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.