Here is his 1999 NRA Convention Keynote Speech in Denver, which, by coincidence, was scheduled shortly after the Columbine shootings in Colorado:

 "I have been advised not to be here. I apologize for this disruption, but from our friends in the national press corps, we have received some very good late-breaking news. According to reports Yugoslavia has agreed to release our three American P.O.W.'s, perhaps, this note says, within 24 hours. That's the best news we could have.

"I was advised not to be here, not to speak to you here, that's not the first time. In 1963, I marched on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King, long before Hollywood found civil rights, um, fashionable. My associates advised me not to go. They said it would be unpopular, and may be dangerous. Thirty-six years later, my associates advised me not to come to Denver. They said it would be unpopular, and may be dangerous. Here I am. Let me tell you why...

"I see our country teetering on the edge of an abyss. At its bottom brews the simmering bile of deep, dark hatred. Hatred that's dividing our country: politically, racially, economically, geographically, in every way- whether it's political vendettas, sports brawls, corporate takeovers, or high school gangs in cleats, the American competitive ethic has changed from 'let's beat the other guy, to let's destroy the other guy.' Too many, too many are too willing to stigmatize and demonize others for political advantage, for money or for ratings. The vilification is savage. This week, Representative John Conyers slandered three million Americans when he called the NRA 'merchants of death' on national television as our first lady nodded in agreement.

"A hideous cartoon by Mike Peters ran nationally, it showed childrens' dead bodies sprawled out to spell N-R-A. The countless requests we've received this last week or so for media appearances are in fact, summons to public floggings, where those who hate firearms will, predictably don the white hat and give us the black one. This harvest of hatred is then sold as news. As entertainment. As government policy. Such hateful, divisive forces are leading us to one awful end--America's own form of Balkanization. A weakened country of rabid factions, each less free, united only by hatred of one another.

"In the past ten days, we've seen the these brutal blows attempting to fracture America into two such camps. Now one camp would be the majority- people who believe our founders guaranteed our security with the right to defend ourselves, our families, and our country. The other camp would be a large minority of people who believe that we will buy security--if we would just surrender these freedoms. This debate would be accurately described as those who believe in the Second Amendment versus those who don't but instead it is spun as those who believe in murder versus those who don't.

"A struggle between the reckless and the prudent, between the dim-witted and the progressive. Between inferior citizens who know, and elitists who know what's good for society. But we're not the rustic, reckless radicals they wish for. No, the NRA spans the broadest range of American demography imaginable. We defy stereotyping, except for love of country. Look in your mirror, your shopping mall, your church, your grocery store--that's us. Millions of ordinary people and extraordinary people. War heroes, sports idols, several U.S. Presidents, and, yes, movie stars.

"But the screeching hyperbole leveled at gun owners has made these two camps so wary of each other, so hostile and confrontational and disrespectful on both sides they have forgotten that we are first Americans. I am asking all of us, on both sides, to take one step back from the edge, than another step and another... however many it takes to get back to the place where we are all Americans. Different...different, imperfect, diverse, but one nation, indivisible.

"This cycle of tragedy-driven hatred must stop, because so much more connects us than that which divides us because tragedy has been, and will always be with us. Somewhere right now, evil people are planning evil things. All of us will do everything meaningful, everything we can do to prevent it, but each horrible act can't become an ax for opportunists to cleave the very Bill of Rights that binds us. America must stop this predictable pattern of reaction. when an isolated, terrible event occurs, our phones ring, demanding that the NRA explain the inexplicable. Why us? Because their story needs a villain. They want us to play the heavy in their drama of packaged grief. To provide riveting programming to run between commercials for cars and cat food.

"The dirty secret of this day and age is that political gain and media ratings all to often bloom on fresh graves. I remember a better day, where no one dared politicize or profiteer on trauma. We kept a respectful distance then, as NRA has tried to do now. Simply being silent is so often the right thing to do. But today, carnage comes with a catchy title, splashy graphics, regular promos and a reactionary passage of legislation. Reporters perch like vultures on the balconies of hotels for a hundred miles around. Cameras jockey for shocking angles as news anchors race to drench their microphones with the tears of victims.

"Injury, shock, grief and despair shouldn't be brought to you by sponsors. That's pornography. It trivializes the tragedy it abuses. It abuses vulnerable people, and maybe worst of all, it makes the unspeakable seem commonplace. And we're often cast as the villain. That is not our role in American society, and we will not be forced to play it.

"Our mission is to remain, as our Vice-President said, a steady beacon of strength and support for the Second Amendment even if it has no other friend on this planet. We cannot, we must not let tragedy lay waste to the most rare, and hard-won human right in history. A nation cannot gain safety by giving up freedom. This truth is older than our country. Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Ben Franklin said that.

"Now, if you like your freedoms of speech and of religion, freedom from search and seizure, freedom of the press, and of privacy, to assemble, and to redress grievances, then you'd better give them that eternal bodyguard called the Second Amendment.

"The individual right to bear arms is freedom's insurance policy. Not just for your children, but for infinite generations to come. That is it's singular sacred duty, and why we preserve it so fiercely. Now, no, it's not a right without rational restrictions, and it's not for everyone. Only the law-abiding majority of society deserves the Second Amendment.

"Abuse it once, and lose it forever. That's the law. But, curiously, the NRA is far more eager to prosecute gun abusers than are those who oppose gun ownership altogether. As if the tool could be more evil than the evil-doers. I don't understand that. The NRA also spends more and works harder than anybody in America to promote safe, responsible use of firearms. From 38,000 certified instructors, training millions of police, hunters, women and youths, to 500 law-enforcement agencies promoting our Eddie Eagle gun-safety program Wen told you about distributed to eleven million kids-eleven million and counting.

"But our essential reason for being is this: as long as there is a Second Amendment, evil can never conquer us, tyranny in any form can never find footing within a society of law-abiding, armed, ethical people. The majesty of the Second Amendment that our founders so divinely captured and crafted into your birthright guarantees that no government despot, no renegade faction of armed forces, no roving gangs of criminals, no breakdown of law and order, no massive anarchy, no force of evil or crime or oppression from within or from without can ever rob you of the liberties that define your Americanism.

"And, so, when they ask you well, indeed you would uh, bear arms against Government tyranny? The answer is no. That could never happen, precisely because we have the Second Amendment. Let me be absolutely clear. The Founding Fathers guaranteed this freedom, because they knew no tyranny can ever arise among a people endowed with the right to keep and bear arms. That's why you and your descendants need never fear fascism, state-run faith, refugee camps, brain-washing, ethnic cleansing, or especially submission to the wanton will of criminals.

"The Second Amendment, there can be no more precious inheritance- that's what the NRA preserves.

"Now, if you disagree, that's your right. I respect that. But, we will not relinquish it, or be silenced about it, or be told: 'Do not come here, you are unwelcome in your own land.'

