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David Bruce Collins—the Official Site

Horrible & Wonderful & Figuring It Out

11/6/2018

Before dbcgreentx.net and I go on a two-week vacation, I feel compelled to copy and paste my latest Goodreads review. Here's my take on Stephanie Wittels Wachs's memoir Everything Is Horrible and Wonderful—a Tragicomic Memoir of Genius, Heroin, Love and Loss.

*****

Humblebragging is an art form. It's an art form not practiced widely here in Texas, where we're more skilled in traditional braggartry. Even people from Humble, Texas (the initial H is silent) are more likely to straight-up brag on themselves, their loved ones, and of course their state.

To honor Harris Wittels, the man credited with coining "humblebrag," I wanted to start this review with an example thereof. But I'm a shade humbler than most of my neighbors in Texas, and bragging of any type does not come naturally to me. The closest I can get is to say that I know the author, and that I have adored her since my son introduced her to me about a decade ago. At the time, he was a musical theatre student at Houston's High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, and Stephanie Wittels, then about 27, was an adjunct acting coach helping out with stage productions.

Or perhaps I can go a step further to say that I know someone who knows some of the hottest names in modern American comedy, someone who can get Aziz Ansari to write (or in this case recycle material for) a foreword.

World Naked Bike Ride H-Town 2018

7/6/2018

Image of a nude woman standing, knees bent, on the saddle of a bicycle, inspired by a similar picture of Kermit the Frog.

The t-shirt design for WNBR H-Town 2018, by Katherine Robb and others.

This Saturday night, Hustle Town! Ride to demonstrate against fossil fuel addiction, for safe human-powered transportation, against car culture, and for bodily freedom.

NOTE: The pages linked below may contain photographic depictions of boobs and butts. Viewer discretion is advised.

The Facebook event for the Houston ride
A list of rides in other Northern Hemisphere cities and the dates for those
The main website for the WNBR movement

Austin and New Orleans are two cities a road-trip away from Houston that are also riding on the standard Northern Hemisphere date, the second Saturday in June. Cities in the Southern Hemisphere typically ride in March.

The New Orleans group plans to start at 5 pm, when it's still ridiculously hot.

Two of the WNBR H-Town facilitators will be on KPFT's Living Art tonight in the 6 o'clock hour.

Go Kenneth & Rodoflo!

7/6/2018

I thought about including this information in the previous post, because it is tangentially related to it, but decided that it needed its own entry. This is mostly copied and pasted from my Facebook post:

California is a "jungle primary" state, in which multiple candidates from all parties (and No Party Preference) compete in the first round, with the top two vote-getters advancing to the general election.

CA-34: Mejia faced only incumbent Democrat Jimmy Gomez and a Libertarian candidate. It's a very diverse & progressive district. Mejia, who received about 12% Tuesday, says he's running to win, but it will be quite an accomplishment if he whittles down Gomez's 79% primary showing.

CA-40: Cortes Barragan faced only incumbent Democrat Lucille Roybal-Allard, so a two-two finish was guaranteed. He received about 19.6% of a small vote pool.

They're not going to win over many dyed-in-the-wool Democrats in their respective districts, so they'll be focusing on people who didn't vote Tuesday—or who have just given up on voting. In the 2014 general election, the vote count in District 34 was only about 61,000; in District 40, it was under 50,000. Each of these districts has about 400,000 eligible voters. There's a whole lot o' non-votin' goin' on there.

See full results from California's jungle primaries here. If you are a Progressive living in Greater LA—especially Greater East LA—I urge you to do what you can to help these young Greens. If you live elsewhere, send them what disposable cash you can.

The North Star Shines Light on Some New Angles

7/6/2018

In his version of the Texoblogosphere rundown this week, Gadfly linked to this rambling report on last weekend's Left Forum in New York, courtesy of The North Star. The Forum provided a lot of critiques, positive and negative, on left political movements including the Green Party of the US. In its final paragraph, the report references the same Bruce Dixon Black Agenda Report column to which I linked last week. Here is a slice:

Bernie Sanders may have brought people into the movements, but at the end of the day, the Dixon/Black Agenda analysis of Sanders being a sheepdog stands. And Bernie Sanders played that role well, which is why there is currently so much resistance to fully breaking from the Democrats. Electing progressive Democrats will result in capitulation and co-optation, and more will be ready to come over and help to build a new political party.

A Thought or Two on Separating Refugee Families

6/6/2018

From an editorial in today's Chronicle, where Pulitzer winner Lisa Falkenberg is now the editorial page editor [paywall]:

“I think it’s unacceptable that a member of Congress is not being admitted to see what’s happening to children whose families are applying for asylum,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, on the Facebook Live video of the incident.

