Technology is driving some big changes.
Especially when it comes to how we drive. Or... don't drive.
And change, as friends and regular readers of this blog know, isn't something I'm fond of. Well, more accurately, it depends on what's changing, and the degree to which it's changing, as to whether I'll embrace it or not.
When it comes to the rapid developments in driverless cars, however, the automobile revolution some experts predict is imminent presents a mixed bag for me. I can appreciate some of its major benefits, but I'm not sure those benefits can outweigh its major drawbacks.
This is so big, I'm also not sure it will happen as quickly as some people want it to.
Removing Drivers From Driving Has Its Advantages
Back when I was in my teens and twenties, I used to enjoy driving. As I've gotten older, however, and the driving population has gotten younger and far more reckless, I now consider driving more of a necessary evil than a fun way to spend some time getting from Point A to Point B. To many Americans, driving is more of a waste of time than a pleasurable experience. To the extent that so many of us think we can multi-task behind the wheel, it makes sense to try and take operating the motor vehicle in which you're traveling out of that list of tasks. Few people multi-task well, especially when driving.
The theory behind driverless cars is that once the driver is removed from the driving equation, automobiles will automatically become an incredibly safe mode of transportation. With the key word being "automatically." Technology continues to provide amazing advancements in a robot's ability to sense motion, speed, the proximity of other objects, and infinite adjustments to calculations monitoring all of these variables in real time. If the basic premise of "autopilot" that airplanes have featured for decades can now be extrapolated to the comparatively lowly car, what's stopping us, except more technology?
In their push to accelerate development of the necessary technology, Nevada has already licensed driverless cars, and California did so this week. Google is testing some prototypes, along with other entrepreneurs hoping to get in on the ground floor of what a lot of people hope is the next big thing in transportation logistics.
After all, it won't be just passenger cars that can use driverless technology. Cargo vans and even 18-wheelers could theoretically deploy the same technology and remove the oft-maligned profession of truck driver from the employment pool. Not to mention our roadways.
It has been suggested that individual vehicle ownership itself could become anachronistic, as this new breed of cars becomes less an item for personal consumption, and more a generic mode of conveyance. Parking lots might become extinct, as people simply dial up a transportation pod from a local fleet, use it to get wherever they need to go, and when they disembark from that transportation pod, it becomes available for the next call.
Kind of like a driverless cab.
Perhaps the very components of cars that make them so heavy and dependent on fossil fuels would become obsolete, since each transportation pod, programmed as they'll be on the street grid, won't need crumple zones, bumpers, and reinforced doors. Traffic accidents will evaporate, claim experts, saving thousands of lives a year, and preventing thousands more injuries.
Remember, with driverless cars, computers do all of the driving, making split-second accommodations for varying traffic conditions that could otherwise cause a real person to make mistakes behind the wheel.
Yes, we'd probably still have traffic jams during rush hour, but they likely won't be as severe, since computers would be monitoring traffic flow, and there'd be no accidents to cause the traffic jams to begin with. There would be no fender-benders, since computers would keep safe distances from other vehicles. Nor would there be rubberneckers, gawking at accidents from the opposite side of a freeway, because first, there'd be no wrecks, and second, computers don't gawk at the misfortune of others. Computers don't get drunk, tired, or distracted, either. Neither do they speed.
See how so much of our modern life in post-industrial America would change with driverless cars? Probably no more car ads, since the cars would all perform basically the same. It would be more like a bunch of enclosed golf carts, differentiated only by whatever bling with which an individual owner - if there are people who'd still want to own their own transportation pod - would want to customize it. Hey, back when horse and buggies were a conventional mode of transport, there was little customization, so maybe what was old could become new again.
Many cities around the world today have implemented bike-share programs, where people can rent bicycles in different parts of the city, and ride them to their destination, where another bike rental facility would receive the bicycle, and another person can rent it for wherever they need to go. If parking lots don't become extinct, they'll likely become centralized rental depots for these transportation pods, kinda like today's car rental lots at airports.
Switching Gears
Yes, it all sounds rather weird, and would take some getting used to, but the savings in lives alone represents a hard benefit to downplay, doesn't it?
With all of the efficiencies and safety improvements we'll likely achieve with driverless cars, however, I see some significant drawbacks.
First, what will Government Motors (er, I mean - General Motors), Ford, and the other legacy car manufacturers have to say about this transportation transformation? It's unlikely that driverless cars will be able to retain the aura and intrigue of what's become a conventional aspect of car ownership - each model's driveability. If it doesn't matter how quickly a car can accelerate or stop, or maneuver out of a dangerous situation, who's going to buy one simply for the hood ornament or nameplate?
The loss of the driving aesthetic is potentially the greatest liability for driverless cars, since by their very description, the reason most customers are willing to pay what they are for the cars they buy has to do with how they drive. If it doesn't matter how they drive, or what kind of safety features they have, then car manufacturers will pretty much be trying to push those glorified golf carts. After all, you can bet the government isn't going to be crazy about allowing driverless cars to travel very fast - they'll be more interested in the environmental value of reduced carbon emissions.
And speaking of speed, certain intangible conveniences will be lost with driverless cars. How many people speed to make up for lost time? In a driverless car, you can only go as fast as the government will physically let your car be programmed, and only on prescribed roadways. If you're running late, you likely won't have time to program off-the-cuff shortcuts into your transportation pod's GPS.
Also, remember that the speed at which your car travels is also the speed at which every occupant in the car is traveling. Therefore, just because you won't be driving, your car's computer will still need to compensate for the reaction time necessary in case it encounters, say, a dog running out into the street. If you're working on your laptop computer or drinking a cup of hot coffee, and not paying particular attention to the roadway being navigated by your car, you could suffer injuries inside its passenger compartment if your car is traveling too fast for emergency maneuvers.
What else is there? How about money, since many government entities count on speeding tickets for much-needed revenue. Road construction costs would remain the same, while undoubtedly, new technology would have to be purchased by transportation departments to help manage computerized traffic flow. Even though each transportation pod wouldn't need expensive safety features, somebody's going to have to pay for all of the new driverless technology, and you can bet its developers will be looking for a hefty ROI as well. If the passenger car looses its allure as a commodity, who - or what government agency - will purchase them?
Then there are emergency vehicles, such as fire engines, police cars, and ambulances, who will still need to navigate the same streets as driverless cars, but at greater speeds, and likely with less flexibility in terms of inputting GPS coordinates for the latest crisis environment. What about inclement weather? Will driverless cars need to crawl at a snail's pace just because they detect water, ice, or snow on the road surface, or will they be able to adjust for varying conditions being experienced not only by your vehicle, but other vehicles concurrently traversing different patches of slush, mud, and other hazards just another lane away from you?
Indeed, the scenarios and complications that need to be worked out before driverless cars become commonplace seem far more numerous than the benefits of driverless cars. It seems quite unlikely that I'll be having to face this drastic transportation - and cultural - revolution in my lifetime. Maybe that's why I can look at the benefits of driverless cars with such surprising sanguinity. I can appreciate the same things their ardent advocates appreciate, but I don't need to worry about having to fret through the details of making the switch myself.
Some people sometimes say change can't come soon enough. In this case, change seems to be coming soon enough to suit my tastes!
That's the kind of change I like.
_____
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Christ Got Into the Boat
22 Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24 but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. 25 During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear. 27 But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." 28 "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water." 29 "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" 31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" 32 And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. 33 Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God." Matthew 14:22-33
For the past two Sundays, my church's pastor has been preaching from Matthew 14 and the account of Christ and Peter walking on the water.
And while his sermons have explored lessons on how focusing on Christ can eliminate fear, and that we should worship Him for his wondrous acts on our behalf, some other elements of this famous event hit me this morning as I was pondering this same passage during my devotions.
Christ Chooses To Be With Us Despite Ourselves
I don't know about you, but I'm not on the mountaintop with Christ and His Father. I'm in the boat, anxious, along with His other disciples. I'm trying to figure out from which direction the wind is coming, and fretting about being blown off-course.
Maybe you're up on the mountaintop with Christ, in a sublime fellowship with God that sets everything else around you into a confident perspective. Enjoy it, because even Christ's time up there didn't last for long.
Eventually, Christ comes to His disciples in the boat, tossed about by the waves. He walks on water, both literally, and perhaps even figuratively, since He'd just left the immediate presence of His Father, our God. What a dose of reality that must have been for Jesus, having to leave the mountaintop - again, both literally and figuratively - and resume His association with such a rag-tag band of mortal followers.
No titans of industry, no heads of state, no engineering geniuses, no entertaining celebrities. Christ's disciples were ordinary, politically disenfranchised, and of modest economic means. It seems Peter was the only one to provide the entertainment, only whenever he did, it was entirely unintentional.
And probably only really funny to us, reading the Bible's accounts of his bumblings with the benefit of millennia of hindsight.
Speaking of entertainment, isn't it almost laughable for the disciples to initially wonder if the apparition they see on the water is a ghost? Had the wind and choppy water made them that afraid? They'd only been deprived of Christ's physical presence for perhaps a matter of hours, and after some pretty spectacular miracles, too. It was so easy for them to forget that He had just fed thousands of people with five loaves and two fishes. Why wouldn't he be able to walk on water? The psalmists say that seas obey Him, right? Yet short memories of Christ's power is so very typical of not just them, but us, too.
Isn't it?
Having Christ call out to reassure them, and having the mental picture of Peter - of course, it would be Peter - demand that Christ allow him to walk on water, too, can almost be anti-climactic. So often, we mortals assume the climax of this story is Peter's walking on water. But perhaps the climax actually is Christ getting in the boat with His followers.
Did He have to? How much of His earthly ministry depended on the disciples? None of it, right? Christ could have accomplished His work on Earth in any number of ways that wouldn't have required what must have been an arduous, demanding, oftentimes thankless job of teaching - and re-teaching - an ad-hoc group of tax collectors and fishermen. He'd just come from fellowshipping with His own father, and was likely forcefully reminded of what He was missing, working on Earth, instead of being with God in Heaven's glories.
Leaving Glory
Instead, He was climbing - literally and figuratively - back into that wooden boat, with that same group of forgetful, feeble, selfish, confused guys who mostly thought they were working for a new political kingdom for Israel. It's like His incarnation all over again.
Christ got back in the boat with us. But not to be "one of the guys." He didn't get back in the boat to hone His street cred as a savior-type dude. He got back in the boat, because as our Savior, He exudes love, and His disciples could do nothing else but immediately worship Him.
They didn't slap Him on the back and say, "boy, that was a cool trick! How did You do that?"
They were transfixed in awe and wonder, and likely, a good deal of shame at their obvious lack of faith and incredibly short memories.
And they were also undoubtedly greatly relieved and happy that He was back with them. Joyful, even.
Christ's love for them honored God, and modeled for both them then, and us today, one of the many reasons we have to worship Him.
He left God's glory and got in the boat with us.
_____
For the past two Sundays, my church's pastor has been preaching from Matthew 14 and the account of Christ and Peter walking on the water.
And while his sermons have explored lessons on how focusing on Christ can eliminate fear, and that we should worship Him for his wondrous acts on our behalf, some other elements of this famous event hit me this morning as I was pondering this same passage during my devotions.
- Jesus "made" the disciples get into the boat. It's as if He wanted to get rid of them for a while, like parents telling their children to go play outside. Why?
- Why? So He could fellowship with His Father. He went up on the mountain to talk with God, with Whom He shares a uniquely holy relationship as both God's Son, yet a fellow member of the Trinity.
- Christ stayed on the mountain with God for quite a while, likely enjoying their utterly profound interpersonal bonds; both paternal and spiritual.
- Meanwhile, what were His disciples doing? They were out in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, likely chatting amongst themselves about any number of things, from the miracles they had just witnessed, to Christ's shunting them off into the boat so He could be alone, to the wind that was battering their craft with increasing strength.
Christ Chooses To Be With Us Despite Ourselves
I don't know about you, but I'm not on the mountaintop with Christ and His Father. I'm in the boat, anxious, along with His other disciples. I'm trying to figure out from which direction the wind is coming, and fretting about being blown off-course.
Maybe you're up on the mountaintop with Christ, in a sublime fellowship with God that sets everything else around you into a confident perspective. Enjoy it, because even Christ's time up there didn't last for long.
Eventually, Christ comes to His disciples in the boat, tossed about by the waves. He walks on water, both literally, and perhaps even figuratively, since He'd just left the immediate presence of His Father, our God. What a dose of reality that must have been for Jesus, having to leave the mountaintop - again, both literally and figuratively - and resume His association with such a rag-tag band of mortal followers.
