Category: politics

I’m trying really hard to force myself to be optimistic. Why? Because it’s the only viable option.

As I type, a train of dump trucks is relentlessly moving dirt excavated from the neighboring bayou to a staging ground across the road as part of flood control project stemming from the disastrous overflows from a federal reservoir in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. This multi-million project was overdue before the 2017 hurricane, which inundated much of southeast Texas, including our neighborhood.

The year before, we had the notorious Tax Day Flood, which came during a heavy spring rain. The Addicks Reservoir at that time held in flood waters for two months. With Harvey, the decision was made to release flood waters to prevent the dam from breaching. Sitting upstream with water up to our home’s weep holes, we watched the temporary lake around us subside as areas downstream became awash with outflows from the dam. We only spent about nine days cooped up in the house with that event. Now, we can drive out and about, but have mostly stayed home for the past two months for fear of catching covid-19. Fear, yes, I said it. It’s a scary gamble. While many more apparently have survived, about 90,000 Americans have succumbed to the ravages of the new virus.

My congressman, Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, offered a risk/reward analysis of sorts in an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal, in which he notes not everyone has the luxury of staying at home to work. In his piece, “Why Does Reopening Polarize Us?”, Rep. Crenshaw suggests that conservatives are more apt to take risks compared to liberals.

Risk management is well known to capitalists on Wall Street, home of the people who create capital markets, invent financial instruments and manage investments. I grew up in that part of the world and can’t help but notice that a lot of Wall Street types are not politically typecast. Some are liberals and some are conservatives. No single ideology or worldview dominates the world of high finance. To borrow the old adage, this is why horse races exist. People bet on risks.

For example, the Harris County Flood Control District won approval of Harris County voters for $2.5 billion in bonds over 10-15 years to pay for flood control projects, including the one to clear debris out of the adjoining bayou. Where is the risk? The risk takers are the investors in the bonds, who are betting the county entity will be able to service the debt, i.e., pay them back.

By the way, the particular flood mitigation project with all the trucks is a joint project with the county and the federal reservoir manager, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; some of the project entails clearing up part of the federal reservoir. Rep. Crenshaw (see above) supported the project and came out to a shovel-turning event on the bayou here last May. I got to thank him in person. I do not agree with every opinion he expresses. I agree with many, but dispense with others. And, that is OK. It’s impossible to be completely aligned on every issue and frankly, we should not be in the free marketplace of ideas.

The flood control bond issue is a great illustration of risk taking in a capitalistic democracy. Voters approved the bond program and investors bought in. Not everyone in the country is required to partake. Self-selecting market participants bought into the risk.

This is not a partisan undertaking. We do, however, have a partisan problem in this country. Even if a cure for covid-19 took hold today, we have a lot of work to do to better understand each other and work better together.

It would be one thing is people calling for a reopening of the economy agreed that masks might play a crucial role in curtailing the spread. Or, if they acknowledged that not every space, including offices, should be at 100% capacity. This might be bad news for commercial real estate investors, but not every company is going to require all the office space they traditionally have used. Not yet. Not soon. Certainly not immediately. So, some leases might not be renewed as they were.

It would also be helpful if the stay-home only advocates would not mock everyone who is trying to support local businesses. I haven’t ventured to a salon, but I gather from news images that barbers, hair stylists and manicurists are limiting how many people come in and they’re wearing masks. Some restaurants here in Houston have patios and are spreading out their customers. I am not going to the gym anytime soon, but I haven’t cancelled my membership. Still, we are a long way from normal business models and profit margins. My point is do not castigate people for trying to keep their businesses afloat.

Spend a few minutes on Twitter or Facebook, and you’ll see that vitriol is alive and well. The tone is set at the top and it would be ideal if we had a courageous, convivial, avuncular type of guy serving as president to set an example and provide unifying leadership. We don’t.

So what are the rest of us left to do, aside from arguing with each other? What if we tried to find answers together? There is an idea that we become what we pray. It’s going to take a lot of mind-bending and open-mindedness. It’s going to take middle ground. It’s going to take compromise. It’s going to require problem-solving and cooperation.

It’s hard to be optimistic that change of such magnitude from our current political discourse is possible. But it’s a matter of survival. United we stand used to mean something and I remain optimistic, that despite the anger and noise, we can get it together soon. We must.

Please, put down the keyboard swords and pick up a shovel to work together.

