Selling Austin

It's Spring Break, and I went home again to Texas. And a trip to Texas must include a trip home again to Austin, the city of youth, music, the outdoors, and relaxed tolerance of all walks of life. That's the advertising line, anyway, but to a certain extent, I think the soul of Austin really is special for those reasons (not that I am biased, having grown up and gone to school there). But, like coming home to find out that your grandmother has become old and frail, harsh reality has a way of intruding on my rosy, home-visit glow. Austin is a city like any other, and has every city's problems. West Austin is starting to look like L.A., as you can see--and this is one of the nicest views left. Keep Austin Wierd--don't move there!

As I visited Lake Travis, I was deeply saddened by the destruction of a hilltop view from my Middle School. Developers have built large houses up to a road that commands a 270 degree view. I spent a good chunk of my childhood staring out the window at a view that will cease to exist in two more years. I do believe that developers would build in a graveyard if the real estate was worth enough. Land is not sacred around Austin: Texans believe in a free, unfettered market, and they are inheriting the ugly, poorly planned results. When you sow the whirlwind, you will inherit the wind.

All that said, I still think the city of Austin is a great place to be, and I have some hope that Texans will wake up and solve their problems before it is too late. I don't want to see West and Southwest Austin preserved like a fly in amber, but I would like to see more agricultural zoning, purchase of public land for parks and viewsheds, and an effort to mandate conservation development. Developers could cluster developments on one corner of a property, and leave the rest to nature trails and public parks. This would increase the property value of the homes, help local endangered species, and improve the health and well-being of residents. By coordinating with each other, developers could cluster even more to create small towns that are surrounded by healthy streams and forests. That would be the best way to develop West Austin, even if it means not making the maximum profit from every acre. If development has to be done, why not do it well?

Who says we are not a warlike nation?

Gore Vidal has argued that we are the most warlike nation in the history of the Earth. In any case, we seem to be spending like it. See the following chart, it will change your perspective.

Veterans are returned travellers

At some point in your life, you stop and ask yourself whether you are unique. The answer is always, "Of course!" Of course, as a whole you are--no one has the exact combination of stuff (eye color, laugh, family history, interests, personal history, etc.), right? You are unique from the combination of thousands of biological and personal events. You get to wondering though--are you unique from anything that you have done?

Well, I am not so sure that I have done anything truly unique and novel to humankind. I am not even sure that anything unique has ever happened to me. But so many sad events happened to me last year that I felt unique. I felt alone, experiencing things far outside the normal run of life.

Even now, my perspective regained, I still feel like I am part of a smaller club of humanity now than I was before. My experience-peer circle has shrunk dramatically. And now I begin to wonder why I ever wanted to be unique. Knowing you are different is one thing: suspecting you are a rare combination is loneliness itself.

But sometimes (and I for one can testify to this), bad years start with planes crashing into trees a hundred yards from your office. You can't duck it and you can't ignore it. When you walk out the other side of your bad year, back into the world, your only punishment and only reward is a normal life. Veteran's can attest to this: life is sometimes Penelope, and life is sometimes the Odyssey. You can tell Penelope about the Odyssey, but it won't make you happy. You are much better off just kissing her, and laughing at the wind in the trees.

God, the wind in the crabapple blossoms was lovely today. Am I unique? Of course. But who cares? Only I saw the wind I saw today.

Speaking of Disasters

A grave report on a new phenomenon....

Poem: Awash in Fire and Water

You never got ready for the end of the world
There was no gas mask gathering dust under your couch,
No jugs of water, no cans of meat, no duct tape.
You refused to fall in love with disaster and death.

Your emergency escape plan was pitiful. A car?
Come on. The end of the world came down as a hammer
Slamming dark down on the blood-soaked steets.
The fire came up and the lights went out.

We listened to a radio of emptiness. Dead men crawled
on the side of the road while mothers fought each other
over bread, their talons out, with glittering, desperate
eyes. It was a world of foul water and pregnant hopes.

You never got ready for the end of the world
And so you never made it through.
We all thought something better would lie
on the other side of THE END.

Mistakes were made

I don't think you have to be a Republican or a Democrat to recognize the stark reality that when Katrina hit, mistakes were made at all levels of government, especially the federal level. A recent article in that liberal mouthpiece, the New York Times, reports that video shows that President Bush was repeatedly and fully warned of the danger of Katrina, the high likelihood of levee failure, and the insufficient preparation of the federal government for the disaster. There was no "fog of war", and he knew beforehand that the levees might collapse. Bush failed to listen to his advisors, he failed to respond quickly to an expected disaster, and he lied to the public to hide the gross incompetence of his administration's response to Katrina.

I don't care what party you vote for: you have to believe in accountability. Republican or Democrat, accountability is what keeps our government free of corruption. I hated it when Bill Clinton was impeached, but I could understand why. He lied under oath about an intensely personal, life-destroying matter. He broke the law. He was publicly dishonored, almost convicted, and he should have paid a fine and done community service. But when Bill lied, the only thing that got hurt was America's sense of trust in the Presidency. Katrina killed more than a thousand people. Bush is not responsible for Katrina, but his four-day delay in sending in troops and unwillingness to evacuate preemptively cost human lives. In legal terms, that is criminal negligence. We don't tolerate it in our citizens: I don't know why we tolerate it in our leaders.

There must be an accounting. You know, some people would scream, "Impeachment!" For me, a simple apology would be a good start, followed by action to make sure this never happens again.