Texas oh Texas

I love me some Texas. Let's be clear on that. The bumper sticker that says "I wasn't born in Texas but I got here as soon as I could" is genius. Not that it applies to me - I'm as native as they get. I love salsa, tex-mex, margaritas (food in general as you can tell), country music, boots, football. I think tacky coffee cups with the state of TX on them are fab. I even have some affections for rhinestones and big hair. And ya know, remember the alamo - and the spurs, and chuy's and Astroworld, may it rest in peace. I also bleed burnt orange. I LOVE TEXAS.

But like anyone or anything that we love, Texas is not perfect. Currently the most obvious sign of this is spending HALF A MILLION dollars on a letter written by Davey Crockett(see Statesman article). I mean, come on. Half a mil? Do you know what we could do with half a million dollars? Well actually, we could pay my salary more than ten times over for starters. Build 9 houses through Habitat for Humanity. Put 50 kids through undergrad at UT. Don't even get me started on how many could get their associates at ACC with $500,000. You could buy at least 5,000 text books. 10,000 Texans could become first aid certified through the Red Cross. I could pay off my loans and still have plenty left for good deeds.

But what did the state of Texas do? It bought an old sheet of paper. We didn't even save this sheet of paper from destruction! It was living happily in someone's private collection. Texas, I love you and I like history but this, THIS PURCHASE was just a waste of taxpayers' money. Hmmmff.