Ted Cruz is America’s latest tea party darling, having just pulled off a political contortion in Texas that few would’ve thought humanly possible: He got to the right of Gov. Rick Perry! The “Oops” governor is himself a former tea party darling who’s such a far-out know-nothing that he’s renowned for putting the goober in gubernatorial. By the time of last week’s Republican runoff election in Texas, however, Cruz had squinched himself Houdini-like into even farther-out political positions than Perry has taken, thus wowing the tealeaf crowd and defeating the guy whom Perry was backing to be the Party’s nominee for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

How far out is he? One of the white-hot talking points Cruz used to fire-up the narrow extremists who now control the Texas GOP is that he will, by God, defend America’s golf courses! You might not have realized that golf course defense is a burning national issue crying out for the attention of U.S. senators, but such keen vigilance on even the most unimaginable threats to our nation is the kind of stuff that makes Cruz a tea party fave.

Defend golf courses against what, you ask? Not turf rot, rampaging moles or those bothersome environmentalists, but against that old right-wing bugaboo: the United Nations. “Stop Agenda 21,” cries Cruz in an alert posted prominently on his campaign website, even taking this war whoop onto talk radio and TV, including an enlightening appearance with the always thoughtful Glenn Beck. Agenda 21 is a 20-year-old innocuous and nonbinding UN resolution (agreed to by then-President George Bush the First). It encourages governments to develop plans for sustainable development of “open spaces” — and that’s what rubs Ted raw. Open space, you see, includes golf courses.

To the barricades, patriots! Grab your putters and mashies and rush to your local links, for the UN is coming over yon hill!

To double-down on his political wackiness creds, Cruz notes ominously (and falsely), “The originator of this grand scheme is George Soros.” Doubling-down yet again, Cruz adds (also falsely) that the hobgoblin Soros is a socialist devil who believes in “eliminating national sovereignty and private property.”

Thus, he concludes, “The real question is will we have senators in Washington who will take steps to stop this nonsense…” Yes, Ted, right back at you. We need some sane senators who’ll stop the nonsense and start dealing honestly with America’s real problems.

Unfortunately, golf goofiness is not the only nonsense this guy embraces. He’s also a Social Security privatizer, a “tenther,” a turn-’em-loose front man for Big Oil, an opponent of extending unemployment benefits to America’s jobless millions, a die-hard champion of deregulating Wall Street greed (his wife, coincidentally, is a top regional executive for Goldman Sachs), a regressive flat-tax acolyte and a shameless promoter of the anti-Islam poppycock that the stealthy spread of Sharia law is “an enormous problem” in the U.S.

Nonetheless, Cruz did win and is now celebrated as “the people’s choice” in Texas, having piled up a whopping 57 percent of the vote last week. The media reported this as politically earthshaking, blaring that “high turnout” by tea partiers created a “surge at the polls” that carried Cruz to his “huge” win. The Lone Star result, concluded many pundits, shows that the people want candidates aligned with “tea party values.”

Hog poop. The “big story” in politics often is not the one trumpeted by the myopic media and political cognoscenti, but the one they don’t report at all. In the Cruz case, we should step back from the hyped results, take a deep breath and look at two big, honking, neon-lit numbers that reveal a stunning truth about the state of our democratic process. First: 631,316. That’s how small the actual vote was for Cruz and his whole kit and caboodle of far-right-wing balderdash. Next: 15,915,758. That’s how many eligible voters there are in the state.

Do the math (which the media failed to do), and the real story turns out to be that Cruz is the choice of no more than 4 percent of the voters of Texas.

This is what America’s politics has become: so empty and asinine that a guy wins a nomination to a U.S. senate seat with a pathetic 4 percent of the vote — and then is hailed as the choice of “the people.”

These nationally syndicated cartoons are sponsored by Guthries Pharmacies

Our sponsor, Guthries Pharmacy, offers Free Prescription Delivery. Visit at one of their 2 locations:
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Chandler, IN
(812) 925-3347
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Keynote Speaker will be civil rights and peace activist Diane Nash

(Evansville, IN) – The Evansville-Vanderburgh County Human Relations Commission will hold
its Annual Dinner on Wednesday, September 19, 2012, at 7:00 p.m. at The Centre. The keynote
speaker will be civil rights and peace activist Diane Nash.

Mayor Lloyd Winnecke will present the 2012 Mayor’s Celebration of Diversity Awards at the
Annual Dinner. The awards recognize businesses, organizations and individuals that embrace
and celebrate diversity. Nominations will be accepted through Friday, September 10, 2012. To
make a nomination, please go to www.evansvillegov.org/diversityawards or contact the Human
Relations Commission at (812) 436-4927.

Ticket donations are $30 per person. Corporate sponsorships are also available. Please contact
the Human Relations Commission at (812) 436-4927 before Friday, September 7, to make a
reservation.

About Diane Nash
A Chicago native who had never experienced segregation in public accommodations before
moving to the South, Diane Nash went on to become one of the pioneers of the Civil Rights
Movement.

