VIII: Comment on a colleague's work #2

Comment on Our Texan World's publication

Health care as part of the social responsibility  seems been a taboo in America, since the topic is so divided between people who think that the government should care about the health of their citizens and, the people who don’t want to have any governmental intervention into their medical bills or visits.

Part of the taboo, in my opinion, comes from the lack of information from the people with resources, who think that if the government is involved in health care, they “have” to go to the governmental medical services, when actually they can still spend the same amount of money in their private services. Another misinterpretation from people who is disagree with the government providing medical services is that individual taxes would go to pay the health of others. It might sound logical for some people and, for others it can sound very individualistic and selfish. However, for good or bad, the taxes that every individual pays benefit many other things to that ‘other people.’

I understand that many people also would recalls religious values to be opposed to some services that Plan Parenthood provides. But I think that data and numbers talk by themselves when we refer to domestic violence, rape, teen pregnancy.  We should add that for the same religious reason, the adoption of the policy of “abstinence-plus” is not intended as best option for teens, but to avoid the uncomfortable talk of sex education and responsibility.

The fight against Plan Parenthood also blocks the access to contraception for poor people, who are the most affected in the case of a supernumerous families. Sadly, these actions have a chain effect on poverty, medium and high-level education access, quality of parenting, and jobs. I think that this fight is also part of a fight with women empowerment and their capacity to plan for better life.

Health should be a right to access for everybody and it should be part of the social responsibility of the government as part of alleviating the poverty and segregation. People with economic resources would always go to better services, but, it is fair for poor people to have health care too. 

HB 1656 : More about transportation

Following the same topic of my first article, I would like to write about massive transportation in Austin, and, specifically about a bill that has been presented to the House Representatives by the Democratic House Representive of El Paso Celia Israel.

During her presentation in the Capitol on April 21st,  she mentioned a bill proposed called “Bus on Shoulders”, which proposes the ‘operation of a public transit motor bus by certain mass transit entities on an improved shoulder’ or HB 1656 during the 85th Legislative Session. Capital Metro Transit Authority (CMTA) also supports this bill in their report denominated ‘Peak Period Shoulder Use of UrbanExpressways’. This report explains how cities like Minneapolis, St Paul, San Diego, Ohio, Miami and others deal with traffic. It makes an analysis about cost-safety-benefit for the city and the people who would use the buses running through the main corridors like I-35, Loop 1 or US-183.

Rep. Israel proposed the same project during the 84th legislation under the HB 1324, but it died in the Senate. The project of the HB 1656 tries to benefit five counties and it plans to take effect on September1, 2017. Per the presentation of the representative Israel, this project is looking forward to alleviate the traffic in Austin, create a mass transportation culture for the locals and the new residents and, a very important point; it does not represent extra cost for the government because the highways shoulders already exist.

I totally support this initiative that provides solutions instead of create a positive environment where the city, citizens, residents and the environment can be helped at the same time.  Right now, this bill is left pending in committee, but I hope that can be passed to the Senate and approved soon.

VI: Color critique

The post of Keep Texas Red, is a post very interesting since the point of view of how related we are as humans with a party identification. This post talks about Texas as an example of success in administration and economy making a comparison with California.

In my first participation topic for the class I mentioned that exceptionalism “should be copied in many other cities or countries: The positivism and the pride about the place where you are from and what you have where you live”, but on the other hand “It blocks the ability of respect differences of points of view, different customs, different kind of living and different beliefs. It creates the confusion between “exceptional” and “perfect,” which is not true. And, finally makes it hard to value other exceptional places and learn from them”.

The comments before in this post mine explain very well the points of comparison with California´s corruption, expenses and cost of life.  And, I agree with Echo Noelani that “taking personal responsibility” in helping poor people is not enough. Taking personal responsibility for your environment and the people who share it with you is a good step. But, a government should have social responsibility on helping to mitigate the differences and creating more opportunities for the people, that´s why they`re public employees. What would be a good motivation for leaving the comfort zone of the elite class to change their community?  

It´s very easy to talk about the Texas success when it is based on natural resources and a free market that puts high value on them. What would be the exemplary success of Texas if the oil price in the international market plums more?  Right now, we are seeing that the price of oil went down to $45/barrel, this situation made that companies like Shell, Exxon, Schlumberger, and others laid off more than 10,000 employees the past 2 years. But, the executives of these companies generally didn´t reduce their salary. What would be the economic history in Texas without the energy resources?

