Dear Talmadge Heflin:
First of all, your name is clearly fictitious. I’ll thank you in advance for dropping the ruse and instead using whatever name your mother actually gave you.
Now, about that op-ed piece you wrote in the Dallas Morning News today, wherein you criticize DISD for not making good use of the money from the 2002 bond and for “spend[ing] lavishly on extravagant new projects.” One paragraph in particular caught my eye. It’s this one, about the recently constructed Emmett J. Conrad High School:
Conrad High cost nearly $50 million to build. At a colossal 325,000 square feet, the massive new complex is home to 670 students who enjoy almost 500 square feet each. Even more impressive is the interior of the schoolhouse. Featuring a state-of-the art computer room for graphic design, a media center, a technology room and an on-site steakhouse restaurant, the school boasts some of the best technology and amenities that taxpayer money can buy.
I just want to make sure I understand. We should not provide students with state-of-the-art computers and technology. Is that what you’re saying? We should hook them up with TRS-80s? Because I disagree with you there. I think to prepare kids for the job market or to get them ready for college, we need to give them the best technology taxpayer money can afford. Yes, that.
Now, I do have to admit that when I read my tax money had been used to install a “steakhouse restaurant” in the school, I got a little cheesed (no pun intended). Because good computers are one thing; a “steakhouse restaurant” is something else entirely. That sounds like lavish spending!
Except then I did a little googling and learned that the Outback Steakhouse at Conrad is a learning laboratory, part of the Texas Restaurant Association’s Education Foundation Entrepreneur 101 program, “which teaches kids how to cook, manage food service operations, and run their own businesses.” Once I read that, I said to myself, “Awesome.”
And then, “Talmadge Heflin,” I said something else to myself. I said, “That Talmadge Heflin is either lazy or he’s a liar. And given that he’s gone through all the trouble of concocting that fake name for himself, I think I know which one he is.”
In closing, watch yourself, mister. I don’t like the cut of your jib.
Sincerely,
Tim Rogers
