I could hardly bear to read the papers in Austin for all the raping of Barton Springs that was going on while I was there--worse things happen here in Dallas, but for some reason it means more when it happens to my beloved Austin. I have to shut my eyes driving into town from I35 (good thing I'm not usually the driver!) because all those apartments where there once were fields just tears me in two. And that straightening out 2222--what's up with that? make it a straight shot for the drunken boaters? I say let them take themselves out of the gene pool!!! Seriously, the growth is cancerous, but like you say, necessary in some ways. Just wish it weren't so violent (Barton Spgs, I mean).

I'm writing too many responses I know, but on the way home from work I was so assaulted by the ugliness of Dallas building I had to write again: There was an empty lot behind where I live, which a developer purchased. I happened to be home the afternoon they bulldozed the trees--in all my reading about tree-hugging environmentalists (the ones in England who set up house in the treetops to prevent their destruction) I never got the full visceral impact of trees being uprooted via huge caterpillar machin s. I could hardly breathe and finally had to leave my house so as not to witness any more violence--I hate to be hyperbolic, but it really looked like a rape. And on my drive home yesterday, I saw this other place where they've knocked down all these great wood frame homes over about a 3 X 4 block area...and you know it never even occurred to me they would do the same to the trees. I'm just that oblivious to man's inhumanity to Mother Earth. These enormous, 30-year-old oaks and elms were felled, roots pointing skyward and I'm going to have to stop here because I'm too upset to go on. But that's where I am right now. More people, more scars upon the land (a quote from my John Denver days).

We really need to get together and come up with a plan for continued growth. If we don't, something is sure to blindside us, and then it'll be too late.

If the Austin community is what is meant by "we", maybe we've already come up with a plan for continued growth. So what is it, if we have? Or how do we find out something like that? And how do you (anyone reading this) feel about grassroots change? And how do you get involved, if you have the motivation? How do you make it be not a waste of time or fortitude or naivete or heart?

All good questions. I wish I had the answers to them. I believe in grassroots change. I personally believe that, all the green areas within the city limits should not be developed. I also believe that private cars should be banned in the area between Cameron/Dessau rd and Mopac, between Parmer and Ben White. I feel that this would do wonders for our air quality. not to mention saving a couple of lives each year. It is a fact of life that the drivers of Austin lack the skill and intelligence to adequately perate motor vehicles in a congested city environment. I attribute this to the influx of Californians in the mid eighties, since most Texans have common sense in abundance.

I hate hearing negative growth attributed to a particular group of people especially a grouping so vague and non-binding in some cases as what state people hail from. As a Texan living in Colorado (and loving it!) the stereotyping is insane and predominatly false. I am sure I get your drift however, there are certainly numerous Californians with common sense who also abhor city growth and overpopulation as much as you or I. (not usually this bitchy, just a nerve there!)

When was the last time you were In San Diego, LA, Bakersfield, Fresno, Sacramento, Truckee, Susanville, San Francisco, Barstow, Squaw Valley? Yes, there are people, in California, that have common sense, but, for the most part, these people live north of Sacramento, and they have real roots. They don't pack up and leave to live somewhere else. The great majority of Californians that leave the state, come from one of the mentioned cities, They have a way of looking at things that is completely foreign to a ybody else. And the attitudes that are prevalent among these people, were not present in Texas prior to the great influx of Californians in the early eighties.

And God help us if the people coming here, right now, from Boston, ever start driving like they do in Boston.

I LOVE SAN DIEGO (was there 11 months ago) San Francisco (there a year and a half ago) never in the other places. as far as I could tell, the people who were most 'foreign' to me were the ones that had completely embraced the lifestyle of the aforementioned cities and they certainly weren't looking to go anywhere else. THe people that I know hailing from California most recently have also had 'roots' in several other states. They are bringing in a wealth of different viewpoints, some of which I agree with and some of which I don't agree with. I still believe it is unfair (and ignorant) to blame negative social growth and development on a particular group of people. Many changes are subtle and certainly the types of changes are vastly different. Are we talking about traffic, or building growth, or same sex marriage or saving the springs??? All of these are relatively new ideas (last fifty years) and certainly one group can not take all the blame nor credit for any of these ideas. Especially not one group bound only by physical location at one time or another. (ramble, ramble, ramble)

I came from Namibia, California, which is south of Sacramento, and I still drive on the left side of the road. The interstate gets tricky around 5:00 p.m. I like it, cuz I get to meet my fellow drivers that way. They stick their heads out and talk to me. They're really nice, and they've helped me feel more at home here in Austin. It's incredible how different their points of view are from my own, but I like how willing they are to share. I just regret we don't have more time to talk. Havin' only one regret isn't very many, though---cool, huh....?

