Recording Surface

In what’s become a springtime ritual, the Austin Police Department last month shot and killed a black man in East Austin, this time an eighteen-year-old who was sleeping in his car at the time. (more…)

Were this Az’s blog, this post and the Austin Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and Equality Texas might just earn a spot in the category The First Up Against the Wall. (link) (more…)

Texas — or at least its politicians and heritage-society members and the Daughters of the Republic of Texas — is in mourning over the almost-total destruction by fire of the governors mansion, allegedly by arson (pictures here). The mansion, which sits just across the street from the Capitol, has been, over the last few days, homilized as a historic treasure and a monument to Texas and its people. (more…)

The Austin Police Department has started the summer off with a bang. On June 3, the day after the federal Justice Department, in an almost unprecedented action (and one pushed by black groups in Austin), announced that it would investigate the department’s use of excessive force in minority communities, a police officer shot to death Kevin Brown, an African American, after “an incident” outside of a club in East Austin. The man was shot in the back at a distance of 30 yards. (more…)

Sorry for the dearth of posts, dear reader, but my dayjob continues to colonize the rest of my life, and I’m unable to work on the half dozen or so posts I’ve made notes on. So I’m going to give up on posting anything Big and Important for awhile. In the meanwhile — for the next two months, until the end of May — I’m just going to make little posts. And those will become more frequent than what I’ve put up over the last two months.

After May, freedom for another year and a half! Well, relative freedom. But at least much more time to hurl prose at you. Thank you for your patience.

Subtopia has a fabulous post about the mobile detention centers that are popping up more frequently (especially in Texas), as well as about the old-fashioned brick-and-mortar kind, some of which are becoming more family friendly. Go read it. (more…)

Speaking of Austin, on a telephone pole along one of the streets in the central part of the city that I drive on frequently is a sign by a disgruntled resident that says, “Slow down, this ain’t Round Rock.” (more…)

Received over the transom, a couple of updates on activist innovation in Austin: (more…)

This morning, shortly after reading this and this, I walked out my front door and was met by a gentle breeze–from the north! (more…)

If you’re the type that’s easily bored and want to do some pro bono work for the state, Texas governor Rick Perry has created a recreational activity for you:

Gov. Rick Perry vowed Thursday to counter rising border violence, drug activity and illegal migrant crossings by placing a “virtual” wall of Web cameras on ranch land in South Texas.

Armed with a night-vision capacity, hundreds of cameras will feed images to a state Web site on a 24-hour basis, allowing anyone to watch for illegal activity. […]

Perry said citizens could file reports via a toll-free number, with law enforcement officers ready to respond. He said the cameras, paid for with money from his office, would be used on farms and ranchland “directly on the border” but not in neighborhoods and urban areas.

In related news, the nominally private-sector militia the Minutemen, who like Perry are sick of the federal government’s dithering, have begun building a wall in the desert:

Meanwhile, a group of US civilian volunteers that has been patrolling the Mexican border began last week building a fence along a section of the frontier.

The Minutemen group started erecting the fence on privately-owned land in Arizona on Saturday, saying it is “doing the job the federal government will not do”.

The Minutemen are allowed to report illegal crossings to border police but have no right to arrest suspects.