We've been a little preoccupied of late due to some issues with moisture.
As is expected, what passes for leadership in Houston is plowing ahead with promises of action while the unproductive class is authoring think piece after think piece about how things would be better if only the poors would listen up and live in high-rise filled ghettos in a segregated part of the inner-city as they do in those more enlightened areas of the country. How dare you want a single-family home and 2.4 children and 1.2 family dogs.
So while I'm taking some time off I offer this:
Houston can spend all of it's time and budget erecting fancy barriers and flashing lights and offering subsidies to developers to levels undreamed of by the hip (primarily well-to-do Caucasian) unproductive class.
And people in Houston will still drive into high-water and drown, apartments will flood and people will still be seen carrying armadillos and dogs and floating babies out on mattresses.
They will do this because Human beings sometimes (oft-times?) don't act rationally. In Houston, especially, they don't think the rules of the road apply to them and they drive aggressively and cut-people off, and try to skip past the right lane to make a right-hand-turn (cutting off traffic at the very end, which exacerbates the problem), and some Houstonians will continue to ignore the new barricades just like they ignored the old ones, they will drive past the fancy new gates just as the one person ignored the live toll attendant that was flagging them to stop.
And there will still be times where areas get 15+ inches of rain and you think you see the animals lining up in twos trying to get on an F450 that they've mistaken for an ark. These types of things are always going to happen and the response will always be the same until people in Houston remember that they share this city with others who, despite possibly looking, acting and believing differently than they, still have loved ones to whom they want to provide for, and get home to.
Until then all of this media and political shit that's being tossed around is just an attempt to shame the poor and gormless. It's Monday morning quarterbacking by a media who was asleep at the switch now trying desperately to position itself as some kind of thought "leader" after the fact.
Which, when you think about it, is pretty common for Houston, a city whose industry is cutting edge, but whose politics and institutions are decidedly small-town, behind the times and very, very authoritarian in their political leanings.
If you're currently out there with your belongings flooded my thoughts are with you. You deserve better than to shamed by the so-called "smart-set" because you chose to live in a place that afforded you yard and trees and maybe a tire-swing for the kids. I wish you well digging out and drying out.
As for all of the think-pieces and political promises? (Don't fear, Mayor Turner has appointed a
Regular blogging on stuff not-related to Houston will commence once I figure out a way to start a mobile kayak concession.