Actually I was talking about attitude more than anything else. Early on Saturday Nov. 7th, I was bringing a fully loaded 18 wheeler up from San Antonio. It was raining pretty hard, and traffic was light. It was 330 AM. I had to move over into the center lane, just after passing the Slaughter Lane exit. I was going 55, which is the night speed limit for large trucks in Texas. There was a car coming up fast in that lane, but he was half a mile behind me when I started over. He completely ignored my signal, nd nearly hit the rear of my trailer. Then, he zoomed around me, cut in front of me, and slammed on his brakes. There was no way I could stop. At that speed, fully loaded, on wet pavement, it takes me one and a half miles to stop. He was driving a Toyota Paseo. not a very big car. Luckily, he had an attack of common sense, and right after hitting his brakes, he took off. I was so close to him, that I could only see half his car. the nose of the truck hid the rest. I would estimate, I was within two inche of his bumper. Throughout this time the left lane was completely open. If he had not gassed on it. I'd have spread him across the interstate like jelly on toast. With him that close, I could not avoid him on wet pavement. This is the kind of idiocy that is common to California, and wasn't common here until the late Eighties.

When an eighteen wheeler is fully loaded, it weighs 40 tons. The easiest way to get a feel for this is: When a car broadsides the locomotive of a moving train, the train scatters pieces of car for a ways down the track. When a loaded eighteen wheeler hits the locomotive of a moving train, it derails the entire train.

Definition of Californian: a person that spent the majority of their childhood in California, or One that has lived there for 15 years or more. At least that is what I mean when I say Californian.

I apologize for thinking that you knew nothing of California. I spent 3 years there in the army, mostly TDY. I do not think of the local inhabitants of California (southern) as US citizens. Some of them I'm not even sure are human. Most people who were in the army with me feel the same way. I could go on and on about the stupid laws, eccentric petty functionaries, etc. It would be a great place to live if we could drop a couple of neutron bombs and sanitize it first. I am not normally a prejudiced person, I am, however, extremely prejudiced against Californians.

i tend to be prejudice against people who overgeneralize. (glad the wet pavement incident didn't turn catastrophic, are you betting he was from CA?) *smile*

I think that I'm getting too predictable on this.

time to eat the food in the proverbial food fight, eh?

Yup. Sometimes you have no choice. I think I'll check out that site and see what they are throwing now.

Why do all the conversations here keep returning to food?

Tami: Food's a socially acceptable form of sensual instant gratification, is my guess... (I'm prejudiced against stupid people...)

HerHere's a fine insightful piece by Lindsey Eck, a writer, composer, musician who lives in Central Texas. http://eserver.org/bs/50/eck.html An excerpt: "Historically, economic boom times bring florescence in music and the arts, whether in the Florence of the Medici, Habsburg Vienna, or the France of Louis XIV. Everywhere, that is, other than fin-de-si�cle America, where our uniquely philistine upper class seems to prefer the uniformity of the subdivision to the chaos of bohemia. The upper classes' loyalty to the bourgeois ethic of the party of Jesse Helms and high-tech prosperity has meant lowlife for artists and musicians priced out of living, studio, and rehearsal space from the Big Dig to the Golden Gate. In an irony now so familiar as to be reflexive, young professionals lured by the charm of a boho district wind up crowding out the very nonconformists who gave the neighborhood its character. Apologists for "development" (often mere construction) like to shrug the process off as the result of the invisible hand of the marketplace. But sometimes the hand is all too visible, as newer, conservative residents use zoning and noise restrictions, enforced by eighborhood associations or sympathetic police, to harass artists and other nonconformists, perhaps driven by an inchoate fear of what is different. read the rest at http://eserver.org/bs/50/eck.html

The guy can write very well, and at length! Wish he would join us here.