Texas's latest scandal

Hot air rises.

That is one of the few things I remember from my days in science. That could explain why I am not a nuclear scientist. But for me it explains a scientific phenomenon that appears to be true for both Austin and Washington. Apparently when hot air rises, (you guess the source)it gets thin and those who breathe it for long periods of time lose vital brain cells. It is sort of like asphyxiating yourself by breathing.

A significant number of these brain diminished people end up making laws for Texas and for the United States. Herein, to me, is the best explanation of why Legislators and Congressmen/women keep doing the same stupid things expecting different outcomes. In my circle this is also called insanity.

Case in point, the present prison scandal. While my heart goes out to the Senator whose family was threatened, I would point out to him that my family was threatened by an inmate in 1995 who was responsible for killing my two brothers-in-law. This offender promised to kill my wife and her sister and our children. Since we were just lowly taxpayers, we could not summons all the wardens to Austin to explain why they refused to manage the unmanageable with the unavailable.

But that is what the Senate did. Whenever anything goes wrong in the state government, the powers that be throw down a rag that says, "Let's have a hearing." It is misnamed for more than one reason, but primarily because nobody ever listens, and rarely is the problem addressed.

I predicted when the TYC fiasco broke there were still more state scandals to come. We had gone through prisons, CPS, APS, and TYC. Now us average Texans with only Master's degrees quickly noticed a theme going. Lowballing state human service agencies led to underpaid, overworked, turnstile workforces that fumbled the ball--well several balls. So now we are back to that again. The Senators, (breathing too much oxygen deprived air) have summoned the prison wardens to be accountable for why their prisons have so much contraband in them. More especially, why do offenders know the unlisted numbers of elected leaders and why do they feel free to call them and harass them. That job is really a senatorial poragative and they are deeply offended when death row inmates push in on their turf.

Now, a nurse I worked with today expressed it rather well if not colorfully, "It ain't hard to figure out how this happens when people who put their lives on the line every day are subjected to cursing, inmates throwing s___t and p__s and stabbling them with pencils and everything else they can get ahold of, and then the officers and nurses find out they are making less per hour than the convenience store employee."

Is it possible that some of the noble gray soldiers of our prison correctional officers corp, have found countraband a good second job? Possibly. Perhaps when it comes time to pay the gasoline bill, or the grocery bill, telling the clerk, "I keep your family safe from fellons, " doesn't rate much more than a stare. It certainly doesn't get them a discount or make their paycheck stretch further.

Every place except Austin and Washington does the adage "you get what you pay for" make sense. In those places, the part-time law makers and full time politicians think that people are standing in line to be put in harms way in horrible conditions, with horrible offenders for a nominal amount of money (what not even a handshake or a kiss?).

So, let me make a suggestion to our oxygen deprived lawmakers.
Take off your coat, take off your tie, put on a colored shirt and come work a day in a prison. The air is thick, sometimes rank, the food is--well--prison food, the co-workers are tired and underappreciated, and they do heroic work each and every day so the rest of us can sleep at night.

What is that worth? A lot more than they are getting.