Late #6 peer commentary

I'm going to comment on my classmate Dave's Editorial - How 'Bout a Little Humility, Detroit.
First off, Dave we have to be soul mates! When i read his commentary, frankly, I laughed my ass off. I completely agree with the whole "shut your pie hole" mentality and commend anyone that feels the same way.

Everyone has something in their life that has been hard. Suck it up. Move on. Pinch your pennies and pay your bills. Jesus, get another job. I have two and I go to school. Shit happens, and sometimes life brings you somewhere that you weren't expecting to be. I have the awesome ability to roll with the punches and take life as it comes to me. "Oh, that didn't work out? Crap. Well let's try this." Work it. Find a way. Anything is possible, especially if you are dedicated enough to struggle your way through it.

As for Detroit and the Big 3, I would be just as frank. They have brought this upon themselves and maybe America would be better without old Ladies in Buick's running us off the road! Think about it though! Everything would be better. The environment would be better off. Those damn F350's and their enormous engines wouldn't be emitting so many CO2 gases, there wouldn't be as much congestion on the small Austin roads, people could see AROUND and ABOVE the person driving in front of them. My life would be all that much better. With the exception of the poor blokes turning the wrenches in Detroit, all would be solved.

Retort to "Den of Rats"

I find it hard to find where to even begin with my classmate's commentary. I suppose I will start with how he combines East Austin with Hippies and Neo Bohemian Lifestyle. Those two don't go together at all. I live in East Austin. I love it here! The rent is reasonable, I'm close to downtown and no one bothers me because i have a Pit bull. What i actually want to start with is that I have NEVER seen a hippie in East Austin. I think that my classmate has his areas of town mixed up. I believe what he is referring to is the Hyde Park area. East Austin is composed primarily of Hispanics and African Americans with small doses of white people throughout. Hippies generally hang out in Central Austin.

Now that we have that out of the way, i wonder where the author of this article obtained his information from. "In east Austin there is an alarming trend of people who call themselves “artists” moving in to the wear houses, dilapidated housing, and peoples spare rooms, and mooch off of the lower socioeconomic status of the East Austin neighborhoods." I'm sorry but i can't help but laugh at that. I wonder what the author has against "artists" and why it is in quotes to begin with. Does he think that all artists are hippies that live in warehouses, without plumbing and leach off of society? I worry that in his developmental years that he wasn't exposed to culture and art as much as he was exposed to hunting and fishing.

"What inevitably has followed this society of neo-hippies is a wave of vice, pestilence, immorality, and so called hip new cafes and coffee houses and clothing stores that cater to and encourage the type of useless and counterproductive behavior that creates a false sense of a thriving economy. " The type of useless and counterproductive behavior? What does that mean? Artists are counterproductive and useless? Coffee shops harbor pestilence and immorality? I can't even wrap my mind around that.

I only agree with one part of his whole commentary. In recent years, there has been some development in East Austin. There is a "green" neighborhood that is in development out here. It's will be an environmentally friendly, upperclass community, which does worry me that prices will go up and change the neighborhood from something i love to something that i hate.

I do not agree with anything else mentioned in his article. I think it shows how close minded and fearful some members of our society can be. I really hope that someday the author will go out and see the world for what it is and not what his parents (?) tell him it should be.

Original Commentary

I had someone ask me recently if i was an "Obamunist" like him or "Mccain in the Membrane" How ridiculous? There has been a huge response to Obama's winning the presidental election and it makes me wonder if things will really change?

I whole idea of election platforms is to get people to vote for you. It doesnt necessarily mean that you will do what you say you want to do. That being said, I dont love or hate Obama. He just is in my mind. I am curious about which of his stances will stick with and which ones he'll stash to the side.

He wants to provide the working class with this amazing tax cut. Where's that money going to come from? The numbers dont add up at all. Dont get me wrong, I'm all about saving money now, but not at the "having to pay it later" cost.

