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Dunces of confederacy: what should the University of Texas at Austin do with its statues celebrating the "heroes" of the Old South? Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

Article Excerpt
From the window of my office at the University of Texas at Austin, I can see the statue of Albert Sidney Johnston, a professional soldier who served in three armies: the Republic of Texas, the U.S., and the Confederate. Johnston's is one of seven memorials that I have been walking-past for more than forty years without ever reading the inscriptions. A couple of months ago, however, I decided to examine the monuments and the words etched upon them, though some are so faded that after a few more years of wear, erosion, and global warming, they won't be legible at all. If the statues are still there. [paragraph] For this year, as during recent ones, there are calls for the university to rid itself of these embarrassing nods to the Old South. This spring the controversy even spilled over to that citadel of reason, the Texas House of Representatives. CNN devoted some airtime to it, and for a few moments it became a national story. But it is here, on the campus of UT, where the issue will be resolved--or not. [paragraph] The lightning rod of the statues, the rock star of opprobrium, is Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. Before assuming that office, Davis was a colonel in the U.S. Army and the Secretary of War of the United States. One of the most colorful things Davis did, which is not mentioned on the statue, was to introduce camels into West Texas, on the theory that one desert is as good as another in the utilization of eco-correct animals. (The experiment failed; Texans in those days would not walk a mile for a camel.)

Another controversial statue is that of Robert E. Lee, who, following the Civil War, became the president of George...

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