaign manager Philip Cortez got paid in April for blockwalking, while all the females on the campaign were paid for 'services rendered', not as staff members.

3rd, this does not bode well for the future of representative governance in San Antonio. “Services rendered” not only sounds inappropriate, it isn’t exactly in keeping with the spirit of transparency that reporting expenditures is supposed to provide. What are these "services," graveyard transcriptions, ballot stuffing, vote buying? Probably not, but it has happened in San Antonio before, so how do we know? That’s why candidates are supposed to accurately describe their expenditures, so their legitimacy can be verified.

4th, he went out of town to raise money and made the evening news catering to Yankees. Damn Developers is still two words in these parts, but to many the hyphen is still optional in "Damn-Yankee." He protested that at least the foreign money didn't have a local agenda. While this may be true, that dog still don’t hunt around here. That he took all this heat for a relative pittance, showed bad judgment at the very least. The most likely reason he took this course of action was to impress his Yankee college friends. I hope they were amused because most of the locals weren't. Judging by their miserly gifts, Castro's Ivy League buddies weren't either.

5th, when he wanted to spin the media off his CFR debacle, in midweek he torpedoed the City manager candidate in a flip flop that smacked of the worst kind of cynical manipulation of the press. It was such a transparent tactic that it was relatively ineffective for its intended purpose.

6th, he forgot the "KISS rule" of politics. This is the inherent risk in making your campaign about the vision thing. To anyone that has not taken the time or had the ability to check the Castro website, his vision is a mystery. Yeah, we would all like to actually be paid like we lived in the eighth largest city in the country, but who gets excited about being fifteenth and taking years and years to get there? Does anybody really have a clue about how Julian is going do deliver in a tangible way on his illustrious vision? Can anyone really describe the depth and breadth of its grandiosity? You can't get a complicated pipe dream across in sound bites. Look what happened to Kerry.

7th, he managed to use the twin gimmick to get free publicity, just one problem, 90% of the publicity was in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington DC, Los Angeles and Atlanta. None of these folks are voting for Mayor in San Antonio. Instead, thanks to Julian and Joaquin, they are laughing at the people who actually do vote in San Antonio. San Antonians are sensitive about the lack of respect we are already getting from the nation's metroplexes. Most of us did not want to have yet another reason to be mocked by the elites. But as many of us expected, Julian's real loyalty lies more with these Yankee psuedo-intellectuals than with the hardworking, forgotten and exploited peasants of San Antonio. Then again, if you think "the lime and the Julian will make it all better," then you'll probably love the Castros.

Castro was going to need to expand on his constituency if he was going to seriously contend citywide in this election. But he seems to have been so swayed by his own hype that, much like Schubert, he thinks he can win without half of town. No matter how much he protests differently, his actions show otherwise.

Julian appears to have mastered half of the art of free publicity. He just hasn't figured out getting attention solely for being a caninophile is not the best approach. It seems Julian Castro and Bill Clinton have one thing in common, neither one of them can pass up a pooch. We will see if Julian has the chutzpa of the "Come Back Kid." But since he seems to be coated with Velcro instead of Teflon when it comes to his faux pas, I seriously doubt it.

Schubert’s Soul Is Bought, But Hardberger’s Is For Lease

2005-05-04T21:04:00.000-07:00

Hardberger has been telling anyone who will listen that Schubert is bought and paid for by the Developers. Since it is true, Schubert has not even bothered to deny it. What is disturbing is that in order to keep the Developers from buying the Mayor’s seat in San Antonio, Hardberger is having to buy it for himself.

In a recent post at The Jeffersonian , Cincinnatus provides the following numbers for the Hardberger campaign:

Hardberger has raised about $900k which includes a self-donation of $100k and a $300k loan (correct me if I'm wrong). [you're right about this Cincinnatus]

If you want to be Mayor and you don’t want to sell your soul, you have to be able to afford to personally indemnify your integrity. Hardberger has provided his own campaign some $400,000 out of his own pocket. One has to wonder. “Why would someone pay almost half a million dollars out of his own savings to be Mayor of San Antonio?” That’s a whole lot of civic mindedness, or legacy ambition, no matter how you slice it.

Has campaign finance reform had unintended consequences? If a candidate can’t competitively raise funds outside the Development Cabal, do they have to be independently wealthy to run a viable campaign?

Castro has ended up roughly where he started in this campaign due to his much vaunted youthful charisma. If Julian makes it into the runoff, he is going to have to broaden his base by another 10-20% of the electorate, and that’s going to cost money he doesn’t have. Those funders that misplaced their early bets on Schubert are unlikely to come through for Castro in the final days. They will either hold their ammo or offer to help Hardberger pay back some of that $300,000 he loaned himself.

This is problematic because this is a lot of money, not just going into Hardberger’s campaign, but ultimately into his own personal pocket. If he doesn’t raise it and doesn’t win, he will likely personally eat this debt. His personal financial stake in gaining runoff contributions is extravagant to say the least. This puts him in a highly compromised position where his integrity is concerned in the final days. One can only hope that these late donors’ influence over Phil will be mitigated by the fact that they came late to his team. But the late donors’ contributions more directly flow into his personal pocket, thanks to the gargantuan scale of the personal loans he has made to his own campaign.

To further complicate matters, If Hardberger gets elected, he can continue to raise funds after he is in office to pay back this personal loan. This puts him in a haenous looking position when it comes to the appearance of clean hands while he is doing his job. If Hardberger is flush enough to spare it, he should make the loan a gift to his campaign to restore at least the appearance of integrity in the Mayor's office.

If we modify the campaign finance law to limit personal loans from a candidate, then Developer-backed candidates like Schubert are likely to invariably raise ¾ of the money in any future elections. If we don’t limit personal loans from a candidate, they risk personal corruption by virtue of their personal financial liability in a campaign. Either way the Developers end up owning City Hall.

Hardberger may be trying to buy the Mayor’s seat to save us from the candidate who sold his soul. (Although you have to wonder if the people that paid over ¾ of a million bucks for Carroll’s soul have some change coming.) What concerns me is that it appears that Phil might, in the final days, have to at least lease his soul out in order to save his own personal financial a#%.

Schubert's Running for Mayor of Loop Land

2005-05-04T18:07:00.000-07:00

While driving up and down Vance Jackson and West Avenue between Loop 410 and IH 10 earlier today, I noticed copious signs up for both Castro and Hardberger. Most of these weren’t yard signs, but rather the big 4X8’s that the campaigns put up at intersections. Conspicuous by their absence, were any signs for Carroll Schubert, nary a one.

Someone ought to clue old Carroll into the fact, that while its possible to raise all your money on the Northside, you have to at least ask somebody inside NE Loop 410 to vote for you, if you actually want to win. It doesn't take much to make the word liberal stick the word trial lawyer like bull pucky on a boot heal. But it takes more than that to be elected Mayor.

Schubert’s message of "potholes" has some play inside the Loop, but he doesn’t seem to want to taint himself with San Antonio proper. His aversion to being caught dead in any part of town older than 15 minutes begs the question, “What is he running for Mayor of?”

Carroll can’t just run for Mayor of Loop Land, it doesn’t work that way. If he wants to be Mayor of the Alamo City, eventually Schubert is going to have to ask someone who was actually born in San Antonio to vote for him. If he just wants to be Mayor of the carpetbaggers, someone ought to tell him the fate of scalawags around these parts.

Stop Bert Cecconi Signs: More Shenanigans in Dist. 8

2005-05-03T14:15:00.000-07:00

Seems old Bert Cecconi has his own approach to Stop Art Hall, just tear down Art’s signs. I’ve been driving by Art Hall signs on Dreamland and on Callaghan for weeks. But now most of these small Art signs have mysteriously disappeared and giant Bert Cecconi signs have magically turned up in the exact same locations. I don’t have specific knowledge other than what I see just driving by, but if I was Art, I’d be suspicious of coincidences, since someone in his district doesn’t seem to want to play fair.

As I’ve said before, I’m agnostic about District 8, but tearing down Art’s signs is not only chicken$*#%, it is illegal as well. Before you vote for Bert ask yourself if you want a criminal in office. It may not be Bert’s doing directly, but I’ll bet he isn’t loosing any sleep over the shenanigans being pulled for his benefit.

At the risk of offending my Italian-American brethren, I will recount something I was once told by my full-blooded Dego father. I asked him why he wouldn’t be voting for Frank Lombardino back in the 70’s. His answer floored me. He said, “Never vote for an Italian son.” My dad is a notorious Italophile, so coming from him this was an astounding statement. When I asked why, he quoted Federico Fellini, “Italy is a nation of actors. The worst of whom are on stage.” He added, “An Italian politician will look you in the face, smile and tell you the moon is made of green cheese.” He continued, “If you want a fine tailor, architect, interior decorator, or an engineer, go first to the Italians son. But never ask one of us to hold your wallet.” He didn’t know the first thing about Lombardino’s politics, and he didn’t care.

I know that his observations were a gross overgeneralization, and life experience has taught me that all politicians will try and sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. But driving down Dreamland and Callaghan these days I keep thinking of my Papa’s politically incorrect admonition. To this day, while I would be more than willing to buy a new car from a man named Ferrari, I confess I would be very reluctant to by a used car from a man named Cecconi.

Mayoral Debate in a Nutshell

2005-05-02T21:58:00.000-07:00

In perhaps the most blatant and pointless display of pandering to date in this election, the three frontrunners for Mayor came forward to courageously advocate the kissing of babies.

Where do the candidates stand on Early Childhood Development?

Castro—We should start something like Head Start.

Hardberger—I invented Head Start. It was my idea from the beginning.

Schubert---My wife’s a schoolteacher. She says kids who start dumb, stay dumb. She says if I don’t fund it she’ll make me sleep on the couch

Where do candidates stand on After School Programs?

Castro--I will spend more money to teach more poor kids how to play video games.

Hardberger--I’m for anything that keeps them off the streets. I’m tired of throwing them in jail.

Schubert--Let them just go to the YMCA for their cake. We need to save our money for potholes.

What are you going to do about the dismal performance of our school children?

