Cold, probably mid-40s. Damp.
Past time to change the batteries in my weather station. Or install the internet connected one I have in a box…
More of the same for me today, and maybe my ham lunch.
I’ve not commented because I can’t imagine the pain, but seriously, don’t drive into flood water. I don’t care if you painted your truck in camo or OD green. Don’t do it. I added another flotation device to my truck pack just in case. I already had one, and a rope.
No matter where you live, disaster can find you.
Youths again. In a mall.
And security did F-all to keep him from getting hurt, or to stop the attack. The first two committed strong arm robbery, and aggravated assault and battery on the girl.
The guy is lucky his brains are intact.
Stay away from places where “youths” are in the majority. Go armed if you can. If you decide to intervene, know that you could be making a life changing choice.
————————————————————————————————-
As I was driving home last night, I thought about the neighborhood next to my rent house. The main street there is notorious for prostitution, so it was on my mind. I though about a particular incident, where the kids and I were driving home, and looked over and saw a rail thin black man, with buckwheat hair, and his pants around his knees, lying on the side of the freeway frontage road, covered in shit and naked, passed out. Daughter one was pretty horrified. I was not surprised as I’ve seen that particular guy in various stages of intoxication and destitution before, but never that bad. Anyway. I wondered last night how we could have fallen so far. My dad never took me anywhere I’d see naked drug addicts laying in the street, because there WEREN’T ANY. I tried to justify it in my head as living closer to the city than I did growing up, but that’s wrong too. We’re not that much closer, although the rent house is. There just weren’t people living under bridges, passed out in the streets, panhandling, prostituting, and drug dealing a block from middle class houses. By almost any objective measure, we are worse off and living in a degraded culture.
We’re well on our way on the downslope.
n
This is pretty cool, esp. for planning a bug out or Get Home route…
Super slow to update on zoom.
https://www.openrailwaymap.org/
n
Anyway. I wondered last night how we could have fallen so far.
Drugs and/or mental health issues. My wife rounds at the psych ward in Austin once a month, and she believes those two account for 80% of the homeless problem.
Opiods have made the drug issue worse around the margins.
The big problem here is that Austin wants to be Portland politically. God only knows why.
Demographics is destiny. Austin got a “kinder, gentler Texas” reputation with a hipster vibe, so people from liberal states who wanted to get away from the “totally unforeseen” consequences of the policies of liberal states found Austin to be more welcoming than, say, San Antonio.
Demographics is destiny. Austin got a “kinder, gentler Texas” reputation with a hipster vibe, so people from liberal states who wanted to get away from the “totally unforeseen” consequences of the policies of liberal states found Austin to be more welcoming than, say, San Antonio.
The core city in the San Antonio metro has been hardcore Prog for a while, but the police are granted a certain amount of leeway to keep the Riverwalk free of “urban outdoorsmen” in order to avoid killing the convention and bowl game gravy train.
Austin only cleans house downtown for SxSW and ACL weeks.
We spent a week in San Antonio with child #3 for Thanksgiving. Didn’t even go “downtown.”
We are house hunting and are considering SA. But, I’m leaning towards just staying in Vegas, selling our condo, buying a house here and a condo somewhere in FL on the water. Our condo is “up” about $70K after the Raiders announcement and stadium. I’d also consider a place up in the Reno area closer to Lake Tahoe.
So is there more insanity per capita and if so why? Fewer places to hide them? or were there fewer opportunities for the crazy to express itself (easier to ‘get by’ in the past?)
The drugs, yes. and tolerance of abuse in general- which is part of the fall, and part of the reason for the fall. After all, you used to be able to buy opiates over the counter, and many of the remedies of the day were loaded with alcohol and other controlled substances.
Passed out bums covered in sh!t were NOT part of the landscape and now they are, even in a generally prosperous and law and order city like Houston.
And that ain’t right.
n
WRT to so-called “mental health”, it is a total fraud in contrast with physical health.
If disagreeing with the above, please provide a bona fide case of: one prevention, one life extension, or one cure (prevention of near term death).
For example in physical health: polio is now prevented, I have been on successful blood pressure reduction Rx’s for 45 years, and have family members under going surgical removal of cancerous tumors and surviving for several decades thereafter.
Well, off to netflix to watch “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”.
FFS why?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-7754075/Star-Wars-Rise-Skywalker-not-feature-Finn-Poe-boyfriends.html
Why would you wish for this?
n
Where are the vocal masses clamoring for hetero married couples?
I always tell people that Austin is the new Seattle. Prog/Lib Boomers had San Francisco, prog/lib Gen-X’ers had Seattle, and prog/lib Millennials have Austin.