"Let us go from this place, this huge room, renewed in spirit and dedicated against hatred. We have work to do, hearts to heal, evil to defeat, and a country to unite. We may have differences, yes, and we will again suffer tragedy almost beyond description. But when the sun sets on Denver tonight, and forevermore, let it always set on we the people, secure in our land of the free, and home of the brave. I, for one, plan to do my part. Thank You."

 Hat Tip: Varmint Al

Check out Bobby Jindal's victory speech from the Louisiana race for governor last night. 

I'm sorry, but I see no brighter light in either of the major parties at this time—can you? Anybody? Jindal's specialty is fixing things, and there are so many things in Louisiana to fix. If he can fix Louisiana, he can fix...he can fix the world, and we will wind up with this son of the Punjab as President. Now is Jindal's time to prove himself. May God bless him, or at least have mercy on his soul. 

Run Bobby run!

This is an open letter to the blonde-haired guy in the black GMC midsize pickup truck I “met” at the intersection of Airport and I-35 on the afternoon of October third.

I am one of the unclean, a tobacco smoker. Since I have kids at home and can’t smoke in the office or any other public place, I smoke mostly in my car. Typically I roll my own cigarettes with American Spirit tobacco. They have no filters, and the paper is made from 100% flax. Since these hand-rolled cigarettes are all-natural and essentially pre-biodegraded containing nothing but leaf material and a spot of flax paper which disolves in water, sometimes I will drop my “butts” out of my car window into the gutter if I’m stopped at a traffic light or stop sign. Most of the time I do this my cigarette is no longer burning since natural tobacco doesn’t contain chemicals to keep it lit like manufactured cigarettes do. Now I know this is a bad habit and constitutes illegal littering in spite of my rationalizations about the fact that my litter dissolves into a tiny amount of 100% plant detritus upon first contact with water. Mea culpa: It is still wrong for me to litter, regardless.

On October third I was running late for an after-school event at my children’s elementary school for which I volunteer on a weekly basis. Instead of trying to roll a cigarette while I was driving, I noticed my wife had left a pack of her store-bought cigarettes in my car, so I lit up one of those instead. While stopped under the I-35 overpass at Airport Blvd. waiting to make a left-hand turn, I thoughtlessly dropped my cigarette butt into the gutter. Realizing I had just dropped a fiberglass filtered cigarette butt instead of one of my hand-rolled butts, I glanced up at the light and debated whether I should get out of my car and pick it up. But before I could decide, I saw something move right outside my car window out of the corner of my eye. Thinking it might be a panhandler, I bent my head down to look up at him when something burning came flying through the window and hit me in the face. Upon impact, it burst into multiple burning pieces. One burning piece went into my left eye, one piece fell onto my forearm and stuck, while the rest of the pieces fell between my legs onto my car seat and between my car door and the drivers seat. Panicked, I looked around to see where my attacker was and saw the man behind me calmly get back into his truck. It was then that I realized what was happening, that he had seen me drop a cigarette butt, got out of his truck, bent over next to my car, picked it up, and threw it in my face. By this time the light had changed and the car in front of me was moving. In shock and unsure if the passenger compartment of my car was on fire or not, I made the left turn. I pulled into a parking lot and checked my car to make sure nothing was burning. The man behind me went on about his way. He never uttered a word.

Now I’m sure this man is very satisfied with himself, and I’m sure he enjoyed the self-righteous rush he got from demonstrating his moral righteousness—with fire!—to a filthy, littering smoker. And I’m sure that there are people reading this post feeling smug in their pious certitude that I got what I deserved. But the truth of the matter is this man physically assaulted and injured me, a total stranger. Although I don’t smoke with my children in the car, had they been in there with me they might have gotten injured too. If I had been wearing a rayon or acrylic shirt, I could be in Brackenridge right now with third degree burns on fifty percent of my body. My car could have caught on fire and I might have burned to death, tangled up in my seat belt. Or, in my panic, I might have accidentally hit my accelerator and slammed into the car in front of me, harming that driver and her child. I’m left wondering how any of these potential outcomes would have affected this man’s moral calculus, but it’s clear that the only factor was himself and his egotistical sense of rectitude. If he had just picked up the butt and said “excuse me sir, I think you dropped this” I would have been properly chastised and he would have made his point. But apparently that wasn’t enough for him.

Anyway, whoever you are Mr. “Activist,” my eye’s okay, and the blisters on my forearm and face are small and will heal soon enough. I still hope you one day develop the moral cognition necessary to understand that while my littering may have been anti-social, what you did was thuggish and sociopathic, and God forbid you seriously harm someone before you figure out what a creep you are.

This is not real. We've seen it all before.
Slow down, you're screaming. What exploded? When?
I guess this means we've got ourselves a war.
And look at -- Lord have mercy, not again.
I heard that they went after Air Force One.
Call FAA at once if you can't land.
They say the bastards got the Pentagon.
The Capitol. The White House. Disneyland.
I was across the river, saw it all.
Down Fifth, the buildings put it in a frame.
Aboard the ferry -- we felt awful small.
I didn't look until I felt the flame.
The steel turns red, the framework starts to go.
Jacks clasp Jills' hands and step onto the sky.
The noise was not like anything you know.
Stand still, he said, and watch a building die.
There's no one you can help above this floor.
We've got to hold our breath. We've got to climb.
Don't give me that; I did this once before.
The firemen look up, and know the time.
These labored, took their wages, and are dead.
The cracker-crumbs of fascia sieve the light.
The air's deciduous of letterhead.
How dark, how brilliant, things will be tonight.
Once more, we'll all remember where we were.
Forget it, friend. You didn't have a choice.
That's got to be a rumor, but who's sure?
The Internet is stammering with noise.
You turn and turn but just can't turn away.
My child can't understand. I can't explain.
The towers drain out from Boston to LA.
The cellphone is our ganglion of pain.
What was I thinking of? What did I say?
You're safe? The TV's off. What do you mean?
I'm going now, but not going away.
I couldn't touch the answering machine.
I nearly was, but caught a later bus.
I would have been, but had this awful cold.
I spoke with her, she's headed home, don't fuss.
Pick up those tools. The subway job's on hold.
Somebody's got to pay, no matter what.
I love you. Just I love you. Just I love --
The cloud rolls on; I think of Eliot.
Not silence, but an emptiness above.
There's dust, and metal. Nothing else at all.
it's airless and it's absolutely black.
I found a wallet. I'm afraid to call.
I'll stay until my little girl comes back.
You hold your breath whenever something shakes.
St. Vincent's takes one massive trauma case.
The voice, so placid, till the circuit breaks.
Ten minutes just to grab stuff from my place.
I only want to hear them say goodbye.
They could be down there, buried, couldn't they?