Castro---I would call together all the school superintendents and private school dons and ask them to set goals for improvement.

Hardberger---I’ve already done that. I did it last week. You’re going to have to get up pretty early in the morning to head off this old man.

Schubert---It’s not my job. I want to be Mayor. My wife’s the schoolteacher. Besides, what are we paying those superintendents the big bucks for ($200,000-$400,000/year) if Johnny can’t read?

This debate amounted to bleeding heart questions about how politicians feel about kissing babies. Surprise, surprise, no candidate came forward and said “I hate kids.” Schubert seems to like his own kids better than your kids, although sometimes he’s not so sure about his own either.

I Rest My Case for the Arts

2005-04-29T05:39:00.000-07:00

It is easy to provoke a debate about the unlikely prospect of San Antonio becoming an NFL powerhouse. But mention the word “Art” and the silence is deafening. Football fans disingenuously tout the economic benefits of major league sports to the community, when their real concern is getting a taxpayer subsidy for their hobby. Name one community that has successfully built its entire economic base around Football. Now consider the economic impact of the Arts on cities like Paris, Florence, Rome, Naples, Venice, Athens, Cairo, St. Petersburg, Barcelona, San Francisco, New York and, perhaps most relevant to San Antonio, Santa Fe. Come on, where would you rather spend your next vacation, Tampa Bay or Venice?

The City of New York has over sixty Art museums in a geographic area smaller than the zone inside Loop 410. Their premier Art museum venue is the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which single-handedly attracts over 2,000,000 well-healed tourists a year to the Big Apple. Would anyone seriously suggest that 2,000,000 people a year travel to NYC to see a Jets game? The combined draw of the dozens of its excellent museums has made it the cultural capital of the world. Their combined economic impact dwarfs the revenue brought into the City’s coffers through sports by orders of magnitude.

Santa Fe’s commitment to the Arts is unequivocal and is solely responsible for putting an out of the way little mission town on the map. There are more Art dealers in Santa Fe than auto mechanics. More revenue is generated to their economy through the sale of oil paintings alone than through the combined efforts of all the automobile dealers within a hundred miles of town. The boom to the local economy has been so great over the last twenty years that you now practically have to be a millionaire to afford a house in Santa Fe. The community has literally been overrun with wealthy Californians fleeing the crass materialism of LA to move to Santa Fe’s culturally rich environment.

For over two hundred years San Antonio was the cultural capital of the Southwest. It has been historically to Dallas and Houston what Santa Fe is to Los Angeles. What happened? How did we become a cultural backwater to these mammon centers? Twenty years ago our museums put theirs to shame. The Dallas Museum of Art is still a poser’s joke. The Kimbell Museum in Ft. Worth has a multi-billion dollar endowment, so like the Met it would be hard to catch. But since it only collects masterpieces, its collection is limited and not really designed for educational purposes. The de Menil in Houston is comparable to our McNay, but not significantly better. Until very recently, the San Antonio Museum of Art could easily hold its own against the Houston Museum of Fine Art.

When the Gilbert M. Denman, Jr. collections came to SAMA in the mid-eighties they were the most important collections of Classical antiquity and Egyptian artifacts to come to any museum in the world in over fifty years. The Metropolitan was so impressed with the acquisition that they hired away SAMA’s antiquities curator in the hopes that he could make rain for them like this. SAMA already had the Nelson Rockefeller Collection of Latin American Folk Art at the time, which they later used to draw Rockefeller funds for building the Nelson Rockefeller Center for Latin American Art. So why are we not now the undisputed Cultural Capital of Texas? Simple. We sat on our hands, rested on our Folk Art laurels and confused pouring concrete with building infrastructure. The San Antonio Museum of Art is about to open its third new wing in fifteen years, but has not added a single staff member, new collection or penny of endowment over the same period.

After the construction of the Latin American Art Center nothing was done to actually make it a center of anything. There are no scholars using it as a resource center. The office space that was supposed to be dedicated to the expansion, study, publication and promotion of its collections was turned into storage space and nothing was done to build its collections. Meanwhile the prices of Spanish Colonial paintings went from $30,000 a piece to $3,000,000 and a critical window of opportunity closed. SAMA hired an inexperienced Developmenet Officer to raise funds, and then paid that person less than $30,000 per year. Would you hire an emaciated chef? Local Art patrons did not want to be upstaged by Houstonian money and have their local influence compromised, so nobody on the staff at SAMA felt free to search outside of town for monetary and Art resources, lest they offend their birds in the hand. These birds demanded the museum spend large amounts of its scarce resources constantly throwing them parties in which precious few funds were raised, but an exclusive good time was had by all the aristocrats in attendance. In the mean time, these dilatants proceeded to hound the professionals mercilessly and tell them how to do their jobs while squeezing their nickels so tight the buffalos bellowed. The San Antonio Museum of Art has just announced its decision to promote its Latin American Art Curator, Marion Oettinger, to the Director's post. This is the same individual who spent the last twenty years fiddling as SAMA burned. But as a sycophant his talents are unsurpassed, so his tenure is likely to be eternal.

A museum is not simply a warehouse for a dragon’s horde. It is an educational institution that is supposed to serve the entire community, not just the vanity of its patrons. By way of comparison, the Denver Museum of Art has some 20,000 works in its collections, while SAMA has over 50,000 of finer quality. Denver has over 30 curators on staff and 33 educators. SAMA has 2 curators and 1 ½ people working in the education department. Conversely, SAMA has over 70 members on its Board of Trustees, most of who are in arrears on their dues. Talk about too many chiefs and not enough Indians. This has the effect of neutralizing the professional staff and empowering the aristocrats to maintain the institution as their personal caprice rather than a civic asset. While they danced, Houston rocked.

Houston’s Fine Art Museum hired a rock star director, rather than a “second rate” one, for over $2,000,000 per year, but he has proceeded to earn his keep. He has launched a $60,000,000 fund raising campaign and is ahead of schedule. He is determined to make Houston and not San Antonio, the Latin American Art center of the universe. It appears he is going to succeed. In the meantime San Antonio is getting left in the dust due to our own pettiness, lethargy, incompetence and miserliness. Opportunities like this come along once in a century and if you miss them it’s impossible to catch up later.

When even a city’s Art patrons view the Arts as an expense rather than an asset, why should the citizens feel any differently? Despite years of gross mismanagement, San Antonio’s museums still contain collections that rival or surpass any within a thousand miles of here. San Antonio very well could and should be the Cultural Capital of Texas. If, like Santa Fe, we were willing to make the commitment, money and tourism would come rolling into the local economy. Newsflash folks…Art tourists spend a lot more money than Sea World tourists. They are also less fickle than sports fans. They will build second homes in your community and spend money for months at a time rather than a weekend. Not to mention the fact that the Denver Museum employs more people and does more for the intellectual health of the community than the combined forces of the Nuggets and the Broncos put together.

Supporting the Arts does not simply mean paying too much money for the mediocre works of your friends, who would have had difficulty selling them on an open market without a taxpayer subsidy. Civic support for the Arts means committing to a city’s long term Arts infrastructure. Infrastructure should not be interpreted as simply concrete. It means hiring competent professional staff and retaining them. It means building healthy programs and endowments that serve an entire community, not just the egos of its wealthiest members. It means seeing that every student in town is at some point taken downtown to the museums on busses or mule back, if that’s what it takes, to experience the edification that exposure to real fine Art provides. It means firing Philistine principals that think Art is not important. It means incorporating Art into the Mathematics, History, Social Studies, Science and Literature curriculums in grades K-12. It means promoting your institutions world-wide. It means putting your money where you mouth is. It means realizing that Art is the protein of a city’s intellectual diet, not just desert. It means acknowledging that a city’s intellectual health is critical to creating economic growth.

With Houston’s museum director raising over $50,000,000 under his own horsepower, it is highly likely that when he goes to City Hall to get the final $2,000,000, they will see the self-evident value of the Arts, and Houston’s taxpayers will be more than willing to oblige. In fact their meager investment will look like a real bargain when they compare it to the cost of a new Astrodome for the Texans.

Why Carroll Doesn’t Get the “Arts” and Neither Do We

2005-04-28T05:29:00.000-07:00

"Ars Gratia Artis" is a Latin phrase meaning "Art for the sake of Art.” To expressionistically inclined creative types this statement sounds profound and it has been their mantra for over a century. Such folks maintain that it is Art alone that requires no justification. Hence we have spent a century producing Art that is unjustifiable and as such culturally irrelevant. “Art for its own sake” is like saying “Art for no reason.” If you are not a touchy feely creative type, this translates into “no reason for Art.” So you can’t really blame Carroll for lack of enthusiasm for spending money for “no reason.”

While nobody seems to agree on the definition of Art, most people would agree that a world without it is an undesirable place. Yet how many of us would be thrilled to hear that our son is dropping out of med school to get a PHD in Art History? How many would greet the news that our daughter is marrying an artist with enthusiasm? The profession of Art Critic is universally reviled, by artists and audiences alike. Why is this?

This is because after a century of “Art for no reason,” now deep down inside, none of us can think of a good reason for Art. If you are going to spend money for something or accord respect to it, it is only common sense that there better be a good reason.

I am reminded of the time a frustrated local high school teacher wanted to bring her class to the San Antonio Museum of Art and was told by her principal that they could not go. His first objection was that it would cost too much money to put them on busses to take them down there. When she protested that the school took out a dozen busses a week for sporting events, his response was telling. He said, “That’s different. That’s for a good reason.” Not to be deterred the teacher responded, “This is a good reason.” The principal retorted, “We are trying to prepare these children for the real world. In the real world you cannot make a living as an artist. So get out of my office and don’t bother me with this again.” Now there are so many things wrong with what happened here that I could hardly list them all. Coincidentally, this took place in a school in Carroll’s District. But that is actually insignificant, because dozens of teachers from all over town have told me similar tales of woe.

