Texas Independence Day
Dean
As a (displaced) native Texan, I would be remiss in not noting that today is Texas Independence Day.
Texas holds the unique distinctions of being the only sovereign nation, one that held its own revolution and had its own independent government, that ever went on to became a member of the united states. It was the only state which asked for--and received--the right to unilaterally secede as part of its admission to the union.
It is also only state which by protocol is allowed to fly its flag at the same level as the Stars & Stripes, rather than underneath it.
There's no other state quite like it, and it's a part of my heritage I am quite proud of. I often miss that crazy place.
(Thanks to Chris M. for the reminder.)
I am allowed to say this as I am a native, born and raised Texan.
http://www.snopes.com/history/american/texasflag.asp
Commandancy of the Alamo Bexar
February 24th 1836
To the People of Texas and all Americans in the world.
Fellow citizens and compatriots,
I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna.
I have sustained a continual bombardment and cannonade for 24 hours and have not lost a man. The enemy has demanded surrender at discretion; otherwise, the garrison is to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken. I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the wall.
I shall never surrender or retreat.
Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism and every thing dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch. The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily and will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days.
If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor and that of his country.
Victory or Death.
William Barret Travis
Lt. Col., Commandant
God Bless America and May God Continue to Bless Texas
Chris M.
For a short-lived republic, they certainly punched above their weight class!
As someone who graduated college with a number of Texans whom I call friends, I enjoy a certain outsiders appreciation of what I prefer to call the "Texan attitude." As such, I tip my virtual glass to you and all on such a day.
I will warmly recall some of my favorite Texan experiences today. Thanks for the reminder.
Dean, you had to be reminded?!? Aw, shucks, I did too. Boyd and my Daddy both did their jobs.
Also, no matter what Snopes says, Texas is permited to leave the union at any time. The disolution of corrupt government does not require the consent of said corrupt government, per the US Declaration of Independence. The Legislature votes on it on a regular basis, I kid you not. (Please don't attempt to argue this, unless you want to admit the US 'illegally' became a soverign nation.)
We Alaskans have heard of that little bitty state y'all call Texas. I hear it's kinda nice.
Shortly after the election, some radical advocated that Texas should secede since they have not only the oil but a lot of computer, aerospace, and other vital industries. They better not, I say! That would be a disaster. For one thing, the Church of the Subgenius has its headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Also, Rachel Lucas lives there. And Tyron Garner and John Geddes Lawrence. Remember the Alamo!
The main reason Alaska is so thinly populated compared to Texas is that it's too cold, for me anyway. Alaskans must like it that way. They must love that acreage-to-person ratio. They have all that vast land all to themselves while Manhattanites are crammed together on that little island. Speaking of Manhattan, I buy so many colored things that my brother has remarked a couple of times that I'm like that Indian who sold Manhattan for some colored beads. That is true, though I'd have inspected those beads carefully to make sure they were the right hues.
My favorite states are all on the West Coast. Oregon, my Oregon, first and foremost, where I grew up and lived most of my life and where most of my friends (e.g., Robin Georg Olsen, Charles William Harrington) still live. Washington, where most of my family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins) have always lived, where I was born, and where I live now. Sunny California, where I lived for a decade during the 1990s, and where my brother (David Matthew Anderson, who is a lot smarter than I am) first introduced me to computers. A lot of interesting people there, including the Governator.
I love Hawaii. I must visit there someday. The Western Islands. The main thing I love about Hawaii is their ancient culture and religion. I have a book on Hawaiian mythology, their Gods and Goddesses, that I have always treasured.
Hawaii is the one state that I wish never to secede from the United States. The loss of Hawaii would be like Earth losing our Moon. It must never be. Hawaii forever.
While I oppose much of neo-Confederate ideology, I can identify with a Southerner's love for his land, for I myself feel a similar attachment to the West Coast. Here, I'll live and die. Here, I'll take my stand.
I love our country with its vast diversity of states and regions. "E Pluribus Unum" Out of Many, One. Not one homogenous collective, but one free and great nation of free and great men and women.
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God*, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
*and all Gods and Goddesses.
I pledge allegiance to each of our brave soldiers who are fighting for our freedom, and to our noble veterans.
Expecting good (edible) Texan food in London is as strange as expecting good, Chinese food in Texas, or the UK, for that matter. Ain't gonna happen. Even Indo/Pak food gets "customized" for the local palates; it's just a fact of restaurant survival.
Oh good, I was thinking you meant this hell hole. No one in their right mind would consider this good food, or Tex-Mex within any version of the word. Taco Bell is more Tex-Mex than the Texas Embassy.
Oh, on the no good Texas food in the UK, make it yourself! Guacamole is simple. Take some salsa (your choice, I use Taco Bell and Old El Paso, they ain't good for nothin' else), 4 mashed ripe avacados(I prefer Spanish or Israeli Haas), 2 tsp Salt (or to taste), and 1 tsp Lemon Juice. Mix it all together, and you've got GREEN STUFF!! Pretty simple, tastes good when you can't get the real stuff, and I haven't met a Brit yet that doesn't like it. If your avacados aren't soft and pliable, place them in a brown paper bag and rotate once a day, up to 1 week. Easy way to force them to ripen.
