Some years ago I was invited by a Hispanic group comprised mostly of executives and business owners to help select high scholastic graduating achievers from low income families in the Dallas Independent School District.  The students selected would be awarded $2,000 Scholarships. Somewhat honored, I asked why I was chosen.  The select committee person told me I was selected because of my writings in the Dallas Morning News. At the time I was a monthly contributing writer for the Dallas Morning News.

April is my birth month.  The Army ingrained in me that every year during my birth month, I should go to the dentist for annual checkup—and so I do.  But of course, birthdays are also important occasions and milestones for us to think about the passage of time and to be grateful for the time we have.  No, don’t let the title fool you.  I’m not nearly eighty yet, but I received a strange and very special letter from a lady who is.  She is a distant relative, whose presence I mostly know through the word of others, including my dearly departed mother.  She sent copies of this letter to only a handful of her living relatives and some close friends.  The letter is a vehicle to pass along a distillation of years, the wisdom she has gleaned.  Moreover, I suppose it is her way metaphysically speaking, to touch the spirit of others.  To that end, I offer you the same slightly altered and paraphrased: 

Fact one: Jim Bowles is 79 years old; he lost his bid for re-election and has been out of office for nearly four years.  Fact two: Jim Bowles served as Dallas County Sheriff for five terms, from 1985 through 2004.  The first is not a reason to vote for his opponent in the April 8 run-off election.  The second is.

The emerging theme is regulation, as in don't-we-need-more-of-it?    Democrats certainly think we do.   Treasury Secretary  Henry Paulson's plan for overhaul of the regulatory structure for  financial institutions gives Democrats a vested interest in disliking it,  or appearing to anyway,  on account of its birthplace -- the Bush administration.