"This relief would include a $25 billion State Growth Fund to prevent state and local cuts in health, education, housing, and heating assistance or counterproductive increases in property taxes, tolls or fees. The Obama-Biden relief plan will also include $25 billion in a Jobs and Growth Fund to prevent cutbacks in road and bridge maintenance and fund school re­pair - all to save more than 1 million jobs in danger of being cut. "

Where is this stash of money that they are delving into to relieve us? The numbers just dont add up for me.

I know that everyone is probably glad that Bush will soon be gone, but honestly how much can Barak hope to change in the near future? Will he still want to implement public health care, end the war in Iraq, give us all a huge tax break, and go completely green? If so, where is all the funding coming from?

I was reading his website recently and laughed when i read this release Obama . Obama Transition Chief National Security Spokesperson Brooke Anderson - What does that even mean? Can Barak not speak for himself now? What happened to the man that did all that talking during primaries and election time? Does his throat hurt? He cant make a one paragraph statement? I mean really, he doesnt even need to actually come up with it himself. He can just READ it off cards, but instead someone else released it for him?

Grrr. I hate politics sometimes. Too many questions and not enough real answers.

Time Warner Cable.

Television. I don't know anyone that doesn't occasionally glance at it here or there, or watch their favorite show on Thursday nights. As a matter of fact, I have a couple of friends that are TV junkies. There's nothing wrong with that if you don't have anything better to do, or you don't want to be doing anything else I guess. But honestly Austin? Throwing a fit over KXAN not being broadcast? Odds are that if you are in Austin and have cable, or are breathing you have Internet. Streaming videos...it's a wonderful thing.

I just find it amazing that so many people, normal people, EDUCATED people, would get so upset that Time Warner was dropping their signal. I read this article today about the KXAN fiasco. Here's the link if you want to read it yourself. KXAN The article said that ratings dropped 40%. No, you didn't read that wrong. It said 40%. Holy crap people! One woman even said “Our family is getting tired of all this and may stop watching NBC and give up Time Warner". WOW. I honestly cant believe that so many peoples lives revolve around the television. I feel a little left out. After I am finished for the day, between working two jobs and going to school, i find it hard to make it to the bed sometimes. I wonder if the "families" that are so upset about losing one channel on the television really do family things. Is this what our society has turned into? Is this how we spend our "family" time now? When i still lived at home, which was not that long ago, my parents did stuff with us. We were outside as much as possible. They asked us about our days. We didn't spend our together time watching shows like "Biggest Loser".

I'm in now way bashing people that do spend their time that way, but if you do, is it really a big deal to gather around NBC.com or to change the channel? My biggest concern is why our NEWSPAPERS are focusing on this. This isn't news. It's entertainment, or lack there of. As I'm sure you have noticed, if you are one of those TV junkies, KXAN is now back, just in time for the fall lineup. YEAH! I find it interesting that this article was about a page and a half, but the article about the child molester in Williamson County was not even a quarter of a page. I mean even the article about Hutto's Farmers Market was longer than the child molester article. Yes, that is what i want to read when i open the NEWSpaper - How Hutto is losing it's farmers market. I didnt want to know about all the actual news that is happening in Austin and it's surrounding areas. I don't want to know about new legislature that might be affecting me, or about the current issues being debated in the elections. I just want to know about Hutto's Farmers market and Time Warner's Channels. While were at it, why not tell me about the Sarah Palin look-alike contest. That's hard hitting journalism right there Statesman.

By the way, Time Warner, if you are reading this, i want my money back! 120 bucks a month, and for what? I didn't even have NBC there for a couple months! :) But really, lower your prices. Every time i go to pay my bill, i feel like someone is beating me up and taking my lunch money.

Random Road Blocks?

Whoa. Random road blocks might be legal in thee near future. What does that say for Texas if we allow that to happen? Here's the article Road Blocks. I found it on Scott Henson's blog called Grits for breakfast, and let me just say, he's pretty fantastic in my book. On to the meat and potatoes.

