Finalist: Houston Chronicle, by Lisa Falkenberg

The petite, soft-spoken girl, allegedly raped by her mother's 21-year-old live-in boyfriend, was placed in state protective custody in May after her mother abandoned her following a long family history of abuse and neglect.

 

No one would blame her if she'd responded to the pregnancy with anger or hostility. But according to her attorney, former prosecutor Thuy Le, she embraced the life inside her with unusual maturity. She attended daily counseling sessions at school with a pregnancy liaison, missed class only for medical appointments and earned mostly A's.

 

On Nov. 10, she delivered a healthy baby girl weighing more than 6 pounds. With the support of her foster mother and foster mother's sister-in-law from Rosharon, whom Angela calls her "aunt," the young mother began caring for her baby, Le said. She chose to breastfeed. And she was changing the baby's diaper in her hospital room when fate dealt the next rotten hand.

 

Child Protective Services staff arrived to take the baby away. Le says Angela frantically called her in tears. The attorney rushed to the hospital, and, as she tells it, literally stood between the baby and the agency staff until they worked out a placement the agency deemed appropriate: The newborn would go home with the "aunt," who had bonded with Angela at church and family gatherings, and had agreed to take classes and go through the formal foster licensing process.

 

The plan was for the Rosharon couple to eventually take both the girl and her baby into the family's sprawling 9,000-square foot, six-bedroom home.

 

That hasn't happened. And one juvenile court judge has seemed hell-bent on making sure it never does.

 

Since the newborn left the hospital, Angela has been allowed to see her baby only once.

 

State District Judge John Phillips, whose tantrums and unscrupulous antics have been chronicled many times in this column, has denied Angela access. And although he had no jurisdiction over the baby's case in a hearing last month, he demanded that child protective officials move the infant out of the Rosharon family's home. The infant is now with a foster family in Montgomery County.

 

"You and the baby are not going to be together," the judge flatly told Angela in a Nov. 14 hearing, according to a court transcript.

 

His reasons appear to have little to do with the law. Angela's right to parent her child isn't nullified by her age. State officials can take children away only if parents are abusive or neglectful.

 

Nothing I've read in a stack of court records or heard in court testimony suggests Angela is a danger to her baby. Officials with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services have not alleged that. The child advocate in the case recommended mother and baby be together. A psychological evaluation stated Angela would benefit from mother/baby bonding sessions.

 

All that seems to matter to the court is that Angela is 12. Angela was from a bad family. Angela is damaged goods. Angela at first thought of the rapist as her boyfriend, although therapy helped her work past that.

 

"The agency feels the child is 12-years-old," Tiffany Luster, a caseworker brand new to the case, testified at the Nov. 14 hearing. "She doesn't have the capacity to parent the child. … Her model of parenting is questionable, and (Angela) lacks understanding of what is required to adequately care for a child."

 

Of course she lacks that understanding. But, according to her attorney, Angela has no grand delusions of getting a job and striking out on her own: "I don't think she ever for a minute thought she was going to raise this baby by herself."

 

The girl knows she needs parents. She needs a family. She just wants her baby to be part of that family. Yet the fact that the Rosharon couple already had the baby angered Phillips.

 

He went on a tirade about how the agency didn't follow procedures and how the Rosharon family wasn't licensed. In fact, plenty of "safety placements" are with friends and neighbors who aren't licensed. Then Phillips revealed perhaps his truest motivation in the case: "I get calls from people that say 'we're approved foster parents. We're waiting for a child. Why can't we have a child? Why can't we get a foster child?'" Phillips said. "Well, I can tell you why, because CPS steps in and makes these moves like this that are unauthorized, and they're not part of the procedure."

 

The comment led Angela's attorney to file a motion to remove Phillips from the case because of apparent bias.

 

The motion didn't get far, landing just down the hall in the courtroom of Judge Glenn Devlin, who happens to be Phillips' old law partner and former campaign treasurer.

 

Despite his awkward position, Devlin heard Le out in a hearing Tuesday, and at least let her call witnesses - something Phillips refused to do. In the end, though, he denied the motion.

 

Immediately afterward, Angela appeared before Phillips for another hearing. The judge was steaming and hardly bothered to hide it.

 

"You can go have a seat!" he barked at Le. "You don't represent anybody in this case."

 

Le had planned to argue Child Protective Services never had a right to take the newborn. She had lined up six witnesses, including a therapist and school officials, to support her case.

 

Instead, Angela was represented by Katie Flynn, a frequent appointee in Phillips' court. This year alone, Flynn has been paid $156,852 in court appointments and is handling about 100 active cases in juvenile and family courts, county records show.

 

Flynn quickly counseled Angela in the hallway and within moments, the 12-year-old found herself before Phillips, waiving her right to a say in her baby's care and consenting to the state as temporary managing conservator. She also gave up her right to appeal.

 

Flynn says Angela asked her to stay on the case and that the girl realizes the state can help her through parenting classes and therapy.

 

"I was advocating for what she wants," said Flynn, who says she's working to get Angela more visitation with the baby. She says she believes the Rosharon family is still an option for them both.

 

When it comes down to it, Le says, "I think this case is based on a lot of presumptions and judgments and people's own moral leanings."

 

She's right. What it should be about is the law, which, in this case, is on the side of the young mother. Angela, who turns 13 on Friday, has been through a lot in her young life, abused often and punished aplenty.

 

She only got more of the same from the system that was supposed to help her. Child protective officials trampled her rights. A judge abused his discretion.