My final point is that the discussion shouldn´t go focused on parties, because history showed us that they change too, according to what they need. We should focus on improving the life style for the community not only individual success. The individual success creates differences and segregate people, where rich communities don´t even mix or realize that there are poor or middle class around them, living in a different way. I think that it doesn´t matter if someone is blue or red or purple or green, it´s necessary to pop our bubbles of comfort zone and take responsibility for others, but also demand that government takes responsibility for us as citizens. That´s why we pay taxes, to improve the life of the community, not just to close ourselves in a car and ask for roads that only we will use. 

Texas and shared transportation

With the speed of growth in the population of Central Texas, the citizens of this area would be well served by a high speed rail line for public transportation to improve commuting, reduce carbon emissions, and alleviate traffic. Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) listed IH-35 as the most congested roadway in Texas .

The area between San Antonio and Austin has expanded enormously over the past two years. This area is predicted to become a “megalopolis” if the growth continues during 2017 and 2018. The Austin area alone has around 2 million residents and two of the nearby counties (Hays and Williamson County) have expanded more dramatically.

Some other cities have been working on having subways and trains to help the mobility inside the cities. The TRE (Trinity Railway Express) has offered commuter rail service between Dallas and Fort Worth since 2009 and serves two major counties (Dallas and Tarrant County). Also, Dallas has the DART (“Dallas Area Rapid Transit”) that offers routes to 12 cities around Dallas and makes it easier to travel without the stress of driving on the highways.

In New Mexico, Rio Metro started a project to connect Santa Fe and Albuquerque and the surrounding cities. Portland in Oregon has a great transport system composed by buses, the light rail and the commuter rail. Denver, Colorado has around 130 bus routes and 9 rail lines makes easy to get around town and cities around Denver.

Europe is an example of how train transport can effectively connect nearby cities. European residents use trains and the culture of massive transportation as part of their daily life (“Trains in Europe”). Asia has several examples of effective railways over long distances. Some of these have outstanding technology and comfortability for the residents to improve their travel time and service. The Maglev train in Shanghai is one of the fastest trains in the world and works with magnetic levitation.  Additionally, the Shinkansen rail in Japan covers around 2300 km of rail roads.

Coming back to Texas, Austin has CapMetro who serves most part of the city with buses and one rail line. Capmetro is in constant change and is constantly asking for support to the local authorities, this year Capmetro is trying to create new routes to connect Austin with cities around it.  Last year we saw the death of the Lone Star rail project that wanted to connect Austin and San Antonio. This year, we are looking forward to seeing what will happen with the Texas central Railway that proposes to connect Dallas and Houston with a bullet train.

Last month we´ve read about several lawsuits that been withdraw based on negotiations between the company and the landowners. In addition, other many lawsuits are now are in course against the company. The state government and the local governments from most of the towns and counties where the rail would pass seem to be very skeptical of this project.

According to the report from the Reason Foundation, the main oppositions for the train are the cost for the taxpayers that would go up to $21.5 billion, the operating deficit that Dallas and Houston would run, and the propaganda from airlines that serve the route.

I think that local and state authorities should be more involved in this process. Not just leaving to the companies fighting with people or landowners, but also backing up services that would alleviate traffic and would increase productivity and mobility between cities. These cities should cut costs and pick stops that serve most of its people. Also, public awareness about using public transportation could reduce not only traffic, but stress, save money and help the environment over the long-term.

2nd Critique an editorial or commentary from a Texas newspaper

What is Lamar Smith is doing about climate change?

This commentary was published on Austin Statesman the past March 7^th about how the congressman Lamar Smith wants to “Make EPA Great Again” analyzing how EPA is affecting the economy in the country.

Lamar represents the 21^st congressional district in Texas, which includes part of Austin, parts of San Antonio and west side of both main cities. His committee has jurisdiction over EPA, NASA, Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, Federal Aviation Administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.  The committee´s budget is about $40 billion that focus on research and development, according to Lamar Smith´s website.

Per the article in American Statesman, Smith is “declaiming that regulatory measures taken (in the environment) by the EPA undercut American Industry, the economy and individual liberties.”

Smith is maintaining meetings with an industry-centric panel of witnesses, an air quality lawyer for the fossil fuel industry, a chemical industry representative and an industry consultant to reject all the research that his committee pays for. We must understand then, that these meetings are far more lucrative than just his civic duty of work and the responsibility of the outcomes of research of all the organizations that his committee has jurisdiction over.

