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The ongoing dispute over who first said, “May you live in interesting times,” pales when considering what “interesting” means these days. Last week’s newsy highlights were saddled with enough head-scratching lowlights that the “times” were anything but interesting.
We start, as we often do when delineating strange behavior, in Washington, where Vice President J.D. Vance — a convert to Catholicism — and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson — an evangelical Christian — took it upon themselves to Catholic-splain the Vicar of Christ, the guy we call the Pope. Go figure. One supposes a Pope knows the most minute details of … well … Catholicism.
The pair did so in support of President Donald Trump, who inexplicably called the Pope “soft on crime” and insisted that Pope Leo XIV’s papacy came about only because this president occupies the White House. The Pontiff’s offense? Taking issue with the planet’s current spate of wars and their prosecution.
Closer to home the Nebraska Legislature passed a budget in a short session, which adjourned sine die last Friday. Senators did so in the face of a $646 million deficit, the effort requiring some give and take and, occasionally, some push and shove. Nebraska law requires the Legislature to pass a state budget before the end of the session and send it to the governor, who signed this iteration without fanfare or any of his own excisions.
The ink had hardly dried on that signature when math and reality intervened, however. March tax receipts were well below the state forecasting board’s prediction. Add two, carry the four and violà, a fresh $72 million hole. It’s always something.
Structural budgetary issues remain, but a couple other happenings surely furrowed some brows. Senators said no — a third time — to the untenable notion that state government should be in the business of policing public bathrooms in government spaces. Good for them. Where one parks it when one needs to is hardly a matter for the Legislature and a waste of valuable time, exacerbated in a 60-day session. The sponsor of Legislative Bill 730, the bathroom bill, promises to introduce it again next session. (Pro tip: Perhaps provide evidence that defines the actual problem LB 730 is designed to solve.)
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In the waning days of the Legislature, the debate over LB 1050, which would have required increased funding for K-3 students who struggle with reading or suffer the consequences of dyslexia, resonated on a number of fronts. The details are these: After failing to get the 33 votes needed to close debate, senators did not advance the bill. Included in the discussion were the politically potent terms “unfunded mandate” and “retention,” the latter meaning the Legislature rejected the idea that students still having difficulties reading should be held back rather than advance to fourth grade.
I will leave it to those more skilled in Legislative ways to suss out the demise of LB 1050. Nothing transpired during its debate, however, to shake the idea that hearts and minds were at work. They appeared simply to be in different places.
The optics, however, took a hit. As was said on the floor during debate, even with noted arguments on both sides and references to the outstanding job most districts do to improve literacy rates among their students, putting the kibosh on LB 1050 was not a good look.
Still, we’re making progress. A good number of this session’s senators were around when “reading” debates were tinged with the idea of banning books, punishing librarians who had them on shelves and passing reductive efforts in schools to keep parents informed about what their children were reading, something districts already do.
Finally, on April 15, as they do each year, Major League Baseball players all wear number 42 to honor the legacy of Jackie Robinson. That’s the same day I read in The Athletic that since March 1, MLB’s Texas Rangers are displaying a bronze statue of Jay Banks, an actual Texas Ranger at their home stadium, Globe Life Field in Arlington. The statute had been at Dallas Love Field airport before it was taken down after a book was published citing its history.
The Texas lawman, who now towers above the crowds making their way to their seats, is also the subject of a famous photo. In it Banks is standing watch over nearby Mansfield High School in 1956 to keep it from becoming integrated. (If you’re keeping score at home, that’s nine years after Robinson broke the color barrier.) In the photo, which ran with the Athletic’s piece, the Ranger is leaning against a tree outside the school’s main entrance. Hanging above the school’s double doors, is an effigy of a Black man with a noose around his neck.
Rather than cop to a poor reading of the room … and history … the Rangers insist the statue’s origin story is not clear, even though Banks’ daughter, the Texas Ranger Museum and Banks himself have said he was the model for the statue.
Interesting times? Nope.
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