No titans of industry, no heads of state, no engineering geniuses, no entertaining celebrities. Christ's disciples were ordinary, politically disenfranchised, and of modest economic means. It seems Peter was the only one to provide the entertainment, only whenever he did, it was entirely unintentional.
And probably only really funny to us, reading the Bible's accounts of his bumblings with the benefit of millennia of hindsight.
Speaking of entertainment, isn't it almost laughable for the disciples to initially wonder if the apparition they see on the water is a ghost? Had the wind and choppy water made them that afraid? They'd only been deprived of Christ's physical presence for perhaps a matter of hours, and after some pretty spectacular miracles, too. It was so easy for them to forget that He had just fed thousands of people with five loaves and two fishes. Why wouldn't he be able to walk on water? The psalmists say that seas obey Him, right? Yet short memories of Christ's power is so very typical of not just them, but us, too.
Isn't it?
Having Christ call out to reassure them, and having the mental picture of Peter - of course, it would be Peter - demand that Christ allow him to walk on water, too, can almost be anti-climactic. So often, we mortals assume the climax of this story is Peter's walking on water. But perhaps the climax actually is Christ getting in the boat with His followers.
Did He have to? How much of His earthly ministry depended on the disciples? None of it, right? Christ could have accomplished His work on Earth in any number of ways that wouldn't have required what must have been an arduous, demanding, oftentimes thankless job of teaching - and re-teaching - an ad-hoc group of tax collectors and fishermen. He'd just come from fellowshipping with His own father, and was likely forcefully reminded of what He was missing, working on Earth, instead of being with God in Heaven's glories.
Leaving Glory
Instead, He was climbing - literally and figuratively - back into that wooden boat, with that same group of forgetful, feeble, selfish, confused guys who mostly thought they were working for a new political kingdom for Israel. It's like His incarnation all over again.
Christ got back in the boat with us. But not to be "one of the guys." He didn't get back in the boat to hone His street cred as a savior-type dude. He got back in the boat, because as our Savior, He exudes love, and His disciples could do nothing else but immediately worship Him.
They didn't slap Him on the back and say, "boy, that was a cool trick! How did You do that?"
They were transfixed in awe and wonder, and likely, a good deal of shame at their obvious lack of faith and incredibly short memories.
And they were also undoubtedly greatly relieved and happy that He was back with them. Joyful, even.
Christ's love for them honored God, and modeled for both them then, and us today, one of the many reasons we have to worship Him.
He left God's glory and got in the boat with us.
_____
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Can Karma Be All About Looks?
I just saw my first Fisker.
A Fisker Karma. Silver. With a black glass roof lined with metallic circuitry.
This Karma Ain't No Chameleon
Fisker Karma is a brand-new hybrid luxury sedan that can get up to 52 mpg, despite its sprawling dimensions. I saw my first Fisker today while gazing out a third-floor window in none other than Arlington, Texas, a city better known for sports and chain restaurants than exotic automobiles.
Who knows - the driver may have been a sports celebrity. He was a fairly short, muscular white guy with a thick head of black hair. I watched as he pulled into a bank's narrow parking lot, and found his Fisker was too wide to fit between a poorly-parked black pickup truck and an idling armored truck. The driver waited for a while, and then got out of his car (that's how I know how tall he was), motioning for the driver of the armored truck to move up just a few feet. But the driver in his burly rig just stared at him.
Was that karma, maybe?
Finally, the Fisker guy got back into his swanky ride, backed away, and drove off. Since I was up high, I could see him soon coming around the back way into the bank's drive-through area.
Maybe he had to make a deposit to cover his first month's payment.
We have a hazy sky here in north Texas this afternoon, but still plenty of sun to keep the solar cells built into the Fisker's roof drinking up the energy rays. That's why, from above, the car's roof looks like a sleek circuit board hovering over the passenger compartment.
Developed for around $1 billion by a team of automotive and ecological engineers headed by Danish designer Henrik Fisker, the Karma represents the leading edge of a brave new world of ultra-luxury low-emissions vehicles. At least, if you view hybrids and all-electric cars apart from the coal and gas-powered factories powering the massive electric plants essential for this new automotive technology. We may all be fooling ourselves that "green" cars are really helping to save our planet, considering that somewhere along the way, fossil fuels still play a huge role in how they operate. But if the ride into our environmental fantasy is going to be in cars like the Fisker, we'll at least be stylin' our way around the proverbial bush.
Immediately, looking out the window from my perch, I could tell this was a different car, even before I could recall it's name. Fisker is brand-new to the automotive world, completely separate from the Big Three and any foreign legacy car makers, except for its GM-produced engines that power each car's generator. Its fluid, sexy styling invokes flashbacks to the Jaguars of old, and comparisons to today's Aston Martin Rapide - at twice the price - or maybe a late-model Maserati Quattroporte. In any event, these are all relatively rare cars, even in the exotic environs of haughty north Dallas, where elite nameplates seem to breed in valet parking lots.
Earlier today, I was chided by a reader of an essay of mine about Mitt Romney and his $250 million fortune. My reader thought I sounded jealous of Romney's wealth, which seems to be the typical reaction these days from conservatives who think pointing out millions of dollars in assets is akin to class warfare.
Chill, people! Who's the one who preaches on this blog that it's the love of money that's the root of evil, not money itself? Like many things, money is relative, and I only wish I had a relative with lots of it! Okay, bad jokes aside, as long as anybody with money - whether it be somebody working a minimum-wage job or somebody with Warren Buffett wealth - tithes the portion of that money God directs them to, how they spend what's left over is more a matter of being responsible to God than being restricted by Him.
And "being responsible" is laden with cultural variables.
In the United States, spending $25,000 for an automobile is considered relatively normal and prudent, and hardly extravagant. But in India or Bangladesh, spending that amount of money would be seen as absurd by most of the populace that barely earns that amount in their entire lifetime. Meanwhile, spending $100,000 on a car like the Fisker is low-balling it, at least in the orbits of New York City's hedge fund titans, or the technology wonks out in Silicon Valley.
What Effect is This Cause Having?
Maybe it's because I've always had a weakness for cars, but if somebody can honestly afford to buy something like the Fisker, I say "congratulations, and enjoy it!" Having said that, if I personally had the money to buy one, I'm not sure I would. But not directly because of the cost. Being the cynic I tend to be, I'd be anxious about some crazy uninsured driver hitting it. And speaking of valet parking, I don't even let valet employees park my humble Honda Accord anymore, after one of them scuffed the bumper of my last Honda in the back lot of a Dallas restaurant.
It's also valid to point out that cars like the Fisker have a history of introducing new features and engineering to the broader, mass-consumption market. I'm not crazy about professional car racing, but I can't deny that many of the safety standards and equipment we drivers and passengers enjoy today have come from NASCAR and other real-world racing venues. Who knows yet the amount of technology Fisker and other new hybrid car manufacturers are pioneering that could make ordinary cars more environmentally-friendly in the future? Indeed, a lot is riding on cars like Fisker's in more ways that one. The fight over hybrid technology is so fierce these days, one of Fisker's competitors, Tesla, alleged in a lawsuit that Fisker had stolen some of its secrets.
As new as this technology may be, however, at least one part of the Fisker story seems to smell of the same old bad politics that have corrupted other environmental projects. Fisker won half a billion dollars in guaranteed loans from our federal government, like the now-defunct Solyndra did. Fisker also received $193 million in taxpayer-funded incentives to provide "green" jobs, even though the Obama administration knew Fisker is building these Karmas in Finland, of all places. A mothballed GM plant Fisker purchased at a government fire sale will ostensibly be used for future cars in Fisker's pipeline.
That is, if Fisker can hold out that long. Within weeks of its debut last fall, Fisker had to issue a recall, and has issued two more since then. At least one fire has been definitively linked with their vehicles, and another fire may have been. Such numbers wouldn't mean much for a mass-market vehicle, but Fisker has only sold a few thousand of their Karmas so far.
Some people with $100,000 to spend on a vehicle might let the car's incredible looks overrule a more pedestrian logic, and indulge themselves with one. However, if you've earned that money yourself, you're probably also smart enough to consider your other, more time-tested options in this price class.
I spotted that gorgeous Fisker right away out of a parking lot full of cars, and a four-lane avenue teeming with traffic.
Maybe that kind of attention is still worth it to the guy who couldn't even get an armored truck to move a few feet out of his way.
_____
A Fisker Karma. Silver. With a black glass roof lined with metallic circuitry.
This Karma Ain't No Chameleon
Fisker Karma is a brand-new hybrid luxury sedan that can get up to 52 mpg, despite its sprawling dimensions. I saw my first Fisker today while gazing out a third-floor window in none other than Arlington, Texas, a city better known for sports and chain restaurants than exotic automobiles.
Who knows - the driver may have been a sports celebrity. He was a fairly short, muscular white guy with a thick head of black hair. I watched as he pulled into a bank's narrow parking lot, and found his Fisker was too wide to fit between a poorly-parked black pickup truck and an idling armored truck. The driver waited for a while, and then got out of his car (that's how I know how tall he was), motioning for the driver of the armored truck to move up just a few feet. But the driver in his burly rig just stared at him.
Was that karma, maybe?
Finally, the Fisker guy got back into his swanky ride, backed away, and drove off. Since I was up high, I could see him soon coming around the back way into the bank's drive-through area.
Maybe he had to make a deposit to cover his first month's payment.
We have a hazy sky here in north Texas this afternoon, but still plenty of sun to keep the solar cells built into the Fisker's roof drinking up the energy rays. That's why, from above, the car's roof looks like a sleek circuit board hovering over the passenger compartment.
Developed for around $1 billion by a team of automotive and ecological engineers headed by Danish designer Henrik Fisker, the Karma represents the leading edge of a brave new world of ultra-luxury low-emissions vehicles. At least, if you view hybrids and all-electric cars apart from the coal and gas-powered factories powering the massive electric plants essential for this new automotive technology. We may all be fooling ourselves that "green" cars are really helping to save our planet, considering that somewhere along the way, fossil fuels still play a huge role in how they operate. But if the ride into our environmental fantasy is going to be in cars like the Fisker, we'll at least be stylin' our way around the proverbial bush.
Immediately, looking out the window from my perch, I could tell this was a different car, even before I could recall it's name. Fisker is brand-new to the automotive world, completely separate from the Big Three and any foreign legacy car makers, except for its GM-produced engines that power each car's generator. Its fluid, sexy styling invokes flashbacks to the Jaguars of old, and comparisons to today's Aston Martin Rapide - at twice the price - or maybe a late-model Maserati Quattroporte. In any event, these are all relatively rare cars, even in the exotic environs of haughty north Dallas, where elite nameplates seem to breed in valet parking lots.
Earlier today, I was chided by a reader of an essay of mine about Mitt Romney and his $250 million fortune. My reader thought I sounded jealous of Romney's wealth, which seems to be the typical reaction these days from conservatives who think pointing out millions of dollars in assets is akin to class warfare.
Chill, people! Who's the one who preaches on this blog that it's the love of money that's the root of evil, not money itself? Like many things, money is relative, and I only wish I had a relative with lots of it! Okay, bad jokes aside, as long as anybody with money - whether it be somebody working a minimum-wage job or somebody with Warren Buffett wealth - tithes the portion of that money God directs them to, how they spend what's left over is more a matter of being responsible to God than being restricted by Him.
And "being responsible" is laden with cultural variables.
In the United States, spending $25,000 for an automobile is considered relatively normal and prudent, and hardly extravagant. But in India or Bangladesh, spending that amount of money would be seen as absurd by most of the populace that barely earns that amount in their entire lifetime. Meanwhile, spending $100,000 on a car like the Fisker is low-balling it, at least in the orbits of New York City's hedge fund titans, or the technology wonks out in Silicon Valley.
What Effect is This Cause Having?
Maybe it's because I've always had a weakness for cars, but if somebody can honestly afford to buy something like the Fisker, I say "congratulations, and enjoy it!" Having said that, if I personally had the money to buy one, I'm not sure I would. But not directly because of the cost. Being the cynic I tend to be, I'd be anxious about some crazy uninsured driver hitting it. And speaking of valet parking, I don't even let valet employees park my humble Honda Accord anymore, after one of them scuffed the bumper of my last Honda in the back lot of a Dallas restaurant.
