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December 17th, 2022:

Saturday video break: A brief manifesto about Christmas music

Dec 17th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

Been awhile since I’ve done one of these. Maybe I’ll work a few in next year, we’ll see how it goes. I was inspired by the Slacktivist re-running his own Christmas music manifesto from a few years ago. I broadly agree with him on this, but there are a couple of points that I feel need to be included.

1. “The Little Drummer Boy” is an abomination before God and man and should be avoided at all costs. It’s not just that it’s dumb – seriously, who thinks playing a drum for a baby is a good idea? – it’s maudlin and draggy and so annoyingly repetitive. If you must have a song featuring a kid with a drum on your playlist, the correct answer is “Pat-a-Pan”, an old French carol:

I first heard this song as a choir boy in the mid-70s, when we performed it for that year’s concert. It’s still in my head all these years later, and yet I can’t say I’ve ever heard it on the radio or someone’s random playlist since then. A shame, because it’s simple and bouncy and brief, a good quality for most Christmas music. The first version of this I found when I looked was a Julie Andrews rendition, and while I’d never say anything bad about Julie Andrews, the super slow tempo of her arrangement was not the optimal choice.

(Also, as is the way with old traditionals, the lyrics I learned were different. The first verse, as I sang it all those years ago, was “Willie play your little drum/With the whistle I shall come/We’ll make music bright and gay/Too-ra-loo-ra-lay, pat-a-pat-a-pan/We’ll make music bright and gay/Too-ra-lay/It’s Christmas Day”. Your mileage may vary.)

2. “O Holy Night” is indeed a beautiful showcase for talented singers. It’s one of my favorite hymns for that reason. It also has one of the hallmarks of a great song in that it can be done in a completely different and unexpected way and still be awesome. To wit, here’s Brave Combo and their cha-cha version of “O Holy Night”:

I have no idea how you can hear the normal version of this and think “cha cha cha”, but they did and we are all the better for it.

3. On the subject of songs with more than one verse, the same can be said for “Jingle Bells” as well. If you’re not singing about Miss Fanny Bright when you sing “Jingle Bells”, you’re doing it wrong. You know who does “Jingle Bells” right? Alvin and the m-f’ing Chipmunks, that’s who:

Three verses, y’all. That’s how you “Jingle Bells”.

4. “Good King Wenceslas” is an underrated classic and should get more love.

That’s all I’ve got. Feel free to add your own requirements for a good Christmas playlist.

We said they’d come for birth control next

Dec 17th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

And here they are.

Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee to a federal court in Texas, spent much of his career trying to interfere with other people’s sexuality.

A former lawyer at a religious conservative litigation shop, Kacsmaryk denounced, in a 2015 article, a so-called “Sexual Revolution” that began in the 1960s and 1970s, and which “sought public affirmation of the lie that the human person is an autonomous blob of Silly Putty unconstrained by nature or biology, and that marriage, sexuality, gender identity, and even the unborn child must yield to the erotic desires of liberated adults.”

So, in retrospect, it’s unsurprising that Kacsmaryk would be the first federal judge to embrace a challenge to the federal right to birth control after the Supreme Court’s June decision eliminating the right to an abortion.

Last week, Kacsmaryk issued an opinion in Deanda v. Becerra that attacks Title X, a federal program that offers grants to health providers that fund voluntary and confidential family planning services to patients. Federal law requires the Title X program to include “services for adolescents,”

The plaintiff in Deanda is a father who says he is “raising each of his daughters in accordance with Christian teaching on matters of sexuality, which requires unmarried children to practice abstinence and refrain from sexual intercourse until marriage.” He claims that the program must cease all grants to health providers who do not require patients under age 18 to “obtain parental consent” before receiving Title X-funded medical care.

This is not a new argument, and numerous courts have rejected similar challenges to publicly funded family planning programs, in part because the Deanda plaintiff’s legal argument “would undermine the minor’s right to privacy” which the Supreme Court has long held to include a right to contraception.

But Kacsmaryk isn’t like most other judges. In his brief time on the bench — Trump appointed Kacsmaryk in 2019 — he has shown an extraordinary willingness to interpret the law creatively to benefit right-wing causes.

This behavior is enabled, moreover, by the procedural rules that frequently enable federal plaintiffs in Texas to choose which judge will hear their case — 95 percent of civil cases filed in Amarillo, Texas’s federal courthouse are automatically assigned to Kacsmaryk. So litigants who want their case to be decided by a judge with a history as a Christian right activist, with a demonstrated penchant for interpreting the law flexibly to benefit his ideological allies, can all but ensure that outcome by bringing their lawsuit in Amarillo.

And so, last Thursday, the inevitable occurred. Kacsmaryk handed down a decision claiming that “the Title X program violates the constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children.”

Kacsmaryk’s decision is riddled with legal errors, some of them obvious enough to be spotted by a first-year law student. And it contradicts a 42-year-long consensus among federal courts that parents do not have a constitutional right to target government programs providing contraceptive care. So there’s a reasonable chance that Kacsmaryk will be reversed on appeal, even in a federal judiciary dominated by Republican appointees.