We’ve seen this movie before. The plot is pretty simple: The government doesn’t want taxpayers to see what it’s doing with children caught crossing the border illegally. The story started back in the Obama administration and it’s continuing in the Trump era, but it’s time for this secrecy surrounding juvenile detention on the border to come to an end.

The junior senator from Oregon who showed up in South Texas on Sunday has been an outspoken critic of a Trump administration policy to separate children from their parents if they cross the border without documentation — many seeking humanitarian asylum. It is a policy that has no place in a civilized society.

The story of immigrant/refugee families forcibly separated at the border and put in cages right here in the Good Ol' USA is heart-wrenching for anyone capable of empathy. It's opening whole new horizons of cruelty. Even the UN Human Rights Commission is shocked.

Here's the kicker though: The worse this Republican administration and Congress get, the worse the Democrats can comfortably become.

Merkley is one of the relatively good guys in the Senate. His progressive voting record is not perfect, but from what I've seen it's reasonably consistent. On the House side, I'm lately developing an appreciation for Connecticut's Chris Murphy, as well as Hawai'i rep Tulsi Gabbard. Apart from her weirdness on US-India relations, I find myself agreeing with about 95% of Gabbard's positions.

Finding a few fresh apples in the basket of Democratic Congresscritters is refreshing. It doesn't mean that the whole party, at the national level, is worth my time, money, or votes.

Barack Obama's apologists in the media are saying, "Sure, Obama deported millions back to countries overrun by drug gangs, & he locked whole families in private prisons, but at least he allowed them to stay behind bars together." Democratic legislators keep voting for War & Wall Street, and they can still say, "At least we're not THOSE guys!" as they take turns being the "progressive" face of their party.

This is not a matter of expecting ideological purity from politicians, as some Democrat-leaning friends of mine would insist. This is a matter of Democrats' complicity in some truly evil shit.

Chock-a-Block with Block Quotes Texoblog

4/6/2018

Tomorrow, June 4, we continue #40DaysOfAction across the United States.
Join us at Texas State Capital in Austin, TX tomorrow at 2pm CST.#Medicare4All #RenewableEnergy
Find an action in your state: https://t.co/iCTkOHpVcJ #PoorPeoplesCampaign
Forward Together - Not One Step Back pic.twitter.com/CV6OvSjm6o
— Sema Hernandez□ (@_SemaHernandez_) June 4, 2018

Not having Green Party obligations on Monday nights has freed me up to rehearse with International Voices Houston, with whom I have now completed my first weekend of performances. Sadly, I didn't do much promotion of that gig in this blog, preferring to gush about it all over Facebook where a lot more people would see it.

Y'know that old platitude that goes something like we hope you enjoyed our performance as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you? Speaking strictly for myself, I enjoyed the ever-lovin' hell out of performing in this concert, and not just because the director picked me to be in a featured small ensemble.

Nevertheless, even without Monday Night Political Football, my heart is heavily invested in the Green Movement, and I follow as much news about it as I can. When I read the Black Agenda Report column from Bruce A. Dixon referred to below, I thought, I'm so proud to be connected with a party and movement that aren't afraid of constructive criticism. But in the next thought, I remembered that plenty of Greens construe the mere suggestion—whether raised from within or elsewhere—that we're doing something that might limit our own effectiveness as an attack on our very existence. Those Greens need to get a friggin' clue.

It's certainly true that much of the external criticism and some of the internal comes from people who lack any historical context of how the Green Party US has operated lo these past two decades. If we didn't hear the same uninformed critiques over and over again, it would easier to respond with patience and kindness rather than circling the rhetorical wagons. It's hard work being patient and kind consistently. It's harder work maintaining a party whose ethical core is Compassion for the Planet and its Creatures, human and non-human, embodying that Compassion in a world ruled by crass venality. But we must do that work to the best of our abilities.

============
At the Texas Capitol this afternoon, the Poor People's Campaign rallies for economic, social, and environmental and healthcare justice.

Gabaldon's "Drums"—A Non-Review

31/5/2018

Cover of

The fourth volume in Dr. Gabaldon's "Outlander" series.

This entry is adapted from my review of Drums of Autumn on Goodreads. From scanning other reviews there, it appears to me that a sizable percentage of Outlander series consumers hit the wall in the fourth volume. It's not an easy-breezy read, and it doesn't reward the reader sufficiently for the effort, says this non-reviewer. Most likely, I will plow through the remainder of the series, mostly on the strength of Diana Gabaldon's character depictions and development, and watch Season 4 when it drops in November.

*****

One of the benefits of painstaking accuracy in historical fiction is the richness of the imagery that makes the reader feel there. One of the risks of painstaking accuracy in historical fiction is that the interest level of the plot may suffer in sacrifice to that accuracy.

Dr. Gabaldon's Drums of Autumn is big and sweeping enough to provide ample examples of both the benefit and the risk. Despite its size and scope, I don't have a lot more to say about it.