The teacher in this story was teaching her class in World History about the Romans. At SAMA there is an entire sculpture gallery dedicated to marble statues of Roman emperors, citizens, philosophers and deities. It might come as a surprise to some of you who think like the principal, but under no circumstances will you ever enter this gallery and find ongoing lessons in how to carve a naked emperor out of white marble with a bronze chisel. That’s not why it is there. It is there to provide physical examples of the Roman world for its viewer’s edification. That’s edification folks, not amusement. It is not “there because it is there,” as some of the touchy feely types insist. It is there for a very good reason. It is there to help us understand the Romans. Remember them? Those are the dead guys who invented the idea of the Republic. Adjacent to these statues is an entire gallery dedicated to Greek vase ware. Remember the Greeks? Does the word "Democracy" sound familiar? It is because words like “Republic” and “Democracy” are important that these galleries are important. When we can no longer remember the identities of men like Marcus Aurelius or Socrates and appreciate their ideas and use their images to instruct ourselves as well as our young, then the loss of words like “Republic” and “Democracy” is not far behind.

The Arts are not important because they teach us how to be artists. They are important because they teach us how to be human. They instruct us in history, civics, justice and morality. Perhaps this is why politicians view them as such a low priority, because it serves their interests to do so. This is not to say that if we just throw money at finger painting classes for kindergarteners we will usher in Utopia. But, if we ignore or devalue the Arts we will certainly create Dystopia. Too often Art is viewed like bicycling. Fine for children, but demeaning to adults. Even when the focus is on the young, it is viewed as a distraction from the three R’s. This is tragically ironic, since these used to be called Arts and Letters, and were considered to be essential to a well-rounded education.

Public Art funding is generally viewed as graft for a few well-connected guys with berets who want to use our tax dollars to offend us. Too often artists have viewed it as their role to castigate the bourgeoisie with their work and have considered biting the hand that feeds them an act of integrity. Not surprisingly, taxpayers find using their funds for what amounts to a bad reason even more distasteful than spending their money for no reason at all.

On Monday night the Westside Arts Coalition sponsored an event in collaboration with Salsa-Net and the Cultural Alliance of San Antonio to put questions to the frontrunner candidates for Mayor on their proposed policies for funding the Arts. Where the candidates come down on Art’s funding in the real world amounts to this:

Castro favors uncritically funding artists of dubious talent to offend the bourgeoisie at their own expense. This is because the beret wearers are his constituents and this is their favorite sport. That they can get the taxpayer to fund it only makes it more fun.

Hardberger favors funding finger-painting for children, because it’s cute. Phil also favors the occasional bone thrown to the beret crowd to broaden his base, and because for some reason he does not really understand, Art like vegetables is supposed to be intrinsically good for you.

Unfortunately this is not necessarily the case. Bad Art, like bad food, can be bad for you. That’s why we need professional Art Critics. While we may all know what we like, we don’t in fact all know what is good. We are not all Cordon Blue chefs or gourmets. We cannot all afford the years of dedicated study and expense to become them. But Art Critics are necessary if we are not all to be fed Macdonald’s and billed for Château Briand. In addition Bad Art can put you off Art altogether, much like a bad meal in a Chinese restaurant might put one off Chinese food for a long time. After a couple of bad meals, you might decide you can do without Chinese food altogether. The consequences of Bad Art are a spiritual and intellectual malnutrition throughout an entire society. Occasionally, it is even poisonous.

So where does all this leave Carroll?

Schubert just doesn’t get it, so he doesn’t even pretend to want to provide money for “no reason.” He doesn’t know the difference between Good Art and Bad Art. He probably hasn’t even spent much time considering what kind of Art he likes and why. Must have been a bad meal that keeps alive the memory of indigestion. Besides, can you imagine Carroll in a beret?

Our various local Art Boards and Commissions are either populated mainly by people who know nothing about Art but what they like, or by artists with a vested interest in self-promotion. Until the whole community, politicians, patrons, principals, teachers, students, artists, and viewing public alike, reevaluates its entire approach to the Arts, City funding will be token. The Art specialist will be the professional equivalent of an Officer Dunsil in our society at best and a conman with his hand out at worst. Our Art will be culturally irrelevant schlock that nobody wants to see or pay for, except those who get paid to make it.

While, as regular readers know, it pains me to say something positive about Carroll Schubert, but on this one I give him grudging respect. As far as he can see, the current “Emperor has no clothes” and Carroll understandably sees no point in paying the tailors.

The Jeffersonian Scores a Field Goal

2005-04-26T23:38:00.000-07:00

For another view of the NFL and the fate of the “Dillo Dome” check out The Jeffersonian . He makes some valid observations there and points out that San Antonio is in fact the 37th largest media market. My bad.

He postulates that San Antonio’s principal obstacle to an NFL franchise is that it would have to take place over the dead bodies of Dallas and Houston. Well Cincinnatus, that’s a lot of dead bodies and my experience leads me to believe that when time comes to legitimately consider expanding to San Antonio, those folks are not likely to play nice. As Cincinnatus points out there is not an insignificant disparagement of income between the populous of San Antonio and either of these metroplexes. San Antonio has about as much chance of defeating their combined forces as Tampa Bay has of accumulating more NFL championships than Dallas.

Cincinnatus also points out that an NFL franchise is not sufficient to book a domed venue into the black. I’m no expert on New Orleans either, but I seem to recall reading in various places that their Dome adventures have been a financial debacle for their city. The Saints had a few good years back in the days of Kenny Stabler. Soon afterward the shine wore off, but the debts continued. In light of the recent soccer proposal, I don't see how a Dome can ever be profitable if we keep negotiating away all its revenue streams to anyone who will book their events there.

Regarding pulling from Austin’s media market, I am highly skeptical. From my observations IH 35 might as well be a one-way street headed north. Lots of headliner music acts book Austin and not San Antonio because San Antonian’s are conditioned to drive north for their cool fix. Promoters almost never book San Antonio and not Austin with the presumption that Austinites will drive south. In fact, the zeitgeist of Austin is generally highly condescending with regards to San Antonio. I’ll bet Austinites will become passionate jai lai fans before they condescend to drive south and admit their cultural inferiority just to see a football game. After all they have the Longhorns if they need a personal pigskin fix.

San Antonio Election Headline Hoots

2005-04-26T07:47:00.000-07:00

If you juxtapose the titles of some of the hundreds of news stories, articles, editorials and blogs that have been published on the San Antonio elections this season, you might find hilarious results. Here are some of my Headline Hoots award winners:

Seeing Double in San Antonio - Off the Kuff Blog - April 25, 2005
Early vote coming at faster pace - Express-News - April 26, 2005

See Crooks. See Crooks Run (for Office) - Dead Can't Rant Blog - Ap 17, 05
Show them the money - SA Current - April 21, 2005

Sheryl Sculley - Hither and Yawn - SALighting.com - April 4, 2005
Awake San Antonio -SAWorship.com

Scribbles Vs. Typing - The Red State Blog, April 18, 2005
Stop Graffiti (Dominick Dina, Dist 6) - SANewspaper.com - April 12, 2005

Bumper to Bumper (Dist. 8) - SA Current - April 14, 2005
Residents can follow Castro twins closely - Express-News - April 24, 2005
Candidate Auctions Bumper Sticker - WOAI.com - April 18, 2005

Does Joaquin Float? - San Antonio Election 2005 Blog - April 21, 2005
My Water Tastes Funny - The Red State - April 6, 2005

Mayoral Mud Could Start Flying - Express-News - April 17, 2005
New Tidbits from the Campaign Trail - SALightning - April 17, 2005

The Sump Hole: District 7 Bring your galoshes - SACrnt April 21, 05
Don't Look Now, But You Are Standing Next to a Bottomle$$ Pit - Express-News -

44 Hats in Ring for this Year's City Election - Express-News - Mar 8, 2005
My Head's About to Explode - The Jeffersonian Blog

Search for Next City Manager Fanning Flames in Mayor's Race - SABJ Ap 05
Firemen Support Castro for Mayor - KENS5 - Mar 23, 2005 (Video)

To find a comprehensive list of links to San Antonio elections related articles go to http://www.saelections.com/ and make your own jolly juxtapositions. That’s what I did. It’s a real hoot.

Phil Hardberger: Yet Another Business as Usual Candidate

2005-04-26T01:49:00.000-07:00

When Phil Hardberger talks about bringing an NFL franchise to San Antonio he’s just shining us on. In a recent interview with the SA Business Journal Phil states:

"We have talked and I have asked Red if he would be willing to help me explore the possibilities of whether the NFL will truly consider us."

Hardberger says he will commit, within his first 100 days in office, to seek a meeting with the NFL and determine if San Antonio has a legitimate shot at landing a team. If it does, Hardberger says he would make a real push for such a franchise.

"If it's not a real possibility," he says, "then we go on about our business elsewhere."

Renovation costs for the Alamodome will no doubt be a factor in any NFL discussions. (No doubt they will, Phil) But Hardberger says the city has no shot if it isn't willing to take the matter seriously.

Here are the operative words in the above quote, “explore,” “truly,” “legitimate,” “real,” “elsewhere.” and “no shot.” That’s a lot of qualifiers that amount to what Hardberger is really saying, namely, “I don’t want to be a buzz-kill folks, but fat chance.” That a politician is reluctant to just deliver bad news in a straightforward manner is not much of a surprise.

Further on in the same interview at SABJ, Hardberger drops a bomb on all those that think he is their “great white hope” for a return to integrity at City Hall. For all you Schubert bashers out there (as regular readers know, that includes this writer) don’t look to Phil to be your savior, as this quote from the interview suggests:

Equally destructive as the effects of term limits, according to Hardberger, has been "the exclusion of the business community from the affairs of the city." That combination, he contends, could pave a certain path to disaster.

"San Antonio is a city with a $1.5 billion budget," Hardberger explains. "That's by definition a Fortune 500 company. But it's being run by people who, by and large, have no real business experience. I want to put business back in the business of city government in San Antonio."

Here are the operative phrases from this quote, “exclusion of the business community,” “no real business experience,” “business back in the business of city government.” It just sends chills down your spine, don’t it?

It is not the business of government to declare war on the business community, nor is it the business of government to climb into bed with them. Presumably by “no real business experience” Phil is referring to the utter lack of competence that pervades the City Council. About that he’s correct. What I am not clear on is how a trial lawyer whose principal “business experience” is derived from suing businesses is going to bring “real business experience” to City Hall.

