Back in 2009, when that newfangled fad, social media, was cranking up, a colleague started a blog, often writing two to three posts each week. We were astounded. That was a lot of content to churn out. However, he was at a point where writing a post would take around 30 minutes. His comment was that the more you did it, the easier it got.
That was a lie.
In the almost eight years of writing, I’ve discovered there is no telling how easy or hard writing a post will be. Some—like last week’s post—are like giving birth. You know what you want to say, but pulling that out of you and translating what’s in your head into coherent paragraphs is a challenge.
And no, it doesn’t take 30 minutes. I don’t know if I’ve ever written anything that quickly, even on a good day.
But then you have weeks like this when you don’t need to worry about what your topic will be. You may have had some idea. However, that gets thrown out the window when you open your web browser to headlines like this:
“GOP legislator files bill to stop ‘furries’ from using litter boxes in schools.“
Suddenly, your blog is writing itself.
I’ve mentioned several times the unique brand of crazy that comes from Texas legislators—both at the state and national levels. Whether you live here or not, you’ve heard the stories. A friend in Germany—Germany, dear readers—sent me a text last week about the proposed legislation to make being transgender a state felony. I wasn’t brave enough to ask what people there were thinking.
(Side note—we will have something to say about that next week.)
Because at the end of the day, legislation about furries does nothing to promote Texas. I would be hard-pressed to believe that this guy’s constituents’ biggest concern is a make-believe issue about alleged furries in public schools. I would wager good money most of them would have to Google what furries are.
But forget the level of debunking that has gone on about this and how this urban myth has spread across the U.S. One of the local crazies in the legislature has still latched onto this as a real issue and thought it important enough to propose legislation—legislation now backed by our illustrious governor.
Does he read? Is he stuck on some strange subcommittee with nothing to do, so this provides some relief from the boredom? Was he dropped repeatedly as a child? Or did he eat too many Tide Pods? Surely someone in his district is seeing this and thinking they may have made a mistake.
Once upon a time, Texas was considered a business-friendly state. If you wanted to move your company here, leaders would bend over backward to make that happen. All kinds of tax breaks. No state income tax. Because of that, Texas was—and, I suppose, for companies, still is—a positive draw.
But somewhere along the way, our legislators took a hard right turn into Crazytown. Instead of being seen as a place that’s welcoming for all, we’ve become the state home for lunatics. The place where, if you’re not white, Christian, and straight, you may not be safe. Instead of promoting policies that would benefit all Texans, they’ve opted to spend sessions denigrating the transgender community and dismantling the public school system.
As a business owner, would you want to move your company here?
Which is odd because the people I speak with who have visited Texas often talk about how nice everyone is. And generally, I think we are. But we’re not the ones to be on the lookout for. It’s the ones who’ve been taken off the porch at the state home, moved into the legislature, and now spend their days doing absolutely nothing beneficial for Texans.
Unless you want to count fretting about furries.