One downside of this large multi-volume saga, now that I'm four volumes in, is that I'm having trouble remembering what happened in which of the volumes. What, you mean I need to have my copy handy in order to review it, or risk moaning about a sub-optimal plot point that actually happens in Voyager? Do tell!

Bruce A. Dixon Totally Gets It

30/5/2018

Presented without comment. I have some minor quibbles with Dixon's analysis, but I'm more interested in yours.

Post–Memorial Day Texoblogosphere

29/5/2018

The Texas Progressive Alliance respects the sacrifice of those who have died serving their country on this day, but in the words of Redacted Tonight host Lee Camp, would prefer to...

(A)ctually respect the lives of our troops and human life in general (by demanding) an end to wars launched on false pretenses. Stop giving war profiteers endless airtime to spout propaganda. Ask why our government always has money for war but never for our homeless veterans.

These seem like simple requests and easy things for an allegedly peace-seeking nation—a nation that would have many fewer war dead to memorialize in the future—to accomplish.

============
Here's the roundup.

It's been less than a week since Texas primary runoff elections decided our November ballot, and RG Ratcliffe at Texas Monthly details the heavy losses in Lege races that the arch-conservatives at Empower Texans suffered, while Chris Hooks at the Texas Observer takes stock of the Texas Democrats' chances in 2018. (tl,dr: suboptimal.)

Jon Tilove at First Reading dives deep into the dynamics of the governor's race, with the answer to the question James Barragán at the DMN is asking--which candidate Latin@s choose--being based on 'no mercy' or 'no más'.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston profiles three of the Democrats he likes running in Houston's Clear Lake region, and David Collins analyzes the surprising margin of Lizzie Pannill Fletcher's win in CD-7, and cautions against possible false extrapolations from it. The Lewisville Texan Journal live-posted election results for their area, and PDiddie at Brains and Eggs publishes the poll from the Lina Hidalgo campaign showing her leading incumbent Harris County Judge Ed Emmett.

In two of the most sickening developments yet in the War on Immigrants, an unarmed woman was shot and killed in Rio Bravo, Texas by a border patrol agent; the incident was videotaped and uploaded to social media, and USCBP changed their story about it. And with the news that HHS officials cannot account for the whereabouts of nearly 1500 immigrant children taken from their parents, placed in foster care, and are now missing, Somervell County Salon has a link to the Pew poll showing that those Americans who care the least about this are Christians.

Update: There is a problem with using the word "lost" here; it might even be a good thing that these children cannot be located by the government:

Although there are concerns that some undocumented children are trafficked or abused, the ORR claims (paywall) that 85% of kids are placed in the custody of family members.
[...]

The story of the 1,500 missing children, Duffy notes, is being conflated with news that border patrol agents are increasingly splitting parents and kids who arrive in the US together, leading to extensive and traumatic separations. That’s a different issue: The “missing” kids showed up at the border alone. Confusing the two circumstances, and demanding an ORR crackdown, only jeopardizes the safety of the most vulnerable undocumented immigrants and could lead to more family separations, prosecutions by ICE, and deportations.

In the wake of the Santa Fe high school murders, Greg Abbott held three conferences, out of which came 22 suggestions for Texas high schools to prevent the shootings of our children and teachers in the future. None of them were "common-sense gun safety legislation." Relative to reducing the number of doors in public schools to cut down on the number of deaths, Harry Hamid has some suggestions on the education of Dan Patrick.

In another takedown of the failure of the War on Drugs, Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast points out that making people too scared to call 911 when someone they know overdoses is not going to prevent overdose deaths.

As hurricane season 2018 begins, the after-effects of Harvey linger. Texas Standard reports that Fort Bend County commissioners will sue the Army Corp of Engineers over mistakes made in managing the water in that area's Baker reservoir that caused severe flooding. And Texas Vox read the US Chemical Safety Board's analysis that indicated the Arkema plant in Crosby was fully aware of the dangers of flooding prior to the hurricane.

SocraticGadfly reviews Amy Chozick's "Chasing Hillary" and one-stars it for several reasons to save you the trouble.

Jeff Balke at the Houston Press explains why you're getting all those privacy policy updates in your inbox as well as website cookie notifications.

Jim Schutze at the Dallas Observer is bemused that the State Fair of Texas got billed over $1200 by their lawyers to read one of his columns.

Martha Mercado at The Rag Blog was there as the Poor People's Campaign came to Austin.

And Skip Hollandsworth tells us about Jeff Pike, Texas' own Tony Soprano.

No Greens on the Texas Ballot in 2018

29/5/2018

The headline says it all: GPTX did not get the required number of petition signatures. That just means that it's time to begin getting the infrastructure in place for a successful petition drive in 2020.

If you signed it this year, thank you. If you voted in a primary and thus could sign it, please consider NOT voting in a primary in 2020. And spread the word.