“Exclusion of the business community...bring business back into the business of city government,” give me a break Phil. Where do you think David Earl and Associates keeps their cot, if not at City Hall? Judging by the coincidence between a list of Earl’s clients, Schubert’s campaign contributors and the largest contributors on Hardberger’s CFR, I’ll wager the Business, Lobbyist and Council Member orgy that goes on Downtown will continue uninterrupted.

Of course if you are an optimist, maybe you'll conclude he was just pandering. Afterall, he was talking to the Business Journal.

A Dome for No Reason

2005-04-25T20:49:00.000-07:00

My mama once told me that if you try to be all things to all people, you will never be anything special to anyone. I am reminded of this every time I hear the City’s new tag line “A Dome for All Reasons.” Really? Name them. Yeah, that’s just what I thought.

The Alamo Dome, also known as the “’Dillo Dome” to some local residents for its resemblance to inverted road kill on IH 35, is worse than useless, it’s an expensive attractive nuisance.

WAKE UP football fans. We are never going to get an NFL football team in San Antonio. NEVER-EVER-EVER!!! It does not matter if we are the eighth, or tenth, or whatever largest city in the country. San Antonio is the fortieth largest media market, and that is all you need to know folks. It spells our doom. It wouldn’t matter if you moved the Coliseum in Rome to San Antonio and reinstalled it brick by brick. If nobody’s watching on television, then it is a permanent negative cash flow proposition. The NFL does not do negative cash flow. Nor are they going to be satisfied with our road kill on IH 35. The first thing an NFL franchise would do, if they lost their collective minds and came to town, would be to demand to tear down the “Dillo Dome” and start from scratch on a new $500,000,000 fiasco at tax payer’s expense. If you don’t believe it, just ask Red why he sold the Vikings.

Think about it. Did you ever wonder why it seems the entire country is rooting against the Spurs every time they are in the playoffs? It is simple really. If the Lakers win the championship Sports Illustrated will sell millions of its hardbound championship editions. The same is true if the Bulls or the Knicks win. If San Antonio wins, Sports Illustrated sells maybe a dozen copies. Now if you’re a Time/Life stockholder, for whom are you rooting? The same math applies to television sports broadcasters as well. It applies to small businessmen and giant retailers who sell jerseys to fans. It applies to footwear companies like Nike and Reebok. If a San Antonio team wins anything, it literally sends a negative shockwave through the entire nation’s economy. And you thought they just didn’t like us.

Soccer is no magic bullet either. Its economics are marginal at best in the largest media markets, let alone in the Alamo City. Spending $22,000,000 on ‘Dillo improvements isn’t going to change the irrefutable economic realities that being the fortieth largest media market implies.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news San Antonio, but professional sports is not going to be the magic potion that restores our collective self-esteem. It and the accompanying illusion of prosperity it is supposed to bring might however be our financial ruin. As long as the Alamo Dome exists it costs money and it presents bait for hustlers. It is an irresistible attraction for those who would loot the public coffers to fill their own pockets, while showing us a shiny piece of glass and telling us it’s the Hope diamond.

I agree with Mike Greenberg at the Express News on this one. Tear down the Dome and put up a grocery store or affordable housing or something else useful that isn’t an attractive nuisance to the City. Preferably something that doesn’t present the constant temptation to sell the citizens on the illusion of prosperity if they only provide yet more of their hard earned tax dollars to millionaires from abroad.

According to Hardberger, "We've got too much money in it to bulldoze it. But it's losing money, and that's a bad situation to be in..." Yeah, I had a business like that once. I kept pouring good money after bad into it until I lost my life savings. What a drag.

If you’re a sports fan, that’s great. Buy a 50” High Deff Flat screen TV with surround sound instead. It’s cheaper and I won’t have to pay for it.

Suit Filed in Federal Court Seeks Government by the "Elected" Rather Than the "Chosen"

2005-04-25T19:15:00.000-07:00

Today Rhett Smith refiled paperwork for his lawsuit in Federal District Court. He is suing WOAI, KLRN and the Greater Chamber of Commerce for violating his civil rights and the terms of their broadcast licenses by excluding him, as well as other candidates, from the televised debates.

Rhet says that he is getting legal advice and is currently looking nationwide to find a qualified attorney to take up his case. Apparently there is not a lot of pre-existing case law dealing with such matters, but Rhet is seeking a litigator who is willing to help him make some. If he succeeds, this could have widespread consequences for inclusion in the public sphere. Perot and Nader fans may not share Rhett’s politics, but they should keep and eye on his case, as it may set precedent for future case law that affects them as well.

KLRN is partially funded directly by your tax dollars and they have a legal obligation not to take sides in an election. Rhet says that the exclusion of his campaign as well as Oldham’s, Idrogo’s and Caldwell’s from the debates constitutes doing that very thing. WOAI is a broadcast channel and is as such subject to the Fairness Doctrine if it wants to keep its broadcast license and its free access to a High Deff channel at your expense. It is hard to imagine how excluding legally registered candidates from the debates constitutes “fairness.” Unlike WOAI, KLRN and the Greater Chamber, the judge apparently agrees that Rhet deserves a hearing on the matter.

Keep an eye out for more news on this front. Rhet, Julie, Michael and Everet are not the only marginalized candidates running this season. If Rhet gets support from some of these other disenfranchised folks, there may be a photo op with more participants than the debates. This will give San Antonians the real picture of local politics in which it is the majority that is excluded.

Rhet Smith is seeking compensatory and punitive damages in the case. While he is unlikely to get satisfaction in time for this election, if he wins in Federal Court, the next round of elections in San Antonio may include televised debates with all the candidates, instead of only the “chosen ones.”

I suspect I am not the only San Antonian that wishes him luck in his suit. It would be nice to finally be governed by the elected rather than the chosen.

Thanks Again Fellow Bloggers

2005-04-25T06:20:00.000-07:00

Shout out to The View from the Nest, But That's Just My Opinion, and again to Off the Kuff, and to The Jeffersonian for recent mentions of this blog on their sites.

Stop Art Hall “Signs” Are A Great Idea

2005-04-23T04:55:00.000-07:00

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying stopping Art Hall is great idea. I personally don’t care if you stop Art Hall or not. I don’t have a preference one way or another. What I am saying is the “signs” are a great idea.

Did you ever have that sensation that you were so frustrated with an elected official, any official, that you didn’t care who replaced them so long as they just threw the current bum out? I have. How many of you have felt this way so strongly that you’d be willing to spend a couple hundred dollars to send him packing?

You don’t really like either of the opposition candidates all that much, and if you give money to one of them you risk alienating the other challenger. The two challengers will start to campaign against one another rather than the incumbent. This works in the incumbent’s favor. The most affective thing you can do to oust a sitting official that has more than one challenger is not to give money to either candidate. If the current bum has got to go, spend your money on your own signs that just say, “Throw the Bum Out.” I can’t believe I never thought of it!

Art Hall has a point, if you do this you should put your name on all of them so people know that if you have a notorious personal beef with the incumbent over a zoning deal, then people can know to take that into account when they consider your opinion. That’s only fair. (For those of you who are going to protest that this author uses a pseudonym, if you read carefully I have never and will never tell you who to vote for -- or not to vote for. I am skeptical of anyone who seeks power.)

It seems to me in District 8, Chris Pettit wants you to think Art Hall is a bum. Your job is to find out, “who the heck is Chris Pettit and why does he think Art’s a bum?” Don’t just believe the signs, do your homework. Chris Pettit is suing the City about a zoning dispute on which Art voted against him and in favor of a neighborhood association. The interesting tidbit here is that Chris’s lawyer in that suit is David Earl and Associates. David Earl is the biggest lobbyist in town, he has more lobbying business than the other entire registered lobbyist core put together. His client list reads like a who’s who of the local development, real estate and the concrete establishment. He is the character people are referring to when they say, you have to pay to play – David Earl and Associates is whom you pay.

Art says that he is standing up to the “business as usual” crowd and hence he has made enemies who are running a stealth campaign against him. He may be right, or he may not, I don’t know. All I know is Art apparently thwarted the “pay to play” guy and on principle, I kind of like that. Or did he? Maybe Art just shut down Chris Pettit so Chris would have to go to Earl and make his deposit. I don’t know. Either way you pay David Earl as a lobbyist and the Council votes your way, or you don’t pay what resembles protection and you have to come back to the Don if you want to sue for a chance at round two. No matter what, David Earl seems to get his money and whatever a Councilperson does ends up looking fishy. That Earl and Associates both lobbies and sues the City for multiple powerful clients simultaneously appears to be a conflict of interest at best, and a way of intimidating our elected officials and shaking down people with business before them at worst.

On the other hand, I really like the idea of the signs. I mean just the signs. David Earl can go jump in the river. But, darn those signs are a good idea! I really really wish I’d thought of them.

Maybe we should pool our resources and buy some signs that just say,

“Stop David Earl.”

What Passes for Justice is Criminal

2005-04-22T16:03:00.000-07:00

In a comment in response to "Is Bexar County Jail..." Anonymous writes:

"to even use the term "corrections" when referring to these officers implies that some sort of "fix" is taking place, when clearly that is not the case in the US prison system. Prisons in the US create criminals, they don't rehabilitate, correct, or otherwise turn "criminals" into productive members of society...Our elected officials keep creating new laws in order to put MORE people into prison, and they make laws to keep them in prison longer. This is really suspect given that more and more prisons are turned over to the private sector as "commercial ventures". Businesses that are running prisons have a vested interest in Putting more people in prison* Keeping people in prison longer...I think the entire US prison system (perhaps the entire "justice" system that doesn't dole out anything remotely related to justice) is despicable"

"Corrections" is actually a euphemism, but that is the official name on their badges, so that is the term I used, despite the fact that precious little "correcting" takes place in "the system."

