Columns/Opinions

By ED STERLING

AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott on Feb. 21 sent a letter to Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath ordering immediate action to ensure the safety of children in Texas schools following the multi-fatality shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school on Feb. 14.

Abbott listed steps for Morath and other state education leaders to take to respond to and prevent such tragedies, including:

— Catalog and share all available information from the Texas School Safety Center on school safety programs and distribute this information to all school districts, charter schools and education service centers across the state;

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By ELLIS KNOX

I have always been interested in the origin of words. Take nap for instance, there’s two you know: K-N-A-P and N-A-P. The British Army back when they were using the flint-lock Brown Bess, 54 caliber musket, would require each soldier to knap a certain amount of flints to use on the striker of the musket’s lock that caused the sparks that ignited the powder in the barrel and caused the gun to fire. So a certain amount of time was allotted for this purpose.

As the evolution of firearm engineering progressed, the primer cap and nipple was invented, the forerunner of the primer in modern center fire ammunition. So the need to knap flints disappeared. The British officer corps saw no reason to continue KNAP TIME.

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Pageantry. Canon firings. All kinds of Texas music. Historical dramas. Texas Aggie Singing Cadets. Musket gun salutes. Historical camps. 1836 crafts. Kids Zone. Texas- sized 182nd birthday party of Texas independence.

All of this—and much, much more—occurs at Texas Independence Day Celebration (TIDC). Presented by H-E-B, TIDC is a free admission, two-day living history experience on Saturday and Sunday, March 3 and 4, 2018 on the 293-acre Washington on the Brazos Historic Site in central Texas, halfway between Houston and Austin. It is there— on March 2,1836—that 59 men bravely met in Washington, TX to formally declare Texas’ independence from Mexico, making Washington on the Brazos the very spot “Where Texas Became Texas.”

The site’s three fascinating on-site attractions (Star of Republic Museum, Barrington Living History Farm and Independence Hall) can be enjoyed free during TIDC. Parking and shuttles are also free.

By ED STERLING

AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott traveled to Rockport and Houston on Feb. 13 to announce the availability of new funding for hazard mitigation projects along the Gulf Coast following the devastation of Hurricane Harvey.

Abbott invited cities and counties to submit applications for projects and said the funding would provide an estimated $1 billion for hazard and flood mitigation projects designed to both help Texas rebuild and reduce the risk of future damage from flooding and Hurricanes.

The funding, to be administered by the Texas Division of Emergency Management, can be used for:

- Buyouts and elevations of flood prone properties;

- Drainage and reservoir projects that eliminate future flooding;

-Projects to lessen the frequency or severity of flooding;

- Flood risk reduction projects such as dams, retention basins, levees, floodwalls; and

- Large-scale channeling of waterways

By ED STERLING

AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott on Feb. 9 lauded Congress’ passage of budget legislation that contains nearly $90 billion in hurricane and wildfire disaster relief funding for Texas, Florida, California and Puerto Rico.

Hurricane Harvey pounded Texas from Aug. 25-31, resulting in disaster status for some 60 counties. The federal Office of Coastal Management has estimated the total cost of Harvey at $125 billion. Cost estimates by various other organizations have reached as high as $200 billion.

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By ROSS RAMSEY

It might deflate your confidence in the state of Texas to find that the people protecting your access to government information have their thumbs on the scale. That they’re playing favorites. That they put requests from their enemies on the slow track. Or that they advise the agencies who come to them for advice to act that way.

But that might be your takeaway from a remarkable 10-minute-21-second video of Marc Rylander, director of communications for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, talking to a crowd at an open government seminar put on by the AG’s office in San Marcos last month.

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