Notes from the Burger-oisie...

Texas Legislature Attempts to Declare the Hamburger as Official State Sandwich

I'm pretty sure this is a fluff piece, a welcome distraction for Austin newsreaders from the dire budgetary straits the Texas Legislature finds itself in.  Author John Kelso certainly treats it as such.  His references to the overall silliness of the topic—which I was sure had come from pages of the Onion rather than the Statesman--are tongue-in-cheek and sparse, the author choosing to descend to the argument’s level and discuss the absurdity of the choice of the Hamburger instead of the Brisket Sandwich, rather than the confounding action itself—that is, a state legislature in crisis voting on an official state sandwich.  Personally, I wish there was a stronger vein of repulsion and civic outcry in the piece, but activism gets to be a bit droll when everyone is yelling about the budget at once, I suppose.  Thusly, articles like this one make it to print or the website.

With this in mind, my main criticism is that the jokes are as campy as Citronella candles, and Mr. Kelso doesn’t seem to care.  Whatever living he carves out of the Statesman’s coffers is surely secured by them on a regular basis.  The subject matter does ring a distinctly Texas-sounding bell though.  How very “Texan” of our legislators to take a little break and finally pin down such an issue. 

Kelso does bring up some good points in the context, however.  Why Isn’t the brisket sandwich being considered as the chief executive portable meal of our great state or indeed the breakfast taco before 10 a.m.?  I would vote for such a resolution, though not at the cost of legislative proceedings. 

Kelso gets his jokes across and I’m sure got a chuckle from someone, but at the end of the day I believe this could have been a much more telling and poignant expose into the ridiculous state of our legislature’s focus than it turned out to be.

In response to the post on Politcs Are Bigger In Texas regarding proposed campus gun legislation...

One of the main points I like to introduce to the gun control debate is that most school shootings, as well as other violent gun offenses, are not carried out by people who have bought, trained on, and legally conceal or carry their firearms.  It may be a more of a right-wing view then one would normally hear from me, but legislation that inhibits the proper maintenance and use of firearms seems to only do harm.  Let me explain... 

 Right now, it is still legal to obtain a firearm, and furthermore a concealed carry license.  Most would find it interesting that it is also legal to obtain suppressors (“silencers”).  It is legal to have these weapons in your homes and in your car (with limitations).  Every single member of my staff at work owns several rifles and pistols, some for hunting, some for tactical use.  There are far more guns next to you at a stoplight than you would probably ever want to realize. 

Yet the “wild-west”, fear-mongering scenario, that if this law is passed that everyone will buy guns, will bring them to campus, and have a shoot-out, has not presented itself.  Therefore, this extreme of the debate is debunked from the start.  The other side of the argument, that a trained and competent bystander, legally carrying a firearm, might effectively neutralize one of these tragic scenarios, has never been proven because people who do own tend not to carry concealed out of fear of criminal prosecution.  Hmm... 

            When you go to the local firing range or gun store, the people who are actively pursuing these endeavors (buying, collecting, researching, using and training how to use guns) are usually gun enthusiasts, ex-military or police and the odd self-defense-case beginner.  When people want to shoot up a school, they do not go through the paperwork and waiting periods to obtain and carry their weapon legally.  They steal or illegally obtain a firearm, walk right through the doors and begin to indiscriminately fire upon the masses.  So logic, to me, clearly sides on the removal of legislation that would inhibit the so-dubbed “hero” scenario.

            A common rebuttal is the tactical nightmare the authorities would face if arriving on scene at a shoot-out.  If the police were to arrive just as the innocent was returning fire, yes that would be potentially tragic.  However, a trained shooter will not only fire calmly and selectively, providing an immediate advantage over an assailant who is usually not emotionally stable in the first place, presumably ending the situation before the police arrive, but will know when to drop his weapon when told, and holster it once the subject is subdued.  It does not necessarily even have to be a fatal wound even, as most train for center-mass shots until the target drops.  So the best-case scenario is that the crisis is averted.  We all understand the worst case scenario, but that would be happening anyway, as the assailant fires shot after shot in the minutes until the police arrive on scene and decide how to breech the situation.  I personally would like at least the possibility of a fighting chance. 

            Having legally carried firearms on campus would also provide what I believe to be a very motivating deterrent factor.  These head-case school shooters are only doing this because they know their victims are unarmed and it feeds their need for control over their obviously disturbed worlds.  They might choose to take their grievances elsewhere if they thought they might have to contend with someone who could actually aim.

            For the previous reasons, I truly believe that when everything is laid out logically, and if guns weren’t so taboo and more people were given the chance to become comfortable with them, learning respect to replace the fear, that legislation allowing concealed carry in more places would be met with a bit warmer of a welcome.

Red White and Brown

Well I can just hear my moderately racist father screaming bloody murder now (interesting how MS Word suggested I remove the adverb and simply put “racist”)... Austin is officially a white-minority city for those under 18.  This is according to 2010 census data, which illustrates a Hispanic boom versus the data from 2000.  Bigots everywhere are surely fuming and rallying around such an incendiary attack on their ignorant beliefs all over the place.  More hatemongering is sure to come as they take in the follow on predictions of the nation’s child population going minority around 2020, and (hold on t‘yer britches, Jasper!) a white minority population of the US by 2043.

Ok, breathe people.  Bigotry aside, this does not really mean much in the short term. However, while I fly no flags of hate, I do have some comments on the subject.