It's also valid to point out that cars like the Fisker have a history of introducing new features and engineering to the broader, mass-consumption market. I'm not crazy about professional car racing, but I can't deny that many of the safety standards and equipment we drivers and passengers enjoy today have come from NASCAR and other real-world racing venues. Who knows yet the amount of technology Fisker and other new hybrid car manufacturers are pioneering that could make ordinary cars more environmentally-friendly in the future? Indeed, a lot is riding on cars like Fisker's in more ways that one. The fight over hybrid technology is so fierce these days, one of Fisker's competitors, Tesla, alleged in a lawsuit that Fisker had stolen some of its secrets.
As new as this technology may be, however, at least one part of the Fisker story seems to smell of the same old bad politics that have corrupted other environmental projects. Fisker won half a billion dollars in guaranteed loans from our federal government, like the now-defunct Solyndra did. Fisker also received $193 million in taxpayer-funded incentives to provide "green" jobs, even though the Obama administration knew Fisker is building these Karmas in Finland, of all places. A mothballed GM plant Fisker purchased at a government fire sale will ostensibly be used for future cars in Fisker's pipeline.
That is, if Fisker can hold out that long. Within weeks of its debut last fall, Fisker had to issue a recall, and has issued two more since then. At least one fire has been definitively linked with their vehicles, and another fire may have been. Such numbers wouldn't mean much for a mass-market vehicle, but Fisker has only sold a few thousand of their Karmas so far.
Some people with $100,000 to spend on a vehicle might let the car's incredible looks overrule a more pedestrian logic, and indulge themselves with one. However, if you've earned that money yourself, you're probably also smart enough to consider your other, more time-tested options in this price class.
I spotted that gorgeous Fisker right away out of a parking lot full of cars, and a four-lane avenue teeming with traffic.
Maybe that kind of attention is still worth it to the guy who couldn't even get an armored truck to move a few feet out of his way.
_____
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
What Might They Say About You?
Some friends of mine who live in Europe recently told me a story.
They once shared a meal with some friends of theirs: the husband a Frenchman, the wife a product of the former East Germany when it was under communist rule.
The wife who'd grown up in East Germany recounted how several years ago, her mother, who still lives in what's now a united Germany, received something completely unfamiliar to us Westerners. She was given the file kept on her by the Staatssicherheit, or Stasi, which was East Germany's secret police. While she was growing up, the wife knew her family was under suspicion because they would receive packages of things as harmless as denim jeans from family members living in the democratic, capitalistic west. Such deliveries were major red flags for government agents trying to repress its citizenry.
Who knew blue jeans were subversive?
To try and avoid any further trouble with the Stasi, the wife's family stopped going to church, a custom widely known to invite friction with East Germany's government-sanctioned thugs. After all, they couldn't really communicate to their free relatives how even something as ubiquitous as jeans could jeopardize their safety under communist rule. At least, they rationalized, they could try to reduce their visibility by dropping church attendance from their list of activities which would be considered objectionable.
It doesn't seem the family was ever really harassed by the Stasi, but in the file this family's matriarch received after the Berlin Wall's fall, it wasn't for lack of evidence. Turns out, close acquaintances, co-workers, and neighbors had all turned in the family to the Stasi for various things. As you can imagine, the family was shocked more by the familiar names they saw in the file, not particularly what activities and habits those back-stabbers shared with the Stasi.
Apparently, too, this family had never thought to report these same friends to the secret police.
It has been estimated that approximately one in 63 East Germans collaborated with the Stasi, which is one of history's most impressive records of manipulation by a nation's secret police. During its reign, the Staatssicherheit employed over a quarter-million people in various capacities; one soccer club alone had 18 agents.
In 1992, after German unification, the security organization's files were opened to the public for the first time. As government researchers, ordinary citizens, and journalists went on the hunt for Stasi criminals, they soon discovered that much of the most incriminating evidence necessary to produce convictions in a court of law had been shredded or otherwise destroyed. Indeed, the process for literally piecing together these paper trails - estimated at 45 million documents - has been arduous and time-consuming. So far, only two former Stasi officers have been convicted of any crime from their years of torturing suspects, covering up state accidents, executing dissidents, and whatever else secret police officers do in the line of nefarious duty.
We take for granted the fact that here in the United States, stuff like this is something we hardly ever need to think about. But do you know at least 63 people? How many Facebook friends do you have? How many people work for your employer? How many people live in your apartment building, or in your suburban neighborhood?
In East Germany, remember, at least one in 63 people would be spying on you!
Here's another question: If our CIA was recruiting informants to turn in evangelical Christians, believers in Christ whose primary allegiance was to God, not our president or any particular political party, who might turn you in?
You may be familiar with the time-worn question, "if you were on trial for your faith, would there be enough evidence to convict you?" In a way, though, that's a fairly benign question, isn't it? In a way, the personal nature of your faith is removed from how your faith may or may not impact the lives of people around you.
But what about those people around you; the people you know, with whom you work and associate? The people who live next-door to you? What might they say about you and how you live your faith?
What might a secret police organization's dossier on you look like?
_____
They once shared a meal with some friends of theirs: the husband a Frenchman, the wife a product of the former East Germany when it was under communist rule.
The wife who'd grown up in East Germany recounted how several years ago, her mother, who still lives in what's now a united Germany, received something completely unfamiliar to us Westerners. She was given the file kept on her by the Staatssicherheit, or Stasi, which was East Germany's secret police. While she was growing up, the wife knew her family was under suspicion because they would receive packages of things as harmless as denim jeans from family members living in the democratic, capitalistic west. Such deliveries were major red flags for government agents trying to repress its citizenry.
Who knew blue jeans were subversive?
To try and avoid any further trouble with the Stasi, the wife's family stopped going to church, a custom widely known to invite friction with East Germany's government-sanctioned thugs. After all, they couldn't really communicate to their free relatives how even something as ubiquitous as jeans could jeopardize their safety under communist rule. At least, they rationalized, they could try to reduce their visibility by dropping church attendance from their list of activities which would be considered objectionable.
It doesn't seem the family was ever really harassed by the Stasi, but in the file this family's matriarch received after the Berlin Wall's fall, it wasn't for lack of evidence. Turns out, close acquaintances, co-workers, and neighbors had all turned in the family to the Stasi for various things. As you can imagine, the family was shocked more by the familiar names they saw in the file, not particularly what activities and habits those back-stabbers shared with the Stasi.
Apparently, too, this family had never thought to report these same friends to the secret police.
It has been estimated that approximately one in 63 East Germans collaborated with the Stasi, which is one of history's most impressive records of manipulation by a nation's secret police. During its reign, the Staatssicherheit employed over a quarter-million people in various capacities; one soccer club alone had 18 agents.
In 1992, after German unification, the security organization's files were opened to the public for the first time. As government researchers, ordinary citizens, and journalists went on the hunt for Stasi criminals, they soon discovered that much of the most incriminating evidence necessary to produce convictions in a court of law had been shredded or otherwise destroyed. Indeed, the process for literally piecing together these paper trails - estimated at 45 million documents - has been arduous and time-consuming. So far, only two former Stasi officers have been convicted of any crime from their years of torturing suspects, covering up state accidents, executing dissidents, and whatever else secret police officers do in the line of nefarious duty.
We take for granted the fact that here in the United States, stuff like this is something we hardly ever need to think about. But do you know at least 63 people? How many Facebook friends do you have? How many people work for your employer? How many people live in your apartment building, or in your suburban neighborhood?
In East Germany, remember, at least one in 63 people would be spying on you!
Here's another question: If our CIA was recruiting informants to turn in evangelical Christians, believers in Christ whose primary allegiance was to God, not our president or any particular political party, who might turn you in?
You may be familiar with the time-worn question, "if you were on trial for your faith, would there be enough evidence to convict you?" In a way, though, that's a fairly benign question, isn't it? In a way, the personal nature of your faith is removed from how your faith may or may not impact the lives of people around you.
But what about those people around you; the people you know, with whom you work and associate? The people who live next-door to you? What might they say about you and how you live your faith?
What might a secret police organization's dossier on you look like?
_____
Friday, September 7, 2012
Long Life's Dear Cost
Living a long life used to be a good thing.
And if you're healthy, right up to the end, it may still be.
But for an increasing number of Americans, old age is not the good thing we've been led to believe. The Lord has blessed our doctors, scientists, and other medical experts with incredible insight into how the bodies He created function, and that insight has led to some amazing advancements in healthcare, which have helped to lengthen lifespans.
Long life, remember, used to be considered a good thing worth striving towards.
In Biblical times, long life wasn't 80 years, or 100, but several hundred years. We still don't know how the same human bones and flesh they had back then could last so much longer than ours does today. Or, for that matter, what the quality of life was for those folks when they hit the 300-year mark. Survival then was much tougher than it is today, which makes one wonder whether back-breaking labor might actually better for us than sitting at computer screens all day long.
We've just finished the last of our national political conventions, and today, the race for President of the United States goes into overdrive. One of the key topics up for debate centers on how our country plans to care for its rapidly-aging population, including ideas for revising Medicare and, even more importantly, Medicaid. Medicaid, after all, is what many middle-class families currently rely upon to fund the oftentimes exorbitant costs of long-term care for their loved ones.
Whether you're for vouchers, reducing the role of the federal government in healthcare generally and elder care specifically, or increasing Washington's role in determining and allocating funds for such care, we need to remember that funding elder care is not an abstract problem. It's happening now. Baby boomers pose a significant threat to the financial integrity of American families, charities, and the government, from the local to the state and federal levels. And care isn't getting any cheaper.
Who Can Save Enough to Pay for Long Term Care?
It may be easy for all of the young fresh faces and voices of America's contemporary media, including blogs and political action groups, to view elder care as a cost-savings opportunity. Letting policy shapers speak from lack of experience has become a dangerous trend in our country. Speaking as a member of a family that has already begun the slow, expensive process of long-term elder care, however, I see this issue differently. The loved ones in my family who need specialized attention have worked their entire lives in honorable yet modestly-paying jobs. The kind of jobs most people have that, although ordinary, helped them afford decent homes and a few luxuries. They've retired mortgage-free and credit-card-debt-free. With savings. So why should they worry about paying for their own care, right?
Sure, some right-wing Republicans might grouse that my family's loved ones should have striven to become independently wealthy, so they would know they could afford any healthcare contingency. Meanwhile, any serious student of economics knows that not everybody can be a One Percenter. Or even a Twenty Percenter. My family's loved ones played the career and personal finance games as well as many other Americans have been able to. Along the way, however, the retirement goalposts got moved. And even if they'd earned twice what they did during their careers, it wouldn't be enough to pay for modern long-term care.
Hopefully, most rational conservatives can agree with many rational liberals, and recognize that personally funding retirement care these days requires much more than conventional savings and healthcare insurance, and experts differ as to whether long-term-care insurance is worth its steep cost. Double the quandary when both spouses live into ripe old age. Stories about running out of money, particularly because we're living longer than past generations, are incredibly frequent. Even most long-term-care insurance policies cover only three years of care, while patients may live much longer. Only an ignorant person would claim that any American worth their citizenship should be able to save up the money they'll need to pay for their own elder care, or hope three year's worth of expensive insurance provides enough protection.
Indeed, if there's one great equalizer in American society, it's elder care, because even if you've earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement assets, you can burn through it quickly if you're not healthy. And it strikes me as being a bit hypocritical of politicians - of all people - to be dictating how and what types of care should or shouldn't be funded anyway. After all, many of them benefit from a federal healthcare program the rest of us Americans can only dream about.
Being Responsible for What God Expects of Us
People of faith, particularly those on the far-right side of the aisle who normally eschew anything that drains taxpayer dollars, need to remember that the Bible is explicit and repetitive on our mandate to care for the widows and needy among us.
If that means cutting back in other programs so that we can honor our elders by paying for the care they require, shouldn't we?
Of course, if that means cutting waste in the elder care programs we already have, shouldn't we?
Should it mean that family members currently working and trying to pay for their own retirement be forced to quit their jobs to perform the care for which our politicians don't want to pay?
Should it mean our pharmaceutical industry gets to set their prices for medications required to sustain life? Or that nursing care providers and healthcare plan administrators get to inflate the costs of elder care by setting their own payment guidelines?
Where should the line be drawn between profit motive and pure greed when it comes to elder care?