My friends all made it, and that's why I cry.
He stayed with me, and he died anyway.
We almost tipped the island toward uptown.
Next minute, I'm in Macy's. Who knows how.
I really need to get this bagel down.
He'd haul ass, that's what Jesus would do now.
A fighter plane? Dear God, let it be ours.
We're scared of bombs and so we're loading guns.
Who didn't have a rude word for the towers?
The world's hip-deep in junk that mattered once.
Hands rise to heaven as asbestos falls.
The air is yellow, hideously thick.
A photo, private once, on fifty walls.
A candle in a teacup on a brick.
They found -- can you believe -- a pair of hands.
Oh, that don't hurt. Well, maybe just a bit.
The Winter Garden's shattered but it stands.
A howl is Mene Tekeled in the grit.
Some made it in a basement, so there's hope.
The following are definitely known . . .
You live, is how you learn that you can cope.
Yes, I sincerely want to be alone.
Don't even ask. That's what your tears are for.
The cats are in a shelter; we are not.
Pedestrians rule the Roeblings' bridge once more.
A memory of home is what we've got.
Tribeca with no people, that's plain wrong.
It's just a shopping bag, but who can tell?
Okay, okay, I'm moving right along.
The postcards hit two dollars, and they sell.
Be honest, now. You're proud of living here.
If this is Armageddon, make it quick.
Today, for you, the rose is free, my dear.
We're shooting down our neighbors. Now I'm sick.
I can't do that for fifty times the fare.
A coronary. Other things went on.
It goes, like, something mighty, and despair.
All those not now accounted for are gone.
Here is the man whose god blinked in the flash,
Whose god says sinful people should be hurt,
The man whose god is kneeling in the ash,
The man whose god is dancing on the dirt.
Okay, I ate at Windows now and then.
This fortune-teller went to Notre Dame?
They knocked 'em down. We'll stack 'em up again.
Oh, I'd say one or two things stayed the same.
Some nights I still can see them, like a ghost.
King Kong was right about the Empire State.
I'd rather not hear what you'll miss the most.
A taller building? Maybe. I can wait.
I hugged the stranger sitting next to me.
So this is what you call a second chance.
One turn aside, into eternity.
This is New York. We'll find a place to dance.

With resolution wanting, reason runs
To characters and symbols, noughts and ones.

...or is it the same conservatives who think it's possible to keep 10,000 Mexicans a day out of the US with a 2000 mile fence who also think it's impossible to fortify 300 miles of levees to keep a twenty foot storm surge out of New Orleans?

 Here it is:

 Bah-dah-bing, made on a Mac.

Well this site has been dormant for a few months not due to any one particular reason, but rather due to a host of reinforcing demands on my time and attention, which taken singly are rather poor excuses for the neglect. For whatever reason—guilt most likely— I thought I'd share one of them with you.

Right about the time of my last post here I'd been shopping for a house gun. That's right, a gun. I'm forty-two years old and I've never purchased a gun in my life in spite of the fact that I was raised shooting them. Just before last September 11th, Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit made a half-serious crack about how we should all mark the infamous date's passing by buying guns. Initially I took the suggestion in the spirit in which it was given, but then I encountered this site and my attitude abruptly changed. For the first time I realized that in spite of having an old Remington .22 which I'd gotten as a Christmas gift when I was a teenager buried at the back of my closet, I've essentially been remiss all these years in never investing in a weapon (and the proficiency required to handle it responsibly) capable of the firepower necessary to protect myself and my family should the need arise. It's not about fear of criminals or tyrants, it's more about about free men accepting grown-up responsibilities in an uncertain world. We should all have an accurate, hig-powered rifle for the same reason we have insurance and 401k accounts.

Anyway, while searching for my idea of the perfect house gun—a double-barrel twenty gauge with exposed hammers—I came across a "mil-surp" rifle that captured my imagination from, of all places, Switzerland. As many know, Swiss citizens have been required for generations to participate in their democratic confederacy's military for most of their lives, and are even issued battle rifles to keep in their homes along with some ammunition so that they may mobilize at a moment's notice. From 1933 to 1958, Swiss militiamen were issued the Karabiner 31, or K-31, a six-shot straight-pull bolt action rifle. They are currently available for $100-200, fire a cartridge remarkably similar to the .30-06, and enjoy a reputation for being one of the most accurate battle rifles ever generally issued. On September 11th, I ordered two of them from a dealer in North Carolina, along with my twenty gauge. They arrived a few days later.

Like most military surplus rifles, the ones I received had a lot of wear showing on their wooden stocks. The black water stains you can see around their butt plates is due to the Swiss practice of stacking them in threes, tripod-like, outside of their tents in the snow. Most of the gashes at the bottom of the stocks are from the militiamen kicking them free from the frozen snow in the morning with their hobnail boots. Unlike most military surplus rifles however, the K-31s on the market today have mostly pristine metal, owing to their fine original workmanship (their barrels were manufactured by Hammerli and Sig) and the care the Swiss took with them. Thankfully the Swiss didn't store them in cosmoline grease as was the preferred long-term storage method of the US military. Here's a couple of pictures of mine as I received them:

One is a 1941 issue, the other is a 1943, both with walnut stocks (the Swiss later switched to beechwood). I then proceeded to spend the next two months finding every bit of information I could on these rifles so I could restore them to a facsimile of what they looked like when they were issued. Believe it or not there are at least a half a dozen bustling US-based message boards devoted to this rifle. Long-story-short, here's the finished product:

I presented one of them to my wife as a fifteenth anniversary present. It's certainly the weirdest one she's ever gotten from me.

I remember the first time (of what would be many times) I saw my young son suddenly cry "snake!" and dive head first into the tall grass of our back yard with his arms stretched out before him. In the seconds it took me to overcome my shock and make it to the tall grass to save my six year-old son, he was already on his feet again, with an eight-inch dirt-colored garden snake wiggling between his fingers. I don't think I've ever seen my son more delighted, and delighted with himself, as he was at that moment. Even so, at the time all I could think was that if that snake had turned out to be a copperhead, I was going to have that Crocodile Hunter guy's ass.

Then last night in a comments thread someone piped in that Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, was dead. Hoping it was a joke, I clicked over to a mainstream media site and sure enough, there were a couple of headlines proclaiming reports of his death, the oldest having been posted forty minutes prior. After I read the reports, I clicked over to Wikipedia to see what they had to say about his life and was startled to find that someone had already edited Irwin's entry to include the story of his demise at the wrong end of a stingray.

Steve and I had a few things in common. We were nearly the same age—he was only a few years older than me—and we were both fathers of young children, so my first thought after learning of his death was of his children, a three year-old son and an eight year-old daughter. My daughter is eight too, so a momentary, personal stab of dread was probably unavoidable for me. But later it was worse as the realization of what we have actually lost in Irwin slowly rose in my mind.

 And by now we all know what we've lost: a fierce conservationist, a committed, successful educator, an insatiable explorer, a wacky, tireless entertainer, and, quite possibly, the absolute coolest dad in all the universe.