We are house hunting and are considering SA. But, I’m leaning towards just staying in Vegas, selling our condo, buying a house here and a condo somewhere in FL on the water.
Consider talking to a lawyer about the current state of HOA and Condo laws in FL before investing any money, especially the statutes concerning non-homesteaded units.
HOAs are bad just about everywhere in the state, but homeowners/condo associations tend to be most vicious in the SE coastal regions and towns with military bases. Sphincters get puckered pretty hard about property values when average folks think they can take their personal wealth to the next level with a slice of FL real estate, and current law favors the associations.
Please stop blaming opioids for all the world’s problems. It is gooberment regulations and a judicial system that people think can solve all our problems. Not working too well, is it?
I have been on opioids for over 30-years. I have to regularly see counselors and therapists who do nothing for my chronic pain but control whether I can have the pain control I need to function. It is getting harder and harder for my Doctor because it seems that every month some new requirement/regulation/rule is made up. It does nothing to stop the abusers and only makes it hard for those of us who need the drugs.
Let people who have self-destructive behavior destroy themselves.
How many chances are we supposed to give them? One!
Forgiveness comes from a higher power than me after you have F’d-Up once and you’ll have to wait at St. Peter’s Gate for that.
I couldn’t help thinking something similar when the ex-sex worker was presenting to us last night. She spent a decade on the street working and abusing drugs. She went in and out of rehab and intervention programs many times. Finally she decided she was tired of the life and entered a full time residential program, where she lived for THREE YEARS. Most of a decade later, and her only qualification is to work with HPD in outreach and intervention, trying to get the current crop off the streets.
For every unwilling victim they rescue, there are dozens if not hundreds who return to the life as soon as they can.
I’m in favor of rescuing the unwilling. If that is only possible with someone who came out of the life, then perhaps the costs are worth it.
For all the others, they have AGENCY. They can and do make their own choices. They may be bad choices. They may be uninformed choices. They may be harmful choices, but to act against them is to deny them their personhood and personal agency.
You will not reduce the demand. You can reduce the supply only thru draconian means. At best, you can ensure that people are making their choices freely. Beyond that, I don’t think it’s worth the effort, with drug addicts/homeless/or hoes.
n
(this woman entered the life ON PURPOSE, lived it with gusto for a decade or more, and still is involved, albeit on the other side…)
Very strongly agreed. The “safety net” in all its intrusive and expensive glory, was well intended but has had disastrous consequences.
YES, I agree. Over using illegal opioids is voluntary suicide, which should be a crime. When caught and prosecuted successfully, the sentence should filfill their desire, death by opioid overdose in prison. Why should we be taxed more for mental health care in recovery homes that doesn’t work?
Homelessness:
From the comments:
and:
RTWT
Used to have a state facility for mentally disadvantaged and mentally ill, Fairview Development Center. Total waste and fraud, never developed anyone. Mostly shut down now, going to waste my tax$ elsewhere.
Please stop blaming opioids for all the world’s problems. It is gooberment regulations and a judicial system that people think can solve all our problems. Not working too well, is it?
I stated that I think that opioids made the drug problem worse around the margins. They’re just one more thing for people to abuse. Austin has a *lot* more alcohol abuse among the general non-homeless population to the point that the city opened an old school drunk tank … in the former morgue (I’m not kidding).
My wife saw a lot of Heroin and overindulgence of pot in SW WA State. Among the Apostolic Lutherans around Vantucky, she also saw Krokodil if you can believe it — nitwits injecting kerosene into their veins.
My concession to Christmas decorations.
Ray, that is outstanding.
My concession to decorating was to pull the stuff down off the racks in the garage. And I refused to do so until Thanksgiving. My wife would have put Christmas decorations up before Halloween, given her druthers, but no one else in the house can get the boxes off the racks suspended from the garage ceiling, so I was able to block that. As we all know, people who decorate early for Christmas are the cause of snowstorms in November.
I really don’t care if it snows. I don’t have to go anywhere being retired. I just stay at home and watch videos on the news of idiots in their jacked up 4WD who think they can drive in snow. Yes, they can go but I have never seen a crash from not going. I have seen lots of crashes from not being able to stop and 4WD has the same number of brakes as 2WD.
And I just got a message from the VA. Veterans on service connected disability will now have access to military commissaries and exchanges starting January 1st of 2020. First visit requires visiting the control center and getting a quick background check. Then probably a sticker, which now have RFID or some sort of electronic recognition system, places on the vehicle. I may do this when I got to San Antonio in February.