Feel free to have a look at my Recipe Blog for some more Texas recipes. Most of the ingredients you can get over here. If you can't shoot me an e-mail and I'll see what I can do for you. Always happy to help a Transplanted Texan, or a Texan in spirit if not birth.
Okay, there's two differences. Hawai'i actually has a royal palace.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
(If any Texans don't know what I'm talking about, it's HB3, and it just went out of the way and means committee. You can visit Texas Policy to keep up with it. (Scroll down to the title 'Texas Payroll Tax.')
It's true that's there's 10 men to every woman in Alaska, and there's a good reason for it...
9 of the 10 men aren't worth having, and it's the last place on earth they can go without being shot on sight, or at least have the option to shoot back!
It's the place where people spend $500 on their cars and $7,000 on their snow machines.
And it's more awesome than it looks in pictures. It is a truly beautiful place. Eventually, when my elders don't need our help anymore, we shall go back home. Right now, we're in SD.
I surely didn't intend any disrespect for the great state of Alaska. I've very glad that Secretary William Seward had the wisdom to purchase that vast land from the Russians. The True North, Strong and Free. I always think of Alaska and Hawaii together, as twins. I did a report on Alaska in 5th grade. As a kid, I always hated maps that only showed the continental, or Lower 48, states.
In the summer of 1975, we loaded ourselves, our pet cat and all sorts of road trip gear into our 1964 VW van (with recently rebuilt stickshift transmission), and headed north from Champaign-Urbana Illinois, where we were doing graduate studies. Our stops included northwest Wisconsin; a provincial park on Ottawa's Lake of the Woods; all the main towns along the Canadian highways leading staight west into the late-May sunset.
In a few days we drove into the vast, magnificent and theatrically overwhelming Canadian Rocky mountains, driving north up along the Icefields Parkway from Banff to Jasper.
Then we turned west in direction of Kitimat and Prince Rupert. The road, including a stop at Lake Babine and a drive along the the very shore of the fantastic and wide Skeena river, was about as far north in Canada as you could go before running into Alaska. Mosquitoes as large as vultures. Daylight at about 11pm. The whole nine yards of the near-Arctic summer experience.
Then an auto ferry ride through the multitude of beutiful sea islands and fjorded coasts of the inner passage along the British Columbia coast took us to Kelsey Bay near the northern end of Vancouver island.
Some weeks later, the VW van got us safely back to central Illinois, but not without various stops to replace a burned-out generator, fan belts, repair recalcitrant carburetors and the other impedimenta of driving 60s era VW busses around like characters out of a 4-wheel version of "Easy Rider".
Now that was an experience that our four kids stare at us blankly and uncomprehendingly about, when we relate such experiences decades later.
Deanna, I understand it's possible to cross over fairly easily from far northwest Alaska across the relatively narrow Bering strait into the Chukchi peninsula on the far northeastern end of Siberia, for a trip into a truly exotic place. I suppose that's sort of like roughing it in spades? Or is it not quite that bad?
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Oh, my! What a trip that must have been. I've only gotten to do the drive once, when we came back to SD in 1996. It was late August/early September, and we drove the Cassiar Highway...a couple thousand miles of gravel roads. I'll never forget it.
The cross on the Bering strait is possible only in winter, as I understand it. Well, except by boat, of course. But in the winter in the right conditions, there is an ice bridge that can be crossed.
I had experiences on a daily basis in Alaska that other people wait their whole lives and spend their life savings on. I once was late for work while I waited for a moose to vacate my driveway. And then there were the four...count 'em...FOUR...grizzlies we had an encounter with at the fish wheel on the Copper River. And the dog sled races, and the caribou hunting and...
Ah, some day we'll get to go home. Someday.
As to roughing it, well...I lived in a very rustic cabin without indoor plumbing for nine years. Wood for heat, hauling water in, hauling waste out. Yeah, roughing it describes it well.
No offense taken.
You know, there's a well-known secret in Alaska. Shhhhh...don't let it out of the bag, but the plans are to secede from the union, declare war on the US, meet the troops at the Canadian border, fire one shot in the air, then surrender. We'll then promptly apply for foreign aid for a war-torn country and get more money from the federal government than we did as a state!
All hail the great United State of Alaska!!
But like I said, it's a secret, so...
I won't tell.
Of course, I'm not interrupting anything because I'm five days late here. Anyway, if anyone is still reading this thread, I wanted to address the two "anomalies" Dean mentioned in the original post: secession and the flag.
I've heard about these unique features about Texas all my life, but a while back I went looking for anything which would validate these two claims. I found...nothing. Nowhere can I find any authoritative source which distinguishes how Texas can fly its flag from any other state. Nor can I find anything which would appear to authorize Texas' secession from the Union by some sort of process unique to Texas.
The only unique nature of Texas' membership in the Union that I could find is the ability to divide Texas into eight different states (I think that's right...the number is a bit hazy in my memory). Any such division would have to come from within Texas; the federal government couldn't impose the division, nor could it be prohibited.
I hope someone is still reading the thread. I'd love to get into an argument about it. :)