Thursday, May 11, 2006

West on My Boot and in My Eyes

Five days in Nevada leaves me both there and here. Until the temporal vibrato stills, I can muse on street cycling in Las Vegas (and Québec City -- a post to come) and oddments.

Meanwhile, we return to find more color in Texas politics than Massachusetts ones. The legislature here is again locked in leadershipless inertia. But there's a fire outside San Antonio.

Eager to offend, yet oddly rational, Kinky Friedman is running for governor. He has been talking truth and tweaking twits for a long time, certainly from the 1970s, when he founded his band The Texas Jewboys, managing to piss off even his Jewish dad.

This campaign is not off topic, believe it or else. He's not only pro-hunting, but he's pro-choice and pro-same-sex marriage. His campaign FAQ puts it out there. In SSM terms, his position is:
Kinky supports gay marriage and equal rights for homosexuals. He believes that the constitution protects everyone. As he says, "I believe love is bigger than government. And besides, they have a right to be as miserable as the rest of us."
So, you got your humor, your philosophy and your politics in one lump.

Texas has some similar issues to Massachusetts', an MCAS teach-to-test style problem in education, for one. His site has a single-page PDF of the top ten issues and solutions. His campaign gathered over 160,000 signatures to put him on the ballot.

Knowing Southern politics, we predict that if he looks like he's winning or will be one of two in a runoff, there will be mysterious computer failures. When the count finalizes, Kinky will be back on the stage and not at a desk in Austin.

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