 

Maybe even Phillips saw that he went too far. At the end of Tuesday's hearing, he quietly transferred Angela's case to another court.

 

At this point, she can only hope it's fate, finally dealing her a fair hand.

By Lisa Falkenberg

 

Good morning, Councilman James Rodriguez. This one is for you.

 

I know you're not too keen on the payday loan regulations before the Houston City Council today. You skipped last week's meeting, which would allow you to "tag" the measure, delaying Wednesday's vote until next year.

 

By then, a new council will be forced back to the drawing board on reforms that Dallas, Austin, El Paso and San Antonio have already passed to rein in lenders preying on single moms and the working poor. By then, you'll be safely out of office due to term limits, free to pursue opportunities in the private sector, perhaps even a post in the payday loan industry.

 

"I'm keeping all options open," you told me with a laugh, declining to discuss that particular rumor.

 

You claim your opposition is about free markets, concern over regulations killing jobs, and the cost of enforcement. You claim you're not influenced at all by your connections to the industry, including campaign contributions and, most notably, the fact that your close friend, former roommate and a groomsman at your wedding, Giovanni Garibay, is a lobbyist for Cash America.

 

Most striking, though, is your contention that the folks in your east Houston district don't care much about this issue.

 

"I've been all over my district for the last six years," you said in council last week. "And I really haven't heard any complaints about this particular industry."

 

This made me wonder if you'd ever visited one of the many payday and auto title loan places sprouting up in your area. I wondered if you'd ever talked to any of the people going in and out of the neon buildings that beckon the desperate with windows promising short-term salvation: "Need Cash? We can help!" and "Fast Cash, up to $3,000 here."

 

"Never," you told me. "I never hang out there. I never spend any time around there."

 

Well, councilman, you're in luck. Because I have. I spent hours at several of the loan places in your district last week, mostly along Harrisburg Boulevard. News flash: The people you represent have complaints. Lots of them.

 

Take Violet Hernandez, a 24-year-old medical assistant who had her 9-month-old in tow when we met at Speedy Cash on Friday.

 

She said that when she was off work after giving birth earlier this year and the family needed money for rent and the light bill, her husband took out a $350 loan.

 

When the company wouldn't let her make a payment for her husband, and he couldn't get off work, they got behind, she said. The amount owed quickly ballooned to $1,000, she said. The letters started. And they just stopped paying.

 

"We needed it so fast, we didn't pay attention to details," Hernandez told me. "It goes on increasing and increasing."

 

Hernandez, who lives in your district, just a few blocks from Harrisburg, said an ordinance that leads to fairer practices could be helpful: "There's people like us that really needed the money and couldn't pay it back because the interest was so high. It was more than he was making."

 

Then there's the nearly 63-year-old grandmother who takes three buses to get from her home in a historic part of your district to her job at a doctor's office. The bubbly woman with lips the same color as her red glasses had just finished making a loan payment when I met her in the parking lot.

 

She stood in the icy rain in her white sweater, telling me how she'd fallen deeper and deeper into the payday quicksand while trying to put food on the table for her out-of-work son and his family.

 

"There was a lot of reasons, Lisa, for me going to these loan places," she told me after inviting me to sit in the backseat of the Chevy Tahoe her daughter had loaned her to do errands. "It wasn't because I wanted new tennis shoes, new scrubs, new perfumes. It was always a necessity. The sad part about it is they're going to be nice enough to lend you the money but all they're collecting is months and months of interest (and fees) so the principal's just sitting there."

 

Over the years, the woman - who pleaded with me not to use her name - says she's had to take loans out with different lenders, sometimes to cover a payment at another place. She let me accompany her to her next stop down the road. I watched her make a $102 payment that didn't touch the $493 principal. But the grandmother kept her spirits, referring to the stern-faced woman behind the counter as mija, "my child." She joked that the manager was a "toughie." She wished them all Merry Christmas.

 

"One day, one day, one day," she sighed as she wrote out the check. One day, "God willing," she'd have enough to put toward the principal.

 

The pending ordinance, as you know, councilman, caps a loan's size based on the borrower's income, the number of times it can be refinanced and thereby the fees and interest that can accumulate. It requires each installment, refinance or rollover of a loan to drop the principal owed by at least 25 percent.

 

Another of your constituents, Roxana Guerrero, 27-year-old customer service representative, said she and her husband turned to a payday loan from another place along Harrisburg when she was out of work. When they got behind, she said, the company refused to let her pay what she could. Then the harassment began, to such a degree that Guerrero said she feared for her 7-year-old daughter's safety.

 

"They call our job. They show up to your house. They're really rude. And they even threaten you that they're going to press charges of theft by check if you don't pay them on time," Guerrero said.

 

Guerrero said it never occurred to her to call her councilman: "I just never thought the City Council was involved with, you know, all these little loan places out there."

 

I asked the grandmother the same question: Why hadn't she complained to her councilman about her struggles with the loan companies?

 

"The truth is," she told me, "I've never had anybody like you come up to me and show some kind of interest. I didn't know there was somebody out there who had somebody's back. There's a lot of questions that we the people have. But there's nobody out there to hear us."

 

Do you hear them now, Councilman Rodriguez?

 

It's tempting to turn the other cheek, I know. That's the route the Texas Legislature has taken on this issue, which is why it ended up in council's lap.

 

It's tempting not to rock the boat in your last days in office, to hide behind a parliamentary maneuver that keeps the status quo, keeps it so that the almighty "free market" is the only check on a system designed to exploit struggling families.