The Sage Leopard, [email protected]

We went to the desert in Arizona to learn something about ourselves while other people were running for their lives across the Mexico-U.S. border. Running from what exactly in their home lands I don’t know, but I suspect it’s something extremely difficult I’ve never experienced.

Nowadays, many border crossers may be presenting themselves for asylum, as discussed in recent news reports, but our impression at the time of our visit five years ago was that the people crossing the mountains and canyons where we spent a week camping were seeking to elude capture. We saw the expected Border Patrol SUVs and vans, but also helicopters and a U.S. Air Force plane, the latter of which buzzed me one late afternoon as I sat reading by a campfire I had just built. I don’t recall what book I was reading, but I guess the personnel on the aircraft were close enough to see the title given I saw their faces in the cockpit.

We took the trip to celebrate my man’s 50th birthday with a deer hunt. Specifically, coues whitetail deer, also known as gray ghosts. This species and terrain in the Huachuca Mountains were completely new to us and we went with an outfitter who had donated the hunt to a Houston conservation group’s annual fundraiser. B. won the hunt in an exciting live auction. We had no idea what we were getting into.

On the way to our hunting camp deep in the Coronado National Memorial (named for the Coronado Expedition of 1540, a Spanish-led northward migration through the area), we dropped south of Tucson on a highway before getting on old roads. The further south we went, the more frequently we saw Border Patrol vehicles. We arrived a tiny outpost with a convenience store and a bar named Casino Rural. From there, we headed into the Coronado national park, which is a desert landscape with zillions of Saguaro and Ocotillo cacti.

The colors of the rocks, plants and sky come into view in stunning combinations, especially when you are ensconced on a mountaintop before dawn and watch the gradations of sunrise light up the landscape. From one such perch, it was a ways down to the valleys below and there was another mountain mirroring us. Atop that, we could see the Mexican border delineated with a barbed wire fence, which appeared meant to keep cattle in at ranches on the Mexico side.

In recalling this last night, B. told his parents how the hunting guides told him they previously had seen a sniper on the Mexico side of that particular mountain. His role was to control who got to go across the border into the U.S. The guides also related how they once found a skull and some clothing of a young girl. The authorities came to the scene and her identification was found in the clothing.

We saw indications of these foot travelers, such as abandoned coats and sleeping rolls, water bottle stations, empty water bottles marked for women and empty food cans. We saw these in box canyons and trails coming right through the border. (We walked up to the border on one hunt.) By contrast, we arrived in the desert via a pickup truck loaded with water, food, weather-wise clothing, snake boots, sunblock, toiletries and sundry gear. You must hydrate continually, so we overpacked water. Even with all this stuff, we considered ourselves to be roughing it. As for the other visitors, whoever dropped their coats must have regretted it as the extreme desert heat of the day quickly turns to very cold nights.

One night, in a huge tent with a wood-burning stove and chimney, I dreamt I heard men come into our camp. They were opening up the coolers and taking drinks. When we got up to go hunting, I told my guide about the dream and he said it was real life. He had been watching them from his camper. As long as they didn’t present danger, it was best to not confront them and let them go on their way.

We didn’t discuss politics or policy when sitting around the campfire, but agreed the status quo of illegal immigrants endangering their lives with coyotes (the smugglers, not the animals) and rugged, rough conditions is terrible.

As for “the wall,” it makes little sense to build a monolithic physical wall across the entire length of the border. There are environmental considerations, such as the movement of ocelots, deer and other creatures who should not be limited to one side or the other. Then there is the ginormous cost when other security measures can be used. Work eligibility should also be enforced. And, imagine if Congress ever managed to enact immigration reforms? (I thought George W. Bush was right when he was pushing for reforms after September 11.) Perhaps we need more seasonal work visas. We might even have a better idea of what is working, what won’t work and what is needed if Congress even deigned to hold some hearings on the subject.

I am not aiming to solve the immigration policy mess with this blog. I just wanted to begin to describe the incredibly brutal landscape some of these people are crossing to get in and, moreover, to recognize that they are people. People with struggles and people with ambitions. Reinforcing the border is a good idea, but a massive wall is overkill. We also need more immigration judges to decide whether to grant asylum and handle the other cases.

Most of all, right now, we need to recognize the dignity of people and not treat them inhumanely (if even they broke the law, separating young children from parents is cruel and unusual punishment imposed on little kids). Please remember, we have our dignity to maintain too.

The Sage Leopard