 And there is my son again, standing there, beaming with wonder and life, the little snake slithering curiously through his hands. Steve Irwin didn't teach my son to be careless with the natural world, he taught him to be fearless. Thoughtful, but fearless. Because that's the way he was on his show.

Sure, Irwin was a showman at heart, and he was a very good one, so good that sometimes it got him into trouble with his weenie critics. But what he was always teaching us was that even though we humans have managed to separate our daily lives from much of it, we are still an integral part of nature—not interlopers, not voyeurs, not parasites, but actual participants in the natural world. Steve Irwin knew that if we are to preserve our natural world, we needed to understand this, that fear and ignorance were opposite sides of the same destructive force. Thus he showed us, over and over again, fearlessly, that in nature there is nothing to fear and much, much to know. And in doing so he taught my son something very important, and even beautiful, that I never could have. For that, I will always be grateful to him.

My husband is worried that he will look ‘stoopid,’ because he represented our family at the Travis County Appraisal District (TCAD) hearing and lost.  He raged for days about losing.  In all fairness, I sent him unprepared for battle.  I was out of town on business and could not reschedule.  So, off he went without an inkling of what to expect or the counter-arguments he would need to exercise his rights as a homeowner.  My previous successes only proves the City of Austin has caught on to homeowners, like us, who simply insist that Austin remain affordable.

Austinites throw themselves on the shores of idiosyncrasy like whales on sandy beaches: no one knows why and, ultimately, no one can convince them it’s not such a good idea.  The Save Our Springs Alliance (SOS) is a prime example: these folksy people with homes in Oak Hill and the “Hill Country” have tied up development over the Edwards Aquifer for a salamander that is rarely seen and may have already been facing extinction for reasons not due to man.  Barton Springs Pool and Deep Eddy Pool, both fed by springs coming out the aquifer, are the ‘barometer’ by which Austinites’ convictions for and commitment to their nutty-fruity ideals are measured.  If you ain’t SOS, you’re against it.  And, if you live in East Austin, it’s okay to plant a wastewater treatment facility in your backyard.  You’re SOL! [Pun intended.]  Another, more recent, example is the city’s McMansion ordinance.  It’s too early to tell what the unintended consequences of this little bit of heaven is…

Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore

When I first contemplated leaving New Orleans in 1991, I gave myself the choice of Austin or Atlanta.  I was still very young.  Atlanta seemed like a humdinger of a town in which to be a swinging single, but, alas, I wasn’t single!  Austin, on the other hand, was promoted to me as an ‘awesome’ town by a college friend who grew up in Buda.  Unbeknownst to me (or it turns out, her), the ‘awesome’ experiences she’d had in high school were in part underwritten by a complete economic downturn that left many Texans holding their proverbial hats in their hands.

Following the bust, rents were cheap.  Housing was plentiful.  Real estate was to be had for a dime.  But it all looked like a cheap strip mall to me.  Where were the wide avenues with trees arched gracefully overhead to shield pedestrians from the blazing afternoon sun?   My choices were limited to new, new or newer.  My heart cried out for the 100-year-old carriage house apartment I wanted in a city whose architecture didn’t even look a hundred years old!  I was instantly offended when the apartment locator took me to a ‘slum’ apartment near Reagan High School in order to convince me that the one she had shown me (on the edge of Hyde Park) was indeed what a nice girl like me wanted, despite its higher price.  Sigh.

If only this woman had lived on Daneel Street, or on South Broad, or Green, or St. Charles Avenue, or Carrollton.  What did she know about shooting guns over a cemetery with your neighbors on New Year’s Eve, not really stopping to ask what else they used their guns for?  What did she know about flooding so severe that you made space on the neutral ground for your neighbor, knowing they can't afford a car, even as you park yours?  What did she know about whooping it up on a Causeway turnaround with a carload of friends and a couple of bottles of cheap champagne?  Or beignets and hot coffee at Café du Monde at 3 am following rounds of drinks?  The lonely trek out of the quarter to the corner of Carondolet and Canal to catch the streetcar back uptown?

The second surprise was discovering the “Live Music Capital of the World” was really gambling on the “Live Garage Band Music Capital of the World”.  Unless you’ve been at Benny’s on a Thursday night as Charmaine Neville swung her braids and shook her hips standing face-to-face with her audience, you’re just going to have to believe that Austin’s got a ways to go to back up its claim.  I’ve often thought the moral of my move to Austin ought to be: don’t believe what a poor little rich girl has to say about rent and fun times.

Memories fade but shouldn’t be ripped away

For years, I’ve wondered what it would take to make me feel like Austin is home.  I’ve been known to jaw about how Austin is such a good place to raise kids; how the parks are wonderful and the swimming is good; how the schools are better than most in Texas; and how the city is smaller than you realize.  But, in the last 14 years, I’ve never felt like an Austinite.  As parents, our goal was for one of us to stay home and raise our own children.  It proved to be a constant strain on our finances as well as spirits.  As a result, coping with an increasingly unaffordable city left us feeling like we were working for free -- just this side of too rich to be poor.  Austin has not been very friendly to working families, as several of the city’s taskforces can well document for you.

I got a chance recently to re-evaluate what it means to be an Austinite.  Old college friends moved to Austin from Houston.  They are Katrina evacuees.  Peter and I have relatives and other friends whose lives have been changed because of the hurricane, but none who’ve restarted their lives in Austin.  After meeting at Deep Eddy pool for the last Movie Night of the summer, my friend wrote a ‘thank you’ note via email about how moving to Austin held at least one benefit: old friends.  I wrote back:

It was nice seeing y’all too last night. Going to Deep Eddy made me realize — really, for the first time — how much y’all have given up by evacuating from New Orleans — all of the memories and friendships that make a house a home and a city, one’s backyard. I have memories of my kids at Deep Eddy from over the last ten years, of the friendships that were created or sustained by hot afternoons there. Memories fade but shouldn’t be ripped away.

We’ve also spent many a gritty afternoon in the ‘free’ part of Barton Springs – the part below the dam that churns silt into a froth that requires several showers to remove from one’s skin and hair.  So, the weekend before Deep Eddy, with some determination, I dragged Peter along as I took the kids to Barton Springs Pool for some progressive potlucking.  Following a hearty vegetarian meal and small talk with the peacers, I headed into the pool at nine o’clock when the pool does not charge an entrance fee.  Peter had gone ahead with a gang of kids (I think to avoid the small talk).  Anticipating the bone-chilling coolness of the springs, I raced into the water despite Peter’s cautionary note that it had taken him 30 minutes to work his way in past his belly button.  Even at nine o’clock at night the water was crystal clear.  The faint overhead lighting was sufficient to let me conduct some ‘shark attacks’ on the kids.

It struck me that I’d managed to have two quintessential ‘Austin’ experiences in two weeks.  Was this enough to prove that Austin had become my home after 14 years of yearning for New Orleans?