 

But I just thought you'd like to know what your own constituents think about this issue. Many of them are hurting.

 

This can you're thinking about kicking down the road could help them. And it's still them that you're working for, isn't it?

By Lisa Falkenberg

 

Just after 7 a.m., my father is sitting in the dining room, already dressed in his blue-collared uniform shirt and navy pants. He's bending over to lace his shoe. I ask him how it feels to get ready for work for the last time.

 

"Anxiety," he says.

 

"He wouldn't sleep last night," my mother hollers from the kitchen, where she's busy at her daily routine of packing him enough sandwiches, snacks and drinks to keep him fueled for the next 12 hours.

 

Dad explains that it's more like excitement, something a kid feels before the first day of school. Only, this is the last day. After millions of miles, a lifetime of hauling everything you can think of - cattle, steel, grain, brick, beer, sportswear, potato chips - my father is pulling his last run. Bringing in the last load. Logging his final miles behind the wheel of a big rig. At 65, he stopped putting off retirement, stopped waiting for the 401k to recover. It is time.

 

Before we leave the house, Mom gives her usual instructions: "Honey, do how you always do. Call me before you leave Harlingen."

 

"McAllen," he says.

 

After a few decades, the places can all run together.

 

The life of a trucker often conjures images from a country song, a wanderer, a playboy honking at pretty woman and spewing slang into a CB, or that guy who helped Bandit outrun Smokey.

 

To me, it's the sizzle of eggs and Spam in the skillet at 2 a.m. It's the embroidered cursive spelling "Leroy" above his right breast pocket. It's the jangle of keys on his belt loop, welcome as bells when he'd come home, grim as chains when he'd leave.

 

It's a kiss goodbye that smelled of cigars and coffee. Missed band concerts. Mama shushing us to play quietly so Daddy can sleep. Him always going, us always staying.

 

More than anything, it's hard work. He worked until his hair was gone, until his belly swelled over his belt, until his red farmer's tan was etched with more roads than he'd ever driven. He did long-haul for a short time, but most of the years were spent driving for Frito Lay across Texas.

 

Still, there's always been some mystique about what my dad did. So I went along Monday for the last ride.

 

We pick up the tractor at Frito's Fleet Center in San Antonio and Dad loads our gear: food, tools to fix loose wires, a floral pillow just in case. At the turn of his key, the engine roars.

 

"Thing's loud, ain't it," he says. "It'll do that for a while and then quiet down."

 

He fires up the truck's computer, which accounts for every minute, every move: "How long I spent idling, how much I wore my seat belt, how many times I went over 65 mph," he explains. He hits the tires with a hammer, checks the lights, then we head inside to talk with the mechanics.

 

One can't resist telling me about the time Dad called him at midnight when he ran out of gas 15 miles short of the plant.

 

"The legend must live on, Leroy," the mechanic laughs.

 

"Yeah, we used to run it pretty close to El Paso," Dad says. "One night, I just didn't make it."

 

"It's always been a pleasure," the mechanic tells him. "Even at 12 o'clock at night."

 

Back in the tractor, we head to the plant and find our load. We begin backing up toward the trailer filled with boxes of chips. All the sudden, there's a loud bump.

 

"What happened!" I yell. "Did we hit something?!"

 

"It latched," my father says, trying not to laugh.

 

As we set off for McAllen, I ask how it feels, pulling out for the last time, being one run away from not working for the first time since his first job in 1963, hauling hay for $1 an hour.

 

"I guess I won't believe it 'til I'm home, not doin' nothin'," he says. He and Mom don't have any great vacations planned. He mentions organizing the house, exercising, doing some fishing, reuniting with his circadian rhythm.

 

"Just maybe see some places in Texas, that's about it."

 

Through the windshield, the cluttered landscape of the city gives way to smooth green pastures dotted with cows, cornfields and drilling towers Dad says light up like Christmas trees at night. The big truck's cab goes from shifting and jerking in the city to a lulling quiver that might have put me to sleep if not for the fresh refill of coffee before we left.

 

Willie's Roadhouse, a classic country station, is on the Sirius. I ask what he thinks about in that cab by himself.

 

"All kinds of stuff," he says. "Just before you asked, I was thinking about Falfurrias butter." (Incidentally, we were nearing Falfurrias.)

 

He wonders aloud whether it's too dry for the cornfields to make. Whether all the new laws and regulations are bringing down the trucking industry. Whether that guy from Houston is still running the country store on 281. How much Henry Cisneros had to do with the housing collapse. What those mysterious upside-down bottles are for on the fence lines near Alice.

 

He'd like to stop sometimes, read some historic markers, or maybe just once on a trip to Corpus, catch a glimpse of the sea. But this job romanticized for its freedom can be as captive and routine as the job of a grocery checker. The conveyer belt is just 500 miles long.

 

Before I know it, we're in McAllen with the load. Dad is swapping stories, and goodbyes with a forklift operator he's known for 20 years. And we're picking up a load of boxes bound for San Antonio.

 

On the way back, the skies grow dark and thunder cracks the sky. It calms after a while.

 

"See that cloud?" my dad says, pointing to a silver lining climbing a staircase of storm clouds. "So many times I've been headed home about this time. I've seen so many sunsets."

 

"Is a sunset as pretty if you're seeing it alone?" I ask.

 

"No. You want to tell somebody, you know? I've tried calling Mama a few times. Either she can't see it or the house is in the way."

