Month: January 2021

Martin Luther King, in Letter from Brimingham Jail.

…I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I’ve posted this before, but it still feels relevent.

Here’s a reading list, and here’s an article that questions the notion of a reading list.

I like to give to local causes, so I give to the Austin Justice Coalition.

By “next Silicon Valley, ” I mean a runaway housing affordability disaster that prices out all the diversity and creativity that we value about Austin.

Michael Agresta at Texas Monthly is opimistic that Austin won’t repeat the same housing mistakes as San Francisco.

If there’s one reason to be confident that Austin will not turn into the next Bay Area, it’s this: Austinites of all political types, from libertarian to social-justice-minded, have been warning each other for years that we don’t want to turn into the next San Francisco… there’s no chance we are sleepwalking through a reenactment of the past few decades of California history. For better or worse, what gets built here will be something brand-new.

I wish I could be as optimistic. That assumes that Austinites recognize and agree on what the mistakes of the Bay Area were. We may not sleep walk though it, but we seem to be courting disaster with our eyes wide open.

“Good riddance” seems to be a common sentiment towards 2020, but I can’t complain too much. I have my health. I have food and place to live. Nobody in my family got sick. Not everybody can say this. It did my best to stay healthy, but there are those who did the same and got sick regardless. Such is the nature of a virus.

I’m not big on resolutions, but the new year is a natural time to stop and think about the year past and future. I developed some good habbits in the last year that I’m happy about: cooking, exercise. I need to build on that to turn it into tangible health gains, like weight loss.

Another goal is to write more, to post more here. I wrote sporadically in the last year. About 12 posts, or once a month. I hope to increase the frequency.

“Find a niche and stay focused” is common advice for blogging. It’s advice I’m going to ignore. I don’t expect a large readership. I don’t plan to make money. I’m free to write what I want. The only unifying theme is what I’m interested in. Maybe technology, or programming, or photography, or books, or movies, or transportation, or urban design. Maybe cats. Of course, cats.

It’s all about small gains and incremental improvement. Nothing earth-shattering, just some improvements on past habits