Texas Means Friendship - Really

Ah, Texas. There is so much about you to love: your fierce independence, your colorful characters, your chainsaws. You've got barbecue to spare, and don't forget the Alamo. You're so very big and loud, it's hard to ignore you. How could we? Why would we? With two Bushes and a Johnson, you guys have pretty much ruled the White House over the past fifty years. We've all learned our lesson: Don't mess with Texas.
Unless the Texans in question turn out to be real dullards. Take for example the Texas education officials who declined the help of university academics to fact check their students' textbooks. You might remember a recent dust-up with a Houston area mother who found the discussion of African "workers" in the nineteenth century south worthy of correction. That didn't keep the school board from turning down help from outside getting things right. "I know people are concerned about pointy-headed liberals in the ivory tower making our process different or worse," said board member Thomas Ratliff, who sponsored the bill, before the vote. "But I hold our institutions of higher education in fairly high regard." That didn't keep the measure from failing in an eight to seven vote. Don't mess with Textbooks, neither.
Which brings us to another thing that really matters in the Lone Star State: guns. Part of that whole independence thing, and probably some of that barbecue thing, has to do with that right to bear arms. They like to take their guns out to their local barbecue or taco stand to show that they can. Open carry doesn't mean they can walk around swigging from their longnecks, it means they want to show off their right to bear arms in the only way they know how: by wandering about their towns with all manner of firearms strapped to themselves, illustrating just how serious they are about bearing arms. It has made a number of different fast food chains have to put in writing their policies about weapons inside their franchises. Now it seems that the civic minded denizens or Irving, Texas are doing one better by taking their gun show to their local mosque. Aside from showing off their firepower, the assembled crowd let their Muslim neighbors know they would not stand for "The Islmization of America." Organizer David Wright, who cited the Paris attacks and rumors of Syrian refugees coming to Texas as reasons for the protest, said he had brought his twelve-gauge shotgun because "We do want to show force," according to the Dallas Morning News. "It would be ridiculous to protest Islam without defending ourselves," he said.
Ridiculous? Well, hey pardner, everything's bigger in Texas.