Category Archives: In the News

Murderous New Year Update

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Today’s news reports a suspect has been arrested in the murder of the homeless woman found in my neighborhood. He says he paid her to have sex at his apartment, and when he woke up she was gone and so were some of his belongings. When asked about the murder, he asked for a lawyer. They found her stuffed in a suitcase that matched luggage in his apartment and his car was caught on security cameras at the dumpster and there was a witness to him putting a suitcase in the dumpster, so there’s obviously more to the story. Isn’t there always?

They are no closer to finding the person responsible for the murder in the North University area, but they are circulating a flier with police sketches on it. The guy on the right is the one who reportedly attacked two women in the area the same night as the murder, and though on the left was involved in an indecent exposure incident, also in that area around that time.

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Murderous New Year

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Austin started the new year off with murders on both the first two days. I spent most of day three hoping there wouldn’t be a third murder, because that would really start to feel like a disturbing trend. Though the worst case scenario of massive numbers of murders happening this year will likely not become reality, the two that have happened are disturbing me all the same.

The first murder happened in the North University area about five miles from my house. The victim was a young woman … a teaching assistant who by all accounts was a wonderful human being with a bright future helping kids. It’s very sad. It’s also concerning, because two other women were also attacked in the same area that same night/morning, and while there haven’t yet been any evidence connecting the attacks and the murder, it certainly seems quite likely.

So far, all they have is a police sketch of the man who attacked the two women, and they haven’t yet caught him. So who knows, there may be a man attacking women and a man who murdered a woman, or they may be one and the same. What really matters to me is that there’s at least one man out there, very near my own neighborhood (and in an area I am sometimes in), who is dangerous. I guess the best case scenario here is that the attacker and the murderer is one and the same, because the police sketch is engraved in my brain. If the attacker isn’t the murderer, well then there’s someone out there who broke into a young woman’s house and killed her, and we don’t have a clue who they are.

On the second day of the new year, I turned on the local news, and the very first story I heard hit even closer to home. A woman’s body was found in a dumpster behind the T-Mobile store just a couple blocks away. I recognized the location beef they even announced the address, because I’ve walked by that very dumpster who knows how many times over the years cutting through the parking lots on my way to the Walgreens at the corner. The victim in this case was a 34 year old homeless woman, and if the police have any information on what happened, it’s not making the news.

Maybe the attacks and both murders are all the same person, maybe there’s two people. Maybe there’s three. Who knows right now. All I do know is that there’s one or more dangerous and potentially deadly persons walking free after committing crimes in the area of Austin I call my stomping grounds. I find myself a little unsettled.

The major reason I am finding these crimes more unsettling than usual is that I’ve had an interest in Austin murders since I served on a jury for a murder trial. I’ve been tracking the trends and causes of local murders for years, and generally speaking, murders in Austin tend to happened between people with connections to one another. They are quickly and easily solved, and the perpetrators locked up in a matter of days or at least identified and on the run.

The reasons for the person killing someone almost always tends to be interpersonal conflict, either long-standing or heat-of-the-moment, between persons already involved in each other’s lives … family, friends, spouses, roommates, drug connections, and so on. So far, the two recent murders don’t match the trend I’ve seen developing over the years. I dont like it when events don’t fit established trends.

With the information we have currently, it very much seems like there’s no connection between criminal and victims. Perhaps more information will come out and there will be some connection, but for now, I have to work with the information I have, and that information tells me there’s someone out there just killing people for no reason at all. It’s bad enough when people get killed for completely stupid reasons by people they knew and sometimes even loved, but for no reason at all (or some insane reason a crazy person has in their head)? That’s even more disturbing, because it’s far more difficult to avoid. I can avoid having people in my life who I feel might snap and do me harm during a disagreement, but I can’t very well avoid insane and murderous strangers, unless I never leave my house (which I do almost daily).

Hopefully, more information will come to light soon in both cases and the perp or perps will be caught. In the meantime, I’m going to be a little more watchful while out and about alone.

Dear Governor Perry,

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I haven’t been addressing much of the spew that has been issuing forth from your mouth the last few years, mostly due to the fact none of it is anything I haven’t already heard you make proclamations about during your overly long tenure as the governor of Texas. It’s just the same pompous, arrogant rhetoric I’ve come to expect. Aggravating and annoying, to be sure, but your continued governorship of my state has been as reliably predictable as cold weather during winter. No amount of ranting, complaining, or writing letters has changed your mind or the minds of the voters who dutifully check the box by your name every election cycle. You’ve safely remained the top dog in Texas, and along the way, I discovered I had better things to do with my time than write thousands of words every day trying to convince small-minded people of their small-mindedness.

