Texas Progressive Alliance Round-Up W/16th Century Cattle Rustling Painting

Here is the weekly posting of the most recent Texas Progressive Alliance round-up. The TPA is a confederation of the best political bloggers in Texas. The round-up is at the bottom of this post.

With the round-up this week is a 16th-century painting of cattle rustling.

You think of cattle rustling and cattle raids as something that took place in Texas and in the old west back in cowboy days.

But people have been raiding cattle for a long time.  I guess stealing cattle is good way to get some steak.

The painting above depicts a scene from the Swabian War. This is a war that took place in Germany and Austria in 1499. I had never heard of this war until this evening.

The artist is Luzerner Schilling. Artist Schilling completed this painting in 1513.

The excellent Handbook of Texas Online has facts on cattle rusting in Texas.

From the Handbook—

“Most rustlers of the open-range era were cowboys who had drifted into dubious practices. They knew the cattle country and were adept at roping, branding, and trailing. One needed only to buy a few cows, register a brand, and begin branding strays. Many cowboys’ herds increased so rapidly that some ranchmen refused to hire any hand who had stock of his own. The altering of brands was a frequent practice among rustlers. Instead of the stamp iron used by most cattlemen, the rustler used a running iron-a straight rod with a curve at the heated end. When this was outlawed, he sometimes used a piece of heavy wire that he could bend into any shape and carry in his pocket.”

Here is a 2007 San Francisco Chronicle story about cattle rustling in modern day California.

Here is the round-up. None of these posts have been rustled. The bloggers wrote them on their own.

Last week TXsharon at BLUEDAZE made a video statement at the EPA public hearing on the proposed ozone standards.

Who needs a proctologist when you have former state representative Rick Green running for the Texas Supreme Court? John Coby at Bay Area Houston has a bigger-than-usual pain in his ass.

This week on Left of College Station, Teddy looks at the voter turnout in the Bryan and College Station municipal elections and has to ask the question: does minority rule? Teddy also unpacks the misleading poll on health care reform that the Chamber of Commerce commissioned to attack Democrats in conservative congressional districts. Left of College Station also covers the week in headlines.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants to know why monuments to racism and fear are so important to Republicans. Why not spend taxpayer dollars on something constructive like education or health care?

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the continuation of skyrocketing homeowners insurance rates in Texas: Homeowners insurance corporations – increasing our pain while Perry, GOP sit idly by.