 

It's almost 10 p.m. when we get back into San Antonio. At the fleet center, Dad turns off the truck and begins to hose down the glass and mirrors. He scrubs the bugs off the windshield, one by one.

 

He gets back in the truck, and half-apologizes for the routine. Then he cusses at a tiny smear he missed and turns on the wipers.

 

Forty years of hard, tedious work is just about over. Only an hour of paperwork left. And he's worried about a bug stain on the windshield.

 

My father never went to college, or had a fancy title. But he has pride in his work, one of his greatest lessons to me. No one owns that pride. No one can buy it. And even after the last run, he takes it with him.

By Lisa Falkenberg

 

When I read about Herlinda Garcia's case last week, my first feelings were sadness and disgust. Then I thought of Greg Abbott, the Texas attorney general, recently announced gubernatorial candidate, and victim of a tragic tree-falling accident in Houston that left him paralyzed in 1984.

 

As a former plaintiff who sued the homeowner whose tree fell on him, along with the tree service company, and won a settlement of more than $10 million, I wondered what he'd think about what happened to Garcia.

 

The Victoria woman found herself living a nightmare in 2009 after she was diagnosed with Stage IV terminal breast cancer, based on what her doctor believed were enlarged lymph nodes. She quit her clerical job in a doctor's office and underwent seven months of intensive chemotherapy. When she was told she had only months to live, she began planning her funeral, giving away precious belongings and arranging for hospice care. She started taking anxiety medications to deal with the stress of it all.

 

Then, one day in a Victoria emergency room, a doctor who examined her medical records suspected she'd been mis­diagnosed. Another doctor at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center performed a biopsy, which the initial oncologist, Ahmad I. Qadri, had not done, and found no cancer.

 

Garcia hadn't needed hospice, and she hadn't even needed the chemotherapy, although it would have been an option since she'd had a previous cancerous tumor removed.

 

Garcia sued Dr. Qadri, who has since died, for medical malpractice, and a jury awarded her $367,500 in damages.

 

But a state law championed in 2003 by Abbott and other Republican leaders under the banner of "tort reform" and ending "frivolous lawsuits" caps the amount Garcia can receive for "non-economic" damages such as pain, suffering and mental anguish at $250,000.

 

State District Judge Skipper Koetter told me Tuesday when he receives the final judgment from attorneys he'll comply with the law and reduce Garcia's award.

 

"I think it was fair that she got some money. I think it was fair that it was capped," the judge told me, but he also noted that he doesn't make the laws in this state.

 

Neither does Abbott. But as governor, he would have a great deal of influence over those who do make the laws.

 

When I called him for a comment, Abbot said his stance on tort reform was informed by his time as a judge in Harris County: "I presided over cases where there were legitimate victims who deserved to be compensated for their injuries. I also presided over a lot of cases where the lawsuits were absolutely frivolous."

 

He described how medical providers were hurt, dragged through depositions and trials and - even if they won - found themselves out hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney fees.

 

He explained that his own personal injury case was very different from medical malpractice claims, and a jogger out today in Houston who is hit by a tree could access the same remedies. "So, that hasn't changed," he said. "The reason is that there is not a crisis in Texas about access to tree care, like there is access to health care."

 

He and others argue that medical malpractice awards had to be limited because the lawsuits were forcing Texas doctors to flee the state, thereby creating a doctor shortage and an "access" crisis.

 

Studies have since found no evidence of that.

 

"There never was a lawsuit crisis in Texas, and lawsuits never drove doctors from the state. Nor did tort reform cause doctors to move to Texas in greater numbers," Charles Silver, a University of Texas law professor, told me when I asked about his study of the issue. "Even tort reformer advocates now admit that access to health care, measured in doctors per capita, has not improved since 2003."

 

Abbott is skeptical: "I look with a jaundiced eye at any study anyone would bring up. What I know is what I have heard first-hand. I've had countless doctors tell me 'we're getting out of the practice of medicine because of medical malpractice.' "

 

"So," I said, returning to Garcia's case, "if you were this woman, would you feel like justice had been served?"

 

"Well, having been a victim myself, on the one hand, you never feel that justice is served because you have to live with it the rest of your life, but also as a victim, I realize that victimology or being a victim doesn't get you anywhere in life. You just gotta move on."

 

"But," I asked, "what if they had told you that - after your accident, after you were paralyzed? 'You've just got to move on. And this is all you're going to get. Your award is limited.' "

 

"That's the reality that I face," he said. "I'm never walking again, Lisa."

 

"But what if they had limited your award and said 'move on?' "

 

This was the only part in the interview when Abbott stumbled.

 

"Uh, I mean …" he said. "I wasn't given a limitless award. I was given what the insurance policies had. That was the way it worked for me."

 

Yes, that was the way it worked out for you, General Abbott. You received a multimillion-dollar settlement that helped you support your family while you got your life back on track. You received what seems fair compensation for the harm you suffered.

 

The question is why Herlinda Garcia isn't entitled to the same.

After all, she thought, how effective could an old white lady from West U be as principal of a poor, largely minority campus where fewer than half graduated, where hundreds of students were suspended a year, where a simple assembly could prompt a riot. A place where teachers welcomed her with a dead fish on her desk and cigarette butts in her toilet.

