SocraticGadfly: Alamo
Showing posts with label Alamo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alamo. Show all posts

November 05, 2025

'Forget the Alamo' but remember the battles over its history and legend

Picking up on my short but link-dense piece from last week, Kate Rogers, the recently resigned former CEO of the Alamo Trust, speaks to Forrest Wilder at Texas Monthly.

After why she was forced out, a nickel version of the loss:

[F]or Rogers’ supporters, the forced resignation was unjust and alarming—a vicious demotion of a leader who had succeeded in the seemingly impossible task of forging a rough consensus on the Alamo’s redevelopment, a process long beset by factions at war over issues of identity, representation, and contested history.

Then on her hurt:

“It was a huge loss to me. I loved my job. I loved the work we were doing. I loved the people I was working with.” She said she feels compelled to tell her story because of the public attacks on her “integrity and character” and the “disappointing and hurtful” way she was dismissed. “It makes me very sad because the Alamo deserves better.”

And more from there. 

She interestingly agrees with Lite Gov Danny Goeb on one issue:

Rogers, 56, is particularly eager to push back on the allegation that she had a political agenda. “That’s categorically false, quite the opposite,” she said. “I wholeheartedly agree with Dan Patrick—politics does not have a place at the Alamo. It’s our most treasured historic site, the Shrine of Texas Liberty. And what we tried to do, what I tried to do, was to keep politics at bay on both sides in terms of the extremes.” She said she is a “conservative at heart” steeped in Alamo history from a young age, a member of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, and a descendant of one of the Canary Islands families that settled in San Antonio in 1731. “For me, this history is deeply personal and it does need to be told in a very authentic and factual way." 
Rogers said she got along well with Patrick, who she found knowledgeable, thoughtful, and sincere in his passion for the Alamo—which makes his aggression all the more confounding to her. “Some of what has transpired is probably as puzzling to me as it is to your readers,” she said. I pressed her: Was it really all about a tweet and a dissertation? “That’s the million-dollar question,” she said. She couldn’t talk about the details of her separation, but she added that there were “political maneuvers going on behind the scenes.”

Weird. And, maybe, per the "Forget the Alamo" book, she is not totally in the same camp as Chris Tomlinson et al. (They look at the building's history and other things in a way she may not exactly have done.)

That said, does she actually read Dan Patrick correctly? Maybe Danny Boy thought her take on the Alamo was like his until some MAGAt minion discovered her writings. 

That said, Wilder wonders how much of this is Land Commish Dawn Buckingham, noting how Alamo issues screwed over Pee Bush.

To combine the last two paragraphs above, it's hard to believe Patrick couldn't stand up to anybody he wanted to on "political maneuvers." So, mayhaps she did misread the room.

And, calling it the Shrine of Texas Liberty? Again, possibly not in exactly the same camp as Tomlinson et al. 

Give the whole thing a read. 

Update, Nov. 20: Rogers is suing Patrick and Buckingham, per Chris Tomlinson, because they killed her severance pay deal after she talked to Texas Monthly. And, the suit is in federal court, not state. Tomlinson also calls out Buckingham for a steaming shitload of hypocrisy.

 

October 27, 2025

'Forget the Alamo' and eff Dan Patrick

Having read friend Chris Tomlinson's "Forget the Alamo," I wish Kate Rogers had fought to stay on as executive director of the Alamo Trust rather than resigning. It's all part of larger battles over Texas history and culture inside and outside of academia.

The TSTA Blog wants the full story of the Alamo to be told. And this is why Rogers had legal standing to fight:

At present, the state General Land Office is custodian of the Alamo site, but it is operated by a nonprofit, the Alamo Trust, through a contract. An agreement between the Land Office, the Alamo Trust and the city of San Antonio calls for the new Alamo project to include Indigenous, Mexican, Tejano and Black perspectives, but state Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham seems to have lost her copy of the deal.

There you go. 

I know that's not easy, but per that second link, not fighting is what got us to this point. 

Update, Nov. 20: Rogers is suing Patrick and Buckingham, per Chris Tomlinson, because they killed her severance pay deal after she talked to Texas Monthly. And, the suit is in federal court, not state. Tomlinson also calls out Buckingham for a steaming shitload of hypocrisy.