Where should the line be drawn between our personal preference for low taxes and our ability to help out our fellow families grappling with elder care costs? Granted, having the federal government administer elder care may not be the best approach. The rules government bureaucrats and politicians concoct - particularly at the federal level - have a bad history of being woefully counterproductive. Right now, Medicaid is run by individual states, and paid for by each state with matching funds from the federal government. Technically, states can opt out of Medicaid, since their participation is voluntary. So far, however, even though some states call their Medicaid program by a different name, all fifty states participate.
President Obama would like to expand Medicaid by broadening patient eligibility standards. He says Obamacare will provide states more federal funds, but states will have to contribute more themselves, too, causing some to balk. After all, whether we're talking state or federal funds, it's all still taxpayer dollars, so Obamacare doesn't really appear to be solving anything in terms of Medicaid. Subtly expanding federal control over what has traditionally been a state-run program - which is what increasing federal participation would effectively do - doesn't sit well with conservatives, either.
Don't forget that Medicaid doesn't just pay for elder care. It, along with Medicare, pays for a variety of healthcare costs for a variety of segments of our population. When it comes to paying for elder care, however, it's usually Medicaid that taxpayers rely upon to cover the gaping cost gaps. Unless somebody can come up with a better idea.
You've Aged Just Reading This
Fortunately, the recent trend towards home health care is helping to reduce some costs, and fast-paced advancements in the treatment of cancers and dementia may help provide cures to help senior citizens lead less dependent retirements. But it's all still expensive.
A lot may hinge on what happens to Obamacare after this November's election. Right now, depending on who you talk to, Obamacare is either lowering costs, or simply reducing the number of allowable medical procedures. It's very difficult to parse the hype and rhetoric from reality. Considering the resources required to provide the care you would expect for yourself or your parents, however, can we afford to spurn greater federal involvement in elder care? If states opt out and lose federal funds, can our churches and community charities keep up with the growing demand? Would you want your family to be one of the ones to find out?
Not that the government is the only hope for elder care. But how realistic are we being by playing political gamesmanship with the needs of our aging population? After all, even if we find ways to better manage elder care, and I hope we do, the demand for it won't go away. None of us are getting any younger.
And we can't all hope to be the exception, and either earn enough or stay healthy enough to avoid the elder care cost crisis.
One of the blessings God offers His people in the Bible is long life.
How much of a blessing might long life really be?
_____
And if you're healthy, right up to the end, it may still be.
But for an increasing number of Americans, old age is not the good thing we've been led to believe. The Lord has blessed our doctors, scientists, and other medical experts with incredible insight into how the bodies He created function, and that insight has led to some amazing advancements in healthcare, which have helped to lengthen lifespans.
Long life, remember, used to be considered a good thing worth striving towards.
In Biblical times, long life wasn't 80 years, or 100, but several hundred years. We still don't know how the same human bones and flesh they had back then could last so much longer than ours does today. Or, for that matter, what the quality of life was for those folks when they hit the 300-year mark. Survival then was much tougher than it is today, which makes one wonder whether back-breaking labor might actually better for us than sitting at computer screens all day long.
We've just finished the last of our national political conventions, and today, the race for President of the United States goes into overdrive. One of the key topics up for debate centers on how our country plans to care for its rapidly-aging population, including ideas for revising Medicare and, even more importantly, Medicaid. Medicaid, after all, is what many middle-class families currently rely upon to fund the oftentimes exorbitant costs of long-term care for their loved ones.
Whether you're for vouchers, reducing the role of the federal government in healthcare generally and elder care specifically, or increasing Washington's role in determining and allocating funds for such care, we need to remember that funding elder care is not an abstract problem. It's happening now. Baby boomers pose a significant threat to the financial integrity of American families, charities, and the government, from the local to the state and federal levels. And care isn't getting any cheaper.
Who Can Save Enough to Pay for Long Term Care?
It may be easy for all of the young fresh faces and voices of America's contemporary media, including blogs and political action groups, to view elder care as a cost-savings opportunity. Letting policy shapers speak from lack of experience has become a dangerous trend in our country. Speaking as a member of a family that has already begun the slow, expensive process of long-term elder care, however, I see this issue differently. The loved ones in my family who need specialized attention have worked their entire lives in honorable yet modestly-paying jobs. The kind of jobs most people have that, although ordinary, helped them afford decent homes and a few luxuries. They've retired mortgage-free and credit-card-debt-free. With savings. So why should they worry about paying for their own care, right?
Sure, some right-wing Republicans might grouse that my family's loved ones should have striven to become independently wealthy, so they would know they could afford any healthcare contingency. Meanwhile, any serious student of economics knows that not everybody can be a One Percenter. Or even a Twenty Percenter. My family's loved ones played the career and personal finance games as well as many other Americans have been able to. Along the way, however, the retirement goalposts got moved. And even if they'd earned twice what they did during their careers, it wouldn't be enough to pay for modern long-term care.
Hopefully, most rational conservatives can agree with many rational liberals, and recognize that personally funding retirement care these days requires much more than conventional savings and healthcare insurance, and experts differ as to whether long-term-care insurance is worth its steep cost. Double the quandary when both spouses live into ripe old age. Stories about running out of money, particularly because we're living longer than past generations, are incredibly frequent. Even most long-term-care insurance policies cover only three years of care, while patients may live much longer. Only an ignorant person would claim that any American worth their citizenship should be able to save up the money they'll need to pay for their own elder care, or hope three year's worth of expensive insurance provides enough protection.
Indeed, if there's one great equalizer in American society, it's elder care, because even if you've earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement assets, you can burn through it quickly if you're not healthy. And it strikes me as being a bit hypocritical of politicians - of all people - to be dictating how and what types of care should or shouldn't be funded anyway. After all, many of them benefit from a federal healthcare program the rest of us Americans can only dream about.
Being Responsible for What God Expects of Us
People of faith, particularly those on the far-right side of the aisle who normally eschew anything that drains taxpayer dollars, need to remember that the Bible is explicit and repetitive on our mandate to care for the widows and needy among us.
If that means cutting back in other programs so that we can honor our elders by paying for the care they require, shouldn't we?
Of course, if that means cutting waste in the elder care programs we already have, shouldn't we?
Should it mean that family members currently working and trying to pay for their own retirement be forced to quit their jobs to perform the care for which our politicians don't want to pay?
Should it mean our pharmaceutical industry gets to set their prices for medications required to sustain life? Or that nursing care providers and healthcare plan administrators get to inflate the costs of elder care by setting their own payment guidelines?
Where should the line be drawn between profit motive and pure greed when it comes to elder care?
Where should the line be drawn between our personal preference for low taxes and our ability to help out our fellow families grappling with elder care costs? Granted, having the federal government administer elder care may not be the best approach. The rules government bureaucrats and politicians concoct - particularly at the federal level - have a bad history of being woefully counterproductive. Right now, Medicaid is run by individual states, and paid for by each state with matching funds from the federal government. Technically, states can opt out of Medicaid, since their participation is voluntary. So far, however, even though some states call their Medicaid program by a different name, all fifty states participate.
President Obama would like to expand Medicaid by broadening patient eligibility standards. He says Obamacare will provide states more federal funds, but states will have to contribute more themselves, too, causing some to balk. After all, whether we're talking state or federal funds, it's all still taxpayer dollars, so Obamacare doesn't really appear to be solving anything in terms of Medicaid. Subtly expanding federal control over what has traditionally been a state-run program - which is what increasing federal participation would effectively do - doesn't sit well with conservatives, either.
Don't forget that Medicaid doesn't just pay for elder care. It, along with Medicare, pays for a variety of healthcare costs for a variety of segments of our population. When it comes to paying for elder care, however, it's usually Medicaid that taxpayers rely upon to cover the gaping cost gaps. Unless somebody can come up with a better idea.
You've Aged Just Reading This
Fortunately, the recent trend towards home health care is helping to reduce some costs, and fast-paced advancements in the treatment of cancers and dementia may help provide cures to help senior citizens lead less dependent retirements. But it's all still expensive.
A lot may hinge on what happens to Obamacare after this November's election. Right now, depending on who you talk to, Obamacare is either lowering costs, or simply reducing the number of allowable medical procedures. It's very difficult to parse the hype and rhetoric from reality. Considering the resources required to provide the care you would expect for yourself or your parents, however, can we afford to spurn greater federal involvement in elder care? If states opt out and lose federal funds, can our churches and community charities keep up with the growing demand? Would you want your family to be one of the ones to find out?
Not that the government is the only hope for elder care. But how realistic are we being by playing political gamesmanship with the needs of our aging population? After all, even if we find ways to better manage elder care, and I hope we do, the demand for it won't go away. None of us are getting any younger.
And we can't all hope to be the exception, and either earn enough or stay healthy enough to avoid the elder care cost crisis.
One of the blessings God offers His people in the Bible is long life.
How much of a blessing might long life really be?
_____
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Maybe Taxpayers Can Save Art From Itself
Should taxpayers help fund the arts?
I used to think so, since in our increasingly casual society, the rigors and disciplines of art appreciation have gone into free-fall. Despite the fact that cultural events help broaden the mind and speak to extraordinary beauty and creativity, pop culture teaches that if it isn't loud, obnoxious, transient, titillating, or easily-understood, it's not worth the money. If the general public doesn't want to shell out the bucks to fund culture, is that a good enough reason to let the arts die?
Where a community's taxpayers choose to put their money says a lot about their aspirations, their values, and their understanding of how humanity works. Leverage a surcharge on sales taxes to fund football stadiums for millionaires to play in, and you see one scenario of a community's values. Take a fraction of taxpayer funds to underwrite a modestly successful symphony, and you see one scenario of another community's values. If your community has the will and resources to do both with tax dollars, there's yet another scenario of that community's values.
If taxpayers individually don't care about the arts, maybe collectively, they can still keep them around for those who do.
Taxpayers as Arts Patrons
But over the past few years, America's cultural scene - particularly in classical music - has been slowly shrinking past the break-even level in many cities across the country. Sure, classical music has been cursed with declining popularity for decades, but in many of the communities that had been able to cobble together a budget for their orchestra, philharmonic, or symphony, economic fortunes have waned, along with populations. And one by one, classical music organizations have been closing up shop.
Inevitably, before the last encore, arts patrons have tried to rally their communities for one last push to increase municipal arts funding. But those communities have either decided the money isn't there even if they wanted to divert it to the arts, or they just didn't have the political will. It's hard to argue for something that the vast majority of taxpayers don't want.
Which is one of the reasons I've changed my mind about taxpayer funding for the arts. Yes, I still believe a thriving cultural scene provides an attractive resource that helps sell the community as a place with a high quality of life. All the things arts boosters say about the arts still ring true: corporate relocations tend to go where the arts are present; and our burgeoning "creative class" tends to cluster in places where the arts are well-funded. The arts also provide a wide range of eclectic jobs that don't pay much, but help fill in some of the nooks and crannies of a city's skills set.
If we're going to get serious about our government budgets, however, and reform tax codes to benefit our economy, few sacred cows should remain. Therefore, even though I'm a strong supporter of the arts in general and classical music in particular, I've come to the realization that I cannot expect my fellow taxpayers to help foot the bill for something they simply don't want. Even if they don't recognize the inherent value in the arts.
When my city, Arlington, Texas, voted to raise the sales tax to help fund part of the new Dallas Cowboys' stadium here in town, I grudgingly voted in support of the proposal. Not because I enjoy football, or because I looked forward to having a bunch of drunken louts trying to plow through our city streets after games trying to find their way home. I simply couldn't avoid the economic benefit such a facility would bring to our community. Some people groused that billionaires like the Cowboys' owner, Jerry Jones, had no business asking taxpayers to fund his enterprise, which is 100% true, but if Arlington didn't cough up the sales tax receipts, some other city would have. That funding scam is bigger than us Arlington voters.
Behold What Oil Money Can Buy
According to its city's slogan, the west begins just to the west of Arlington in Fort Worth, that fabled cattle and oil town. "Fut Wuth," or "Far Warth" as the natives say it in either their southern drawl or western brogue, has evolved from a raucous, brothel-strewn cowboy drinkin' town - whose downtown used to be called "Hell's half acre" - into a sophisticated sprawl of glassy office towers, wide boulevards, genteel neighborhoods, and some of the world's best art and architecture. Most of the city's modern transformation has been paid for by generations of beef, oil, leatherwear, aviation, and even technology money. The Amon Carter, Sid Richardson, Science and History, Kimbel, and Modern Art museums are known around the world. Casa Manana attracts famous entertainers from New York and Hollywood. Downtown's angelic Bass Hall hosts a decent symphony, even if it's not as famous as Dallas', just 30 minutes down the freeway. Eminent classical pianist Van Cliburn retired to Fort Worth, where his quadrennial piano competition is considered the most elite of its kind on the planet. Indeed, few cities of any size can boast a similar cultural pedigree.