Like a moth to a bug zapper

On June 25, 2006, the Austin American-Statesman ran an article in which they quote the TCAD “chief” as stating 45,600 residential and commercial property owners filed protests for their 2006 tax valuations.  Before it’s over, TCAD projected the number could reach 60,000.   Between 2005 and 2006, the number of protests doubled but had not yet overshot TCAD’s projection of 100,000 protests for 2006.  Well, for a city whose finest cinematic moment may have been “Slackers”, we’re standing up to our own reputation!

Peter shouldn’t feel so dejected: 2006 was not the summer of love for a lot of Austin homeowners.   Feeling fairly cocky after the Legislature threw Texas homeowners a bone, many came away from their hearings howling in outrage and disbelief.  But TCAD only represents taxing bodies like the Austin ISD, which recently released a proposed 13-cent reduction in its property tax rate.  For the median-price homeowner, that’s about $20 in savings over last year.  [Governor Perry: your much-touted ‘savings’ amount to less than half a tank of gas a year. Indeed, Congress had a better deal for me when they offered a $100 gasoline rebate.  It’s worth at least two fill-ups!]

What I later pieced together from talking to Peter is that TCAD flimflammed him in the worst way.  TCAD uses comparative sales or ‘comps’ within the last year for determining the appraisal value of real estate.  TCAD determined there was one comp for our property that sold in 2005 for approximately $115K.  That is close to the valuation to which TCAD and I agreed for 2004.  For 2005, TCAD gouged Peter by using the LISTING for the same property.  It turns out that Austin has a highly speculative real estate market, so some Californian shmuck with too much money on his hands bought the comp for $115K and turned around to list it for $176K. 

Well, isn’t that logic just dandy!  IF the comp had sold for $176K, I am certainly willing to concede that my reasons for challenging an increase in value for 2005 have to be based on strong evidence that my house will not list nor sell for $176K.  Unfortunately, it’s not the case for 2005.  They used a LISTING.  A LISTING.  One more time… A LISTING.

TCAD also blind-sided Peter by telling him that $90K of the current value of our property is based on a garage apartment we added in 2004.  They weren’t ‘sure’ if it had ever been added into the value of the property.  This is the point at which I experienced a lot of pity for Peter.  If he had known how to read through the statement they sent us, he would have clearly seen that the apartment was calculated as part of the overall square footage for the 2005 appraised value.  Their subterfuge went deeper: sitting in front of their computerized history of our appraisal values, they told Peter they weren’t certain it was included in 2004!  If Peter had had my files with him, he would have been able to prove it was corrected as part of my appeal of the 2004 valuation since they had grossly overstated the number of square feet by counting the open carport as an enclosed structure.   So now my sister lives in an 850-sqft apartment that is worth more than my 1350-sqft house.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice…

TCAD cheated.  I could appeal through the Comptroller of Public Accounts.  I have to file a fee in excess of the increase in taxes but the ruling is not binding on either party.  So, in the end, TCAD gets to have their cake and eat it too.  But 2006 is a new year...

On the way to Barton Springs Pool, Peter turned left at the corner of 6th and Lamar.  I said, rather startled, “Well, hello, Seattle!”  We laughed.  Austin will continue to amble towards its destiny of being a second-rate Seattle or San Francisco.  And I am forced to conclude that Austin is simply a place to hang my hat, raise my children, and dodge the taxman until I can leave.  Or we’re priced out. 

After all, if I’m paying San Francisco housing prices, shouldn’t we just shut up and move there? Wouldn’t you?

Over the years, I’ve noticed that Peter hates hiccups.  Hiccupping makes him crazy. He’ll try any folk remedy (and has tried most) to get rid of them.  To me, they’re harmless and interesting.  The muscles that control one’s diaphragm get ‘irritated’ and start twitching involuntarily.  It’s like applying a toilet plunger to your lungs.  Hiccups end as mysteriously as they start.

Last night, I hiccupped through a phone call with my older gay sister who was offering me comfort that a “family tree” had been printed and mailed that would give our relatives the impression that I was either an unwed mother of three children or a typical American divorcee.  It turns out she’s not into hiccups either.  Her folk remedy was to drink water through a paper napkin held over the mouth of the glass.  Failing to persuade me to try her remedy, she carried on bravely despite her irrational dislike of muscles doing their own thing.  She couldn’t resist pointing out much later in the conversation that my hiccupping had subsided.

A pair of balls beats a vagina, any day

One has to reach back in time 13 years for the beginning of the story of how two sisters, one straight and one gay, find out that life, to paraphrase Forrest Gump, is exactly like a box of chocolates – you should be curious enough to try each one until you’ve learned what you like.

Raised in ‘orthodox Hindu’ households, my parents had every right to expect that their seven children would continue the tradition of marrying whomever their parents select for them.  [Darwinists take note: there is no natural selection – no ‘survival of the fittest’ – within orthodox cultures.]  Their illusions were first shattered when I “came out of the closet” to reveal I had been shacking up with a southern Redneck (genus unknown) for almost two years.  Emboldened by my act of courage, my sister immediately followed up by coming out to them.  Peter and I used to joke that his stock shot up immediately.

Roots and fruit

So, yesterday, I was deeply hurt when my father forwarded the ‘family tree’ sans my husband’s name.  An accidental omission, my father later stated.  My reaction was ‘emotional’, not based on facts.  While it was the right thing to do to include grandchildren’s spouses’ names, my father was not aware of their intentions to add these details.  He conceded that the relative in charge of creating the family tree could have placed a phone call.  My father concluded:

Inspite of the above clarification, if you still want do not want the corrections made for distribution at the time of the function, and if you do not want your name at all in the list, I guess I will have to oblige you, because it will be your choice.

Being omitted entirely in the corrected notice distributed on the day of the function – my grandfather’s centennial birth anniversary – an option?  Discount my own existence entirely?  That’s a hiccup of epic proportions!  Maybe gays and I do have something in common…

Orthodoxy and non-natural selection

The orthodox do not practice natural selection.  So, it’s easy for them to prove that evolution is bunk.  Darwin didn’t prove a damned thing writing about the ‘best genes’ banging each other.  It’s survival of the fittest cultures, not genes!  Man has documented enough of his own history to prove it, too.  The traditions and culture passed on the next generation are more important than the existence of any one member of the culture.  As a consequence, ‘pedigree’ is the key criterion to successful breeding. 

Hindus and other orthodox groups have been running the equivalent of ‘breeding’ farms for millennia.  There are royalty running all over Europe trying not to bang each other!   Even in cultures where there was never a clear history of dynasty building, monarchies took off because people can’t resist titles like ‘King’ or ‘Prince’ or ‘Queen’.  Americans ruined it with our insistence that all men are created equal and, well, despite the Kennedy’s best efforts to create an American Camelot, it’s since gone to the dogs… [Kennel Club members, take notes: you may learn a thing or two.]

