I came to know Bernard Rapoport when he was chair of the University of Texas System Board of Regents, and I was editor of The Texas Observer in the early 1990s. One of our writers was reporting on a story about conflicts of interest within the UT administration. When the university president ignored our requests for what we believed was public information, we did what reporters do. We sent a Texas Public Information Act request letter to each member of the Board of Regents—including board Chair Bernard Rapoport.

B—who passed away late Thursday night in Waco — had been the Observer’s most generous and dependable financial supporter since the 1960s. The University of Texas Board of Regents was the only political appointment he’d ever wanted, and he went at it with the enthusiasm, intelligence and energy he had devoted to American Income Life — the insurance company he and his wife Audre started with a $25,000 investment in 1951.

The NRA. Like KFC, a brand reduced to three letters. Forget rifles (forget chicken). How about NHA? National Handgun Association. The NRA has been with us for so long it’s become background noise that no one hears, like late-night gunshots in West Philadelphia.

Once the anathema of liberal groups, nobody pays attention anymore. Why bother? The NRA is better armed. It has won the public policy shootout. No one even bothers to quote the frothing speeches of NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre.

The candidate from Paint Creek forgot to paint the rock. That is, the eponymous rock that designated the Perry family hunting lease as "Niggerhead."

When, exactly, the offensive place name was painted over is of little importance. What matters is that the Perry family leased the ranch and hunted on it while the rock said what it said.

The Page-1 Washington Post story was no surprise to me. I've spent most of my working life as a reporter in Texas. Nor is Rick Perry the first Texas governor associated with racial insensitivity that seems like everyday life in Texas — until it jars the sensibilities of outsiders.

Bill Clements, the Republican governor who was Karl Rove's first big play in 1979, was a member of the Koon Kreek Klub, an East Texas fin-and-feather camp within a half-day drive from Dallas, in Athens, Texas. As were 150 other patrician Texans, including most of the Dallas Social Register. (Membership at Koon Kreek has been closed for years; before running for governor, G. W. Bush bought a  membership in the less offensive — but just as exclusively white — Rainbo Club, almost adjacent to the KKK.)