Recent budget talks have the city gutting its percentage of funding to Fort Worth's prized cultural scene, however, and some arts patrons have gotten all up in arms. Fort Worth has been cutting its spending on the arts for years, but with this new reduction, they might as well not be giving anything.
And maybe that's just as well.
If you don't live around these parts, you might not realize that most of our cultural icons are named as legacies for prominent Fort Worth families, such as the Carters, Richardsons, Kimbels, Basses, and so forth. Plenty of heirs to these names exist with their family fortunes and then some. I doubt that many of these people would welcome their family's name falling into disrepute, were their artistic endeavors to go underfunded. It was self-aggrandizement that got these facilities built, and it will likely be self-aggrandizement that will keep their budgets afloat. Isn't that part of how capitalism works? Especially the tax write-off part every April 15?
The symphony, of course, is a little different, since such ventures employ a considerable number of people, and playing to a half-empty concert hall is far more discouraging - and harder to hide - than having half-empty galleries in a museum. It's been commented by many classical musicians that here in north Texas, we have an extraordinarily rare number of symphonies and orchestras - up to five, depending on your artistic standards. I certainly don't wish ill of any of them, but just as we have a number orchestras, we also are blessed in north Texas by many wealthy people who should be able to afford to step into the funding breach were tax dollars removed from the equation.
Not that I'm heaping all the responsibility for saving the arts on the backs of the wealthy, even though, "to whom much is given, much is required." I'm well aware that money can't buy good taste, or an appreciation for beautiful music and good art. So expecting the rich to bail out the arts might enable some woefully unqualified people to begin dictating artistic goals just because they're signing the checks.
How would that help anything?
At some point, then, more middle-and lower-income people need to be brought back into the art-appreciation fold. More people buying more tickets will be one of the most sustainable and efficient ways to fund the arts, right? But how do we do that? Many arts organizations are already bending over backwards trying to attract more patrons of any economic level.
Is Pleasing the Public Bad for Art?
One solution I'd respectfully suggest is that we get back to the basics regarding what art is. And this is the second reason I support the withdrawal of public funds from the arts. Maybe a certain amount of good old American consumer economics is in order to help save our cultural jewels. For example, some of the classical music I've heard at our local symphony halls really isn't all that interesting, and I say that as a person who likes classical music. If I don't care for it, how much do you think average music consumers would pay to hear it?
Probably not anything, right? So how much of a cultural shell might our tax dollars be disguising?
I realize that within the arts community, playing pieces of music that aren't necessary popular increases the professional credibility of musicians and orchestras. But how much ego should you let get in the way of communicating timeless music to audiences? I recall attending a pipe organ competition at Dallas' Meyerson Symphony Center, and the music on the program was so awful, we audience members were literally being forced out of the concert hall in droves. The next day, organizers of the competition dismissively defended their program as obviously too avant garde for Dallas - which, considering their attitude, said more about them than us. If making a pipe organ shriek and blast like a malfunctioning ship's horn is considered good art, then you're the one with the problem, buddy. Not those of us expecting to hear beautiful music.
Just as classical music that's considered "modern" is one thing, so is modern art. Maybe I've already told you about another installation at the Modern Art museum that consisted of a white fluorescent light bulb.
Yup.
That's it - a fluorescent light bulb, turned on, and bolted at an angle on the wall. Shoot fire - if that's art, let's go to Home Depot - you'll go nuts!
If you weren't nuts already, that is: thinking a light bulb mounted on a wall suffices as art.
While I can see the statement the artist is attempting to make, it's hardly worth the price of a $7 ticket, is it? I mean, can you imagine Home Depot charging you money just to look at their inventory? It's this kind of - frankly - stupid claim of artistic integrity that has contributed to the general public's dismissive attitude about art. Granted, just as many people have a hard time appreciating Monet, so the general public's apathy is not entirely modern art's fault. Some people just don't know what they see, which is what some of you artsy types may be thinking about me and my rant about light bulbs.
Will getting back to genuinely artistic art be the cure-all for all of the budget woes in our cultural districts? Probably not entirely, no. But does expecting taxpayers to continue helping out with the bills make any more sense than some of this stuff we're supposed to call artwork? If tax dollars are removed from arts funding, how much will arts organizations be forced to return to the beauty most of us know can be found in more mainstream expressions of art? After all, is art many people can appreciate necessarily worse than art most of us think is ugly? To the extent that the general public disregards the arts, how much have they been pushed from the scene by arts snobs who still expect funding from the very people at which they sneer?
You might be surprised to hear me admit that despite some ludicrous examples, there are several genuinely clever and compelling pieces of art in Fort Worth's Modern. So I visit from time to time, checking out what have become something like old friends. On one of my visits, however, while walking through a gallery lined with ghastly paint dribbles evocative of Jackson Pollock in miniature, I overheard two ladies, perplexed, conversing with a young docent.
"Who decides this stuff is art?" one of the ladies asked with complete sincerity.
It took the docent so long to come up with some sort of reply, I was already in the next gallery before the reply came.
But I felt like stopping and saying, "the people gullible enough to pay for it."
_____
I used to think so, since in our increasingly casual society, the rigors and disciplines of art appreciation have gone into free-fall. Despite the fact that cultural events help broaden the mind and speak to extraordinary beauty and creativity, pop culture teaches that if it isn't loud, obnoxious, transient, titillating, or easily-understood, it's not worth the money. If the general public doesn't want to shell out the bucks to fund culture, is that a good enough reason to let the arts die?
Where a community's taxpayers choose to put their money says a lot about their aspirations, their values, and their understanding of how humanity works. Leverage a surcharge on sales taxes to fund football stadiums for millionaires to play in, and you see one scenario of a community's values. Take a fraction of taxpayer funds to underwrite a modestly successful symphony, and you see one scenario of another community's values. If your community has the will and resources to do both with tax dollars, there's yet another scenario of that community's values.
If taxpayers individually don't care about the arts, maybe collectively, they can still keep them around for those who do.
Taxpayers as Arts Patrons
But over the past few years, America's cultural scene - particularly in classical music - has been slowly shrinking past the break-even level in many cities across the country. Sure, classical music has been cursed with declining popularity for decades, but in many of the communities that had been able to cobble together a budget for their orchestra, philharmonic, or symphony, economic fortunes have waned, along with populations. And one by one, classical music organizations have been closing up shop.
Inevitably, before the last encore, arts patrons have tried to rally their communities for one last push to increase municipal arts funding. But those communities have either decided the money isn't there even if they wanted to divert it to the arts, or they just didn't have the political will. It's hard to argue for something that the vast majority of taxpayers don't want.
Which is one of the reasons I've changed my mind about taxpayer funding for the arts. Yes, I still believe a thriving cultural scene provides an attractive resource that helps sell the community as a place with a high quality of life. All the things arts boosters say about the arts still ring true: corporate relocations tend to go where the arts are present; and our burgeoning "creative class" tends to cluster in places where the arts are well-funded. The arts also provide a wide range of eclectic jobs that don't pay much, but help fill in some of the nooks and crannies of a city's skills set.
If we're going to get serious about our government budgets, however, and reform tax codes to benefit our economy, few sacred cows should remain. Therefore, even though I'm a strong supporter of the arts in general and classical music in particular, I've come to the realization that I cannot expect my fellow taxpayers to help foot the bill for something they simply don't want. Even if they don't recognize the inherent value in the arts.
When my city, Arlington, Texas, voted to raise the sales tax to help fund part of the new Dallas Cowboys' stadium here in town, I grudgingly voted in support of the proposal. Not because I enjoy football, or because I looked forward to having a bunch of drunken louts trying to plow through our city streets after games trying to find their way home. I simply couldn't avoid the economic benefit such a facility would bring to our community. Some people groused that billionaires like the Cowboys' owner, Jerry Jones, had no business asking taxpayers to fund his enterprise, which is 100% true, but if Arlington didn't cough up the sales tax receipts, some other city would have. That funding scam is bigger than us Arlington voters.
Behold What Oil Money Can Buy
According to its city's slogan, the west begins just to the west of Arlington in Fort Worth, that fabled cattle and oil town. "Fut Wuth," or "Far Warth" as the natives say it in either their southern drawl or western brogue, has evolved from a raucous, brothel-strewn cowboy drinkin' town - whose downtown used to be called "Hell's half acre" - into a sophisticated sprawl of glassy office towers, wide boulevards, genteel neighborhoods, and some of the world's best art and architecture. Most of the city's modern transformation has been paid for by generations of beef, oil, leatherwear, aviation, and even technology money. The Amon Carter, Sid Richardson, Science and History, Kimbel, and Modern Art museums are known around the world. Casa Manana attracts famous entertainers from New York and Hollywood. Downtown's angelic Bass Hall hosts a decent symphony, even if it's not as famous as Dallas', just 30 minutes down the freeway. Eminent classical pianist Van Cliburn retired to Fort Worth, where his quadrennial piano competition is considered the most elite of its kind on the planet. Indeed, few cities of any size can boast a similar cultural pedigree.
Recent budget talks have the city gutting its percentage of funding to Fort Worth's prized cultural scene, however, and some arts patrons have gotten all up in arms. Fort Worth has been cutting its spending on the arts for years, but with this new reduction, they might as well not be giving anything.
And maybe that's just as well.
If you don't live around these parts, you might not realize that most of our cultural icons are named as legacies for prominent Fort Worth families, such as the Carters, Richardsons, Kimbels, Basses, and so forth. Plenty of heirs to these names exist with their family fortunes and then some. I doubt that many of these people would welcome their family's name falling into disrepute, were their artistic endeavors to go underfunded. It was self-aggrandizement that got these facilities built, and it will likely be self-aggrandizement that will keep their budgets afloat. Isn't that part of how capitalism works? Especially the tax write-off part every April 15?
The symphony, of course, is a little different, since such ventures employ a considerable number of people, and playing to a half-empty concert hall is far more discouraging - and harder to hide - than having half-empty galleries in a museum. It's been commented by many classical musicians that here in north Texas, we have an extraordinarily rare number of symphonies and orchestras - up to five, depending on your artistic standards. I certainly don't wish ill of any of them, but just as we have a number orchestras, we also are blessed in north Texas by many wealthy people who should be able to afford to step into the funding breach were tax dollars removed from the equation.
Not that I'm heaping all the responsibility for saving the arts on the backs of the wealthy, even though, "to whom much is given, much is required." I'm well aware that money can't buy good taste, or an appreciation for beautiful music and good art. So expecting the rich to bail out the arts might enable some woefully unqualified people to begin dictating artistic goals just because they're signing the checks.
How would that help anything?
At some point, then, more middle-and lower-income people need to be brought back into the art-appreciation fold. More people buying more tickets will be one of the most sustainable and efficient ways to fund the arts, right? But how do we do that? Many arts organizations are already bending over backwards trying to attract more patrons of any economic level.
Is Pleasing the Public Bad for Art?
One solution I'd respectfully suggest is that we get back to the basics regarding what art is. And this is the second reason I support the withdrawal of public funds from the arts. Maybe a certain amount of good old American consumer economics is in order to help save our cultural jewels. For example, some of the classical music I've heard at our local symphony halls really isn't all that interesting, and I say that as a person who likes classical music. If I don't care for it, how much do you think average music consumers would pay to hear it?
Probably not anything, right? So how much of a cultural shell might our tax dollars be disguising?
I realize that within the arts community, playing pieces of music that aren't necessary popular increases the professional credibility of musicians and orchestras. But how much ego should you let get in the way of communicating timeless music to audiences? I recall attending a pipe organ competition at Dallas' Meyerson Symphony Center, and the music on the program was so awful, we audience members were literally being forced out of the concert hall in droves. The next day, organizers of the competition dismissively defended their program as obviously too avant garde for Dallas - which, considering their attitude, said more about them than us. If making a pipe organ shriek and blast like a malfunctioning ship's horn is considered good art, then you're the one with the problem, buddy. Not those of us expecting to hear beautiful music.
Just as classical music that's considered "modern" is one thing, so is modern art. Maybe I've already told you about another installation at the Modern Art museum that consisted of a white fluorescent light bulb.
Yup.
That's it - a fluorescent light bulb, turned on, and bolted at an angle on the wall. Shoot fire - if that's art, let's go to Home Depot - you'll go nuts!