The right language, the right caste, the right astral signs, the right family, the right connections – all of these factors are taken into account when matches are made.  One only has to go to the India Times matrimonials website to document the tragedy of our post-modern existence.  Girls are described as ‘wheatish’ in tone.  Boys described as ‘fair-complected’ don’t remain posted for long.  ‘Caste no barrier’ is posted by those whose caste is the problem.  One would think from reading the India Times that modern India is becoming as deliciously infused with the vigor of cross-fertilization as the Latin America of the last 500 years but, alas, that is not the case.  People stick to what they know and are often blind to what they don’t know since their culturally-ingrained prejudices keep them from seeing what they don’t know.

‘Love’ marriages generally do not get the kind of extended familial support that ‘arranged’ marriages do, no matter how heinous the outcomes.  Unfortunately, two or more rights frequently end up making one BIG wrong (or cause a lot of in-breeding)!  For example, my father’s oldest sister was married at 13 or 14 to a sub-prime human being who came with all of the ‘right’ qualifications.  My father’s family rescued her from the typical physical violence aimed at new daughter-in-laws that had escalated to a drenching in gasoline.  It’s still not clear to me if she was trying to end her own existence or if her new ‘family’ was to blame.  She never divorced, but she never lived with her husband’s ‘family’ again.  She raised her daughter on her own and remains, to this day, a quite independent gal.

Doing what is right is not easy

I didn’t need convincing that my parents would treat my first-born differently if he were born out of wedlock – it was an easy concession that, surprisingly, came with medical and dental benefits.  My sister argues that gays should be legally allowed to be married.  I agree.  Marriage is a social contract.  It may even pre-date the religious sacraments since societies form to ensure that the current generation will be survived by a generation indoctrinated in its unique culture, traditions and customs.  Marriage is also a legally-binding contract, as evidenced by the numerous lawyers who traffic in divorce proceedings.  Gays are denied the legal protection marriage offers to the disposition of assets acquired during the marriage.  They are also denied the right to negotiate or defend custodial agreements, a volatile and particularly bruising aspect of divorce.

Congress loves the implicit social contract of marriage so much, they wrote it into law!  The Administration for Children and Families’ website has this to say about marriage and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA):

When Congress enacted PRWORA and established the TANF program, States were given the authority to provide marriage support services as an acknowledgement that two-parent households are the most effective environment for raising children.

PRWORA was Bill ‘I did not have sex with that woman’ Clinton’s prized legacy!  It would have been delightful irony if Bill had been sued by a state attorney general for child support under PRWORA but – sigh – he read the bill before he signed it into law!  In retrospect, PRWORA was a slippery slope for liberals. As the saying goes, “Where a window closes, a door opens.”  A decade later, Congress is moving into our bedrooms with the backing of an administration that supports ‘orthodox’ beliefs about marriage.

Been there, done that

God’s not here to contradict those who claim to know his position on gays, straights and marriage, so there’s no way to put this whole thing on trial, like they did during the Scopes monkey trial.  It turns out that ‘playah haters’ existed then too!  Douglas Linder, in The Scopes Trial: An Introduction (2002), wrote:

The early 1920s found social patterns in chaos. Traditionalists, the older Victorians, worried that everything valuable was ending. Younger modernists no longer asked whether society would approve of their behavior, only whether their behavior met the approval of their intellect. Intellectual experimentation flourished. Americans danced to the sound of the Jazz Age, showed their contempt for alcoholic prohibition, debated abstract art and Freudian theories. In a response to the new social patterns set in motion by modernism, a wave of revivalism developed, becoming especially strong in the American South. 

Our orthodox don’t dress up in black wool or force their women to wear hijabs.  They don’t smear their foreheads with ashes once a year or envelope themselves in saffron-colored robes.  It’s hard to tell ‘them’ apart from ‘us’.  The orthodox can be found anywhere where biological diversity is consistently being stamped out of our gene pool.  They are the ones at the shallow end of the gene pool trying to control the evolution and growth of our species with short-term, narrow-minded purpose.  In the end, however the orthodox will lose because Darwin was absolutely correct:

In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.

All of this talk of NO as if it were some special case has me honestly perplexed. Atlanta anybody? Detroit? Chicago? Houston? Philidelphia? Los Angeles? Cincinati? Baltimore? Oakland? Newark? The only difference between these cities and New Orleans is that New Orleans was flooded by a hurricane. You wouldn't have seen anything terribly different if any of these other places were similarly struck. Each of these cities—and this is hardly an exhaustive list—really contain two cities: regular, and underclass.

There's not any one thing that caused the pre-Katrina conditions in New Orleans any more than there is one thing that causes these same conditions in any of these cities. Rather, there are a host of factors that have come into play over the course of generations to produce large pockets of persistently dysfunctional and impoverished inner-city and largely African American communities. These factors include:

•The war on drugs. Origianlly conceived as Jim Crow laws, the war on drugs is still apparently working. By providing a very large and temptingly renumerative black market, the war on drugs has succeeded in criminalizing entire communities. Eliminating this war by regulating currently illegal drugs in the same way we regulate alcohol and tobacco would remove the money that drives most of the criminality in so many America's cities.

•Public education. Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education and government still can't figure out how to provide equal educational opportunities for African Americans. Meanwhile, two-thirds of African American parents consistently poll wanting the power to choose the schools their children attend. It's time to give them that power.

•Public housing. There are many theories about why public housing projects quickly degenerate into crime-infested horrors almost as soon as they're built. But degenerate they do, into colonies of poor single mothers on public assistance preyed upon by Friday night men looking to take advantage of these desparate women for a flop and access to government checks. We've spent some forty years trying to troubleshoot the projects, but it's really looking like the problems they produce are simply inherent in the system and not some disease that can be cured with a policy change or two. I believe the time has come to throw in the towel on the public housing paradigm and simply subsidize rents or (preferably) mortgages of private housing for those in need. With these poor families dispersed amongst private society instead of collectivized into giant K-Marts of Woe for predatory men, maybe more of these women and their children will be able to break free from the cycle of privation.

 Micro-zoning. Like the war on drugs, the modern system of urban zoning by which land use is ultra-regulated by a byzantine system of public boards, permits, fees, and inspections, came about during the Jim Crow era in most cities as a means to keep the wrong people on the other side of the tracks. Although this practice of racialism has now thankfully been relegated to our ignorant past, in most cities these legal mechanisms mostly survive, and they've been co-opted by other interests. The result has been the stultification of business and housing development in inner cities, which is why stepping into these dysfunctional areas almost always feels like taking a step back in time. We're long past-due for reform of these municipal regimes. We should return to the same basic rules under which many of our great cities obtained their greatness, where the only zones were residential, commercial, industrial and perhaps heavy industrial. That's it. No "single-family I, II and III. No multi-family I-VIII, or light industrial A-L. Just these four general uses, with the nature of those uses determined by the landowner. But also in place shold be rules which create a sort of one-directional ratchet in the law, whereby any zoned land may be used for a higher value use, e.g. industrial may be used for commercial or residential uses, and commercial zoned land can be used for residences, but residential zoned tracts couldn't be used for commercial or industrial uses, nor could land zoned as commercial be used for industrial or heavy industrial uses. This would make owning and maintaining inner city property affordable again, and allow for the conversion of property into it's highest value use. Yes, there are other ways of renewing our urban cores other than condemning it, chasing away the owners and then giving the land, wrapped in tax breaks, to rich white people to redevelop into boutique districts.