When you threw your over-sized hat into the ring for the top slot in America’s political system, I initially thought I might have to return to my public political ranting ways in order to stop you from doing to my country what you’ve done to my state, but thankfully, your buffoonery was only amplified on the national stage, and the majority of people –even people who agree with your cowboy rhetoric and right wing ways– seem to agree you are not presidential material. Your bulb is just a little too dim.

Recently you made a statement I can’t abide or ignore. You pushed my Bigot Alert button. It’s certainly not the first time you have pushed that button. You’ve proven yourself a bigot many times before, but I always thought that surely there were limits to your bigotry. I believed there must be a human being with a speck of compassion and humanity hidden under that perfectly coiffed hair. That maybe you were just a man of your generation having trouble coming to terms with a world that is changing around you … too old and set in your ways to change as quickly as needed to stay current with modern concepts ideals.

But now, it now appears either I was mistaken in that belief and your bigotry resides in every cell of your being and knows no boundaries or you are, in fact, utterly and completely ignorant of how things are in the world beyond your own front door. I suppose either position could possibly be true, but boy, let me tell you, lately you’ve been sounding pretty much like a bigot of epic proportions. So, let’s get down to the brass tacks, shall we? Let’s gnaw on the heart of the matter: your recent statement on gay rights.

“Just when you thought Barack Obama couldn’t get any more out of touch with America’s values, AP reports his administration wants to make foreign aid decisions based on gay rights. This administration’s war on traditional American values must stop. Promoting special rights for gays in foreign countries is not in America’s interests and not worth a dime of taxpayers’ money.”

“But there is a troubling trend here beyond the national security nonsense inherent in this silly idea. This is just the most recent example of an administration at war with people of faith in this country. Investing tax dollars promoting a lifestyle many of faith find so deeply objectionable is wrong. President Obama has again mistaken America’s tolerance for different lifestyles with an endorsement of those lifestyles. I will not make that mistake.” – Governor Rick Perry

So I ask, Governor Perry, what are these traditional American values you feel need to be protected? I know you carry a copy of our country’s founding documents in your jacket pocket, but it seems to me it’s a mere prop and not something you have personally ever read or studied in depth. I find it difficult to believe you were never exposed to the most important documents that live at the very core of our democracy at some time in your education or career. That you never spent any time studying the words our founders chose to use to start this great experiment in democracy, and yet, your definition of American values seems to be at odds with the words of our founding fathers as they have been laid out in ink on parchment and as I have come to understand them.

Let’s take a look at some of the most important words ever written … a dramatic and bold demonstration of human rights, and the very words which launched our fledgling nation on its course from tyranny toward freedom.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

It’s a simple sentence. It doesn’t require a college degree to comprehend. All men are created equal. All men, not just American men. Not even just men but all human beings. As our nation has progressed through the many decades from its conception to what it is today, we have both made great strides in living up to this grand ideal as well as having faltered and fallen, but our movement as a people has always been toward a more perfect realization of the concept that human beings –no matter who they are, where they are, what color, creed, sexual orientation, religion, age, or gender they are– are equal to one another and should be afforded the same rights as each other. The rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness –in whatever form that takes for each– for all. These rights are known as civil rights … human rights.

LGBT persons around the world aren’t asking for “special” rights. They aren’t clamoring to be placed upon a pedestal and given “special” treatment. They desire access to the same basic human rights Thomas Jefferson expressed at the beginning of the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They want to live their lives without fear of being arrested, tortured, imprisoned, or executed for who they are. They want to be free to have careers, families, homes, and friendships, without fear of discrimination. They want merely to pursue their own happiness unfettered, as we all do. These aren’t things which must be granted or given. They exist within each of us by fortune of having been born human.

Perhaps, Governor Perry, it isn’t that you don’t believe human beings who chose to live and love differently than you do should be treated as less than human, but that you do not know how poorly they are often treated elsewhere in the world? That they are imprisoned and beaten? That they are executed? Not allowed to have jobs, families, or lives of their own choosing? I find it difficult to believe that someone who has been the leader of a state the size of Texas and running for President of these United States could be so moronically ignorant, uneducated, and behind on current events, but I suppose anything is possible. I suggest you read some news from sources other than the 24 hour news channels. Take a look at what is happening beyond the ivory tower of privilege you reside within.