If you weren't nuts already, that is: thinking a light bulb mounted on a wall suffices as art.
While I can see the statement the artist is attempting to make, it's hardly worth the price of a $7 ticket, is it? I mean, can you imagine Home Depot charging you money just to look at their inventory? It's this kind of - frankly - stupid claim of artistic integrity that has contributed to the general public's dismissive attitude about art. Granted, just as many people have a hard time appreciating Monet, so the general public's apathy is not entirely modern art's fault. Some people just don't know what they see, which is what some of you artsy types may be thinking about me and my rant about light bulbs.
Will getting back to genuinely artistic art be the cure-all for all of the budget woes in our cultural districts? Probably not entirely, no. But does expecting taxpayers to continue helping out with the bills make any more sense than some of this stuff we're supposed to call artwork? If tax dollars are removed from arts funding, how much will arts organizations be forced to return to the beauty most of us know can be found in more mainstream expressions of art? After all, is art many people can appreciate necessarily worse than art most of us think is ugly? To the extent that the general public disregards the arts, how much have they been pushed from the scene by arts snobs who still expect funding from the very people at which they sneer?
You might be surprised to hear me admit that despite some ludicrous examples, there are several genuinely clever and compelling pieces of art in Fort Worth's Modern. So I visit from time to time, checking out what have become something like old friends. On one of my visits, however, while walking through a gallery lined with ghastly paint dribbles evocative of Jackson Pollock in miniature, I overheard two ladies, perplexed, conversing with a young docent.
"Who decides this stuff is art?" one of the ladies asked with complete sincerity.
It took the docent so long to come up with some sort of reply, I was already in the next gallery before the reply came.
But I felt like stopping and saying, "the people gullible enough to pay for it."
_____
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Just a Little Bit More Than the Law Will Allow
And then there's this:
Last week, a state trooper in Bradley, Maine, pulled over Rosco P. Coltrane, fabled sheriff of television's Hazzard County.
Okay, so the Maine state trooper is real, but the driver he pulled over was a Maine civilian who collects memorabilia from the classic 1980's TV show, the Dukes of Hazzard. It wasn't the driver who was committing an offense, but the car he was driving - a white, mint-condition 1978 Dodge Monaco (pictured above), complete with sheriff decals, emergency lights, and a siren.
Oh yeah - and a stuffed animal named "Flash," after Coltrane's languid basset hound, in the back seat.
Once the owner of the replica cruiser explained his vehicle to the mystified trooper, named Michael Johnston, Trooper Johnston let him off with a warning to have its emergency lights and siren disconnected. Even though everybody else in town already knows it's just a show car.
Now, if like Trooper Johnston, you're too young to recognize the '78 Dodge from its days as a ubiquitous police cruiser, allow me to remind you about the Dukes of Hazzard. I've commented before on that true period piece - it aired during the same era as the prime time soap opera, Dallas. Poorly written, horribly directed, and badly acted, Dukes was even worse than the artistically-challenged Dallas, but just as wildly popular.
(What does it say about the 1980's that these were two of its signature TV shows?)
There wasn't much cheatin', back-stabbin', and cutthroat oil dealin' in Dukes, but it had what most any other TV show needs to succeed: goofy comedy, a flashy car (in the form of an orange Dodge Charger with the Confederate Flag painted on its roof), good guys always comin' out on top, and a gorgeous girl.
Catherine Bach played Daisy Duke, the gorgeous girl, and her impossibly short denim shorts - not exactly a new fashion idea - soon were called "Daisy Dukes" because, well, she embodied them so well.
John Schneider and Tom Wopat played the mischievous Duke brothers, Bo and Luke; two guys who never seemed to have regular work, unless you count always running afoul of the county's white-suited villain, Boss Hog. Boss Hog, played by Sorrell Booke, used his feeble-brained sheriff, Coltrane, to protect all of his various nefarious business schemes. The Duke brothers' iconic orange Charger, christened the General Lee, was just as famous as any of the show's human actors, and exaggerated car chases between the General Lee and Sheriff Coltrane's cruiser - and sometimes, Boss Hog's old white Cadillac convertible - usually ate up more air time than the show's dialog did.
Backing up that cast was the wizened, grizzled Uncle Jesse; the greasy mechanic, Cooter, who usually ended up having to get Bo and Luke out of trouble; and the docile, bashful Deputy Strate, who for southern law enforcement agencies, made about as cringe-worthy a reincarnation of Mayberry's ineffective Barney Fife as any of the show's other blatant stereotypes.
Oh yes - and Flash, the sad-eyed old hound who'd probably seen so many of his owner's hijinks go awry, nothing could perturb him anymore.
Really, it shouldn't have been as popular as it was, but it was. And its popularity came from its uncanny ability to portray a simpler place and time in American folklore. Something not quite turn-of-the-century Old South provincialism, but not quite modern-day suburbs-invading-the-countryside, either. Good and evil were easier to spot and deal with, with good ol' common sense and family values ruling the day.
Of course, it's rather ironic that a cop in rural Maine would pull over a benign, unofficial cop car outfitted as a replica of southern sheriff Coltrane's veee-hickle, as Coltrane would say. Geographically speaking, Maine is about as far north from the South as you can get, but in terms of its slower pace of life, both New England and the Deep South have a lot in common. Switch the accents, and take out all of the wealthy Boomers who've recently retired to Maine, and Dukes could have been filmed in the Pine Tree State. For something like a state trooper's concern over a replica squad car to make news speaks to the down-home nature of Maine, and probably would have made news down South if it happened there, too. Here in urban north Texas, this wouldn't be news, because most of our local police departments are too busy fighting real crime.
Indeed, word is beginning to spread here in Arlington, between Fort Worth and Dallas, that a new urban gang may be trying to establish itself in the northern part of town. Just today, our neighborhood crime watch sent out an e-mail with the link to a video on YouTube showing a group of about twenty gangsta-type wannabies in a local park rapping with vulgarities and sinister swagger about drugs and general mayhem. This same group is suspected of vandalizing another city park and bullying groups that had legitimately reserved pavilions at local parks. Arlington never used to have a real crime problem, but it has now for years, and the small-town feel that was still here when my family moved down in the late 1970's is long gone.
It's this kind of stuff that is unsettling and even threatening to people like my neighbors and me, since we live in an established neighborhood, and are surrounded by dilapidated apartments like the ones featured in the video. People who used to leave their front doors unlocked during the day now have security alarms, motion sensors, and closed-circuit cameras wired all over their properties. If this new gang proves to be a genuine threat, what's next?
If only we had the crime problems like Trooper Johnston - shucks, and even Sheriff Coltrane - have, then everyday life would be a lot less stressful.
Oh well, at least in Bradley, Maine, traffic is tame enough for this replica cruiser's owner to drive his classics around town without fear damaging them - or having them get stolen. Here in north Texas, meanwhile, driving is done pretty much the same way Bo and Luke careened their General Lee through those dirt roads and ramps on the studio lot.
Yee-haw.
_____
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Saving Climbers from Themselves
| Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Waterson, February 11, 1986 |
Climbing.
Ascending, reaching, hoping, enduring, achieving. Being tenacious, always evaluating the terrain, looking towards the summit.
It's a thrill, a rush, a tangible accomplishment. Adrenaline. Bravado. Something weaker people with fainter hearts and flabbier limbs either can't do, or are too lazy to try.
It's one thing to put on some hiking boots, grab some bottled water, and saunter up a pleasant hillside to take in the vista, or trek along a hilly forest path underneath the graceful, broad canopy of weathered trees.
But either our news media is getting more fascinated with the stories of botched rescues of climbers, or more and more Americans are woefully underestimating their mountain climbing capabilities.
Nick Hall, a native of Maine and professional search-and-rescue ranger, died June 21 while trying to help four climbers from Texas on Washington state's Mount Rainier.
Aaron Beesley, another professional rescuer, fell 90 feet to his death on Utah's Mount Olympus this past Saturday while trying to rescue two teenaged hikers.
Tony Stanley, a California Highway Patrol officer, was injured last Thursday when the rotor blades of his rescue helicopter clipped him as he attempted to reach a stranded hiker - who was a doctor. The doctor, who had suffered a relatively minor injury by comparison, which had contributed to his need for rescue, ended up saving his rescuer's life.
Granted, considering the number of people who go mountain climbing for recreation every day all over the United States, these incidents could be considered statistically irrelevant. And neither Hall, Beesley, nor Stanley were forced to work as rescuers. News reports of their heroics portray each of them as lovers of their jobs and passionate about helping people. Indeed, you'd have to be, to do these sorts of things for a living.
But dying while doing something for a living puts a different spin on it, doesn't it? Especially when people die trying to rescue you.
We've all seen the news reports of residents in the path of a hurricane or wildfire who refuse evacuation orders and think they can defy Mother Nature. At some point in the evacuation scenario, local law enforcement agencies will declare that if you stay, and you find yourself in imminent danger, rescuers will not be sent in to save you. And I agree wholeheartedly with that decree. The job of police officers and fire fighters is to protect us, but we have an obligation to be prudent about our own safety. We can't expect to ignore warnings for our own health and welfare and then expect somebody to risk their own life to pluck us from death at the last minute because we didn't act on our own behalf sooner.
Yes, the line between refusing to evacuate in the face of a hurricane and exposing one's self to getting stuck on a mountain is fairly vague and gray. It's certainly not crystal-clear, is it? Especially since climbers are the ones intentionally putting themselves into an environment of danger precisely because danger is part of the attraction. Even if you're so afraid of life that you never leave your house, there is plenty of danger right in your house. However, our post-industrial society has designed many ways to mitigate the most common of dangers, and many of the dangers to which we're exposed in normal life aren't dangerous themselves to the people who may need to rescue us. Shucks, that's one of the reasons people go climb mountains: because they can get away from all of the circumstances of ordinary life. Getting away from ordinary life means you usually have to go someplace extraordinary.
Death-defyingly extraordinary.
Not that there's anything wrong with escaping to nature, going hiking, or even climbing mountains. To the extent that risk is a part of life, climbing mountains for some people might be safer than trying to cross a Midtown Manhattan intersection.
But how American is it of climbers to feel entitled to be rescued if they get themselves into trouble? If you're climbing in a national or state park, my taxes are helping to make sure you get help out there in the middle of noplace. Sure enough, most rescuers employed by taxpayers don't get paid much, at least relative to their job description (saving lives, remember?). But in our current fever to abolish entitlements, is it expecting too much for mountain climbers to pay 100% of the cost of employing those who might need to rescue them?
After all, they're willing to give their life for you.
All you want to do is climb a mountain.
Maybe you don't mind the inequity in roles. After all, we Americans are programmed to live for fun. And maybe my personal disregard for mountain climbing as a sport makes me disproportionately biased on this subject. Before you write me off as just another hardened cynic, though, I know of two friends who consider themselves pretty good amateur climbers. Still, I feel confident in what I say because both of them have scoffed to me about their peers who don't soberly weigh the costs before each climb.
At the end of the day, however, doesn't it seem that the reasons people use for justifying climbing mountains can be explored in other activities - activities in which the risks that endanger them don't also endanger the people who may need to rescue them?
The last words of American patriot Nathan Hale, before the British hung him for spying during the Revolutionary War, purportedly were, "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country."
A noble sentiment, indeed.
I wonder if mountain climbers start each trek saying, "I regret that each first responder has but one life to give for my risky behavior."
_____
Friday, June 15, 2012
Gnashing of Elite Teeth over Tower
Sometimes, neighbors can be annoying.
But what do you do when you believe your new neighbor is destroying your own property?
Well, in this case, perhaps "destroying" is a bit harsh. But the world-famous architect whose small museum is being marginalized by the luxury apartment tower rising next to it would probably agree with the term.
He's already gone on record as describing his museum as a "victim" of the "aggressor" skyscraper. And it's all because of something we get plenty of here in north Texas: bright, hot sunlight.
What Could Go Wrong?
When celebrated architect Renzo Piano was commissioned by the late Ray Nasher to design a jewel box of a museum to hold the shopping center mogul's modern sculpture collection, a prime site in downtown Dallas, in the middle of the city's fledgling arts district, was chosen.
At the time, this location seemed to make sense, since the Dallas Museum of Art would be a neighbor for the new Nasher Sculpture Center, and I.M. Pei's wonderful Meyerson Symphony Center already anchored an expanding performing arts community just down the street. To the Nasher's immediate south, a high-rise office building owned by one of Dallas' most prominent families flanked the edge of downtown's commercial skyscrapers, and to the Nasher's immediate north, an existing freeway was about to be covered over so a new, elevated park could be constructed.
