Disc Golf Courses Dismantled in Austin

Disc golf clubs and businesses basically went along with the local government in threatening disc golfers that they'd pull the targets if people didn't follow the closure rules. When the ball golf courses got shut down the Attorney General of Texas made a ruling that cities couldn't do that. There wasn't even a court case. The AG made it happen - for ball golfers. Can you believe an attorney ensured ball golf courses stayed open? Before churches and other institutions, the AG had his priorities right. 

Disc Golf courses have not had the same providence as their rich baller counterparts. Disc golfers defied the closures at first, which provoked the authorities to pull the targets. That stops most people, but I still played without them. Once. Until now I've been able to escape the draconian destruction. They only altered the basket slightly until a few days ago - putting a bag on the target or holding the chains high with locks or plastic constraints. The pics show people cut the chain holders.

I'm waiting for the city of Austin to rip up the turf at all the parks to keep people from visiting them. That would be consistent with their fascism. Maybe ban cigarettes and smoking which kills a half million people every year. But please, instead, tear up the concrete and tar roads and streets so people don't drive on them. People are dying everyday from cars and the pollution from cars and car production and fuel production and processing and global climate change and ... please destroy it all. Yet I'm not holding my breath. What these liberal fascists decide to destroy and reconstruct in there fantasies of protecting and preserving life is unknowable and frightening. Many people scoff at the label of fascism saying it's not a police state or militaristic. We already had militarism. Now we got the police openly restricting first amendment activities with the threat or commission of arrest and civil penalties. And corporate control of the government and economy remains. Guess what all that means - FASCISM, yo!

Black Church In South Austin

Some of the most important historical events in states like Texas are the creation of Jim Crow segregation in cities and towns throughout the South. Yet the stories we hear in classrooms, in documentaries, and from experts often makes it seem a simple process. Before the Civil War, blacks were oppressed by slavery and put in a different status than whites in American culture. Though the war ended slavery, whites quickly replaced that institution with segregation which continued until the modern Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Actually the process of creating Jim Crow practices and policies was complicated, difficult to implement, and took many decades. It was a process that never really ended. Social conditions changed with economic development of the city and who was allowed to live in a place kept changing. Segregation didn't just happen. It kept happening, and still does. The pics here show an old African American church that disappeared after World War II. The building stayed but the community, the real church, left. When you see a black church, what you can know is that at one time black people lived there. None of those homes remain, and the people are gone. But for many years black people did live in that neighborhood and they were pushed out.

The Original McMansion in South Austin

So I don't know if this is actually the original McMansion in South Austin, but it is to me. I used to rent an apartment nearby and biked and jogged the streets of 78704. Zilker neighborhood is really a great place to live, if you have to live in this town. Its less than ten minutes from the park and greenbelts along the river. Doesn't take much more time to get to downtown, even when you're on a bike. South Congress is minutes away as well. Live music and outdoor living in a city are basically next door. And middle class family homes made the Zilker neighborhood feel open to anybody. But when some rich dude tore down the one-story bungalow home at this location around 2001 and erected this three-story, 3000 square foot behemoth a ton of Austin liberals exploded. odd how almost twenty years ago this was an actual decision point. So many people saw this kind of gentrification as driving out middle class families from the best parts of Austin. I really thought the McMansions might get stopped. And for a bit there were new regs on the size of homes. But over time the pressures from the corporate community to allow both bigger homes to the affluent and more dense, ugly and less family-oriented housing develop. Maybe all that gentrified development will give way to condos over time like in other central Austin neighborhoods. Look at the second pic. Across the street from the McMansion. Another one? Some kind of high-priced place, I'm sure. That's all that's left in Zilker. Btw, if you new anything about central Texas and its natural environment you would never plant palm trees in your yard. Funny because there's a rundown house in my neighborhood that has two as well.