While simply adding more under-trained, under-paid, under-rotated personnel will make little difference, I still maintain that fewer guards makes the existing staff more afraid, more alienated, more insular and hence meaner than they might otherwise be. While most of the incarcerated are there too long for offences that should not require extended jail time, I am reminded of an observation made by Richard Pryor. Now, Richard was no fan of "the system" but after spending some time at an Arizona state facility while making a movie, he observed that he was "glad we had jails because some of these people are really scary and you wouldn't want to meet them on the street." It is because of the psychopathic and sociopathic individuals that are in prison that the non-violent offenders need more guards to protect them from this very dangerous portion of the population. More supervisory personnel on each tier would make the lives of these unjustly incarcerated slightly less horrific. The role of a prison guard is not simply to keep prisoners from escaping, but rather is principally to protect the inmates from one another. Tragically, after being socialized in a prison for a period of time, the guards tend to become almost as dangerous as the sociopaths, hence the need for furloughs, councelling and rotation.

A "privatized" prison system is indeed an anathema because it creates a profit motive for incarceration. Companies like Wackenhut routinely pour fortunes into political campaigns not simply to get the private contracts being doled out, but also to increase the lengths of sentences and the types of crimes that require incarceration. This is a perversion of justice. Prisons should be expensive to maintain, and should always be a negative cash flow endeavor for the state so that there will always be a disincentive to unnecessarily incarcerate the accused. They should also be well managed, humane and safe for those that have no choice about being there, as well as for those who work in them.

I once worked for an organization that had contracted Wackenhut for "security." They routinely understaffed the facility, their "guards" stole money from the cash registers, vandalized the property and harassed the legitimate employees of the institution. The Wackenhut company double billed the organization repeatedly and threatened to sue if their overcharges weren't paid. Forget the fact that the only "criminals" on the premises were their employees. Paying Wackenhut for "security" was like hiring the cat to watch the canary. We fired Wackenhut and hired our own security guards and the problems ceased. There is not another corporation is this country that has as many thieves, rapists and murderers on its payroll. I wouldn't hire Wackenhut to run a kennel, let alone a prison.

As anonymous astutely observes, prisons are only one portion of a "criminal justice system" that is so named because throughout the entire process "what passes for justice is criminal." Before you decry this as " another liberal advocating the coddling of criminals," you should know that I gradually came to this position after years of listening to sheriffs, police officers, prosecutors and judges who eventually persuaded me that the system was desperately in need of reform. The system discriminates based on education, socioeconomic class and race at every stage of the process. I fear that little progress will be made until more upper-middle-class whites end up as its victims. Unfortunately, this won't happen unless the system becomes even more totalitarian than it already is, so I hesitate to wish for such a thing.

What the ordinary citizen has to ask himself is, "Do you feel lucky, punk?"

Regrettably, until "law abiding" people begin to realize that "there but for the grace of God go I," injustice will undoubtedly prevail.

Thanks to the Blogosphere!

2005-04-22T02:21:00.000-07:00

Thanks for all the mentions in the blogosphere. This is a new blog that is dedicated to a narrow topic and will have a relatively short lifespan. Given these facts, the response has been exceptional and the support of the blogging community is very much appreciated.

Particular thanks go out to The Red State, Off the Kuff, Burnt Orange Report, DeadCantRant, The Agonist, and The Jeffersonian. I hope you folks have gotten as much out of this blog as its author has from yours.

San Antonio Election 2005 was created to serve the entire political spectrum, conservative, liberal, moderate and independent. I hope all its readers find it interesting even if they don't always agree with what they discover here.

Again, thanks for your support.

Is Bexar County Jail Another Abu Gharib? Probably.

2005-04-21T20:12:00.000-07:00

In a recent press conference, Michael Idrogo ( Campaign Web Site ) candidate for Mayor, demanded the City reopen it's own jail and cancel all contracts with Bexar County Jail due to reports of ongoing TORTURE.

“In one report, an inmate apparently named Braunig, was tortured so badly that his tongue was swollen to the size of a cow's tongue; it appeared a second nose was growing out of the bridge of his nose; and a tracheotomy was performed in apparent attempts to keep him alive. It further appears that in-house jail medical staff assist in covering it up.”

For all you folks who think it can’t happen here, check out the recent events at Abu Gharib. Many have been willing to turn a blind eye to those events, and to torture in general, on the grounds that it is essential to fight terror. Bull pucky!! It has nothing to do with fighting terror and everything to do with human nature.

The torturers at Abu Gharib did not learn their craft in Iraq. They mastered it in the American civilian prison system, where most of them were employed before their deployment, and where such practices are notoriously widespread.

If you think such behavior is un-American, you’re absolutely correct. If you however believe that American government employees don’t perpetrate such acts every day on American civilian citizens, then you are dangerously naive.

Jailers torture their inmates because that’s what people do when they are given absolute power over those in their charge. It is only natural. If you doubt this fact, I refer you to The Stanford Prison Experiment: A Simulation Study of the .... If you believe such events are aberrations because their honest jailer colleagues will prevent or report any such behavior they witness, I refer you to The Milgram Experiment: A Lesson in Depravity. If you think our jailors are professionals, I suggest you blow off getting your GED and just get a job in the Corrections Department.

Prisoner abuse is not the fault of a few bad apples. The responsibility lies on all of us. There is always money for lucrative building contracts for new prisons but never enough funds for hiring more Corrections officers, or raising their salaries to a living wage, or for training and psychological support services, or for cameras and supervision. Even these measures would not be enough. Corrections officers need to be rotated and furloughed for disciplinary and psychological reasons. The stress of being a prison guard is immense and the strain would eventually get to a saint. Nobody’s psyche or character could sustain such assaults day in and day out, year after year, and not sustain traumatic damage. Check out the statistics on Delayed Stress Syndrome among ex-corrections officials.

For these reasons this writer believes that while well intentioned, Michel Idrogo’s demand will prove futile. Just changing the bureaucratic jurisdiction of responsibility for prisoners will accomplish little, if anything. In fact, it may be counterproductive. The resulting disorganization during any such transition period might inadvertently increase the likelihood of torture and neglect in the Bexar County Jail.

I salute Mr. Idrogo’s call for justice for the least among us. It is a courageous position to take that will probably get him very few votes. But, if more politicians had concerned themselves with such issues twenty tears ago, the honorable individuals who serve in this nation’s military might not have been so shamed by the behavior of those who merely did what came naturally to them.

For the time being, my bet is that politicians will continue in self-serving cowardice when it comes to justice for the incarcerated and torture will continue to be widespread in the corrections system. So if you don’t have a 15-inch bicep and a taste for man-flesh, I suggest you keep your nose very clean indeed; because if you get incarcerated in Texas, you will loose more than just your freedom. You will likely loose you teeth and your chastity as well. You may even loose your life.

With Runoff Likely, Front Runners Ignore the Outsiders at Their Own Peril

2005-04-21T05:42:00.000-07:00

For a brief period WOAI had an unscientific running poll up and, while it lasted it showed some interesting data. Hardberger was ahead in the high 40’s, Julian was in the 20’s, Schubert was sitting around 12%, and very interestingly, Smith was at a whopping 8% and climbing with Oldham at 2% and the other candidates hovering around 1% each. Then, mysteriously, as soon as I had seen it, WOAI took down the poll. Hmmmm.

8%+2% +1%+1%=12%=the same amount of support as Carroll Schubert. Let me get this straight, with approximately $1,000,000, Carroll only managed to build the same size base of support as the combined support of the four little guys, who according to the City Clerk’s office have raised absolutely nothing. (more on theses candidates CFR status in later blogs)

Rhett Smith’s base is ¾ the size of Carroll’s yet it is unthinkable to include him in the debates? I don’t get it. If Juliian drops below 12% are all the cool politerati going to stop inviting him to their reindeer games as well? I don’t care what your politics are, if you’ve written a check to the Carroll Schubert campaign, you must be wanting your money back right about now. If he can’t bury the likes of the current Rhet Smith campaign while sitting on a $1,000,000 howitzer, then as a campaigner, he’s just a schmuck.

These figures have implications for Julian and Phil as well. Would either of these candidates ignore Schubert’s constituency in the likelihood the two of them made it into the runoff? I’ll wager not. They would be hustling the Northside for all its worth. The combined forces of the smaller campaigns could have the effect of being a spoiler in the final days. What makes the major campaigns so cocky?

Who are these people supporting the rear guard, do the frontrunners even know? Do you? Since nobody reports on their campaigns or invites them to the debates, probably not. Could their forces coalesce to be a factor in this election? You, bet they could.

Scuttlebutt has it that Rhett and Julie Oldham are buddies. While Julie is ignored in more mainstream circles, she has quite a following on the fringe. They might not all vote for her on Election Day, but they just might listen to Julie if she throws her weight behind one of the candidates. 2% may account for all those who will actually vote for her but it could be a serious mistake if the frontrunners ignore her pull in her social circle. The frontrunners would do good to remember that in 2004, Rhett Smith ran against Lamar Smith and received over 33,000 votes in Bexar county and more than 105,000 district wide. Even before the runoff, can any of the mainstream candidates honestly say that they could not use another 12% right about now?

How did Rhett Smith manage to get within spitting distance of Carroll with no resources? What is the demographic of his base? This quote from Rhett’s website might offer a clue:

“As a candidate for the office of mayor of San Antonio, it is entirely appropriate, during this holy season of Christian faith, to acknowledge the important role of Christianity in the lives of San Antonians and to acknowledge, also, the important role of all religions from around the world that now comprise our interfaith community throughout San Antonio. Without our religious faiths, our society's organizations and structures could not be sustained”

Rhett has been going around to various groups in the religious community and has been steadily gaining their support. Now in 2000 and 2004 when the Democrats weren’t ignoring or mocking these people, they were condescending to them, and look what it got them. Rhet has taken a page out of the Carl Rove playbook and, for better or worse, that page worked wonders for GW.

With two liberal Democrats running and the ex-Democrat turned Rockefeller-style Republican Carroll shunning this constituency, the local “mainstream” mayoral candidates seem to be out of touch with the new no longer silent majority. Now for all you secular materialist out there who protest that you don’t know any of these people and they don’t constitute a majority, I just have one thing to say. “Who’s the President?”