Apparently, however, nobody gave much thought about what was planned for the property just to the east of the Nasher; property that for years had been a lowly parking lot.
So the Nasher was designed and constructed to considerable local acclaim, featuring glass ceilings that filtered natural sunlight to bathe sculptures on display with as little artificial lighting as possible. Piano's design featured an expansive walled garden, where larger sculptures could be displayed amongst lush lawns and trees, like its own secluded park. One outdoor piece consisted of a concrete shell large enough for a few people to walk inside, look up through an open-air oculus, and see nothing but the changing sky framed by a dark rim. Maybe it sounds boring - and a bit silly - to construct something that frames the same sky we can gaze into on our own, but the actual effect when you're inside the artwork, stripped of distractions, can be kinda cool.
Except that now, a 42-story glass tower partially obstructs your view!
Not only that, but the still-to-be-completed Museum Tower apartment building is clad in a reflective glass that incessantly refracts piercing sunlight into every nook and crevice of the Nasher from noontime until the sun goes down. Those skylights Piano designed to capture and diffuse sunlight tilt to - guess! - the east, so glare from the far stronger western sun isn't as prominent. But now, to the east of the Nasher is where the objectionable skyscraper rises.
Oops.
Shine Some Light On It
At least for Dallas, this poses an unprecedented dilemma. Sure, other conflicts between notable neighbors have existed before, but most of those have had to do with aesthetics, design philosophies, or even sagging foundations if excavation next-door undermines an existing structure. But aesthetics and design philosophies don't literally render a structure worthless, and repairing damage to a neighbor's property during construction is party of the reason developers have to take out insurance. In this case, the developers of the high-rise apartment building have violated no zoning laws, construction principles, or even aesthetic considerations. Granted, Museum Tower looks like any other glassy skyscraper, and hardly worth the prices developers are charging for its apartments But as far as glitzy skylines go, Dallas' is already fairly eclectic, so a building's designer would have to go pretty far off the deep end to make a new tower a complete eyesore.
And Museum Tower is no eyesore.
Art purists in Dallas insist that it's still an inferior building to Piano's Nasher, however. To which it's easy to respectfully disagree. Yes, the Nasher is elegant and pleasant enough, but an irreplaceable treasure for the city? No. A timeless piece of art all its own? No. One of Renzo Piano's best works? No.
And the artwork housed in Piano's Nasher? Some of it is pure junk appreciated only by those who crave attention from hallowed art snobs. Nasher developed Dallas' beloved NorthPark Center, one of the nation's first enclosed malls, and despite competition from newer, bigger, and more gaudy malls, NorthPark remains the top retail shrine in the shopping mecca that is Dallas. Indeed, when Dallasites talk about "going to the mall," they mean NorthPark. If they're going to any other mall, Dallasites will name that mall specifically, and usually defend their decision not to go to NorthPark by complaining about it's incessantly notorious traffic.
Nasher and his wife, both of whom are now deceased, fancied themselves as experts on modern art, and modern sculpture in particular. For years, NorthPark has featured works from their extensive collection throughout their facilities, and it's hard to deny that they make the mall quite unique in terms of ambiance.
But most of these sculptures are made of stone and metal - elements hardly at risk of damage from sunbeams from the western sky. Officials at the Nasher claim that refracted sunlight from Museum Tower is forcing curators to relocate some sculptures considered more fragile and susceptible to fading. Which, yes, isn't a desirable problem to have, but is hardly calamitous. Then there are claims that grass and trees in the Nasher's outdoor sculpture garden are getting scorched from the refracted sunlight, but wilting and browning vegetation is part of everyday life here in Texas, even despite an abnormally wet spring like the one we just finished.
Officials and Piano insist it's not their responsibility to try and accommodate the sunlight glaring from their new neighbor. Suggestions of retrofitting the Nasher with screens and blinds of some sort have met with stiff resistance from both the museum and well-connected arts patrons who bristle at the notion of crass commercialism like that of some petty capitalist apartment developers forcing changes to something as sacred as a sculpture museum.
But the Nasher isn't sacred. Neither, for that matter, is the capitalist trophy tower next door, which will soon be home to some of the city's most expensive - and loftiest - apartments. City leaders have arranged for a mediator to help forge some sort of compromise on this issue, but so far, no agreement has been reached. In fact, it was rather surprising for Piano to speak out so publicly this week, since supposedly some sort of gag order is in place. Yes, a gag order - after all, Dallas takes both its art and its construction projects very seriously.
Much Ado About Sunlight
So, what's the big deal, you ask? Egypt is on the brink of anarchy, Greece and Spain may soon short-circuit the whole of Europe's economy, Russia still thinks it should have the right to sell arms to the merciless Assad regime... and Dallas is bickering over two ephemeral buildings in its pretentious arts district?
This debate isn't about art. It's not even about property rights. It's about ego. Piano and Nasher officials are sore because the Dallas citizenry, on behalf of their beloved museum, hasn't risen up in fury against the skyscraper's developers. They're frustrated because nobody - not even themselves - thought to more closely evaluate the effect the glass walls of a nearby tower would have on the Nasher. After all, had the tower featured a conventional brick facade, or even balconies to break up the mirror effect of the glass, it would just be a tall neighbor, not a blinding one.
As far as the developers of Museum Tower are concerned, downtown Dallas is primarily a neighborhood of tall buildings. City planners and arts patrons who mapped out the redevelopment of downtown's near north side for museums and concert halls had even included skyscrapers in their proposals, so the Nasher and its fans knew full well what the future held for the properties around them.
Personally, I'm a bit surprised at the attitude of Nasher's rich patrons. Where has the enigmatic imagination that used to so pervade the city of Dallas gone? If y'all hadn't fawned so much over Piano's building to begin with, and admitted it wasn't all that remarkable, you could have viewed this latest challenge as an opportunity to finally make a signature architectural statement out of the place.
Besides, Piano is one of many current architects known for their white sail motif, which would make a perfect addition to the roof of the current Nasher structure. Strategically-engineered sails rigged over the Nasher could deflect the intense light from the tower next door, leave the current structure relatively intact, and lend their warmly dramatic aesthetics to helping make it the landmark building it currently isn't.
How much would it cost? Please! Since when has the inferiority complex which motivates arts patrons here ever fussed about cost before?
Frankly, Dallas, this whole episode doesn't show you in a good light.
_____
But what do you do when you believe your new neighbor is destroying your own property?
Well, in this case, perhaps "destroying" is a bit harsh. But the world-famous architect whose small museum is being marginalized by the luxury apartment tower rising next to it would probably agree with the term.
He's already gone on record as describing his museum as a "victim" of the "aggressor" skyscraper. And it's all because of something we get plenty of here in north Texas: bright, hot sunlight.
What Could Go Wrong?
When celebrated architect Renzo Piano was commissioned by the late Ray Nasher to design a jewel box of a museum to hold the shopping center mogul's modern sculpture collection, a prime site in downtown Dallas, in the middle of the city's fledgling arts district, was chosen.
At the time, this location seemed to make sense, since the Dallas Museum of Art would be a neighbor for the new Nasher Sculpture Center, and I.M. Pei's wonderful Meyerson Symphony Center already anchored an expanding performing arts community just down the street. To the Nasher's immediate south, a high-rise office building owned by one of Dallas' most prominent families flanked the edge of downtown's commercial skyscrapers, and to the Nasher's immediate north, an existing freeway was about to be covered over so a new, elevated park could be constructed.
Apparently, however, nobody gave much thought about what was planned for the property just to the east of the Nasher; property that for years had been a lowly parking lot.
So the Nasher was designed and constructed to considerable local acclaim, featuring glass ceilings that filtered natural sunlight to bathe sculptures on display with as little artificial lighting as possible. Piano's design featured an expansive walled garden, where larger sculptures could be displayed amongst lush lawns and trees, like its own secluded park. One outdoor piece consisted of a concrete shell large enough for a few people to walk inside, look up through an open-air oculus, and see nothing but the changing sky framed by a dark rim. Maybe it sounds boring - and a bit silly - to construct something that frames the same sky we can gaze into on our own, but the actual effect when you're inside the artwork, stripped of distractions, can be kinda cool.
Except that now, a 42-story glass tower partially obstructs your view!
Not only that, but the still-to-be-completed Museum Tower apartment building is clad in a reflective glass that incessantly refracts piercing sunlight into every nook and crevice of the Nasher from noontime until the sun goes down. Those skylights Piano designed to capture and diffuse sunlight tilt to - guess! - the east, so glare from the far stronger western sun isn't as prominent. But now, to the east of the Nasher is where the objectionable skyscraper rises.
Oops.
Shine Some Light On It
At least for Dallas, this poses an unprecedented dilemma. Sure, other conflicts between notable neighbors have existed before, but most of those have had to do with aesthetics, design philosophies, or even sagging foundations if excavation next-door undermines an existing structure. But aesthetics and design philosophies don't literally render a structure worthless, and repairing damage to a neighbor's property during construction is party of the reason developers have to take out insurance. In this case, the developers of the high-rise apartment building have violated no zoning laws, construction principles, or even aesthetic considerations. Granted, Museum Tower looks like any other glassy skyscraper, and hardly worth the prices developers are charging for its apartments But as far as glitzy skylines go, Dallas' is already fairly eclectic, so a building's designer would have to go pretty far off the deep end to make a new tower a complete eyesore.
And Museum Tower is no eyesore.
Art purists in Dallas insist that it's still an inferior building to Piano's Nasher, however. To which it's easy to respectfully disagree. Yes, the Nasher is elegant and pleasant enough, but an irreplaceable treasure for the city? No. A timeless piece of art all its own? No. One of Renzo Piano's best works? No.
And the artwork housed in Piano's Nasher? Some of it is pure junk appreciated only by those who crave attention from hallowed art snobs. Nasher developed Dallas' beloved NorthPark Center, one of the nation's first enclosed malls, and despite competition from newer, bigger, and more gaudy malls, NorthPark remains the top retail shrine in the shopping mecca that is Dallas. Indeed, when Dallasites talk about "going to the mall," they mean NorthPark. If they're going to any other mall, Dallasites will name that mall specifically, and usually defend their decision not to go to NorthPark by complaining about it's incessantly notorious traffic.
Nasher and his wife, both of whom are now deceased, fancied themselves as experts on modern art, and modern sculpture in particular. For years, NorthPark has featured works from their extensive collection throughout their facilities, and it's hard to deny that they make the mall quite unique in terms of ambiance.
But most of these sculptures are made of stone and metal - elements hardly at risk of damage from sunbeams from the western sky. Officials at the Nasher claim that refracted sunlight from Museum Tower is forcing curators to relocate some sculptures considered more fragile and susceptible to fading. Which, yes, isn't a desirable problem to have, but is hardly calamitous. Then there are claims that grass and trees in the Nasher's outdoor sculpture garden are getting scorched from the refracted sunlight, but wilting and browning vegetation is part of everyday life here in Texas, even despite an abnormally wet spring like the one we just finished.
Officials and Piano insist it's not their responsibility to try and accommodate the sunlight glaring from their new neighbor. Suggestions of retrofitting the Nasher with screens and blinds of some sort have met with stiff resistance from both the museum and well-connected arts patrons who bristle at the notion of crass commercialism like that of some petty capitalist apartment developers forcing changes to something as sacred as a sculpture museum.
But the Nasher isn't sacred. Neither, for that matter, is the capitalist trophy tower next door, which will soon be home to some of the city's most expensive - and loftiest - apartments. City leaders have arranged for a mediator to help forge some sort of compromise on this issue, but so far, no agreement has been reached. In fact, it was rather surprising for Piano to speak out so publicly this week, since supposedly some sort of gag order is in place. Yes, a gag order - after all, Dallas takes both its art and its construction projects very seriously.
Much Ado About Sunlight
So, what's the big deal, you ask? Egypt is on the brink of anarchy, Greece and Spain may soon short-circuit the whole of Europe's economy, Russia still thinks it should have the right to sell arms to the merciless Assad regime... and Dallas is bickering over two ephemeral buildings in its pretentious arts district?
