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September / October 2009
Volume 21, Number 5

Quotations of interest that may affect counties

HEALTH SCARE
Although individual school districts may choose to offer health education, the Texas Education Agency has eliminated the state requirement that they must do so. Only two other states in the country—Colorado and Oklahoma—lack a health education requirement.

The TEA’s hands were tied; the education reform bill, HB 3, that passed this spring, mandates that high school students must take six elective courses, as opposed to the current standard of three-and-a-half, and the agency needed to free up time in students’ schedules for these new electives.

How poorly does Texas rank when it comes to public health? A quick overview:

• Teen pregnancy rate: Texas has the third-highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation.
• STDs: Texas has the fourth-highest rate of AIDS cases and the tenth-highest rate of syphilis cases.
• Physical inactivity: Texas has the eighth highest rate of physical inactivity.
• Diabetes: Texas has the tenth-highest rate of diabetes.
• Obesity: Texas has the fourteenthhighest rate of obesity.

— Texas Monthly

GOING MAD
The American Psychiatric Association (is) grimly — and rather inexpertly — debating whether avid shopping should be considered a sign of mental illness. The fifth edition of the association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is expected in 2012. The APA isn’t just deciding the fate of shopaholics; it’s also debating whether overuse of the Internet, “excessive” sexual activity, apathy, and even prolonged bitterness should be viewed, quite seriously, as brain “disorders.”

Quite how the association will decide when normal kvetching becomes a sickness— or reasonable amounts of sex become excessive—is still anyone’s guess. Behind the APA’s doors in Arlington, Va., the fine points of the debate are creating quite a few headaches. And they’re also causing a rather public dust-up.

The association has no clear definition of the cutoff between normal and pathological responses to life’s letdowns. To those of us following the debates as closely as the association will allow, it’s apparent that the DSM revisions have become a train wreck. The problem is, everyone involved has signed a contract promising not to share publicly what’s going on.

— Slate.com

CRYSTAL BALL
9:46 AM Aug 16th: On health care reform, summarizing everything, best bet is that Congress Dems won’t do to Obama what they did to Clinton: They’ll pass a bill 9:48 AM Aug 16th: But this isn’t going to be the bill Obama wanted. Much scaled back in cost, reach, taxes. Will still be massively unpopular w/GOP. 9:50 AM Aug 16th: 2010 midterm contests may be much affected, in part because GOP voters will be motivated to show up at polls disproportionately.

— “Tweets” sent from Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at The University of Virginia, via the Web site/text messaging service Twitter. Sabato runs a political analysis Web site called Crystal Ball.

VIRTUAL TOWNHALL
It was interesting to read an editorial that told residents of San Jose, California, that if they wanted to help shape the city’s 20-year general plan and influence key city planning decisions, they could opt for an Internet encounter. Citizens could attend monthly meetings at City Hall, “or — and this might be more fun — go to the new wiki site,” the San Jose Mercury News wrote.

That site lets residents click and type what they would like San Jose to look like, instead of having to drive, park and sit in a stuffy meeting room in order to express their opinions. The city learned about this particular wiki technology from a Charlotte, N orth Carolina, pilot project for transit-oriented development. O ther state and local governments have used public comment software or other electronic tools for public projects. For instance, when planners in the Atlanta region wanted to design a 22-mile railroad around downtown, they used technology that collected public responses, stored them by topic, and republished some of the comments so interested residents could follow the discussions.

— Governing.com