So in his article, Scott talks about how DPS here in Texas is trying to bring about the topic of random road blocks and their legality. This bill has been submitted and rejected 3 other times already! They just changed the name, and resubmitted it. Basically, DPS wants to circumvent the legal system and authorize the road blocks and randomly check drivers' licenses, insurance and registration. Oh! And they want the Police Departments help! Sure! Right now all they want to check is the above mentioned documents. Next week, it'll be "Ma'am, You're documents seem to be in order, but im gonna need you to step outside of the vehicle." "What's the problem officer?" "You look a little bit deshevled, it seems to me that you might have been drinking." "I've been running sir, I'm in jogging clothes and my dog is in the back of the car panting. " "Well sure, that's what you want me to think." REALLY? REALLY?

Scott and myself totally agree on this subject. I can only imagine what will be next if this bill is successful and gets passed. Random road blocks. Dangerous territory. We are a Democracy. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty. If we let this ridiculous bill enter our legislative system, we might as well kiss our freedom goodbye. I totally agree that something needs to be done about our over the top DWI/DUI percentages, but i honestly dont believe that infringing on random people's liberties will help all that much. Here's an idea. Why not make DPS take away all licenses of people 21 and younger. Statistics show that this age group accounts for 11 percent of DWI's in Texas. Here's the link - DWI. Honestly, being a huge college town, we are probably always going to have a huge DWI rate, and there will always be people slipping through the cracks. Setting up random barricades and making people hand over their information without cause is not the way to fix it.

Nuclear Power...Our saving grace.

Until reading this article by Patrick Moore I had no idea that Texas is leading the pack of states that are trying desperately to reduce their "Carbon Footprints". The article is titled "The case for more nuclear power in Texas." and it can be found in the Dallas Morning News, or here Nuclear Power.

In his article, Pat describes how a Texas Nuclear Power Company just applied for a permit for two new power plant sites. There are now 6 sites pending, which could potentially double our states production of electricity that is virtually Carbon free.

Patrick Moore is "a co-founder of Greenpeace and co-chair of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, a national grass-roots coalition that promotes nuclear power. " He seems legit to me. Kidding. He is deep into the issue of cleaner energy production. The article seems to be targeting people who may not know much about Nuclear power and it's benefits. He goes into depth about how the building of new plants would help the economy greatly.

I agree with Pat. Nuclear power seems to be a route that we NEED to take. The major reduction of greenhouse gases produced by the dwindling number of electricity plants will be a great benefit on it's own. Factor in the amount of new jobs produced and the cheaper energy source, and we may have a winner. With the prices of oil, electricity, and pretty much everything else going up, we need to find an alternative. Texas is among the few states in the U.S. that are searching to find alternative power sources. Let's hope it all gets approved.

Dallas. Dallas. Dallas.

Ohhh Dallas. Okay so. Today in the Dallas Morning News there was an article on Burglary rates in the city of Dallas. Here's the link - Burglary It's totally worth the read, especially if you need a little laugh. If you dont want to read it, I have summarized it below. My description is a little funnier though! (read: for exact numbers and more clarification you might want to read the actual article.)Enjoy.

Basically, the article talks about how Dallas, the # 1 big city of reported crime, is trying to reduce their burglary rates this year. It has come to the attention of Dallas officials that there are way too many false reports getting into the system. People are filing false reports for various reasons such as mental illness, and to commit insurance fraud. Also, there is a big problem with figuring out what constitutes a burglary and what does not. Police are reporting instances other than burglaries under the title of burglaries. For instance, a man breaks into a woman's house, and rifles through her panty drawer, but doesn't steal anything. In the past, some officers would have filed this offense under burglary instead of creepy panty-sniffer that trespasses. From what the article states, it sounds like Dallas officials are cracking down on crime because they are tired of being # 1 in that department. Now the force can take information and investigate it further before filing it. Hrrrm...Isn't that what they are supposed to do anyway?