June 15, 2021

Texas Progressives: Harris, Blinken and Not ... a lot of love for some people

As Strangeabbott still hasn't vetoed a Lege staff pay bill he claimed he would, and we're still wondering if there will be two separate special sessions of the Lege, there's plenty of news in Austin, around the state and beyond for this week's Roundup, so let's dig in.

The Lege

Rethuglicans claim their SB7 Christmas-treed proposal to let judges overturn elections on dubious grounds "just got there by accident." Suuuure. And, beyond thinking Texas Dems and indy voters will buy this, I guess they think their own wingnut backers like them more as anonymous shitweasels.

A Black Republican is looking at running for statewide office. Sit down, Allen West, and no, it ain't him. State Rep. James White says he won't run for for the Lege again but is eyeing other things.

I missed this: Bills to extend the Chapter 313 tax break never cleared the Lege. The Observer has more. Per that piece, I suspect that extending it from the petroleum world to wind farms drew a backlash.

Off the Kuff gives you even more State House electoral data to ponder.

Reform Austin tries to shine a light on the Legislature's lack of transparency.

Texas

Chris Tomlinson et al's tri-authored new book about Alamo legends gets solid, but not uncritical, review praise from the Observer.

Dallas: The vegan capital of Texas. Black Americans and Black Texans. More vegan than you might think. More here.

The real reason Strangeabbott wants to build a Texas wall? The Dreamy Don Huffines, of course.

Trump Trainers tried to drown out Beto in Denton. The Dallas Observer can't stop there, though, and instead fellates his 2018 run against Havana Ted, even though the numbers show Justin Nelson did better against indictee Kenny Boy Paxton, while Danny Goeb and Jeebus Shot Sid Miller had races almost as tight. Otherwise, Strangeabbott had a big win because of Loopy Lupe Valdez and Texas' closest statewide equivalent to a Joe Straus Republican, Glenn Hegar, had an easy win, as did Pee Bush and Christi Craddock. See a pattern? It wasn't Beto being good, it was the clearest wingnut Rethuglicans struggling.

Sanford Nowlin has the Louie Gohmert news you need. 

Grits for Breakfast wonders what will happen to all those old convictions for unlicensed carrying of a weapon.

Catherine Wendlandt disputes a map that claims Houston is not in the South.

Parents of binary children celebrated the use of pronouns.

National

SocraticGadfly offers up his latest installment on what you didn't know you didn't know about Glenn Greenwald, with the still-needed reminder that Glenn never has been, is not today, and never will be, a leftist in any way, shape or form.

I'm sure that Dems will bitch about a Charlie Kirk / Turning Point front group astroturfing for Greens in 2018. To mash up Clauswitz and an old cliché? Politics is war by other means. All's fair in love and war. Ergo, all's fair in politics, so Dems / Dem-tied activities, go astroturf for some Libertarians in 2022.

Will some Rethuglicans, per a Borat song, and per the Jared Sexton backstory on critical race theory being "Marxist" in the end, find a Jew to throw down a well?

The Fed is seriously eyeing a digital dollar to battle cryptocurrencies. Opposed include the American Bankers Association, which calls it an unnecessary panic move. Agreed.

Looks like the New Hampshire Libertarian Party is in the middle of a massive implosion led by Trumpy-thinking types who think Libertarians should support Jan. 6 type movements.

World

Biden and Blinken continue to hate Palestinians.

Saudi Arabia is trying to undercut the UAE as the Gulf's business hub.

Biden and Harris continue to hate Ill Eagles on the one hand more than they're nice to them on the other. Team Biden continues to keep up the Title 42 bullshit, for example.

Kind of like "Florida Man"? Career Man Putin calls Biden a "career man," while slathering praise on Trump. Reality is that both Trump and Biden were/are largely craptacular on foreign policy. Trump a weathervane who pretended to be knee-jerk anti-establishment but wasn't always that much. Biden? The establishment.

This is why capitalism as usual won't address climate change — corporate greenwashing in net-zero pledges.