 

That was 13 years ago. The nearly 79-year-old principal stayed, outlasting the haters and taming the gangs, who stopped fighting, at least on campus. She's still trolling the halls of Furr High School, hugging or fist-bumping every kid along the way. She arrives at 6:30 a.m., gives rides home, funds field trips out of her own pocket, knocks on doors after dark in tough neighborhoods, hunting down kids who missed school.

 

It's a different world now. Suspensions were down to 17 last year, the lowest of any comprehensive Houston high school. Simmons rules with tough love, wickedly clever wit and a black robe she dons for Principal's Court, complete with student jurors. The dropout rate, as the district calculates it, is less than 1 percent and the graduation rate is nearly 91 percent, Simmons says. She started an in-house charter to keep young adults from dropping out.

 

In 2011, the College Board honored her with the prestigious Inspiration Award. At the time, HISD Superintendent Terry Grier praised Simmons, saying "Furr is a good example of the type of turnaround that can happen" by combining college-level courses, effective teachers and "an outstanding principal."

 

It wasn't enough, though. This year, Simmons is not "outstanding" in the eyes of HISD. She's not worthy of praise, or a raise. The veteran educator who has given 52 years of her life, and much of her retirement, to Houston public schools is now on a "growth plan," a tool targeting low-performers that requires them to get better or lose their jobs.

 

Of the 24 principals identified for growth plans this year, 14 have already resigned, retired, or indicated they're leaving, HISD spokesman Jason Spencer said. He noted that growth plans are offered only to those educators the district believes can improve. Others are simply shown the door.

 

The reason Simmons made the list? Test scores, she says. Furr students not only fell behind in SAT performance and Advanced Placement exams, but the percentage passing all subjects on the state's standardized test fell eight points from 2010 to 2012, to just 56 percent passing. HISD's passing rate was unchanged at 71 percent, Spencer said.

 

About 93 percent of Furr's students are economically disadvantaged, but even so, the school's scores in several areas lag those of Sharpstown and Lee, which have similar percentages of poor students.

 

Simmons acknowledges recent declines. She takes responsibility, saying budget cuts led her to reduce teacher planning time, which was a mistake, because teachers weren't meeting regularly to discuss student progress or concerns. She restored planning time this year by "creative budgeting," that includes increasing class sizes.

 

As for the growth plan, she doesn't take offense. If some of her teachers have to be on one, she should, too, she says.

 

"I really don't view them as demeaning," Simmons told me. "I think that all of us should be on growth plans at one time or another. It's really hard to demean me, because I want to keep improving and getting better and better."

 

What does concern her is the singular focus on test scores to evaluate students and educators.

 

"It's almost comical to think, with everything we've done, that I would be fired because of our test scores. It's beyond my comprehension. It's absurd," she says. "I just don't think we're looking at the big picture in education."

 

Her big picture is a school where she believes all students feel welcome, where she boasts about accepting any student, no matter how troubled, no matter how it affects her numbers.

 

Her big picture includes things that tests can't measure. A school that has 15 gangs, but little violence. A school that didn't even have a band when she arrived but is now a fine arts magnet with music, theater and dance. A school that once had no parental involvement but is now flush with volunteers and dozens who meet twice a month for lattes and cappuccinos with the principal in the campus "coffee shop," staffed by culinary students.

 

Lucy Cano is one of those parents. She could have sent her daughter to a glistening new Wheatley High School just down the road, but it didn't feel safe. Instead, she drives 10 minutes out of her way to Furr.

 

"I've never seen another principal like her," Cano says of Simmons. "There's nothing that she has not done to help the kids."

 

There was once a time when our definition of a great educator included something beyond numbers. It included heart.

 

Simmons isn't perfect, but she's got heart and hope and dedication in reserve.

 

She plucked a throwaway school out of the trash bin and gave its students a fighting chance.

 

But our test-obsessed culture doesn't give points for that. We've reduced leadership to a bubble sheet. We've reduced a miracle-worker to a growth plan.

 

Bertie Simmons didn't ask to be here. But if the superintendent knows what's best for Furr, he'll do all he can to make sure she stays.

By Lisa Falkenberg

 

"Yes. I do want to end abortion," state Sen. Dan Patrick told a Houston Chronicle reporter Thursday.

 

And with those words, Patrick, the father of the infamous sonogram bill and recently announced GOP candidate for lieutenant governor, confirmed the real motivation behind legislation the Senate considers today to drastically restrict abortion rights in Texas.

 

Of course, Patrick was quick to follow up, for cover-your-butt purposes in case of future litigation: "This bill is not about that."

 

I suppose the bill isn't about the good senator's political prospects, either.

 

But Patrick's comment confirmed something else: the tragic futility of the "pro-life" movement. In reality, almost every single one of us would like to end abortion, or, more accurately, the circumstances and tragedies that lead to abortion.

 

We'd love to live in a world where every pregnancy is planned, every baby is wanted and healthy and loved enough to thrive in this hard world.

 

We live in reality, though. And the reality is this: No law, no vote-hungry politician, no movement of well-meaning citizens (and yes, I do believe most of the pro-lifers are well meaning), will ever end abortion.

 

A pastor who attended the Austin news conference where Patrick made his remarks was quoted saying "abortion began in Texas, and I pray it ends in Texas." Of course, abortion didn't begin in Texas. It was legal in some states years before the landmark 1973 Texas case Roe v. Wade legalized abortion nationwide. But as long as there has been sex, there has been unplanned pregnancy. And as long as there has been unplanned pregnancy, there has been abortion.

 

Our best hope is to keep it safe, legal and rare.