Social Solidarity in a Pandemic

More people are out and about than usual, I think. During the coronavirus outbreak? Yes. Just folks hanging out in the yard or on bikes or walking. And they seem to be saying hi more than usual. I'm not sure. But I swear people are more likely to be friendly right now. Hard to say cuz most of the friendlies are old folks like my parents and young kids. The grandmars and grandpars were raised to be friendly. Young kids don't know how not to be. Life has not jaded them to be suspicious of fools like me on a bike. I have almost no contact with people I care about right now. I mean I have none. It might last for weeks or months. So I appreciate the folks who look at you and wave or say hi. To me this is a big deal. I wonder if we don't move forward politically cuz we don't really care about each other. And we don't cuz we don't need to in this complex amazing civilization that allows most of us only to really care about our own. Even liberals in Austin take each other for granted. But now we know its all or none. The pandemic reminded us we need to remember who we are and who is around us. And how we all need to care for each other and care about each other. That your health and well being is intimately connected to mine. Solidarity. I've heard stories about this phenomena in places of war. How did most of Europe get national health care and other social protections against a capricious economy and an unpredictable natural environment? After the crisis of World War II and the realization that you need to stick together. I pray we can do something like that.

Lockdown in Austin

I'm exaggerating a little. Only a little. Only essential businesses are allowed and the direction from the Mayor and County Officer is to reduce our social interactions by 90 percent. I work at a middle school which has stopped and we are working at home. I have no family or friends that live with me. And nobody cares about me to actually drop in and see me even staying six feet away. So I have definitely got it at less than 10 percent. As I bike around the city I see all kinds of people in small groups. Like in the pics below you see hundreds of people in Zilker Park. Or people walking or biking in small groups. One couple was walking six feet apart. Honestly you don't see that much. A friend said he and his family have their pod of three that they get closer to than six feet but they keep it to that. So his lady friend has not hugged her grandchildren in awhile and won't until  after social distancing is no longer required. Sad. Dude. Rally sad. Who's responsible for this social disaster? Lets think about that. Was this preventable. Yes. If political leaders did their job and we elected people who do their job. We havent.

Rainbow Summer

Three rainbows appeared to me the summer of 2015. I was driving through Dallas to get to one of my favorite places in the world when a rainbow appeared. That was out to Johnson City TN and my frined Hugo and his family. Later I went with my friend Corey to the great state of Colorado and ran into thunderstorms again and lucky me a rainbow. The video below shows it. Amazing. More crazy and miraculous was the Supreme Court decision in the summer of 2015 that legalized gay marriage in all of the U.S. I remember hearing about it at a Ben Kweller outdoor concert in Austin when he played Penny on the Train Track and thinking this is the trifecta of rainbows and lets call it Rainbow Summer. I went home and proposed "Rainbow Summer" to urban dictionary with my own take and thought it would get rejected like every other proposal. Holla, it got accepted. I think the editors just couldnt be against it so I got my one urban dictionary post. I'm guessing Ben had something else in mind but that song just smashed me in the face with emotion and relief. I get why some people on the left get so passionate when the authorities are unfair and unjust. I feel it too. And when a major obstacle is taken down a rung like gay marriage its a big deal. And it opens space for more freedom. And it says to the bigots to knock it off.

Public Housing Moves Along - I Wonder Where?

When i used to walk down to Artz Rib House there were public housing buildings along the street in a neighborhood of mostly middle class and increasingly upper middle class homes. The Zilker neighborhood in Austin is an awesome location. I live in an apartment right across from the local elementary school. I remember being the first in line to vote in 2004 against the war party candidates. My guy Nader lost if you didn't know. It was about five minutes on bike to Barton Springs Pool. It longer going back cuz he drive up Robert E. Lee road was steep uphill and always a bummer after the easy ride down there and the invigorating swim. And Zilker also a big park with tons of open space and right next to the river and the hike and bike trails. I wonder if the people in the public housing units took advantage of those spots like I did? But I don't wonder that anymore since those units are gone an in their place are what you see below. Way more money to be made off of the new housing. I wonder where those folks went. Maybe they have good alternatives elsewhere in the city. But I wonder if those locations gave them access to a really good school like Zilker and the park. I bike by another public housing park when I bike downtown and its in a pretty good location like the Zilker one. I wonder how long before thats also gone. I don't have pics here (yet!) of the old type of housing and I will try soon and talk about that. Not a fan of the public housing they had but displacing them for middle class people is not cool.