Steers and queers...

The culture meter blew out the mercury in Texas on Monday night: Kinky Friedman, dubbed the "Cowboy Philosopher," appeared with Bill O'Reilly on Fox News and declared that Palin would waltz McCain right into the White House; then almost immediately afterward, to add insult to injury, a weather newscaster suggested the nation would fare better if looming Hurricane Ike were to miss New Orleans by swinging into Texas instead, where, I quote, "there are more cows than people." Now, certainly the Texas coastline is currently more capable of weathering a hurricane than would be the Louisiana coastline. But give me a break: the cattle industry is prevalent in the Northern and Western regions of Texas, not in the coastal region, so such a statistic (flawed or no) is completely irrelevant and only serves to propagate the antiquated, romantically rustic perception of Texas. As if G.W. hasn't had resounding success achieving just that.