 

Bills like the one Patrick and other GOP leaders are pushing threaten that endeavor to its core. Instead of supporting legislation that could really reduce abortions - by, say, adequately funding family planning services so poor women have access to birth control - so-called pro-lifers pursue an agenda that chips away at rights intended to protect women.

 

Let me step back. With this column, I'm breaking an important rule never to address the fundamental merits of abortion rights. After all, we had that debate 40 years ago, didn't we? And the highest court in the land deemed abortion a constitutional right of all U.S. women. But another reason I avoid it is because the debate itself is futile. If you feel strongly about it, you can't be swayed. This column won't change your mind.

 

Most people don't pick a side based on logic, or even information. They decide based on their gut, their emotions. Some are convinced by testimonials like the kind we've heard recently in legislative committee hearings from women who regretted their abortions and experienced trauma afterward. Some are compelled by religion or personal circumstances or by images of vulnerable, though not-yet-viable fetuses.

 

And many of us who believe in abortion rights are not unmoved by all of this. We are not comfortable with the idea of aborting a 20-week pregnancy, even if the fetus hasn't yet reached viability. We can count the fingers, same as anyone.

 

But we also know Republican lawmakers won't stop with 20 weeks. Next time, it will be 18 weeks. And then 16. And we know that criminalizing abortion, or restricting access to it, won't alleviate the trauma. It will create more. It may send a desperate woman to the border to buy abortion pills in open-air markets. It won't save the fetus. It may just cost the mother her own life if she's desperate enough to turn to the back alley for help.

 

In 1965, illegal abortion accounted for 17 percent of all "reported" deaths attributed to pregnancy and childbirth that year; the actual percentage was much higher, according to the Guttmacher Institute. And in the early 1970s many women had to travel thousands of miles to other states for abortions, risking the women's health and resulting in later-term abortions. After abortion was legalized, women's deaths plummeted and the proportion of abortions done early in the first trimester rose dramatically.

 

Over the past couple of weeks, I've read so many emails, fielded so many questions about how I can believe the way I do on this issue. They see the issue in black and white. Life and death. And they can't see the gray.

 

Here's the gray. As a mother of two beautiful daughters, I have marveled at those sonogram images with tears in my eyes. I have strained to count the fingers and make out the grainy faces. I was so blessed that my girls were both born healthy, blessed that they were planned, blessed that I have a loving, supportive husband to help me raise them, blessed that we have jobs that enable us to care for, feed and clothe them.

 

Not everyone is so blessed. And for those women, there should be a choice. And it should be hers, her family's, and her God's - not her government's.

 

The pro-life goal of "ending abortion" is noble, but also naive and dangerous. It won't save babies; it will endanger the health of mothers who will be forced into the shadows to access their right to choose.

By Lisa Falkenberg

 

I am in love. And Sebastien De La Cruz is his name.

 

These are the words I was thinking of tweeting Tuesday night at the start of the Spurs-Heat match-up before one of the kids scampered off with my iPhone.

 

As it was, I just sat there in an armchair in the living room in awe of the 11-year-old on the TV screen boldly belting out "The Star-Spangled Banner" like 14 million people weren't listening.

 

But they were listening, and watching. And although the San Antonio crowd roared in delight at Sebastien's Mariachi vibrato and daring high notes, love wasn't the universal response. For some, it was hate.

 

Immediately, social media erupted with racist, bigoted tweets, spewing epithets and disgust that a "Mexican" would be allowed to sing the national anthem and accusing Sebastien of being an illegal immigrant, even though the Spurs announcer had made it clear he was a "San Antonio native."

 

I won't honor the tweets with any repeat references here, but let's just say that many lacked not only a firm grasp of our country's cultural heritage but also the grammatical rules of our primary language.

 

Apparently, it wasn't just Sebastien's surname or his dark hair and eyes that so inflamed some people's sensibilities, but the fact that the boy had donned a charro suit for the occasion.

 

Most Texans wouldn't bat an eye at the traditional Mariachi attire. The suits are as ubiquitous around these parts as a pair of nice cowboy boots. My nephew is wearing one in the picture above my computer right now.

 

Mariachi and other Mexican music and dance are a part of our lore. It's in our restaurants and our high school band programs. Growing up in Seguin, we danced Ballet Folklorico in elementary PE class.

 

But to viewers in other parts of the country, this boy was singing about "us" in a costume that screamed "other."

 

The thing is, though, Sebastien isn't "other" anymore. And he never really was an "other" in a city like San Antonio, which responded to the vitriol by demanding an encore Thursday night from the boy known as "El Charro de Oro" for his golden voice.

 

After singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" again at Game 4, he earned a raucous ovation and was congratulated by Spurs coach Gregg Popovich and Heat coach Erik Spoelstra. It was the latest outpouring of support Sebastien has received far and wide.

 

For those haters in other parts of the country who can't be bothered with census reports of our changing demographic landscape, here's a news flash: That kid singing the song of our nation is the future of it.

 

Texas, and Houston, specifically, offer a glimpse of that future, as Rice University sociologist Stephen Klineberg likes to say: "I have this chart that shows where Houston is today and then shows where the United States will be in 2050. And it's the same chart."

 

But he notes that any kind of demographic shift and arrival of newcomers in America has always been accompanied by animosity: "We've always thought: 'The last generation of immigrants was great for America. This new wave of immigration is destroying the country,' " Klineberg said.

 

What's changed is our attitude toward assimilation. Italian, Greek and Polish immigrants in the last century became American by being less Italian, Greek and Polish, and left it to future generations to rekindle a connection to their heritage.

