Something I never thought I'd see!!

I'm home sick-could ya guess, seeing as this is a Saturday night. I read this story in the Houston Chronicle. I'm not from Texas, and haven't really had a desire to go, except to see Austin, and South by Southwest.

I used to date someone from Texas. He was from Waco, then Houston, he had lived all over the South. His dad was an ex-marine, now a minister, his great-grandfather was a Texas Ranger. The family, was white, middle class and Independent. That's Conservative to those of us in New York, and my home state of New Jersey. My ex worked for...Halliburton. I know, I know. But when he was hired, fresh out of Texas A&M he didn't know what he was getting himself into. They dangled a lot of money in front of his 22 year old nose. He had no idea what manner of beast Dick Chaney was until he began working for him. He was an oil services engineer, and frankly, kind of naive about the nature of corporations. Though I admit the things he saw and experienced at Halliburton were close to indentured servitude. They recruited at campuses to get the less informed like my ex boyfriend. The contracts were 2 years longer than the norm in the industry, so when his peers were done, and renegotiating, he was stuck at Halliburton making 25,000 less and having to live in Louisiana in the guaranteed housing that was a ramshackle trailer with a swamp full of alligators directly behind it. They kept them on call 24 hrs a day, and left them out at sea on the oil rigs far beyond the 2 week limit when they were supposed to recall them. No one he worked with re-signed when they were finally free.

There were other abuses, illegalities, and crooked dealings he saw, but wouldn't reveal enough to repeat, but even this moderately conservative white boy from Texas was horrified by the nomination of GW. Bush. He told me he always thought he was a dummy, and couldn't understand how he got to be governor, and that he knew few people who had voted for him. When he heard about his VP choice, he blanched, and said that he had been wrong, Bush must also be evil, for Chaney was one of the most evil people ever, and the worst employer he had ever had in his life. Though he was afraid that his state would back Bush because, although rather stupid, he was one of their own, a good Christian, and they knew nothing about the evil that is Chaney.

In short, he thought his fellow Texans were foolish enough to allow an idiot to run the country, simply because he was their idiot, and they knew nothing about the circle of malevolence he surrounded himself with. Even the moderates and liberals in Texas were not exactly invested in the political process, or they would have known better?

Well, looks like that's all changed. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5563949.html