African American culture. Although this may be a symptom of other undesirable conditions, there is no doubt that it is also the cause of further unwanted outcomes, namely the holding of education attainment and other productive behaviors and cultural habits as "trying to be white." Other than by removing arbitrary obstacles to black success, this one issue cannot be addressed outside of black America. This is the bootstrap part of the problem that can only be addressed by African Americans themselves. Most African Americans have already overcome these cultural obstacles to one extent or another, a reality testified to by the fact that most African Americans are middle class today, but unfortunately their struggle won't be over until prosperity isn't seen as "wannabe white" but rather as being the key to the prosperous destiny they deserve, as it is for all Americans, and all peoples everywhere.

As you can see, some of these areas are mutable by local government, some fall squarely in the jurisdiction of state and Federal government, and some fall only within the sphere of influence owned by these communities themselves. But until all of these issues are recognized and acted upon by all of us, the story of most of our great cities will sadly remain a tale of two actual cities, one largely and proportionally white, and the other largely and disproportionally black.

It’s that time of year.  Again.  The Travis County Appraisal District (TCAD) 2006 Notice of Appraised Value hit our mailbox.  According to TCAD, the value of my house is 57 percent higher than it was last year. I reaped an astounding return on my ‘investment’. Time to pop the cork!

Except there is a major flaw with this projection: I have to sell in order to realize it.  In the meantime, however, TCAD will tax me on the presumption that if I had sold my house this year, I would have owed them the difference in taxes between what I bought it for and what buyers are willing to pay this year.  If only I were selling my house – I could use the money to pay the taxes!  But I’m not buying and selling my house each year.

Instead, I filed our property tax dispute form so that I can have the pleasure of facing a three-member panel of ‘judges’ with whom I can argue that my house is in such a state of disrepair that I couldn’t sell it at any price close to what TCAD has calculated.  It is only through this process, undertaken in order for me to stay at home with our children before they were school-aged, that we’ve managed to avoid paying insane property taxes.  Now that we’re a dual-income household, I have to question the value of continuing to protest our tax bill.  Am I principled or outraged? What’s fueling the steep rise in property values in Austin?

Just so you know, if gasoline prices are getting you down, don't blame the oil companies. In fact, blame environmentalists, and Congress. This is Spring Spike,™ as predictable as the dafodils each year. It occurs when the US gasoline supply chain must switch over to the Congressionally mandated summer formulation for several parts of the country.

Outside air temperatures affect how internal combustion engines run, and thus they affect engine emissions, and the longer, hotter  days of summer tend to transform more of those emissions into pollution.  Although reformulated gasoline (RFG) affects several aspects of emissions, the target emission the government is trying to lower is peak ozone. Here's a map showing the US counties that are required to use RFG:

Approximately 75 million Americans live in these counties.

So is it worth the extra 30¢ per gallon during spring and autumn spikes (not to mention the inflation it causes for other goods and services, and also the additional 8¢ per gallon that RFG costs) so these areas have less ozone in their air during the summer?  I can't help but doubt it.

I would like to thank the Southern Comfort Company's downtown billboard for providing both the slogan for Mardi Gras 2006 as well as the title of this post. It accurately reflects the fierce defiance in the hearts of those who stayed, those who returned and those who are returning to this lovely, broken city.

Indeed, it's hard to believe, watching so many native New Orleanians participate in the festivities, that up until a couple of months ago, the decision of whether or not to hold Carnival this year was very controversial here. Many were simply embarrassed at the condition of the city six months after Katrina, while others thought it unseemly that a celebration be hosted when so many were still suffering deprivation. But others realized that canceling Mardi Gras would merely add to the damage wrought by the storm, not lessen it in any meaningful way. Still more recognized that after six months of profound sadness and loss followed by profound frustration, everyone just needed stop for a little while and have a damn beer. Or what the hell, maybe two.

As it turned out, the pro-carnival camp was right. The City of New Orleans estimates that about 350 thousand people came in from out of town for Mardi Gras this year, compared to around a million visitors in a normal year. It's very hard to tell however how many visitors were really displaced New Orleanians visiting for Carnival and how many were were true visitors, but from the looks of it, 350 thousand seems like just about the number of people the city could reasonably deal with at this point, so by most accounts this Mardi Gras was a resounding success for the City.

I thought it would be interesting to count, as my family and I drove east for the Mardi Gras, the number of moving vans that I sighted. By the time we reached Beaumont, the count stood at 2 U-Hauls and 1 Penske. The last vehicle I spotted had a Delaware tag. 

 The roadways are filled with debris. As we drove over the GNO, the debris stopped at the top. I couldn't help but recall how many people were turned back, and I was left wondering how much of the debris I was looking at was from that fateful day. Note to Ray Nagin: if you're going to invite people to party in your house, clean up.

After another cup of coffee, I'm packing up the car so, when my wife Varshna brings home the kids from school, we can hit the road for New Orleans. This will be the first Carnival that Varshna and I have been to since before we had children, which makes it about eleven years. And, like last time, this year Mardi Gras falls on my birthday, so I'll be back at the scene of the crime exactly forty-one years later. Gad.

But it won't all be beads and beer—well, actually, for the most part it will be, God willing. But I'll also be gathering intelligence for further installments of the Unfortunate Series. After all, this Carnival season is the opening statement in Nagin & Company's defense that New Orleans is still a viable city.

With the kids playing their proper role as bead magnets, it should be a lot of fun. But I also have the feeling that Varshna and I are in for our fair share of little heartbreaks as well. Hopefully, they won't add up. We'll see. 

Prior to hurricane Katrina, the City of New Orleans had ten or so electrical inspectors. Following the storm the city was down to six, and thousands of structures, all required by city code to get one or more city inspections before electricity could be restored, lay—some literally—before them. Electricity. You remember, electricity: you need it to run stuff, like power tools. And lights, HVAC, refrigerators—you know, stuff like that. Well guess what? There's good news from the Crescent City:

Responding to a torrent of complaints that the city's handful of inspectors could not keep up with the demand for their services, the City Council and Mayor Ray Nagin's administration agreed last month to temporarily suspend the rule that all electrical connections must be checked by an inspector before Entergy can turn on the power. The administration first agreed to exempt trailers from the requirement. Some displaced residents hoping to move into trailers had complained they had to wait weeks for a city inspection after getting a temporary utility pole installed. Then the council passed, and Nagin signed, an ordinance saying that any licensed Louisiana electrician or electrical contractor could "conduct electrical inspections on commercial and residential properties" and certify that the work was done properly, thus eliminating the need for city inspections. The city put an "electrical inspection affidavit" on its Web site that any electrician or contractor could fill out. 

