There is never anyone quite so wonderful as the people who were seniors when you were a freshman.

The uproar of the late '60s - the antiwar movement, black riots, angry women. It was a wonderful time.

The idols of one's adolescence tend to endure - you never forget how you worshipped them.

Anyone who has ever spent time listening to a legislature knows the astonishing speed at which all presiding officers and reading clerks can spit out the formulaic incantations of parliamentary procedure.

All anyone needs to enjoy the state legislature is a strong stomach and a complete insensitivity to the needs of the people. As long as you don't think about what that peculiar body should be doing and what it actually is doing to the quality of life in Texas, then it's all marvelous fun.

Anyone who watched George W. and Karl Rove while the former was governor of Texas will recognize a familiar pattern. Like much of Bush's social policy - from faith-based social services to railing against gay marriage - women's issues are one of the bones they've decided they can throw to the Christian right.