If you ignore people that make you feel icky or say things you think are unsophisticated, or pepper their diction with hyper-religiosity, you do so at your own peril. On Election Day they might just show up at the polls and ruin your whole day.

Adolescent Snobbery Just Ain’t Cool, in Fact It’s a Subversion of Democracy.

2005-04-21T03:12:00.000-07:00

If you’ve been following the mayor’s race via TV and Newspapers, or attended the various debates, you may never have heard of Rhett Smith’s campaign. He and other less likely aspirants to office have been systematically excluded from the debates and their candidacies virtually ignored in the press, and he’s not happy about it..

According to Rhett:

"Our free and open democratic process in the city of San Antonio has been undermined in the upcoming May 7, 2005 elections for mayor. Officially filed candidates have been intentionally excluded from candidate events."

Now, ol’ Rhet has a point. When the Chambers of Commerce and the Humane Society sponsor and event it is not solely for the edification of the citizenry. Debate sponsoring organizations almost invariably have an agenda at City Hall. They know that it is highly likely that candidates with the largest war chests will be the most likely victors. Hence, it is in their interests to ingratiate themselves with the frontrunners.

Well-funded candidates believe that any attention given to the outsider candidates comes out of the elite's entitled slices of the face-time pie. The more candidates talking in a debate, the less face-time any one of them gets. Simply put, the moneyed candidates collude to keep the independents out of the dialog. Now I know all’s fare in love and war, but this isn’t very sporting. They have million dollar coffers with which to buy televised paid political advertisements and then they deny the only free airtime available to these dissenting voices.

The sponsoring organizations and the media claim that a format with too many candidates is somehow confusing or would constitute a cacophony. They wouldn’t have time for enough questions. The outsiders are losers and their candidacies are irrelevant. These people are unqualified, eccentrics or stupid. These arguments are at best self-serving and at worst slanders and pernicious distortions of the electoral process that have the effect of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies.

What is the optimal number of candidates for a debate? For a presidential election we were told it was two, and no more. But for a mayoral debate three is just right. Who are we kidding folks? The fix is in. I remeber the Democratic Primary debates and they were really interesting. They weren't boring or scripted and their spontaneity was refreshing. Who can forget Al Sharpton, that guy was a hoot. Carol Mosely Braun's presence made Al look positively moderate. Leiberman's dignity made the frontrunners look like the slick, overambitious, evasive charletains they actually were. What's a frontrunner anyway? Can you say Dick Gephardt? Besides, these debates alowed them to put their issues into the dialogue, so you see winning isn't everythin Newt.

OK some of these people are geeks, but where is it written you have to be cool to run for office? It is not their lack of funds or qualifications that ultimately handicaps these candidates’ chances for election. It is the cult of cool. If you were a social or a jock in high school, you will probably make an excellent fundraiser or television journalist. But if you were stuck in the library when the other kids were at pep rally, then you are to be politically disenfranchised for life. These people have committed the last unpardonable sin in America. The outsider candidates are uncool.

What the arbiters of upward social mobility need to realize is most people are uncool, that’s what makes the socials special. But elections aren’t about being special. They’re about what most people think. Newsflash…most people don’t think like the cool people, or believe what the cool people believe. Indeed they feel victimized by the coolocentric dominant culture and they're resentful. To you cool people out there, that's righteous indignation, not envy. That is why they don’t look like them or act like them. So why do the cool people get to decide who gets face time, whose voices are heard, who’s eccentric, whose priorities are the right ones for the rest of the uncool electorate? If you are cool and you want to run for office or become a TV anchor, that’s cool. Your candidate will raise tons off cash, buy tons of TV propaganda and probably win. But this ain’t high school, this is democracy so you don’t get to decide the destiny of the unwashed masses of the uncool any longer.

Does Joaquin Float?

2005-04-21T00:42:00.000-07:00

Julian and Joaquin’s was not the only curious behavior at the River Parade. What was up with the rest of the City Council? The barge was clearly marked City Council. Joaquin is not a City Council Member. So why did Schubert and the rest of the Council Members let Joaquin on the float? Surely they must have known it was an inappropriate stunt during a fierce campaign. If he had refused to get off voluntarily, they could always have resorted to the obvious tactic.

Besides, if they had, it would have answered the most burning question on every San Antonian’s mind, “Does Joaquin float?”

A Duplicitous Politician? I’m Shocked, There’s Gambling in Here.

2005-04-20T12:32:00.000-07:00

I was trying to refrain from swinging at all the easy ones here, but when it comes to those phenomenal Castro brothers, I just can’t resist.

WOAI.com reports that Joaquin Castro stood in surreptitiously for Julian Castro on the City Council float at the River Parade. My first response was, “Who the heck cares?” But then I began to see the meta-humor of it.

Since Julian was first elected to the City Council, lots of people had been making jokes about the various humorous scenarios that a pair of twin politicians might present. That these jokes would be floating around should not come as a surprise to a couple of highly educated guys like the Castro brothers; who have presumably been twins all their lives.

What is unfathomable is how these clever boys managed to take a local punch line and turn it into an embarassing national news story during a heated race for mayor. Check out AP article at USA Today Twin switcheroo alleged in San Antonio mayor's race The Castro campaign seems to be determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. In the Grand Prix, you’ve got to stay on the track to win the race. Julian seems to be so busy admiring his own reflection in the rear-view mirror that he keeps driving off into the grass. Take a clue from the Classics boys; it is always hubris that undermines the hero’s destiny. I guess the old gray mares of Stanford and Harvard just ain't what they used to be.

Someone ought to brief the Castros on the facts of life. Most people don't trust a politician who is in only one place at a time, let alone one that tries to be in two.

The Jeffersonian Endorses Hardberger for Mayor

2005-04-18T13:40:00.000-07:00

One of San Antonio’s most astute political pundits, Cincinnatus, after careful consideration has finally made his decision on whom to support for Mayor. In a recent post he makes some very astute observations that all San Antonians should heed:

"I don't vote, and will never vote, solely on party affiliation. If I don't know the issues or the candidates in a race, I skip over it. Nor do I vote for someone because s/he is a potential rising star. Those are probably the two worst reasons to vote for someone in my book…"

Amen Cincinnatus! If you don't take the time to get informed on the issues and intend to uncritically "just pull one lever" don't congratulate yourself for being a "voter." Simply casting a ballot out of personal prejudice does not constitute an act of patriotism; rather it represents a public act of bigotry. If you vote for a person because you think a candidate is "cute" or because you want to "hitch your wagon to a rising star," then you are just shallow and fatuous and we would all be better served if you would just stay home on Election Day.

The Jeffersonian also poses us some very important questions:

"Why did Julian feel he could do a better job than Schubert or Hardberger when his professional career consists of 4 years on City Council and part-time law work?"

"Why did Phil even want this job, and how would he be able to do this job without any council experience?"

"Does Carroll care enough about issues that affect Districts 1-7?"

How you choose to answer these questions will very probably indicate how you will finally vote. That being said, here is how I would answer them:

"Why did Julian feel he could do a better job...?
Simple, personal ambition. This is perhaps the worst character flaw a politician can have, but unfortunately it is also the most common. When for years everybody tells you that you are the "golden child" after a while you tend to believe them. You develop an inflated sense of personal destiny and entitlement to office.

"Why did Phil even want the job...?"
Simple, personal legacy. When you get to a certain age you reflect on your life and realize that you are not going to be here forever. You start to think about your legacy. Even though you are well off and now have the opportunity to sail around the world with your wife, you wonder if that is the best way to go out. Personally, I think it is, but I am not a lifelong jurist with a career in public service. Allegedly, people from all over town came to Phil and asked him to run and he came to believe that perhaps Mayor of San Antonio would be a fitting epitaph, probably much to the dismay of his wife. Besides, he did not spend all those years on the bench because he had an aversion to telling people what to do.

“Does Carroll care enough…?"
No, or he would have more actively campaigned to get the votes of people who live in the grossly underserved areas of the city. While his message of “filling potholes” would play well in districts 1-7, those aren’t the potholes he intends to fill. Indeed “potholes” is code for building new roads, widening thoroughfares and building infrastructure on the Northside. Also, in his mouth, “potholes” like “good schools” conceals a disturbing hidden racial subtext that presumes that U-Haul won’t be renting moving trucks to Latinos and that Anglo property values will be safe for another generation. What is more, Carroll is not without further political ambition anymore than Julian. He isn’t creating that fundraising mega-network for the sake of this campaign. He has statewide political aspirations that will require his not inconsiderable war chest creating skills.

Cincinnatus also makes a telling observation about the various candidates’ campaigns:

“if I didn't follow as intensely as I did, I might not have been able to really gather my answers. Not one campaign has a very good message- Julian's seems to be: One City. My Destiny., Phil's is: I'm old and I'm not Carroll or Julian, and Carroll's is: I'm a Republican.”

This is indeed the case, but what makes Cincinnatus think that any of them will govern any more competently than they campaign? Perhaps, deep down he doesn’t, but of the three messages they have proffered, maybe it was Phil’s “I’m not Carroll and I’m not Julian” that he found least unpersuasive

City Clerk's Office, Candidates and Citizens Confused about Campaign Finance Reporting

2005-04-18T04:11:00.000-07:00

If The Red state is confused they are not alone. So is the City Clerk’s Office, the candidates and any citizen of San Antonio that has tried to make sense of the current system. The Red State is correct in the assumptions regarding what actually constitutes the current protocols for “electronic” filing. Rumor around City Hall was the Clerk’s searchable database would be up and running last Friday, but I’m not holding my breath.

Technological SNAFU’s happen. What is more disturbing is all the exceptions made to the rule.

First, why make exceptions for people that don’t know how to use a computer? Geez, this is 2005 not 1981. College professors demand that every 18 year old in class use a computer. Surely we should demand no less from our “adult” elected officials. Besides, how are they going to operate that swanky zillion-dollar Industrial Light and Magic show in the recently refurbished City Council Chamber?

