Take a Look In the Mirror

     While reading my classmates' blog, "What's So Great About Texas" , I was happy to see him point out all the bad things about Texas that Texans don't like to mention. Being it is the last blog of the semester I thought I would take a different approach. Since the author of the blog did a great job pointing out Texas' deficiencies statistically, I'll take a more personal approach. I have no problem with people being proud of where they are from. I'm proud to be from Arkansas and there is neither the need nor the time to point out all of the things wrong with that state. The fundamental difference is that we recognize those faults and never try to claim to better than everyone else. Texas is the only state since the civil war to seriously speak of secession. I've had people tell me, "If you don't love Texas leave it!" I guess that suggests Texans don't love America. Some of my own relatives tell me they would never leave Texas because it's the greatest place on earth. The funny thing is that a lot of them have never left Texas. I have traveled a large part of the world and I would urge all Texans to do the same before making such bold statements. I do ,however, like Texas but I am not blind to reality. To all of you flag waving Texans out there, I urge you to look closely at your state's problems and then look outside of your own borders for possible solutions to them. If you truly love something and it is broken you don't ignore the problem. You demand that the caretakers of your object of love repair it. When you fall behind almost every other state in very vital areas it is not in your best interest to separate yourself from them, but to try to forge a closer bond with them. Television commercials that use your Texan pride as a marketing tool absolutely crack me up. Most of us have seen the Dairy Queen commercial that ends with, "D.Q. that's what I like about Texas!". If you base where you decide to live on the presence of a low rate fast food chain other states probably don't want you anyway. Then there' the Ford commercial that declares that Ford is the, "Truck of Texas,". I've got some news for you. The people working in the Ford factories in Detroit could give a shit less where each truck is being shipped. They make them all the same. From an outsiders standpoint, among states Texas is: the girl who thinks she's alot better looking than she really is, the perennial "one-upper", or the person who thinks their shit don't stink. This is not iintended to be a simple rant about how bad Texas is. Just a plea to all of you to make an effort to make what could be the great state of Texas as good as you believe it to be.