Scott's Spot

Bathrooms.  Who would have thought we would be talking so much about such private, yet shared experiences? Today, March 7, Senate Bill 6 will be heard in the Senate State Affairs Committee at the State Capitol.  Authored by Sen. Lois Kohlkorst (R-Brenham), the bill aims to restrict access for transgender persons to restrooms and other facilities. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has made bathroom access one of his top priorities this session, and his message sounds an alarm: “Menacing men dressed as women are preparing to assault our children and womenfolk!”   Mrs. Kohlkorst, ironically channeling former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, wrote an opinion piece that appeared in several Texas newspapers this weekend, in which she wrote, “Women’s rights are human rights.”  She also wrote that opponents of SB 6 seemingly have only one goal in mind—to let boys and men into women’s restrooms to prey on girls and women.  “Young men who are ‘curious,’”...

January 21, 2017   The President The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President: As a proud citizen of the United States, I want to extend my congratulations to you on the occasion of your inauguration.  The events of this weekend, starting with the words of your speech, all the way through the many demonstrations across the country in response to your ascent to the highest, most respected office in our great country, have moved me to write to you, my president . My president .  Many, like me, have struggled with that notion.  Many Americans have decided that they cannot refer to you as such.  They, like me, did not support you, nor did they vote for you.  They, like me, have been alternately baffled, amused, and frightened by the things you have said and done in the past months.  Though many of my friends and loved ones who did support you suggest that we take you seriously rather than lite...

I love the Nativity story as much as anyone.  In my family, we had a Christmas Eve tradition of gathering in the living room around the tree and hearing the story retold by whomever was the youngest family member able to read from the tattered children’s Bible we had.  In our small-town Methodist church basement, there was the annual Christmas pageant staged by the children’s Sunday School classes, complete with shepherds’ crooks and costumes fashioned from bed sheets.  Told and retold in story and song, the narrative of the birth of Jesus is so much a part of the Christian upbringing, so enmeshed and embellished with different cultural and family traditions, that we are likely encounter it at some point each year with nostalgia, misty eyes, and a lump in the throat. It’s certainly a compelling story, with elements of young love, a grueling journey, political intrigue, and special effects.  The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke each share a version of the “...

In response specifically to the tragedy in Orlando, and generally to the state of our national discourse, I wrote the following essay, published today in our local newspaper. “Words are things,” the inimitable Dr. Maya Angelou once said.  “You must be careful about calling people out of their names, using racial pejoratives and sexual pejoratives and all that ignorance.  Don’t do that.” She continued, like a prophet, “Someday, we’ll be able to measure the power of words.  I think they are things.  They get on the walls.  They get in your wallpaper.  They get in your rugs, in your upholstery and your clothes, and finally, into you .” As an educator, I learned early in my career that a single word, rightly chosen or ineptly used, could make all the difference in my students’ likelihood to grasp a difficult concept.  Later, as a school district leader, I was taught again and again, often in very difficult situations, that the words I chose...

This appeared in today's Corpus Christi Caller-Times... My morning routine goes something like this: first, start the coffeemaker and feed the cat.  Next, go outside and fetch the newspaper.  Third, pour the coffee and slide back into bed to read the Caller-Times, starting with the obituaries and ending with the opinion columnists. I save the editorial pages for last because they are so entertaining and provocative.  Ann McFeatters and Tom Whitehurst make me laugh.  Leonard Pitts makes me think.  Charles Krauthammer usually makes me mad, but I took special note of his column this past Saturday. “Doctors’ reasons for quitting” was the headline.  He wrote of the growing number of physicians who are leaving the profession, fed up with government interference in the practice of medicine.  Krauthammer detailed the complaint of classmates in his medical school class 40 th -year reunion report as “not financial, but vocational—an incessant i...

  May 24, 2015 I was honored this week to keynote the commencement ceremonies for Branch Academy for Career and Technical Education and Collegiate High School here in Corpus Christi.  Having been part of the planning and building of these two remarkable schools since their beginnings, it was a very special occasion for me to be able to share some thoughts with the students as they complete their courses of study. As often happens, I reflected on the speech after giving it and realized that I was, perhaps, preaching to myself.  The "keys to superheroism" are ideals I strive for in my life even today...sometimes with success, often times without. Earlier this month, “The Avengers:  Age of Ultron” opened to critical acclaim and amazing box office figures.  The sequel to “Marvel’s The Avengers” brought in $187.7 million in the first weekend of release.  The first movie in 2012 raked in over $207.4 million the first weekend, setting an all-time box ...

November 28 (Day 39 and beyond) As we turn back to South Texas on Sunday morning, I have to say my expectations for this trip have been met and exceeded in so many ways.  It has been a lifelong dream to ” see the USA in my Chevrolet… ” (you have to be of a certain age to know what that’s about!), and the places we have visited have been remarkable each in their own way.  The destinations, however, have not been entirely what this trip was about.  Indeed, it was the in-between spaces…the journey…that made this trip so special. And so it is with life.  Life is lived in the spaces between the big events.  The highs and lows—just like the desert valleys and mountain tops we’ve seen driving over 5000 miles in these past 7 weeks—are what make a life.   MB and I marked wanted to mark our retirements with this sort of once-in-a-lifetime cross country trip, and we feel fortunate to have seen that dream come true.  We feel blessed and ready f...