Second, why make exceptions for candidates with less than $20,000 to report? My banker makes me balance my books even when my account falls below $20,000, (which it invariably does) why shouldn’t the candidates have to present their balanced books? If their presumption is that $20,000 is an insufficient amount to compromise the integrity of a Council Member, I refer them to recent events. Our Council members have sold their votes on million dollar contracts for as little as $200 and said “thank you” on tape to the hand offering the bribe. In the Roaring Twenties, when such activity was the modus operandi, the going rate was 30% of the value of the contract to be fixed. Our politicians are even incompetent crooks.

Third, of 38 candidates running for Council seats, only 7 raised more than $20,000. Of course, these are the 7 most likely to win virtually unchallenged, but what kind of reporting system is it that allows 31 out of 38 candidates to opt out? Now some of the little guys did report their pittances, but the point is they don’t have to.

A cynic might wonder, given the current fiasco with campaign finance reporting, whether the present system was designed to facilitate opacity rather than transparency.

The Red State Wants to Know: What Constitutes "Electronic" Filings for CFR's?

2005-04-18T03:18:00.000-07:00

Exerpted from a recent posting at The Red State :

Currently, filers who accept no more than $20,000 in contributions or who make no more than $20,000 in expenditures in a calendar year may apply to “opt-out” of electronic filing upon filing an affidavit stating that the filer does not use computer equipment to keep current records of contributions or expenditures. So, none of these candidates are exempt from electronic filing.

The municipal rules are not very clear on what the electronic submission must be like. Please correct me if I am wrong but it seems like you can hand write your report, scan it in and then transmit it. If that is true, then that is defeating the purpose of electronic reporting. The purpose is to have searchable information of donors and donations (i.e. searchable like hitting CTRL-F and search for a name). I do not blame the candidates for this loophole in the law but it should be addressed. The whole handwritten thing has gotten me confused on how SA reporting actually works.

City Manager Fiasco: Business as Usual for San Antonio’s Ruling Class

2005-04-17T22:22:00.000-07:00

First we run a perfectly good organization, rich in potential, into the ground. Then we hire an expert from afar to fix our mess. When they endeavor to do what it takes to raise San Antonio’s administrative policies to a professional standard, we harass them mercilessly as they try to do their job. For a couple of years we make them focus all their energy on breaking ground to pour yet more concrete, beat them like a rented mule, hunt them like a patsy, and then acrimoniously run them off the reservation. All the problems remain plus a few more. We then engage in a two year “talent search” to find an appropriate candidate while entropy erodes our infrastructure. We try to find a second rate candidate to take the job on the cheap because “this is a second rate organization, and all we can reasonably expect is a second rate candidate.” Then we wonder why we don’t have a line of qualified prospects cueing up to oversee our local institutions. Our reputation precedes us so we eventually get a “second rate” candidate to fill the position, but they end up demanding more than a first rate salary to take the job due to the notorious liability inherent in playing with us.

Upon reading this, most people who have been following recent political events in San Antonio will presume I am referring to the City Manager fiasco. In fact the above scenario is taken from real life events at one of our local museums (right down to the quote from a museum board member at the time he voted to approve the last Director.) I leave you to guess which museum, but it doesn’t really matter because the same situation exists at all of them and at other local civic assets like the zoo and the botanical gardens among others. The reason it doesn’t matter which particular institution I am referring to is because the very same individuals sit on the respective Boards of Trustees of all of these organizations. They run these institutions as personal fiefdoms in the service of their own vanities rather than in the interest of the constituents they allegedly serve. But since these boards are self-appointed, self-perpetuating, self-policing and utterly unaccountable to anyone that is not a board member, why should they do anything else?

If you want to know who these people are this week they will be easy to spot, as they will be prancing around in full drag. Now I’m not talking about those folks you’ll see hanging around outside the Bonham Exchange (although you may find some of them there,) rather I’m talking about the aristocrats with delusions of grandeur dressed up like Maximilian’s courtiers. If memory serves correct, Maximilian was executed by his own people for bankrupting the country with spending on his image enhancements and his courtiers did not fair much better. So their choice to emulate his failed reign is a curious one. Fiesta my posterior, more like May Day with tacos and circuses for all the peasants. But then as Dave and Renee observed, sometimes the stupidity of San Antonio leadership is astounding.

The real problem in San Antonio is the consolidation of all local power in the hands of a select coterie of interbred families that pass it, as well as their not inconsiderable fortunes, down generation after generation. These are the same families that own large land parcels over the aquifer on which they speculate with developers. They are the same people who have poured more than $3,000,000 into local political campaigns this election season alone. Perhaps most appallingly, most of them don’t even reside in San Antonio proper. Instead they live in Alamo Heights, Terrell Hills and Olmos Park where most of the citizens of San Antonio have no say on how 09’ers live their lives, school their children or collect and spend their taxes. That our school system has one of the highest drop out rates in the civilzed world is not their problem since their offspring attend San Antonio Academy, St. Mary's Hall and Texas Military Institute. (After a century of inbreeding, most of them are too dumb to get into Keystone.) Instead of gangs, their scions join fraternities and sororities. Although judging by the way they behave when they inherit power, there is little diference. The hubris is indeed amazing.

When most positions of civic responsibility are the inherited prerogative of a Ruling Class who routinely hand over the reigns of power to their nephews and wayward sons and daughters, is it any wonder San Antonio suffers from a lack of self-respect let alone the respect of the rest of the nation? (Shucks, we can't even get mentioned on the Weather Channel.)

People complain about the apathy of the San Antonio voter since only 60,000 of them show up to vote in a city of over 1,000,000 inhabitants. But can anybody really blame them? The residents of San Antonio don’t vote because they’re not citizens, they’re subjects and this is the week that our rulers come out in full regalia to remind us of that fact.

If you want real power in San Antonio don’t run for City Council, instead just apply for membership in the San Antonio Country Club. But don’t hold your breath, because the last I checked there was a 30-year waiting list for admission. Of course I’m sure a legacy arrangement can be made if your last name is say, Adair, Barshop, Benson, Boyd, Calgaard, Cavender, Embrey, Greehey, Gross, Gunn, Halff, Kleeberg, Hamilton, Hasslocher, Hartman, Holt, Hunt, Marbut, Mays, McCombs, Maloney, Steves, Turner, Vaughn, Worth…Hell, you get the picture.

Candidates, Like CEO's, Should Assume Personal Liability

2005-04-17T19:04:00.000-07:00

Cincinnatus is right. What disincentive is a “fine” if you don’t have to pay it out of your personal bank account?

Corporate CEO’s used to be able to hide behind a veil of corporate identity to evade personal responsibility. But this is no longer the case. They are now held personally liable for their company’s financial reports and so should candidates for office be held personally accountable for their campaign’s financial activities.

The status quo is patently ridiculous. Under the current ethics rule, a candidate can make countless deliberate errors of commission or omission on their CFR’s, be accused found guilty and “fined,” and then after they are in office continue to raise funds from their political contributors to pay the "fine." Now we know incumbents have no difficulty raising funds to get reelected so they have little to fear from “fines” that can be paid from campaign funds collected from the very people who already have disproportionate influence in government. Can this really be what the Council of Elders intended when they enacted the new ethics rules?

Imagine the currently plausible scenario: A candidate takes $2000 from one donor in violation of the of the legally allowed $1000 limit. He/she gets “fined” less than $1000. He/she gets into office, since all oversight takes place after the election. He/she then goes back to the same donor and gets yet another $1000 to pay off the "fine." The last $1000 is not reflected on the campaign finance report for this season but instead is reported as money raised for his/her reelection campaign. The figures are on the next election's CFR’s and will not be available to the public for another two years. As the rabbi said, “Now, that just ain’t kosher.”

What would solve this problem is if the candidates were held personally liable for the “fines” assessed them. They should not be able to use campaign contributions to pay “fines” since they have already demonstrated their personal inability to obey campaign finance rules. Furthermore, if anybody gives a candidate money personally to assist them in paying said “fines,” that money should be viewed as a bribe and the elected official should be charged and prosecuted accordingly. In addition, the size of the “fines” should be dramatically increased, so that the successful lawyers who tend to run for the highest office in town will actually find them a real disincentive.

CEO’s are now regularly prosecuted and sent to prison for “accounting irregularities” on their watch. So should it be with those who seek elected office.

The Jeffersonian: More Serious Consequences Needed for CFR Violations

2005-04-17T18:59:00.000-07:00

Cincinnatus at The Jeffersonian astutely observes:

Finally, here's something I started thinking about while I was in the shower (I'm a nerd, this is what I do). Campaign finance reports are based on the idea of open campaigns/open government. Any sort of accidental or intentional deception would be a move away from this idea, and ideally, should be punished by the governing body's ethics board. But any punishment is most likely going to be a slap on the wrist or a fine that will look much like the sort of fines we see in the NBA. So therefore, shouldn't there be some other type of punishment?

For instance, removing one's name from the early voting ballot for X number of days, dependent on the severity and intent of the act. That would make an impact in the mind of candidates, and give them added impetus to turn in a correct report. Now keep in mind that I have no idea of the legality or constitutionality of this example (I would assume its both illegal and unconstitutional), nor am I in any way advocating that Julian Castro should have his name removed from the ballot or withdraw from the race. This is just one guy ruminating what would be a better way to help make sure we get correct campaign finance reports. Because let's face it, with fines either the candidate takes out a loan and pays it off on some sort of timetable, or should s/he win, fundraise the money to pay it off. Not the best way to send an example to the candidate and the campaign. But this is obviously reaching a level of thinking about campaigns and government that my brain is not suited to do- what do y'all think?

Baby Kissing Politicians Feel Our Pain

2005-04-17T17:05:00.000-07:00

We don't elect officials to "feel our pain." We elect them to prevent it. When they can't, we expect them to hunt down and punish those who caused it. When I want empathy I'll call a therapist. I just wish that when I wanted justice I could call a politician.

With regards to "If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call me directly, here’s my number…”, fat chance of this response. Most of the mayoral candidates cannot even be reached personally by email (not even from their websites) when they are running for office and want something from us, namely our votes. I have sent numerous polite emails to the candidates and have yet to recieve a personal reply. How much less likely is it that they will be responsive to my needs when they have already achieved their sole objective, attaining elected office?

