Hurricane Harvey: The Cost of Evacuating and the Cost of Staying

One refrain among the distressing stories coming out of the Texas Gulf Coast is that many people wanted to evacuate before Hurricane Harvey struck.  But they couldn’t leave.  They didn’t have the resources necessary to go.  From Think Progress:

The BBC recently interviewed residents in Rockport, Texas about why they decided to stay. [….] One woman, Judie, said she stayed because she had nowhere to go and didn’t have the money to leave.

As A. Mechele Dickerson concludes in a commentary in Fortune:

“To pay the costs—including transportation, housing, food, and other expenses—associated with an evacuation, the evacuee needs either savings, ample disposable income, or the capacity to finance an evacuation using short-term debt. [….] People stayed because they could not afford to leave.”

Evacuations in themselves can be expensive and dangerous.  But given that global warming may lead to stronger hurricanes and that the current US federal government is unlikely to do anything to mitigate climate change, perhaps we should be asking ourselves if we need to reevaluate our approach toward disasters such as these.

The question that I return to (from, admittedly, my dry vantage point up here in the northern part of the Lone Star State) is what we as a state and as a nation need to do to make available resources so that people who want to leave before a storm hits can do so.

Which really is a question of how to raise this issue with our elected officials.  In a state as conservative as Texas, where the ideas of fiscal responsibility and self-reliance permeate any sort of political decision, we’re not likely to find a receptive audience.

Do we really need to turn this into an argument about the cost of evacuation versus the greater cost of rescue and recovery missions?

Perhaps Harvey will spark more discussion of what we need to do to prepare for future storms.  But first, we may need to figure out the ways we need to talk about it in order to get a more humane response from our elected officials who are eager to put into place discriminatory regulation because it’s the “right thing to do,” but who are reluctant to do the right thing when it comes to helping out before actual threats.

 

No Major Democratic Challenger in 2018 Race for Texas Governor

The prospects for a Democratic candidate seriously challenging the Republican incumbent for governor in 2018 are dismal here in the Lone Star State.  From PBS Newshour:

“Democratic leaders haven’t yet lined up a substantial name to represent the party and its message despite months of trying. Any continued faith in a Democratic turnaround in Texas is now colliding with pessimism that it will happen anytime soon.”

Gov. Abbott has $41 million in his re-election fund already, and he has no significant Republican challengers, which makes his July re-election campaign launch focus all the more worrying.  From a July AP report run in U.S. News:

“Abbott formally announced his run for re-election Friday and is reviving anti-abortion measures, school finance reforms and a ‘bathroom bill’ targeting transgender people in a special legislative session that begins Tuesday.”

Moderate Republicans in the Texas House helped defeat the 2017 attempts at passing the “bathroom bill,” given pressure from business and testimony from Texans who would face discrimination should the bill have passed.  But Gov. Abbott hasn’t given up on the idea.  And he’s recently proven his opposition to reproductive rights, signing two bills in the special legislative session that hinder access to abortion in the state.

According to Houston Public Media (again, back in July), “The state Democratic Party says it’s talking to several possible candidates, and, ‘an announcement will come at the appropriate time.'”  We’re waiting.

On My Writing Desk

Rose in a bud vaseOn my writing desk today, a coral and yellow rose in a bud vase, my attempt to bring a bit of nature indoors.

While the summer here in north Texas hasn’t been as hot as it could be, we’ve had quite a bit of rain.  Which means standing water.  Which means mosquitoes.

Morning walks, in which I often draft fiction and poems, are out. I’m missing these walks even more as I’m trying to finish up a collection of poems and revise a novella.

So a rose in a bud vase will do.

Compiling Symbols of the Confederacy

Texas, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, is second only to Virginia in its number of Confederate symbols, and the folks at The Texas Tribune are compiling a list of symbols around the state:

“The list at the bottom of this page outlines known Confederate symbols in Texas. Most of this list, which is incomplete, comes from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Several monuments, schools and roads have been added through reader submissions. Help us further fill this list by sending us the name of Confederate symbols we’re missing.”

The first step in removing these symbols is finding them.

While there’s progress–the University of Texas at Austin just removed Confederate statues around campus–there’s much work to be done.

From Around the Web: 21 August 2017

A few links of interest from around the web:

  • A recent episode of The 1A asks “what’s inspiring the next generation of dystopian narratives?”
  • Award-winning SF magazine Strange Horizons has kicked off its yearly fund drive.
  • I’ll point to the Hugo Awards recap on Pharyngula with a note that while I haven’t been an active reader of fanzines, there look to be some interesting ones in the list this year.

And given that it was Eclipse Day here in the US, let me just say on behalf of those of us who can’t deal with much sun: thank you, moon.  Can we do this again sometime soon?  Please?

 

No Bathroom Bill for Texas!

In 2017, that is. But for now, conservative leaders’ efforts to push the “bathroom bill” through the special legislative session in Texas have failed.

And it’s looking like there won’t be a second special session in which proponents can try again. From The Hill:

[Gov.] Abbott’s office did not say whether the governor would call a second special session, but [Lt. Gov.] Patrick seemed to suggest there is no new session in the offing.

Here’s hoping we don’t see a repeat of this bill when the Texas legislature reconvenes in 2019.

 

The Texas Bathroom Bill: An Update

The Texas Legislature’s Special Session isn’t quite over yet, but it’s looking like efforts to pass the “Bathroom Bill” may have failed yet again.  From The Texas Tribune:

With just days left in the 30-day special legislative session, controversial proposals to regulate bathroom use for transgender Texans appear to have no clear path to the governor’s desk. As was the case during the regular legislative session that concluded in May, efforts to pass any sort of bathroom bill — a divisive issue pitting Republicans against business leaders, LGBT advocates, law enforcement and even fellow Republicans — have stalled in the Texas House.

And it’s unlikely that will change in the coming days.

Big business, LGBT advocacy groups, and moderate Republicans all contributed to the failure of the extreme right-wing faction of the state’s legislature to pass the bill.  Though this particular attempt at passing the “Bathroom Bill” may not have succeeded, the faction behind this discriminatory bill isn’t giving up.  From The Advocate:

“Still, Equality Texas, the state’s main LGBT rights group, is urging opponents to keep up the pressure. The House is also sitting on two other “bathroom bills,” the group notes, and Abbott could even call another special session.”

As philosopher Jean Kazez concludes in her recent Op-Ed in The Dallas Morning News: “I suspect [the bathroom bill] simply functions to allow conservatives to express outrage about a phenomenon that they don’t understand and can’t (yet) get used to.”  Which leaves us wondering if they ever will.

Steampunk Decorating Ideas for the Holidays?

In “I need a break from politics and impending nuclear war” news:  The cicadas have been shedding at quite an impressive rate this summer.  Or I’ve just been outside more to notice.

We usually put “Darwin finches” on our All-Purpose Winter Holiday Tree, but I’m thinking maybe we need to collect these guys, get some little brass gears and a glue gun, and go with a steampunk theme this year?

Though I’m not sure how the cat, who seems to enjoy the plastic tree full of feathery things, would feel about this.

A group of cicada shells

They’re already putting together a garland….

 

More Destroying Science Fiction!

The Destroy! series of science fiction anthologies continues, this time from the folks at Uncanny.  From the Kickstarter:

Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction will be in the same vein as the previous Destroy special issues (Women Destroy Science Fiction, Queers Destroy Science Fiction, and People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction), featuring editors, writers (both solicited and unsolicited), and artists with representation from all across the sliding scale of disability.

The project has already funded, which is great to see.  But alas, the “Bespoke Space Unicorn Art of You” reward has already been claimed.