Isn't this a great idea? Too bad they couldn't have figured it out, oh, say, SIX FREAKIN' MONTHS AGO. Not only was the city requiring inspections for water damaged buildings, but they were also requiring them for emergency trailers as well! All over town there are trailers sitting empty in the yards of damaged homes because they can't get electricity hooked up without one of these precious city inspections.

So Lesson Number One in this Unfortunate Series on how not to rebuild a city following a disaster is: Electricity is Prime. It makes everything go. The main difference between cities of today and medieval agrarian communities is electricity.  Without it, power tools don't work. Cash registers don't work. Gas pumps and schools don't work. Without electricity, you can do everything else right and it simply won't matter; what you'll wind up with is what New Orleans has now: a city that's two-thirds dead. And horribly dark.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of all this is the fact that it didn't seem to occur to anyone in City Hall that after Katrina, "business as usual" wasn't going to cut it. Even during the best of times, the inspection/certification/licensure process practiced in most cities is an expensive, aggravating and time-consuming experience, it should have been planned for, or at least recognized immediately, that the status quo would be flatly unworkable in the aftermath of "The Big One." Such regulatory regimes depend on an orderly environment with functional institutions, such as banks, suppliers, oh, and ELECTRICITY. And they are only capable of handling the normal demand encountered during a normal day.

Certainly only a city beauracracy could perpetuate such an absurd formality in such a crisis situation, like making a starving man wash his hands before giving him a sandwich. Unfortunately a lot of the damage has already been done. Certainly more people would have returned to the city had there been more to return to.

Paul at WizBang posts a reality check concerning the controversy in some people's minds regarding rebuilding New Orleans' levee system, the failure of the old one, and any questions concerning whether or not they should be rebuilt.

Personally, I can't go so far as to blame the Federal government for the catastrophe—I blame Katrina herself—but I'm with Paul that any talk of abandoning or "moving" New Orleans is ludicrous. Setting aside the city's historical importance and the fact that it's one of the few cities in the US that doesn't resemble a big WalMart, setting aside it's importance as a major port both to and from the US heartland, and setting aside the interests of the people—Americans—who live there, the fact remains that New Orleans and her surrounding parishes represent billions or perhaps trillions of dollars-worth of capital built up over centuries, and abandoning that capital would prove a depression-inducing folly of the highest order.

Yes, New Orleans is low-lying with some parts below sea-level, and yes, Louisiana's Gulf coast is eroding. So what? We're talking about the mouth of the Mississippi here, and whether it is at Baton Rouge, or Vicksburg, or Memphis, wherever this mighty river meets the sea will be or become low-lying and eventually face the same considerations that New Orleans faces now.

Sorry America, but prudence requires you to get up off of your wallet and make New Orleans surge-proof. Yes it's going to cost a lot, but not nearly as much as it will if we don't act.

Well how about that.

I saw this price for gasoline advertised on the signs of more than a couple of gas stations and convenience stores on my way home this evening. Without the first windfall profits tax levied against oil companies, without the first additional excise tax on crude oil, without any type of additional regulation or increase in CAFE standards, the price of gasoline has been falling for over a month and now stands at about 33% less than what it was just two or three fill-ups ago.

The idea that the government should force gas prices higher with taxes in order to protect us from—(wait for it)—high gas prices, has always struck me as, well, sort of sub-genius. Yet there are even many well-known and otherwise thoughtful conservatives, such as Charles Krauthammer, who make this argument with a straight face.

This school of thought argues that if the price of fuel is kept artificially high, then market forces (you and me) will respond by buying little gas-sippers, not driving as much, taking the bus, etc. It is also believed that higher prices today will buffer prices in the future by simply forcing consumers to conserve and spurring alternative fuels development. The only problem is that these imagined rosy outcomes are just that: imaginings. Sure, people will consume less fossil fuels. They will also be forced to consume a lot less of other things too, since money they used to save or spend suddenly gets rerouted to government coffers via the pump, and the price of most everything else is also forced up due to higher transportation costs. Sure, technology and industry will invest more into developing alternative fuels, but more R&D isn't a guarantee that development will be quicker or even successful. Citizens of most European countries have paid punishing fuel taxes for decades, so much so that one would think the continent would be literally buzzing with electric vehicles by now—but it's not. Instead, the best the European automakers have managed to accomplish is to make the world safe for diesels. Yay.

In net, these types of social engineering taxes simply result in societies being poorer than they otherwise would be, and they almost never result in the outcome intended. This is because free prices communicate critical knowledge regarding supply and demand between buyers and sellers, producers and consumers, and their reactions to changing prices allow everyone involved to harmonize their market activity in realtime. When government arbitrarily raises or lowers prices above or below what the market sets, that critical harmonizing knowledge gets obliterated, literally lost in translation, and we wind up in situations where producers think they need to produce more when consumers are actually buying less, and vice versa. The end result is most often shortages, where product is unavailable at any price. And as you can probably imagine, constantly misallocating resources doesn't help producers maximize employment or stay in business.

 So, which is more desirable? A system in which prices are sometimes low and sometimes high, but with a consistently available supply, or a system in which gas prices are either high or very high, and where people wait in line for gas in between periods of complete shortages? If this isn't a no-brainer, I don't know what is.

It is with a very heavy heart we note that yesterday, with approximately three-fourths of the 20% of Texas voters who cast ballots, the Texas constitution was soiled with Proposition 2, an amendment designed to guarantee that homosexual Texans are deprived of the equal protection of the laws by preventing their legal marriage. The amendment further prohibits the state, as well as any locality within the state, from legally recognizing any household-forming contract between this class of citizens.

Here we have, fellow citizens, the face of today's Republican Party: runaway government spending, budget-busting new entitlement programs, and Jim Crow version 2.0 (the Anti-Gay Edition), with the spirit of Ronald Reagan nowhere in sight. Instead we have Texas Governor Rick Faubus Perry and President George W. Wallace Bush setting down their cultural marker of fear and loathing. Welcome to Republican America: Land of the Free...if you're [straight|white|fundamentalist] like me.

As such, the Liberal Capitalist Party urges all fair-minded Republicans to consider whether the Republican Party truly represents them, their interests, or the best interests of what should be the Land of the Free (period). We hope that you will conclude, as we have, that for America to finally fulfill her promise of liberty for all, a third compelling and ultimately overwhelming voice must be raised.