Tag Archives: paxton

Federal Judge Says Texas Profs Must Allow Guns In Their Classrooms

Mother Jones

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Yesterday morning, a federal judge denied a request by three University of Texas-Austin professors who wanted to ban firearms in their classrooms despite a recently passed law authorizing concealed firearms on public college campuses.

The ruling came down just two days before classes are scheduled to start at UT campuses. US District Judge Lee Yeakel ruled that the lawsuit filed by professors Lisa Moore, Mia Carter, and Jennifer Lynn Glass is likely to fail and found that their request for a preliminary injunction was “an extraordinary remedy.”

“It appears to the court that neither the Texas Legislature nor the Board of Regents has overstepped its legitimate power to determine where a licensed individual may carry a concealed handgun in an academic setting,” the judge wrote.

The lawsuit, which claims the new campus-carry law forces state schools to impose “overly-solicitous, dangerously-experimental gun policies,” will continue to move through Yeakel’s court. The professors’ attorney told The Dallas Morning News that their legal team would “begin to pull together the evidence and facts for the trial and hope things go smoothly on campus in the meantime.” The plaintiffs are arguing that the law violates their First Amendment right to academic freedom because their classroom management could be influenced by fear of violent student retaliation.

The campus-carry law went into effect earlier this month on the anniversary of the 1966 clock tower massacre at the University of Texas-Austin. It makes it legal to carry concealed firearms at public universities, including in dorms and classrooms. The legislation allows private universities to opt out; all but one have done so. UT administrators have expressed wariness at the idea of guns on campus in the past. Last year, a UT-sponsored working group published a report that wrestled with ways to reconcile the law with campus safety. “Every member of the Working Group—including those who are gun owners and license holders—thinks it would be best if guns were not allowed in classrooms,” it concluded.

The Texas attorney general’s office has been largely unsympathetic to complaints about the new law. Earlier this month, Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a motion to dismiss the professors’ suit, warning the three plaintiffs that they could face disciplinary measures if they interfere with the campus-carry law. Paxton has also said a ban on firearms in dormitories would be a violation of the law.

“I am pleased, but not surprised, that the Court denied the request to block Texas’ campus carry law,” Paxton said in a statement. “There is simply no legal justification to deny licensed, law-abiding citizens on campus the same measure of personal protection they are entitled to elsewhere in Texas. The right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed for all Americans, including college students, and I will always stand ready to protect that right.”

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Federal Judge Says Texas Profs Must Allow Guns In Their Classrooms

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The Alternate Ending to "Titanic" Proves Once and for All That Rose Is a Monster

Mother Jones

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Titanic is a deeply flawed film. The dialogue is atrocious. The characterizations are thin. The plot ain’t anything we haven’t seen before. Even the visuals—once heralded as revolutionary—look sort of pedestrian now. (Of course, that’s the trouble with being revolutionary. You look like everybody else that comes after you.) Still, I love it. It’s a jaunt. It’s a ride. It’s a song and a grand, immense emotional experience. It’s what Hollywood does best, really.

But for me, the most unforgivable bit of Titanic has always been the end. Refresher: We’re back in the framing device with the old lady and her granddaughter aboard Bill Paxton’s ship. It is revealed that the old lady has had the jewel the entire time and has really only come aboard the treasure hunting ship so that she can throw it off the bow and lay it to rest down with Jack. This is stupid. That jewel is worth a fortune! Throwing it into the ocean is like setting money on fire. Even if you don’t want to live in luxury because of some Titanic-related guilt, you should still sell the jewel and give the proceeds to some worthy cause: charity! Your children’s education! Whatever! Throwing the jewel in the water is an act of selfish self-aggrandizement that puts old lady Rose firmly in the inconsiderate jerk camp. (Youthful Rose has long been a resident.) Homeless people are going hungry because Rose wanted some meaningless moment with the sea.

So, I was eager to watch the newly unearthed “alternate ending.” (It was apparently an extra on a 2005 DVD release of the film but millennials don’t watch DVDs and the internet only now became aware of its existence.) Does she sell the diamond and go to Beverly Hills and have a Pretty Women moment? Maybe she funds some orphanage for Dickensian youth? Maybe she created a scholarship fund in Leonardo DiCaprio’s name and blah blah blah. She does none of those things. Instead, this ending actually makes it worse.

No longer is Rose solely responsible for this little act of wealth destruction, but she makes complicit Bill Paxton, a treasure hunter. Bill Paxton, who has convinced investors to fund his expedition to find this stupid diamond. Bill Paxton, who lives in the world as it exists and not some Technicolor fantasy. In the new ending, Paxton has the chance to stop her from throwing the thing overboard. She puts it in his hand. He holds it. He becomes ensorcelled by the romance and lets her toss it off the boat and into the sea while one of his shocked minions runs around like an extra with his head cut off.

Where does Bill Paxton go from here? After the stone sinks to the ocean floor, he looks to Rose’s granddaughter and hints that maybe they should date, but he’s going to have a rough go of it finding time to wine and dine her once his backers learn about what he’s done and hit him with a bill for many millions of dollars. Titanic 2 is a courtroom drama set around Bill Paxton’s bankruptcy hearing. Bill Paxton’s life is now ruined. Let’s go further. Rose’s granddaughter’s life is also ruined. Her granddaughter and Bill seemed to really be hitting it off at the end and one of the rules of Hollywood movies is that if two people are flirting and hitting it off at the end of a film then the audience can assume that they immediately get married after the credits roll and are happy for the rest of time and laugh together and eat brunch together and sip champagne and feed each other strawberries together and die within minutes of each other decades later in one another’s arms because a life without the other isn’t a life worth living. That future—that destiny, the right of every romance film character—is not in the cards for Rose’s granddaughter if Bill throws that jewel into the sea. Rose sacrifices her granddaughter’s future bliss for some stupid romantic nonsense.

Rose is a monster.

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The Alternate Ending to "Titanic" Proves Once and for All That Rose Is a Monster

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