I’m looking at news reports of the devastation in Houston, and it’s making me really sad.

I’m looking at news reports of the devastation in Houston, and it’s making me really sad.

I’m looking at news reports of the devastation in Houston, and it’s making me really sad. Houston, of course, is where the Gauntlet was born. It’s a place where I made many terrific, lifelong friends. It’s a place where some of my favorite memories were made.

I’m sad and a little frustrated, too, because a lot of the social media chatter I’m seeing is very “well, global warming, duh!” with the implication that Houston is getting what it deserves because so much of its economy depends on the energy industry and because Houston is in a deep-red state.

Something I experience a lot as a Texan “living abroad” is talking to other liberals who have the most uninformed, bird’s-eye view of Texas imaginable. Texas is a big, culturally-complex state. Houston is one of the most diverse, reliably Democratic cities in the whole fucking country. Corpus Christi, also hit hard by the hurricane, is a majority-Hispanic city.

Anyway… It’s a scary time. If anyone reading this has been affected by the storm, please stay safe and let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

26 thoughts on “I’m looking at news reports of the devastation in Houston, and it’s making me really sad.”

  1. That kind of thinking really makes me nauseous. Liberals who engage in “they are getting what they deserve” thinking are no better than the conservatives who felt like Katrina was a moral hurricane inflicting God’s punishment on New Orleans. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I’d like to believe liberals are more enlightened, but it turns out that the extremes on either side of the political fence are often ugly in their thoughts an speech.

  2. That kind of thinking really makes me nauseous. Liberals who engage in “they are getting what they deserve” thinking are no better than the conservatives who felt like Katrina was a moral hurricane inflicting God’s punishment on New Orleans. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I’d like to believe liberals are more enlightened, but it turns out that the extremes on either side of the political fence are often ugly in their thoughts an speech.

  7. Relishing in the suffering of people who may or may not support climate change science is gross. I am, however, severely disappointed in republicans for consistently and methodically ignoring or even dismantling the organizations and science that might help people avoid or survive disasters like this one and that makes me angry.

  8. Relishing in the suffering of people who may or may not support climate change science is gross. I am, however, severely disappointed in republicans for consistently and methodically ignoring or even dismantling the organizations and science that might help people avoid or survive disasters like this one and that makes me angry.

  9. Gerrymandering, people!

    When I hear from some people in deep liberal strongholds, they think everyone in a “red state” thinks and acts the same anyway. When stuff was going on with RFRA in Indiana, everyone thought we thought and acted like one block. Not the case. Our state would be more purple if it wasn’t one of the most gerrymandered states around.

    I suspect a lot of states would be. And when people are suffering through catastrophe, it doesn’t matter anyway. You help your neighbor. You help your fellow citizen.

    My heart breaks for Houston. I heard on the news that the landmass being affected is essentially the size of Lake Michigan. In essence, Harvey is creating the second largest inland lake in the United States over a populated area. That’s terrifying.

    Stay safe and take care of each other.

  10. Gerrymandering, people!

    When I hear from some people in deep liberal strongholds, they think everyone in a “red state” thinks and acts the same anyway. When stuff was going on with RFRA in Indiana, everyone thought we thought and acted like one block. Not the case. Our state would be more purple if it wasn’t one of the most gerrymandered states around.

    I suspect a lot of states would be. And when people are suffering through catastrophe, it doesn’t matter anyway. You help your neighbor. You help your fellow citizen.

    My heart breaks for Houston. I heard on the news that the landmass being affected is essentially the size of Lake Michigan. In essence, Harvey is creating the second largest inland lake in the United States over a populated area. That’s terrifying.

    Stay safe and take care of each other.

  11. As someone who lived thru a small flood here in Baltimore (4 foot of water in my house… we lost everything in the bottom 4 feet of our lives, though thankfully none of us were harmed), I can assure anyone that no person deserves to have this happen to them. My sympathies go out to the people of Houston. I urge everyone who can to give blood, and look at your finances and see if you can afford to send even $10 to a reputable charity to help.

  12. As someone who lived thru a small flood here in Baltimore (4 foot of water in my house… we lost everything in the bottom 4 feet of our lives, though thankfully none of us were harmed), I can assure anyone that no person deserves to have this happen to them. My sympathies go out to the people of Houston. I urge everyone who can to give blood, and look at your finances and see if you can afford to send even $10 to a reputable charity to help.

  13. If anyone has any questions on why someone would stay, ask me, because I was that guy. We were told to stay in place and not clog the freeways for all the traffic going to Corpus & other locations. When it finally did hit, it was basically overnight while most of us were asleep and still being told to just prepare for a heavy rain storm. Call it what you will, we did not know how bad it would be until it happened.

  14. If anyone has any questions on why someone would stay, ask me, because I was that guy. We were told to stay in place and not clog the freeways for all the traffic going to Corpus & other locations. When it finally did hit, it was basically overnight while most of us were asleep and still being told to just prepare for a heavy rain storm. Call it what you will, we did not know how bad it would be until it happened.

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