Nevertheless, Kacsmaryk’s opinion reveals that there are powerful elements within the judiciary who are eager to limit access to contraception. And even if Kacsmaryk’s opinion is eventually rejected by a higher court, he could potentially send the Title X program into turmoil for months.

You can read the rest, and you should be upset by it. Note that there isn’t an injunction yet, just a terrible opinion by a terrible judge who hasn’t yet decided whether to impose his will on the entire country or not. But this is where we are, and it’s not going to end anytime soon. Daily Kos has more.

Hays County DA questions San Marcos marijuana ordinance passed by voters

Dec 17th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Add this to the pile.

San Marcos voters passed a marijuana ordinance this November that would halt San Marcos police from arresting people for low-level marijuana offenses. Now, the Hays County district attorney is looking to Texas leaders for their opinion on the ordinance.

Hays County District Attorney Wes Mau sent a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton requesting his opinion on San Marcos’ marijuana ordinance on Thursday, December 8.

“I am asking for the opinion because San Marcos officials are justifiably concerned that if the ordinance is legally or constitutionally void, then if the city disciplines officers for enforcing the marijuana law, as the ordinance requires, the city could be liable,” Mau said to MySA in an email.

In the letter, Mau noted that the ordinance would attempt to stop officers from using the smell of marijuana as probable cause.

“It is inconsistent with state and federal law for an ordinance to declare that the odor of marijuana may never be used as probable cause for a search or seizure when, as a matter of law, there are certainly times when the odor of marijuana constitutes probable cause under state or federal law,” Mau said in the letter. “The determination of probable cause is to be made on a case-by-case basis by the judicial branch.”

[…]

The ordinance went into effect on November 17 and covers possession of up to four ounces, but doesn’t cover THC oil and only applies to the San Marcos Police Department.

Mau said in the email to MySA that the local government code and the Texas constitution appear to prohibit an ordinance like the one that got passed.

“The attorney general cannot overturn the referendum, nor am I asking him to, but an opinion as to whether the ordinance is enforceable may be helpful to the city moving forward,” Mau said in the email to MySA.

I think this is a slightly different case than what we saw in three other cities that passed similar referenda only to see their City Councils pass laws modifying or nullifying them. If this is a valid concern, then it makes sense to seek an opinion rather than let the situation play out and deal with the inevitable lawsuits later. I presume that if the AG opinion aligns with this concern, then San Marcos’ city council will have a decision to make about that ordinance. I’ll keep an eye on this, because the likelihood that there will be more of these referenda passed by voters around the state is very high, and the same question would apply in those places as well. Reform Austin has more.

More information about HISD redistricting, please

Dec 17th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

A reasonable ask.

Several local nonprofit and advocacy groups penned a letter asking Houston ISD to postpone its decision on how to redraw trustee district boundaries.

Initially, the board was set to vote on the plan Thursday, according to a meeting agenda. Local advocates decried the move, stating the community was not given enough notice, and demanded it be moved to Feb 2.

Judith Cruz, president of the board, said the original posting was incorrect, and the item was only meant to be discussed, not voted on. It was possible that they could have voted Thursday if they felt they had sufficient community feedback, but that wasn’t the intent.

Typically, these items are voted on at regular board meetings, and the next one will be on Jan. 12. Cruz said they will only take a vote once they feel they have an adequate amount of community feedback.

The district is required to adjust those boundaries when the census reflects a significant population shift. Houston ISD hosted several town halls where officials presented two fairly similar plans, and hoped to decide by mid-December. Both aim to return each district to within 10 percent of a predetermined ideal size of about 164,000 people.

Houston in Action, a network of over 50 organizations promoting community leadership and reducing barriers to civic participation, wrote the letter, alongside other Community Voices for Public Education, Emgage, Latinos for Education, Migrant and Refugee Leadership Academy, Institute for Civic Education, and Texas Federation of the People.

“Like you, we believe that all communities in HISD, and especially those who have historically been excluded, deserve a quality education and the ability to elect a representative who will be responsive to them,” Juan Cardoza-Oquendo, director of public policy for Houston in Action, said. “Therefore, we request that you allow the public more time to assess the draft plans. While you held town halls in your districts, few people attended them.”

[…]

“The Board published its redistricting plans online, to the best of our knowledge, less than a week ago,” Cardoza-Oquendo said. “The public needs more time to acquaint themselves with the redistricting plans and provide input.”

See here for some background. I noted at the time that I couldn’t find anything about the proposed redistricting plans on HISD’s website. I did find this page when I went looking again when I drafted this post. I didn’t see it when I first looked but it’s there as the bottom item in the dropdown menu for “Board”. They don’t have a link to it on the Board of Trustees page or the 2023 Election page, which were the first places I looked before I noticed it in the dropdown. Could definitely be better, but at least it’s there now. Perhaps ironically, I couldn’t find the cited letter on Houston in Action’s website or its Twitter page.

Anyway. All of the public meetings have been held, but apparently there was very little attendance at them. As far as I can tell, there was no mention of them in the regular emails that HISD sends out. I found one mention in an email I got from the Heights HS PTO, whose dist list I’m still on. How about another round of public meetings, with more publicity for them before they happen? That sounds like a good way to get the desired feedback needed to have the vote on the plan. What do you say, HISD?