I dearly hope this does not come off wrong, as ra-CIAL commentary so very often and tragically seems to in our racially over-sensitive society, but here goes: I am glad this is happening. The reason I am glad this is happening is that hopefully, in time, it will truly equalize us.  What do I mean when I say to truly equalize us?  I mean (and oh, I giddily hope) that it may be possible someday to live in a society where everyone casts the chips from their shoulders, ceases to make presumptions about people and  holds no more grudges against things (albeit horrible) that each other’s grandfathers and great grandfathers did in an ignorant time and place.  

It is hard to argue charges of a white male power hold on our society, as it plainly has existed for some time.  We are observing it slowly disintegrate, but it is still there.  And while this may not be Alabama in the 1960s, segregation and oppression still run deep in parts of our nation’s cities.  Never forget also that it all goes both ways.  I’d hate to be a white child in certain parts of Detroit, for instance.

So I hope for a world where all of this goes away.  Will it ever completely happen?  Not as long as humans are humans.  Will a reality check to the white majority as it stands speed up the process?  Probably not much.  However, there is a slight chance, if those who come into the majority role learn from the sins of their oppressors instead of perpetuating them, we as a people just might see some real progress.

The Prison Payday Loan

In the most recent post to Scott Henson’s mainly criminal-justice oriented blog, Grits for Breakfast, he sheds light on the aim to reduce education costs for inmates in the state prison system as one of the frantic statewide budget reduction tactics as well as the glaring near-future consequences this would have over the minimal short-term gains. 

            An intended audience for this particular piece might be anyone interested in some of the targeted budgets in Texas’ frantic attempt to cut costs across the board, so to speak.  This post specifically might target those with a special interest in the recidivism rates of the Texas prison system, or the probability of an offender to offend again and re-enter incarceration.   This seems to highlight an interesting trend among these budgetary debates, where everyone is wary of cutting too much in the wrong places at least to some extent, but where those directly affected by the programs themselves scream desperately in a veritable field of such outcries to save their specific fields from the big, green axe, most with good reason. 

            The author’s experience in journalism, campaign politics, and ground-level bureaucracy certainly lend to his credibility on the financial goings-on during this time of emergency governmental penny-pinching.  His acute interest in issues regarding criminal justice stems from his extensive work with the Texas ACLU police accountability department and the Innocence Project, and has evolved into active public policy lobbying in related issues.  Reviewing the credentials, a more appropriate mouthpiece for this sort of issue would be difficult to find short of a wronged collegiate inmate in the flesh.

            This may have been the safe horse, but I chose this article because I completely agree with it and the argument that Mr. Henson puts forth.  It is amazing to me that this even is up for debate, given what I would think to be the blatantly obvious red flag one would draw when observing this sort of future-blind budget cutting.  Yes, we need the money to come from somewhere, but in a case such as this, where not only immediate budgetary impact is miniscule, but the not-so-long-term repercussions exponentially worse, I liken this sort of action to a payday loan.  Get $400 now; pay back $2000 in two weeks.  It does not take a sociologist to point out the direct link between employment after incarceration and the likeliness of re-offending. Only slightly more research illustrates the already alarming prison bed deficit as Mr. Henson does.  Add in just a touch of common sense, and it seems easy to predict that cutting the cost of educating inmates in college and vocational courses would have a budgetary whiplash effect in just a few short years.  Mr. Henson has done impressive footwork on all of these facets of the argument, presenting more numbers than my College Algebra textbook.  Hey, numbers talk. 

            Of course, I understand the dire financial condition Texas is experiencing.  Additionally, I am not an economist, politician, or an activist.  I know the money has to be found somewhere, and that there are only a few ways to get it, and that most citizens here do not like the “T” word.  Even so, I would think there are obvious boundaries not to cross here, and apparently so does Mr. Henson.

The Kids Are Allright

I have decided not to comment on perhaps the obvious choice in the media in regards to Texas this week, arguably more so than the state budget crisis: the frenzy surrounding the open-forum naming suggestions hosted by Austin’s Solid Waste Services, including such pure gold as “the Fred Durst Society of Humanities and Arts”.  Too easy.  Wouldn’t it be much more fun to dredge up sexual taboos and moral conflicts?  I thought so. –M.Y.
 
            Sifting through budgetary minutiae of contemporary Texas Politics, I found an article by Jordan Smith in the Austin Chronicle detailing former Austin Mayor Sen. Kirk Watson’s Senate Bill 407, the “sexting” bill.  By now, most Americans should know that “sexting” is the multimedia exchange of sexually explicit content between underage persons—middle and high school students, mostly. This bill seeks to establish new penalties for sexting acts in order to form an intermediate level of penalty between a complete lack of prosecution and prison time/sex offender status.  The bill also proposes education programs to curtail the “growing problem” of sexting in Texas’ schools.
Ostensibly, this bill was designed to lower consequences but raise prosecutions.  It is important however to examine the differences between privately shared content among same-age persons and distributed pornography viewed by pedophiles.  Obviously, the latter should be prosecuted fully of the law, if not more, but does the former truly necessitate additional funding and resources involved with the programs and their consequences?
            Some of Smith’s implied language appears to parallel my own opinion: that the answer to the previous question is a resounding “No”.  A longer op-ed piece might even go on to project the complete ineffectiveness of an “educational program” (assemblies were for skipping school to engage in nefarious deeds, remember?), and perhaps propose that the burden of the courts and the “offenders” would be inappropriately high for such a supposedly victimless—for the lack of a better word—crime.