Dead Can't Rant: See Crooks Run for Office

2005-04-17T16:50:00.000-07:00

See Crooks. See Crooks Run (For Office).
by Dave & Reneé @ 3:26 pm

Politics
San Antonio blogger Cicero has a blog dedicated solely to tracking the 2005 San Antonio Elections.
Watch morally questionable con artists kiss babies while they reach around into mom’s purse for donations. See their incompetence on public display:

Slinging Mud at Velcro Hardly Constitutes a Sport

2005-04-17T16:20:00.000-07:00

It is a cliché that politics in Texas is a full contact sport. In fact, it is hardly even sporting to sling mud (or if you prefer, muddy arrows) at candidates to whom it sticks like Velcro. Hardberger is indeed a greedy trial lawyer. Castro did copulate with the poodle on his CFR filings. Schubert is actually a puppet of the local Concrete Mafia. It seems that Teflon coated politicians like Reagan and Clinton are rarer than hen’s teeth in South Texas.

What is truly galling is the umbrage they choose to feign when their integrity is called into question. With what the mayor’s job pays along with its commensurate hassles, one would have to be a saint, a masochist or a crook to want the office. It is highly unlikely that any of San Antonio’s mayoral aspirants is going to be put on the fast track to beatification. Since none of these candidates seem to be able to blithely take a punch, we can probably rule out masochist as well.

The Jeffersonian: It's Getting Dirrty Down Here!

2005-04-17T16:16:00.000-07:00

In a recent post at The Jeffersonian , Cincinnatus writes:

I love the way we play politics in Texas, it soo much better than the way its done, say, up in the Midwest. We get dirty attack ads, scurrilous rumors of a candidate's health, and frontrunners almost crying because someone's flinging 'arrows of mud' (note to Castro campaign- work on your attack metaphors) their way.

Off the Kuff Notes Arrival of New Blog

2005-04-17T15:21:00.000-07:00

A recent post at Off the Kuff reads:

Polls and debates in San Antonio

The Jeffersonian notes a new Survey USA poll which shows Julian Castro continuing to hold a solid lead in the San Antonio Mayor's race, but still falling short of a majority of the vote. He also has some analysis from a televised debate last night. A longer analysis is provided by a newcomer on the scene, SA Elections 2005. He was a bit unimpressed:

Interesting stuff there, so check it out.

Thanks to Charles for the plug.

Check out Off the Kuff for copious amounts of interesting stuff.

Bona Fortuna to The Jeffersonian and to The Red State

2005-04-17T15:08:00.000-07:00

Siddhartha was correct, all things are temporary and so it shall be with SA Election 2005. The blog will live on until a couple of weeks after the election/runoff to facilitate post-mortem commentary. Afterward it will be archived and its author will reveal his identity and the reason for the pseudonym.

The historic Marcus Tullius Cicero was an admirer of the historic Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. Both were citizens of courage and integrity who valued the Republic over personal ambition. While Cicero did not revile Antony in his famous Philippics for the purpose of homage to Cincinnatus; he would indeed have been flattered to be associated in the minds of his audience with that great champion of the Republic.

Bona Fortuna to The Jeffersonian, and to The Red State for speaking truth to power.

The Red State Notes New San Antonio Election Blog

2005-04-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

Here is a resent post from The Red State:

It looks we are getting more blogs into the mix. San Antonio Election 2005 provides some in-depth analysis of what is shaking. The blog's name may get you Google hits but you may have to rethink it after May. That is okay. The Buddhist believe all is temporary.

Using the pen name Cicero (I guess a homage to Cincinnatus at The Jeffersonian), he has given a pretty interesting take on won Friday's debate between the three major mayor candidates. I look forward to seeing what he has to say.

Another View of the Debate

2005-04-16T01:51:00.000-07:00

The Jeffersonian: Politicks, Sports, and Culture

Who Won the Debate?

2005-04-16T01:17:00.000-07:00

Friday night WOAI and KLRN simulcast what was billed as the premier mayoral debate this campaign season. WOAI’s insta-poll pronounced the Judge the winner by a nearly 2:1 margin over both his competitors, but perhaps it was the citizens of San Antonio that were the losers overall. Goldilocks would find little to sustain herself in the porridge offered by the three major mayoral candidates last night. Julian Castro is too young, Phil Hardberger is too old, and Carroll Schubert is too cold.

Julian, while charismatic and optimistic seems to be both for and against development over the aquifer, the PGA Village, tax abatements for big business, the proposed candidate for City Manager, raising taxes and freezing them, balancing the budget and increasing spending. Those seeking clarity of message may feel a little frustrated with Julian’s rhetoric. But they probably grew accustomed to its style in the Fall of 2004. Julian may be a graduate of both Stanford and Harvard, but one cannot help but think that Barak Obama would have managed to get his Campaign Finance Reports filed with a little more aplomb. The real clincher for Julian in the debate came when he was asked whom he would vote for mayor, if not himself. His answer was telling. He alone among the candidates chose to not dodge the question. He said that after this week’s besmirching of his integrity by Hardberger, he would under no circumstance be able to support the Judge for mayor. It is at least ironic that the son of a candidate who ran on the La Raza Unida ticket would imply that he would rather support the purportedly conservative Schubert over the liberal Hardberger. When The Donald asks a candidate in the Boardroom whom they would fire, he tends to take a dim view of those who choose a colleague with whom they have a personal dispute. Julian’s indignation lacked a certain righteousness given his excuse for the innumerable (they were in the hundreds folks) CFR errors was that he was merely incompetent rather than crooked. Perhaps that is why the Judge clued him in to the fact that this is a little like the motorist who claimed that he did not see the pedestrian because he was drunk at the time of the accident. Julian’s choice to answer this question that grayer heads chose to evade, combined with his inelegant debut on the CFR’s he filed with the city, suggests a certain lack of maturity required to deal with the more cunning political movers and shakers down at City Hall.

Phil came off as glib and relatively unprepared for the questions he was posed. His universal answer seemed to be that he would bring diverse groups together in one room “whether they like it or not” and “make them listen to one another.” Maybe as a judge Phil is used to doing just that, but in his role as mayor he would certainly find this a greater challenge than he so glibly proposed. Like Julian he is also for increased spending and balanced budgets. While he acknowledged that there was no way to protect the aquifer short of halting development over it, he went on to say that the only way to prevent such development was to buy the land. This may serve the interests of various landowners and developers but it does not necessarily serve the interests of the general citizenry of San Antonio. When it came to the subject of the City’s One Stop Shop and the new computer system the City has had so much difficulty implementing, the Judge shows his age. He just doesn’t get the power and efficiency that an effective online City Services system would provide. Unless there is a photo op, the judge seems to be used to someone else going downtown to file his paperwork for him.

Carroll functioned in the debate much as he has throughout his campaign, as a bureaucratic deer caught in the headlights. He repeated his mantra of “essential city services” which in his mind translates to more cops, more firemen, more concrete pored over the aquifer until the last hole in the last piece of vesiculated limestone on the Northside is filled, and not one red cent for anything that would not meet the approval of a Philistine. When referring to the cultural institutions of San Antonio he could not think of a single art museum. Has anyone seen Carroll at any McNay or San Antonio Museum of Art openings lately? I seriously doubt it. What the Canaanite Carroll does not understand is that among Fortune 500 CEO’s, the highest priority they report when deciding where to relocate headquarters is not low wages, low taxes, or low property values, rather it is the quality of a city’s cultural amenities. If Carroll is really serious about bringing high paying jobs to San Antonio he better get out of the malls once in a while and head for a museum. Even the Judge got this one right when he observed that a “city’s museums and libraries make it smarter and that’s good for the economy.” Job training, according to Carroll, who needs it? It’s too expensive. Anyone want to bet whether its will be Southside drainage and road improvements that will be Carroll’s priority as mayor? Given his illustrious list of Concrete Mafia financial backers, I’ll wager that money gets set aside for infrastructure for new development on the Northside. Carroll knows the value of a buck, so he sees the value in the City’s One Stop Shop, but he admits no guilt by association with its abysmally incompetent deployment on his watch.

If Goldilocks is hungry for competence and integrity in City Government, I suggest she blow off these three bears and move on down the road to the Gingerbread House. It maybe inhabited by a witch, but at least Goldie may find something to eat.

Ethics, Campaign Finance, Tranparency: New to San Antonio

2005-04-15T22:52:00.000-07:00

Issues related to ethics, campaign finance and transparency are likely to figure prominently in this election cycle. This is surely to be compounded by the fact that both the candidates and the City Clerk’s office seem to have been unprepared for the accounting and processing this information would require. Nor did either the City or the various campaigns seem to anticipate the public interest in easily accessible CFR information.

In addition to the obvious ethical issues raised by the information provided in the CFR’s, there are striking competency questions raised as well. Many of the candidates running for City Council, of all political persuasions from all over the city, have either incompletely or inadequately filled out their CFR’s. Others have failed to report at all. An incredulous number seem unable to accurately balance a $4000 campaign budget, let alone a $1.5 billion City budget. Various campaigns are accusing each other of dishonesty when the real villain is as often incompetence.

When following up on various candidates’ charges and counter charges we have found that the City Clerk’s office is the source of the discrepancy as often as candidate incompetence. Currently CFR’s are filed in so many formats that it is all the Clerk can do to keep track of the various reports. According to the Clerk’s office, “computer glitches” have been a problem. There is also a question regarding the electronic Notarization process. Apparently, whoever fills out the form electronically just pushes an “I Swear” button and this counts as a Notary. There is case law on this subject and electronic remedies are available, but I have serious doubts that what the City has instituted would pass legal muster.

In essence it seems that in this election cycle, what transparency reveals is a mess. It is our hope that in the future, whoever is elected to lead San Antonio will make Electoral and Government transparency a real priority. High spoken words and Commissions of Elders to address ethics in politics are insufficient. They must be followed up with competence and with efficient systems if they are to be effective. Integrity at City Hall will be not be enhanced by merely asking our elected officials to adequately police each other. It will only come when we, as citizens, have the adequate informational resources to hold them accountable ourselves.

A Good Place to Start

2005-04-15T21:28:00.000-07:00