Utterly Meaningless

Earlier this month, Baker conceded that the Muslims probably aren’t after his land, but he said he had to go through with the pig races because “I would be like a total idiot if I didn’t. I’d be the laughingstock now because I’ve gone too far.”
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Too late!! 🙂

Nance

Muslim spokesperson: Mr. Baker, we’ve just purchased this land and would like to ask you to move your cattle.

Mr. Baker: What did you say? You want my land?

Muslim spokesperson: No, sir. We want to build on our land and would like to ask you to move your cattle.

Mr. Baker: Fuck ya’ll, I’ll race pigs and eat ’em before you get my land.

Muslim spokesperson: Mr. Baker, you don’t understand, we don’t want your land.

Mr. Baker: Well, you better not, ‘cuz I’ll race pigs on it.

Muslim spokesperson: ooooooooookay

Not to mince words, they aspire to fascism over there, Daryl. I live in Houston proper and the whole place has a reputation for being on a tight leash. This has much to do with all the overbuilt upper-middle-class subdivisions and huge malls that got built out there during the last decade. There’s nothing like people who have finally made something to lose for being paranoid and mistrustful of anything that rocks the boat.

Also see “New Caney” for an example on the other side of town, though their problems, whatever the root causes, are a little different. It’s not so much zero-tolerance there as a peculiar nastiness and brutality. I know several creative, intelligent people who will carry the damage and misery from going through that high school throughout the rest of their lives. You’ve featured their schools on the blogs several times as well.

I don’t know what it is with Houston-suburb schools, really. I hate, really hate, to think that it’s racially based at bottom. But I may have to bite the bullet and admit that I can’t see any better motivation for all this than the desire to keep out “undesirables.”

Art Guy points out, as a symptom of the “fascism” I mentioned (in case you thought I was being a bit hysterical), the prevalence of homeowners associations and their unchecked power to steal. He also draws parallels between the homeowners associations in both Katy and New Caney and the neighborhood snitches under Hitler who would rat out the neighbors for supposed or imagined disloyalty. He also wanted me to mention the police in many neighborhoods, who are very tough on the “wrong” people and very lenient on the “right” people.

But he goes on to say optimistically that he doubts the effects will last more than a generation. He feels that the kids in Houston generally are more tolerant and more likely to fall farther from the tree. I am pessimistic and I think those areas draw people who like to live under a Camazotz-like conformity and control.