 

"The grandson tries to remember what the son tries to forget," Klineberg said, paraphrasing something called Hansen's Law.

 

But newer waves of immigrants believe they can become 100 percent American while still retaining a connection to Mexico, or India or elsewhere. And Klineberg's latest Houston Survey, released in April, showed that Houstonians are more accepting of that idea than ever. The percentage who thought that increasing ethnic diversity in Houston eventually will become "a source of great strength for the city" rather than "a growing problem" grew from 55 percent in 1996 to 69 percent today.

 

Of course, as Sebastien pointed out in TV interviews following the flap, he isn't an immigrant. He was born and raised in San Antonio and says his father is a U.S. Navy veteran. For all the passion he has for Mexican music, he seems to be even more zealous about living "the American dream."

 

"It was just a bunch of ignorance, in my opinion," said Armando Silva, a dance teacher at the Houston nonprofit Multi­cultural Education and Counseling Through the Arts. "It just so happened that the young man had on outfit representative of his city and his culture."

 

Silva says he's sickened that many of the Twitter haters appeared to be themselves representatives of minority groups.

 

For some people, it wouldn't have made a difference if Sebastien had wrapped himself in the American flag for the performance. Hate is hate. Others who are just troubled by the cross-cultural references need to study a little American history. We're all from somewhere else.

 

In the end, the national anthem isn't about where your family is from or what you wear. I'm reminded that one of the most amazingly beautiful performances of the anthem I've ever heard was delivered by Whitney Houston, who wore a track suit and a headband.

 

The song is about all of us - all colors, all classes, all comers - singing with one voice. It should be sung well, sung proudly and sung from the heart. Sebastien, on those notes, you nailed it.

By Lisa Falkenberg

 

Consider, if you will, the couch.

 

An instrument of relaxation. A facilitator of Freudian psychoanalysis. An impromptu sleeping space for nomadic 20-somethings everywhere.

 

And now, it seems, a cure for cancer.

 

At least, that's what the folks running M.D. Anderson Cancer Center these days would have us believe.

 

To be fair, it's not just any couch, but a Florence Knoll Settee valued at about $7,755. And the couch won't stand alone in its noble fight. It will have help from other formidable furniture, a matching $5,000 lounge chair, a $1,670 side table and other furnishings totaling $34,000.

 

And, certainly two $5,000 credenzas - one housing a $2,700, 5.1-cubic-foot mini-refrigerator - will contribute to the effort, as will $210,000 in translucent glass walls.

 

It's all part of an opulent office upgrade requested by Dr. Lynda Chin, wife of M.D. Anderson President Dr. Ronald DePinho and scientific director of the Institute for Applied Cancer Science.

 

During times of austerity at the financially stressed cancer center, Chin had to obtain "variances" from a University of Texas system official for the project that eventually totaled at least $550,000, the Chronicle reported this week.

 

M.D. Anderson officials defend the project as conducive with its mission to eradicate cancer. A statement provided to The Cancer Letter - an industry newsletter that originally obtained documents on the project - suggested the "investment" had already paid off. It mentioned $15 million in philanthropy raised by the institute and a research collaboration and license agreement with GlaxoSmithKline that could have a "potential" value of $335 million.

 

Surely, such lucrative gifts and agreements would never have come to the world's most prestigious cancer center without the help of $7,000 couches and hundreds of thousands in glass. What's reputation without modern classic design?

 

Not exactly austere

 

And surely, Dr. Ken Shine, UT system's vice chancellor for health institutions who signed off on the project, had to have his reasons to deviate from an austerity plan intended to address the cancer hospital's operating losses. In a recent memo to employees, DePinho announced suspending merit raises, slowing down recruitment and suspending capital projects.

 

It appears that the suites were not paid for with the $75 million UT regents provided over five years to support the institute, but from funds for long-term capital projects, derived from investment income, philanthropy and patient revenue.

 

Rest assured, donors and patients, your money was well-spent.

 

It's important to point out that the tab for the upgrades also included a suite for Dr. Giulio Draetta, director of the institute. His couch cost less: $6,691. And he fully explained his reasons for wanting a nice office in a letter he wrote to friends and colleagues that was obtained by the Chronicle.

 

"Lynda and I were both extremely concerned about moving to Texas, having never lived here and being heavily influenced by the Harvard community," he wrote.

 

Bless his heart. He thought we'd set him up with trailer curtains and an outhouse. We can't expect a Harvard recruit to slum at a state-funded nonprofit hospital without offering him a little incentive..

 

Still, I couldn't help but wonder how the hundreds of thousands of dollars poured into executive suites that few people, let alone taxpayers and patients, will ever see could have been better spent.

 

Roger Kenneavy had an idea. He watched his son, Dan, 20, die of cancer in 2009 after a phenomenal doctor at M.D. Anderson did all he could to save him. Now Kenneavy and his wife are devoting their lives to Dan's House of Hope, which they envision as a hospitality home for adolescents and young adults diagnosed with childhood cancers, a place where they can bond and learn from each other. The first phase will help visiting patients find places to stay during therapy.

 

The Kenneavys spend most of their waking hours trying to raise money for the project and have even pulled up their Wisconsin roots and moved to Houston to see it through. After reading the Chronicle's coverage of the office upgrades, the father said he couldn't see how the expenditures could be in the best interests of cancer patients.