The economy of United States is very diverse, attracting a lot of investment. Technology is increasing in demand and multicorps that work in services. The economy also is related of the distribution of resources between the populations, in fact, recent studies mention that jobs in renewable energy were more than three times the jobs that were directly related to the fossil fuel industry. However, it looks like that Smith doesn´t have friends in other industries more than traditional energy.

The third point about individual liberties is very interesting well exemplified in the comments at the end of the page. Where @Antoious and @Newsquid debate about regulations that prevent coal mining companies dumping heavy metals into fresh water streams can damage other people´s health. For this point I would like just to quote the view on freedom once expressed by the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., when he said: "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."

The article also talks about who voted for Smith, referring to the upper-income neighborhoods. Maybe we should question then, the kind of science education that the upper-income people are receiving and what is more valuable for them.

I agree with the author Jake Ward that we will face dangers of unstable climate system in the future. Maybe Lamar Smith will not be there to see what he is doing, or maybe the dangers will come sooner. However, the responsibility of well living other people and next generations is being purchased by greedy companies for more income and power.

Ward Special to the American-Statesman 12:53 P.m Tuesday, March 7, 2017 Viewpoints, Jake. "Commentary: What Lamar Smith Is Doing about Climate Change." Austin Statesman. N.p., 7 Mar. 2017. Web. 10 Mar. 2017.

Critique an editorial or commentary from a Texas newspaper

Rodriguez: Abbott wrong to put politics before the needs of people

The Democratic Rep. Eddie Rodriguez published in MyStatesman an opinion of how Gov. Greg Abbott is targeting to Travis County with “intimidation tactics” for all the public and institutionalized policies taken in the County in response to the immigration banning made by the federal government.  Rep. Rodriguez gives a list of several attempts to stop Travis County with the pro-immigration policies that hurt the County programs.

He mentions that Gov. Abott is cutting resources from offices that are not related to the Travis County Sheriff’s office. This action makes us question what is exactly the war against Sheriff Hernandez that we see on the TV or news. Maybe the law supports her when she fights for her progressive policy of honor ICE detainees when they face a felony for the Travis County Jail. That brings us to a new hypothesis that he does not want to deal with the people affected by the cuttings and Gov. Abott would be using Sheriff Hernandez as a distraction.

It is impressive that the movement #StrongerTogether could rise over $100,000 and joined more than 1500 people supporting to their local government. This shows that local residents actually believe and support the decisions of their local authorities in despite of the coercive attitudes of the state authorities that show to the community actions that are founded in fear or punishment for being disagree with them.

I did not see any video streaming of what Rep Rodriguez says about “unmarked, official –looking vehicles and armed occupants detaining people”. I would consider risky to affirm that because that would bring us to all the claims that U.S.A. has been making of other governments doing the same thing, and that U.S.A. penalized them internationally.  In case that this would be true, the state authorities would have to hide it very well to avoid future repercussions.

I agree with the Rep. Rodriguez with the uncertainty of the actions of the federal and state governments. However, for sure we know that both are linked to each other since the governments in the two levels are looking at the same direction.

The intention of the opinion published is informative since the Rep. Rodriguez is part of the House Committees on Economic & Small Business Development, YMCA Caucus, Mexican American Legislative Caucus and, House Democratic Caucus, so we can be sure that he has firsthand information about political battles.

Rodriguez, Eddie. "Rodriguez: Abbott Wrong to Put Politics before the Needs of People." My Statesman. N.p., 15 Feb. 2017. Web. 22 Feb. 2017.

Texas education and struggling debts

The rise of college/universities tuition is turning into a great filter to support mortgages and banks, or support people who actually can pay the current fares. 

The article from Texas Tribune about how Texas families are struggling paying for tuition shows how the government is driven by business interests. Even if some legislators have acknowledged that “tuition increases beyond the rate of inflation”, it seems that the decision-makers prefer not to listen to economic reasoning that is damaging families on a daily basis.

In addition, because the system supports the consumerism, families have debts in cars, houses, condos, clothes and an eternal paying off the tuition. Also, the job market is looking for more specialized workers, which means more degrees in studies and therefore more individual debt.

I’m not sure if freezing the tuition rates would be the solution for this problem. Maybe in a long term families could establish what is the best way to save money to pay for your children's studies, knowing the maximum to pay. But in a short term, it will continue to filter people who want to study and people who can afford to study. And it will also serve as an excellent excuse to justify that people in Texas or other states are not educated.


Watkins, Matthew, and Annie Daniel. "Texas Families Are Struggling to Pay for College - but so Is the State." The Texas Tribune. N.p., 07 Feb. 2017. Web. 09 Feb. 2017.