The worst aspect of Austin in summer ain't the heat. It ain't the humidity. It's the hot air from environmentalist pinkos yammering about "climate change" as a pretext to deindustrialize and impoverish the rest of us.¹

Note they never leave Austin, thereby easing the population pressure on electricity and water supplies they express so much concern about.² And what of their "carbon footprints"? I'll bet if we conducted sousveillance on those uttering green pieties we'd catch them living hypocritically.³

Jack Craver, of Austin Politics Newsletter, contends "smart growth," i.e., increasing the population density in central Austin, thereby growing mass transit ridership, will make Austin a sustainable, climate-friendly city.⁴ Instead, the heat warped railroad tracks used by the power elite's damned precious municipal light rail boondoggle.⁵ And densification means demolishing moderne architecture to build an apartment tower in a style that's, as the kids these days say, "fake and ghey."⁶

Relatedly, a new study declares Austin second-best city in America for "curb appeal."⁷ I myself like to visit many of the city's neighborhoods for something to look at while walking for exercise. However, the Statesman's article was too inept, or lazy, or perhaps too circumspect, to point out the ranking's criteria -- essentially a lot of detached, single-family houses whose owners maintain their yards in a manner usually derided as a neurosis of uptight petit bourgeois WASPs⁸ -- is something Austin's power elite and its New Urbanist allies are doing their damnedest to abolish.⁹ Instead, they'd rather we dodge scooter-riding, chronic- and opioid-blitzed lumpenproles dwelling in welfare project-style tenements, as the resident blue-haired diversity consultant scolds us for misgendering someone.

Similarly, Web outlets recently reported City Hall belongs to C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, an international climate organization, with a grandiose plan of its cities' inhabitants consuming no meat or dairy foods ("consumption interventions"), and deprived of most every other benefit of civilization, by 2030.¹⁰ The City Council voted to join C40 in 2015.¹¹

Moreover, none of the news coverage from then to now addresses how officials plan to reconcile that starvation diet with our civic pride in barbecue and other carnivorous cuisines.¹² Someone should ask the remaining local eateries not destroyed by the anti-pandemic lockdown how they feel about it.¹³

One outdoor grill is worth more than all those environmentalists combined.¹⁴

Speaking of scooters, the Aug. 19 Statesman quotes an emergency room doctor advising people not to drink and ride scooters or electric bicycles.¹⁵ Once again, we're getting erroneous advice from a supposed medical professional. He should've pointed out that people who ride those machines are reckless idiots even when sober, should be socially ostracized for using them, and deserving of injury or death when they do. After all, his colleagues took that stance with people hesitant to receive mRNA injections.¹⁶

The Women's National Basketball Association considers Austin for a new team, as if we don't have enough traffic problems caused by sports fans flocking to games.¹⁷ My planner already contains the dates of UT football and pro soccer matches, so I know when and where to avoid driving, as I futilely attempt to go somewhere to accomplish something, instead of sitting on my ass watching other people in the distance chase a ball. Dogs do that for free. I thought Austinites were more sophisticated. Then again, consider how they vote.¹⁸

An anti-car, anti-road organization appears to be first civic group to threaten suit against the Texas Transportation Department for its announced expansion of Interstate 35 between U.S. Highway 290 East and Highway 71.¹⁹ Naturally, the fulminating plaintiffs or prospective plaintiffs ignore the real problem with the planned expansion: It will take far longer than estimated and the construction or reconstruction will add to motorists' difficulties in getting from place to place. Even the prospect of agitating the Chronicalistas pales beside that.²⁰

The Aug. 25 Chronicle proclaims disappointment in the retiring police chief, for resisting changes beloved by Austin pinkos, i.e., turning cops into social welfare case workers.²¹ However, in terms even Chronicalistas might understand, for women to traipse around at night without being fearful of their surroundings and/or having to develop street smarts,²² requires community-designated enforcers. We call those enforcers the police, which functions as a " 'negative institution.' Law enforcement is the repressive, coercive power of the state embodied in an armed officer."²³

Your typical Austin pinkos've never been able to admit that intrinsic fact, except when calling for agents of the State to harass and punish people and groups they don't like. For example, the Sep. 14, 2012 Chronicle includes a laudatory profile on Al Armendariz, Environmental Protection Agency bureaucrat turned Sierra Club lobbyist, who publicly advocated crucifying polluters, Roman style, to set an example for the rest.²⁴

I suspect those people are really anti-cop because a) they want to avoid arrests of government officials caught filching from the public coffers, something reported regularly in the papers; and b) they secretly wish they had the balls to commit violent felonies, instead of robbing citizens through meetings and paperwork.²⁵

For the latest example, the Austin Ethics Review Commission approved a "letter of admonishment" against a councilman for ethics violations about disclosure of income. Worse, the letter will go on his record. Bad, councilman, bad, bad, bad.²⁶

Bevo and Butt-Heads

A student's corpse shut down an Austin high school campus for two days.²⁷ In my first high school, the worst that happened was a student phoning in a bomb threat to get out of a test. The rest of us were generationally blasé as we evacuated the building and milled about until school hours were over.

Cultural Canapés

The Washington Post reports an uptick in compact disc purchases, spurred by post-Millennials finally following the practices of their elders.²⁸

Hyde Park Bar & Grill Westgate closed. I ate there a couple of times and was unimpressed with the food, unlike some of the other former eateries that also received news coverage of their demise.²⁹

Media Indigest

Nonprofit news Web site Texas Tribune cut staff because of financial troubles.³⁰

Neighborhood News

KXAN-TV's traffic Web page reported collisions at Rundberg Lane and Metric Boulevard on Aug. 15,at Braker Lane and Ptarmigan Drive on Aug. 22, and at MoPac Expressway and Duval Road on Aug. 31.

A job-search company seeks to shed its Domain office building.³¹

On the Town

Aug. 28: Found a penny in the University Hills library branch parking lot.

Aug. 29: Not a single attendee of the Austin Inspired Movement salsa social wore a face diaper.

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