While doing so, perhaps you will also note that things aren’t so rosy for LGBT people living right here in the United States. Yes, things are better than they were a mere few decades ago and better than in other parts of the world, but we ourselves are far from perfect in granting basic human rights and equality to gay people. They are still discriminated against in many states, Texas included. They are still quite often harassed, beaten … killed. They aren’t allowed to marry the ones they love, and they aren’t allowed to take part fully in the rights that all Americans possess by nature of their state of being human and their citizenship in this great nation. You should be thankful the federal government hasn’t yet thought to limit the granting of funds to states based on human rights, or the very state you lead would find its cash flow from the national coffers diminished.

Furthermore, I would suggest picking up a Bible and reading it carefully. The New Testament and the words of Jesus of Nazareth in particular. You claim loudly at every opportunity that you are a Christian, and yet your own actions and words have never seemed very Christlike or in keeping with what Jesus tried to teach the world. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Jefferson Bible? If you truly want to know and study the words of Christ and follow his teachings, it’s an excellent method for doing so, with the added benefit of having been compiled by one of this country’s very own founders, Thomas Jefferson. You should consider it your patriotic duty as a Christian American to buy and read a copy of this fine book, but any Bible will do in a pinch. You need to refresh your memory of scripture if you truly want to wear the label of Christian. Your compassion is lacking, and your levels of judgement far too high.

So, which is it Mr. Perry? Are you merely an idiot who lacks an understanding of the world you live in and don’t realize that there are people in the world being killed for no crime other than being different from you, or are you truly a hateful bigot who would like to see all LGBT people imprisoned, beaten, tortured, executed, discriminated against, and treated as less than human? I can forgive a man for being ignorant. An ignorant man can be educated. I can’t forgive a man for claiming to be a follower of Jesus while spewing hate and allowing those less fortunate than himself suffer. Choose wisely before answering, because when they day comes when your life has come to an end and you stand before your professed creator, your very soul may depend on the answer … and he may not even be as forgiving of ignorance and stupidity as I am, so your soul may broil in hell no matter what feeble excuse you give him for your bigotry, hatred, and lack of compassion.

“Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.”

“Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?”

“I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least among you, you did not do for me.” -Matthew 25:41-45

Sincerely, A Fellow Texan

Shame on You!

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I imagine you’ve heard and seen news of the police vs. protesting students incident at UC Davis. It would be nearly impossible not to have heard about it, but it’s taken a few days for the meat of the story to really crystallize. The original official take on what exactly happened turned out to be less than entirely truthful, but thanks to nearly ubiquitous cameras with video capabilities, we can all have a clear picture of what went down in full color, with sound.

This is a compilation of four videos time synced together and shown simultaneously, which gives the best coverage of one of these situations I have ever seen … and only possible because of our modern technology.

Yup. Looks me to me like the cops were behaving like pigs and assholes. I guess we’re lucky it was pepper spray and not bullets. It’s not like shooting students with bullets would be unprecedented.

I don’t have too much to say about the protesting going on. More power to them all. Nothing I like better than some grass-roots organized freedom of speech (as opposed to the Super PAC created variety). What I’ve been having thoughts on lately is the ubiquity of cameras.

There was a time not so long ago when personal video cameras weren’t so plentiful. Not everyone had one in their pocket, and the power of the camera belonged to the authority figures and businesses in the form of security cameras. Many people began to decry the coming Age of Big Brother, and for a while, it definitely felt like that was a road we were headed down at break-neck speed.

But technology continued to improve, as it will, and now the ability to record video and snap photos is in the hands of anyone having even a cheap, pay-as-you-go cell phone. The ranks of cell phone owners covers all socioeconomic classes, races, creeds. Any time anything interesting, exciting,outrage provoking occurs, there’s a sea of mobile devices recording reality as it happens from multiple angles and points of view. It’s a beautiful thing to have access to so much data.

The power of the camera has been wrested from the hands of authority and placed into the hands of the people. Some people still rage against the security cameras that cover every corner of public life, but the truth is … the people have far more cameras, and thus, far more power. The world truly is watching, and more often than not, what it’s watching comes from the hands of the less-than-powerful. At the length, truth will out … and it’ll be posted to YouTube, shared on Facebook, and Tweeted ’round the world.

The watchers are becoming the watched. Roles are reversing. Down with Big Brother, and power to the people!

Old Enough to Remember

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Republican Congressman opens mouth and inserts foot. Not especially surprising news, but this time, it needs to be spread far and wide, because Peter King really said quite a mouthful.