 

"A $1,500 donation to us would have supported a cancer patient for a month," Kenneavy told me. "That $2700 mini-fridge would have allowed us to house an AYA cancer patient and care giver for more than 50 days, or to provide a sense of community and support for dozens of local Houstonian AYAs.

 

"I gave up a six-figure job so Dawn and I and many other volunteers could focus on what is now our mission in life, and it disappoints me when I see others only worried about what's in it for them and how much money they can make."

 

Kenneavy knows well that life's too short.

 

"There are more important things than personal wealth or having the most "big kid" toys. What matters and what we will ultimately be judged on is how we treated others and the difference we make in someone else's life."

 

Ultimately, the work that Chin and Draetta are doing at the institute could well lead to great advances in cancer care. But if it does, it will have nothing to do with glass walls, a fancy mini-fridge or a $7,000 couch.

By Lisa Falkenberg

 

In those tense, thickly ticking moments before midnight, all many of us on the ground floor of the Texas Senate could do was marvel gape-mouthed at the scene a floor above, one we knew we'd likely never see again.

 

Hundreds of Texans who had filled the gallery throughout the day to "Stand With Wendy" in the Fort Worth Democratic senator's pink-sneakered, 11-hour filibuster of a restrictive abortion bill were now themselves on their feet, chanting, yelling, applauding with a roar so deafening that they had drowned out parliamentary debate below.

 

Democratic senators, desperate to stall Republican attempts to end the filibuster and vote on the abortion bill, motioned at the crowd, and cast knowing glances for them to keep up the noise. Even Republicans were moved, albeit infuriated, by the moment. Houston Republican Sen. Dan Patrick, father of the infamous sonogram bill, had someone snap his picture with the rabble in the background.

 

Ultimately, as we'd learned hours later, the crowd prevailed in killing Senate Bill 5. A harried last-minute vote by Republicans was taken a couple minutes after midnight and therefore didn't count.

 

The demonstration was momentous. It was history. But it wasn't democracy. The abortion bill was killed by the brute force of a thousand voices. It wasn't the will of the Senate, or even of the people. It was the will of a raucous mob. For the Democrats, it was a last, desperate strategy, one only slightly more dignified than having somebody pull the fire alarm.

 

But then, it wasn't really dignified democracy the Republicans were employing to cram the legislation down Democrats' throats. GOP supporters of the bill had already co-opted the process, casting aside Senate traditions and disregarding rules to pass legislation that, in the end, wasn't really about protecting the health of women, as Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst candidly acknowledged in a tweet, but about political calculations.

 

In Outlook, Van de Putte: Why I stood with Wendy

 

"The bill is about helping Republicans get re-elected," says Houston state Rep. Sarah Davis, the lone Republican vote against the measure in the House. (The decision was likely well tolerated by her Rice-area constituents, who Davis says compose the state's most educated district.)

 

In the aftermath of one of the most dramatic filibusters in Texas history- and certainly, the most watched, with hundreds of thousands across the country following via Twitter - one corner is boasting, the other is brooding - and, to be sure, scheming its next move. As expected, Gov. Rick Perry responded Wednesday by calling another special session to complete unfinished business such as legislation to "protect women & the unborn."

 

But I find myself mourning what was lost in the process - the process itself. Democracy is supposed to be messy, not chaotic, not something resembling the Iraqi parliament. The rules, the traditions, are there for a reason, perhaps most importantly to harness the unbridled hot mess of ego, ambition and petty retribution that defines the political animal, and, for that matter, humankind.

 

The Senate, always the more civilized chamber whose members like to poke fun at the animal House atmosphere across the way, has become just as scrappy. When lawmakers said no to abortion legislation during the regular session, Dewhurst asked the governor for a redo during the special session, when there are fewer roadblocks, such as the rule requiring two-thirds of senators to agree to take up a measure. When Dewhurst failed again this week, Perry obliged with another boutique session tailored especially for his own clientele - er, primary constituency.

 

Sure, all of the above is legal. But you don't have to break the rules to abuse them. During the filibuster, instead of honoring Sen. Wendy Davis' right to talk the bill to death, Republican colleagues aggressively tried to trip her up with incessant questions. They accused her of violating rules in the endurance exercise, claiming she let Houston Sen. Rodney Ellis help her with her back brace and, outlandishly, that she veered off subject when she talked about the sonogram bill. What one anti-abortion bill has to do with another, well, Republicans just couldn't fathom.

 

And if Senate decorum disintegrated into Iraq the other night, the hours afterward channeled Venezuela. Republicans tried to claim a vote they'd conducted after midnight was legitimate. Then, Democrats provided reporters with copies of voting logs that showed someone had changed the date of the abortion bill vote from the 26th to the 25th.

 

Lines were crossed the other night that senators will find hard to walk back from. As the body's longest serving senator, Houston's John Whitmire, told reporters: "No one's ever seen anything like this because it's never happened like this."

 

Sure, if we don't like the way our representatives are conducting themselves, or the laws they're passing, we can vote them out. But ballot box accountability can't promote productive, civil debate by itself. Just look at Congress. And that's where Texas is headed if this nastiness continues, if state leaders keep picking fights over personal decisions that are none of their business, over issues that polls show average Texans don't find pressing anyway, over bills that tread on established constitutional rights.

 

The next session starts Monday. Our dignified senators have a choice to make: Will they respond to opposition as statesmen or rabble?

 

Women give their children a lesson in democracy. Read Lisa Falkenberg's column at houstonchronicle.com/womenshealth.