Horns Down:  Aggies Still Aren’t Over it

Despite the fact that our 118-year-old rivalry with Texas A&M has been dead for over two years, the good folks over in Aggieland still haven’t quite come to terms with leaving behind their former nemesis in the Big 12. As this newspaper reported Monday, early Sunday morning, several UT monuments were spray-painted with Aggie-related graffiti. Among the targets were the LBJ Library and two outdoor sculptures. We get it, guys, you miss us, and you’re taking it out on our fancy monuments and pieces of public art. (High culture can be so disorienting and confusing, can’t it?) But you’ve got to come to terms with this rivalry being over. Spray-paint a thousand “howdys” on our campus, but we’re still not getting back together. 

Horns Up:  Powers Elected President of the AAU

Congratulations are in order for UT president Bill Powers, who was elected chair of the Association of American Universities, the preeminent University administration organization in the US, on Tuesday. His appointment follows a stint as the vice chair of the non-profit organization, a position he has held since 2012. To whom it may concern: firing (or otherwise ousting) the head of arguably the most prestigious group of university administrators in the Americas is probably not a good way to start a replacement search.

Horns Down:  Medina Doesn’t Get the Drought

In an editorial on the Texas Tribune website Tuesday, Debra Medina, head of the Tea Party group We Texans and current candidate for comptroller, made her case against Prop. 6. The proposition, a constitutional amendment designed to take money from the state’s Rainy Day Fund to help deal with current water shortages, is set to go to a popular vote in the Nov. 5 election. In the editorial, Medina lambasted Prop. 6, urging a “free market” solution to the current droughts. She concluded with a reference to October’s downpours, saying, “In light of recent rains, Texas will enjoy at least a brief reprieve from the severe drought and perhaps take the opportunity to ask better questions in preparation for the 2015 legislative session.” In case Medina hasn’t ventured down to Lake Travis recently, a reminder: The storms a few weeks ago added 50,000 acre-feet to Lakes Travis and Buchanan, bringing their water levels to a grand total of  35 percent full. The amount needed to reach capacity? One-and-half million acre-feet, a full 30 times what October’s ACL-drowning torrents added. Texas can’t endure two more years of solutionless drought while we wait for the next legislative session. Support Prop. 6 or not, it’s the only statewide solution on the table at the moment.