“We have to be careful not to allow this to get any legitimacy. I’m taking this seriously in that I’m old enough to remember what happened in the 1960s when the left-wing took to the streets and somehow the media glorified them and it ended up shaping policy. We can’t allow that to happen.”
–Congressman Peter King (R-NY)

I’m old enough to remember the 1960′s too, and this leaves me wondering what it is that he feels shouldn’t be allowed to happen now … and by extension, what he must feel shouldn’t have been allowed to happen in the 60′s. Yes, people were protesting in the 60′s, and those protests lead to the end of the Vietnam Conflict and the beginning of civil rights for people of all skin tones. I also remember women’s rights making headway and the creation of social safety nets for the poor, infirm, and elderly. In my mind, these are all positive steps forward in the history of my country, not blots of shame. We can only hope the Occupy Wall Street protests happening around the USA now can eventually be as successful as the protests in the 60′s at bringing about some truly needed positive changes. We the People are the government, and this is what it looks like when our elected officials aren’t representing their constituents.

Peter King seems to feel otherwise about both the current crop of disgruntled citizens and those people who took to the streets over 40 years ago. I’d like to hear him explain what exactly should have happened differently in the 60′s, but I’m not holding my breath.

Here’s the audio of King’s statements, if you want to hear it all in his voice and in context.

American Spectator Jackassery

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A good sign that those of you who miss my daily babbling will soon be appeased? My blood pressure is up enough to sit down, log into my blog, and make a ranty political post. It would appear the verbal portions of my brain are reengaging. Might as well start babbling again. Fall is here, and with it comes the usual holiday family drama. I don’t anticipate being able to spend 6-8 a day working on art until, well … January. My phone simply won’t shut up long enough. LOL!

Anyway, a few days ago I read an article on the American Spectator that chapped my hide and almost gave me an aneurysm. I’d meant to sit down and rant immediately, but the aforementioned phone rang, and by the time I got back to the article, lo and behold, it had been edited. It’s still an excellent example of crappy non-journalism, but they took out the most egregious bits — like how the writer of the piece actively “infiltrated” the Occupy Wall Street group to “get his story.” They’ve tried to make it seem like that his only goal was to report on the protesters activities, as opposed to the piece’s original telling which made it quite clear he wasn’t only there to get a story but also to cause problems and “mock and undermine” the movement.

One thing that really gets my blood pressure up is journalists who obviously didn’t learn anything at all in their journalism classes (if they even took any). What really gets my blood boiling is when one of these persons attempts to cover his tracks after putting something on the internet that he then realizes might not be a good idea to publish publicly. Like say … admitting to being an agent provocateur and a detailed accounting of how he broke the law while doing so (and got pepper sprayed in the process). In fact, trying to send things down the rabbit hole probably pisses me off more than stupid journalists being stupid. Sometimes, stupidity can’t be helped, but being evil and sneaky and thinking no one is going to notice you changed the words on the page can certainly be helped (by either not publishing it in the first place or just going ahead and owning your damn words).

There’s not much on the tale in American news outlets (yet), so I’ll have to send you over to The Guardian to read their explanation of how Patrick Howley, an editorial assistant at the American Spectator, stormed into the National Air and Space Museum (alone) in an attempt to make the OWS protesters look bad (and to try to lead them into making themselves look bad) so he’d have something interesting to put in his story. You can read the current version of the story here, and while they tried to clean it up and make it look less awful, it’s still pretty much an admission of guilt. He still infiltrated the OWS group to get a story, and he still pushed by museum guards (without a doubt a crime that would get a normal person arrested and possibly jailed), but now the story is told with significantly less smugness and jackassery and foolish pride.

And while the story was edited, they didn’t think about the comments section. As of this morning, it was still possible to read the comments from oldest to newest and see people quoting and reacting to the things that are now missing in the current version. This is an oversight I suspect they might try to fix at some point, though I also suspect that if they did so now, they’d only be digging their grave deeper. I can only imagine there are quite a large number of people keeping their eyes on that page to see if it disappears or is edited further or to see if there end up being an repercussions for Howley other than looking like a jackass, like maybe being fired … or arrested.

I wanted to pass this information on, because I’ve been hearing here and there about the OWS protesters storming the Air and Space Museum, and well, that really just didn’t happen. Patrick Howley stormed the museum, and he got a face full of pepper spray and some media attention for his bragging news story on the experience. The OWS group would be wise to expect more assholes infiltrating their gathering and attempting to make them look violent or foolish. I can’t imagine Howley will be the only one to have tried. James O’Keefe, another non-journalist, has already been spotted milling about at the New York OWS protest, so no doubt there will be an edited-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life video any day now, though he’s recognized on sight almost everywhere he goes, so it’s not like he can sneak in wearing a Halloween hippie costume undetected. Walking around in a suit the way he has been? Yeah, he’s standing out like a sore thumb that’s made too many appearances on national TV news to not be noticed immediately. But still, I’m sure he’ll try. It’s not like he actually has to get any real footage of anything anyway. He is a master at splicing stuff together to create a story.