Nash’s involvement in the nonviolent movement began in 1959 while she was student at Fisk
University. In 1960, she became the chairperson of the student sit in movement in Nashville,
Tennessee- the first southern city to desegregate its lunch counters-as well as one of the founding
students of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee.

In 1961, she coordinated the Freedom Ride from Birmingham, Alabama, to Jackson, Mississippi,
a story which was documented in the recent PBS American Experience film Freedom Riders.
Her many arrests for her civil rights activities culminated in Nash being imprisoned for 30 days
in 1961, while she was pregnant with her first child. Undeterred, she went on to join a national
committee – to which she was appointed by President John F. Kennedy – that promoted passage
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Nash later became active in the peace movement that worked to
end the Vietnam War, and became an instructor in the philosophy and strategy of non-violence
as developed by Mohandas Gandhi.

Diane Nash is the recipient of numerous awards, including the War Resisters League Peace
Award; the Distinguished American Award presented by the John F. Kennedy Library; the LBJ
Award for Leadership in Civil Rights from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum;
and an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Fisk University, her alma mater. More
recently, Nash delivered the 2009 Slavery Remembrance Day Memorial Lecture in Liverpool,
England.

Her work has been cited in numerous books, documentaries, magazines and newspaper articles,
and she has appeared on such TV shows and films as The Oprah Winfrey Show, Spike Lee’s
Four Little Girls, and PBS’s Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years 1954-1965.

I. Call to Order

II. Minutes –July 9, 2012

III. Old Business – Greenway Update
a) Industrial Corridor – Boberg
a.Phase 4
b) Review Quote for New LED Lights at Shirley James Gateway Plaza – Boberg
c) Annual Greenway Inspection Tour – September 10, 2012, 1:30pm – 4:30pm. – Boberg

IV. ETC Report – Roberta Heiman

V. New Business
a) Approval for Cleaning Graffiti at the Sunset Park. – Boberg
b) Review Alternate Light Systems for Riverfront Corridor. – Boberg
c) Review Quotes to Install New Gate at the Entrance to the Heidelbach Canoe Launch. – Boberg
d) Any Other Business the Advisory Board Wishes to Discuss

VI. Adjourn

Evansville, IN— Join us at the Victory Theatre for this month’s “Movies on Main Street “!
Family friendly, FREE and fun for all ages! This month “The Three Stooges” will be showing on
Friday, August 17th and “We Bought A Zoo” will be presented on Saturday, August 18th. Doors
will open at 6:30pm with the show starting at 7:30pm.

Full concessions will be available with food specials including $1 hot dogs fresh from the gril.

Thank you to all of our sponsors that have made this FREE movies program a 16 year success!
Pick up your passes for FREE admission at any of these sponsor locations: Wesselman’s
Supermarkets, News4U Magazine, The Centre, WABX, Hot 96, WIKY, 93.5 The Wolf, JackFM,
WEVV-CBS44, FOX44, Bunny Bread, Garrett Printing and Graphics.

We look forward to seeing you August 17th & 18th at the Victory Theatre and once again, this
event is family friendly, FREE and fun for all ages! For more information, call 812-435-5770.
Passes will be available for pick-up at all of the sponsor locations.

The Southwest Indiana STEM (SwISTEM) program for science, technology, engineering, and math at the University of Southern Indiana will begin its Equipment Lending Service for the 2012-13 academic year on August 14, 2012.

Educators in southwest Indiana are eligible to participate in the free service that delivers laboratory-grade equipment and hands-on mathematics learning tools to organizations involved in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education of pre-K through grade 12.

In 2007, USI was selected as a lead institution in the development and implementation of the new Indiana STEM (I-STEM) Resource Network. USI has primary responsibility for STEM-related efforts for the entire southwestern Indiana region. The focus of SwISTEM is on improvement of STEM-related education through curriculum assistance, resource provision, outreach activities, and professional development for educators in 12 counties within the region.

Source: USI.edu

Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden is pleased to announce that a new animal species has been added to their collection. A male and female takin are now on exhibit in the Asian area of the Zoo, and can be found in the large centrally located yard. With horns like a wildebeest, a nose like a moose, and a body like a bison, it is easy to see why this animal was apparently the inspiration behind the character “Beast” from Disney’s movie Beauty and the Beast. Two coats of fur keep takin protected from the cold in their native habitat of the Himalayas. Tale, the male is four years old and came from the St. Louis Zoo. Two year old female Dawa arrived from the Los Angeles Zoo. According to Amos Morris, Zoo Director, “We are always excited to add a new species of animal to our collection at the Zoo, especially one with so much conservation significance.”

Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden is open 365 days a year from 9 AM – 5 PM, entry gate closes at 4 PM. Admission for adults is $8.50 and children ages 3-12 are $7.50. Children 2 and under are free. In recognition of their support, Vanderburgh County residents receive $1 discount. Please visit www.meskerparkzoo.com for information regarding yearly memberships or other Zoo services.