This debate isn't about art. It's not even about property rights. It's about ego. Piano and Nasher officials are sore because the Dallas citizenry, on behalf of their beloved museum, hasn't risen up in fury against the skyscraper's developers. They're frustrated because nobody - not even themselves - thought to more closely evaluate the effect the glass walls of a nearby tower would have on the Nasher. After all, had the tower featured a conventional brick facade, or even balconies to break up the mirror effect of the glass, it would just be a tall neighbor, not a blinding one.
As far as the developers of Museum Tower are concerned, downtown Dallas is primarily a neighborhood of tall buildings. City planners and arts patrons who mapped out the redevelopment of downtown's near north side for museums and concert halls had even included skyscrapers in their proposals, so the Nasher and its fans knew full well what the future held for the properties around them.
Personally, I'm a bit surprised at the attitude of Nasher's rich patrons. Where has the enigmatic imagination that used to so pervade the city of Dallas gone? If y'all hadn't fawned so much over Piano's building to begin with, and admitted it wasn't all that remarkable, you could have viewed this latest challenge as an opportunity to finally make a signature architectural statement out of the place.
Besides, Piano is one of many current architects known for their white sail motif, which would make a perfect addition to the roof of the current Nasher structure. Strategically-engineered sails rigged over the Nasher could deflect the intense light from the tower next door, leave the current structure relatively intact, and lend their warmly dramatic aesthetics to helping make it the landmark building it currently isn't.
How much would it cost? Please! Since when has the inferiority complex which motivates arts patrons here ever fussed about cost before?
Frankly, Dallas, this whole episode doesn't show you in a good light.
_____
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Dallas as City, Soap, and Survivor
Do you pay much attention to what's on television these days?
I don't. But living here in the Dallas area, even I can't avoid the hoopla over the return of one of television's most iconic shows. After twenty years, the soap opera named after north Texas' largest city is bustin' out in prime time, replete with Larry Hagman as J.R. Ewing and his ol' southern homestead, Southfork Ranch.
And no, I'm not going to watch it.
For one thing, it's on cable, and I don't have cable. And the fact that cable produces shows like Dallas' remake are one of the reasons why I don't have cable.
Big D, Big Hair, Big Egos, Big Deals
Not that I'm knocking Dallas for being wildly popular, at least back in the day. I suspect one of the reasons it was so popular for so many years - basically all of the 80's - involved its remarkable ability to capture the aspirations of that yuppified, designer logo, blow-dried decade not only here in north Texas, but across the United States. Some TV shows become legendary despite not relating well to their time and era, but it was hard to tell how much Dallas reflected the 80's, and how much the 80's were reflecting Dallas. Say what you will about the quality of the show, but to be so synonymous with a culture isn't something that happens much on TV these days.
Whether this new show will be able to capture our new era remains to be seen, of course. The '80's were still a period of growth and enthusiasm in the United States generally, and Texas in particular. Whereas, these days, our society has ossified into three dreary camps: hard-core liberals, hard-core conservatives, and those of us in the middle who seem to be at the mercy of those two extremes. Whereas President Ronald Reagan had us feasting on American hubris during Dallas' original run, Barak Obama has us starving for hope. How do you model a popular TV show on today's socioeconomic angst?
Of course, even back during the original Dallas, I hardly ever watched the show. For one thing, my parents didn't consider it proper viewing material for young, impressionable boys. Fortunately for my brother and me, the Dukes of Hazzard was also on Friday nights, although the sight of Daisy Duke in her namesake denim shorts, coupled with the show's constant mockery of the police and other authority figures, likely didn't make it any more wholesome than what was being shown on Dallas.
In high school, I started working nights at a mens' clothing store here near Dallas, so my Dukes of Hazzard days ended. We had a TV in the employee break room, but Dallas ruled Friday nights outside of my house, and for some of the more anticipated episodes, even management would join us clerks for brief escapes from the selling floor to catch up on the action. After all, customers would ask us if we had any updates from the show, right? Remember, this was way before cell phones, Hulu, and ubiquitous flat screen TVs kept everybody wired to entertainment.
One of my co-workers was married to a woman who worked at a fancy department store across the hall, and I recall her saying that their management considered closing early on Friday nights when Dallas aired because business would evaporate and their stores would be deserted.
Several years later, when I was in college, I took a friend visiting from New York City to see Southfork Ranch, which proved to be a huge disappointment to both her and me. It was much smaller in real life than it was on television, and far less representative of where Dallas' real millionaires lived. If the show's Hollywood producers had wanted accuracy, they'd have placed the family in a genteel Highland Park mansion or sprawling Preston Hollow estate, and had them spend weekends on their ranch a couple hours outside of town. Well, at least they got that last part partly right. Southfork isn't even in Dallas County; it's miles from Dallas. It's the most non-Dallas part of Dallas.
For Both Dallas and Dallas, the Image was the Message
So, OK: we knew Dallas wasn't real, but it was real enough. The show featured all of the usual soap opera dramatics: nefarious business deals, backstabbing relatives, adultery, alcoholism; all the bad stuff. Yet the show still revolved around family and some semblance of family honor. And it celebrated a city that didn't know the meaning of the word "no." Back in the 80's, Dallas grew so fast and so wealthy it was dizzying. It seemed like a new luxury mall opened every year, and a dazzling new skyscraper every month. Corporations were relocating here from other parts of the country like flocks of birds, and to hear our business leaders tell it, cities like New York and Chicago were going to be empty before long, since everybody was moving here.
Those were the best of times for Dallas, just like the popularity its namesake TV show was enjoying. Soon after the 80's were over, and Dallas was off the air, corporations began moving again - out of their glassy towers in and around downtown, and into even newer office parks in the suburbs. Developers kept churning out new subdivisions like farmers plowing dirt, and before long, the lure of new construction drew hundreds of thousands of middle-class Dallasites out of the big city into sprawling suburbs with ever more modern homes with even better luxuries - luxuries that definitely made Southfork look dowdy.
All of a sudden, the streets which Dallas laid out so hurriedly during the 80's had aged, with potholes and empty storefronts and blocks and blocks of rental homes whose owners had moved on to the more prosperous suburbs. For a while, wide swaths of Dallas languished, until America's unprecedented interest in re-discovering central cities began to take hold, and more and more families committed to moving back into marginalized neighborhoods. Trees that earlier residents had planted over twenty years ago were now full and lush, far bigger than those in the suburbs. Homes that up-and-coming families once considered small and dated now appealed to new owners who appreciated their solid construction and retro aesthetics. Then there came the McMansion phenomenon, where perfectly good homes are torn down on central city lots and replaced with towering new luxury homes. The allure of Dallas' centralized neighborhoods makes sense when you consider how living closer-in to the city's core means that more jobs are more accessible. By now, of course, nobody counted on working for the same employer in the same place for their entire career, and being stuck out in some exurb when the only job you can find is clear across the city can make your remote house surprisingly less attractive.
And the traffic! Dallas' population may have leveled off, but the population all around it has continued to explode. And those wide freeways they built around Dallas have now became obsolete. Yes, Dallas has a fledgling mass transit system, but it's not even as reliable as sitting in gridlock, nor is it as safe. Back in the 80's, Dallas leaders were planning massive construction projects to widen two of the city's most popular freeways - the LBJ and Central Expressway - and provide the driving public with years of easier driving. Yet today, one small fender-bender can soon snarl any local freeway, and the state has begun another multi-year expansion project for the LBJ. Now, however, nobody really expects such grand plans to solve much of anything.
Not that Dallas has become some awful place to live. Like anywhere else, it is what you make of it, with its good neighborhoods and bad. Some of the glossy pockets of stunning wealth that remain scattered across the city make the Ewing fortune look downright humble. And hipsters flock to redeveloped neighborhoods carved out of urban blight around downtown. We call them the thirty-thousand-dollar millionaires, because they work mostly in entry-level jobs but act like they're made of money, driving around in sleek foreign luxury cars and renting high-dollar apartments - all paid either with credit or indulgent parents. Still, despite the sheen, it's hardly the metropolis of swashbuckling enthusiasm and 1980's glamor of both its own history and its portrayal by the original TV show.
Dallas has matured, and developed big-city problems common among much older municipalities; municipalities that have had their heyday at one time, and are now learning to get by in our brave new world of marginal public schools, a stagnant tax base, outdated infrastructure, incessant competition from suburbs which are also aging, and even competition from cities half a world away.
Hopes were running high when AT&T moved its international headquarters downtown from San Antonio, but the euphoria didn't last long when the corporation announced it was a temporary home while they built a new corporate campus in - where else? - one of the city's suburbs. These days, the only new construction downtown has been a high-rise hotel for the struggling convention center and some luxury apartment towers which sit half-rented.
Yet streets and freeways in and around downtown are still almost always choked with traffic.
TV critics may be anxious to see if the new Dallas will be even a fraction of a hit its predecessor was.
I care more about today's Dallas reinventing itself to be even better than it was back during the old Dallas.
_____
I don't. But living here in the Dallas area, even I can't avoid the hoopla over the return of one of television's most iconic shows. After twenty years, the soap opera named after north Texas' largest city is bustin' out in prime time, replete with Larry Hagman as J.R. Ewing and his ol' southern homestead, Southfork Ranch.
And no, I'm not going to watch it.
For one thing, it's on cable, and I don't have cable. And the fact that cable produces shows like Dallas' remake are one of the reasons why I don't have cable.
Big D, Big Hair, Big Egos, Big Deals
Not that I'm knocking Dallas for being wildly popular, at least back in the day. I suspect one of the reasons it was so popular for so many years - basically all of the 80's - involved its remarkable ability to capture the aspirations of that yuppified, designer logo, blow-dried decade not only here in north Texas, but across the United States. Some TV shows become legendary despite not relating well to their time and era, but it was hard to tell how much Dallas reflected the 80's, and how much the 80's were reflecting Dallas. Say what you will about the quality of the show, but to be so synonymous with a culture isn't something that happens much on TV these days.
Whether this new show will be able to capture our new era remains to be seen, of course. The '80's were still a period of growth and enthusiasm in the United States generally, and Texas in particular. Whereas, these days, our society has ossified into three dreary camps: hard-core liberals, hard-core conservatives, and those of us in the middle who seem to be at the mercy of those two extremes. Whereas President Ronald Reagan had us feasting on American hubris during Dallas' original run, Barak Obama has us starving for hope. How do you model a popular TV show on today's socioeconomic angst?
Of course, even back during the original Dallas, I hardly ever watched the show. For one thing, my parents didn't consider it proper viewing material for young, impressionable boys. Fortunately for my brother and me, the Dukes of Hazzard was also on Friday nights, although the sight of Daisy Duke in her namesake denim shorts, coupled with the show's constant mockery of the police and other authority figures, likely didn't make it any more wholesome than what was being shown on Dallas.
In high school, I started working nights at a mens' clothing store here near Dallas, so my Dukes of Hazzard days ended. We had a TV in the employee break room, but Dallas ruled Friday nights outside of my house, and for some of the more anticipated episodes, even management would join us clerks for brief escapes from the selling floor to catch up on the action. After all, customers would ask us if we had any updates from the show, right? Remember, this was way before cell phones, Hulu, and ubiquitous flat screen TVs kept everybody wired to entertainment.
One of my co-workers was married to a woman who worked at a fancy department store across the hall, and I recall her saying that their management considered closing early on Friday nights when Dallas aired because business would evaporate and their stores would be deserted.
Several years later, when I was in college, I took a friend visiting from New York City to see Southfork Ranch, which proved to be a huge disappointment to both her and me. It was much smaller in real life than it was on television, and far less representative of where Dallas' real millionaires lived. If the show's Hollywood producers had wanted accuracy, they'd have placed the family in a genteel Highland Park mansion or sprawling Preston Hollow estate, and had them spend weekends on their ranch a couple hours outside of town. Well, at least they got that last part partly right. Southfork isn't even in Dallas County; it's miles from Dallas. It's the most non-Dallas part of Dallas.
For Both Dallas and Dallas, the Image was the Message
So, OK: we knew Dallas wasn't real, but it was real enough. The show featured all of the usual soap opera dramatics: nefarious business deals, backstabbing relatives, adultery, alcoholism; all the bad stuff. Yet the show still revolved around family and some semblance of family honor. And it celebrated a city that didn't know the meaning of the word "no." Back in the 80's, Dallas grew so fast and so wealthy it was dizzying. It seemed like a new luxury mall opened every year, and a dazzling new skyscraper every month. Corporations were relocating here from other parts of the country like flocks of birds, and to hear our business leaders tell it, cities like New York and Chicago were going to be empty before long, since everybody was moving here.
Those were the best of times for Dallas, just like the popularity its namesake TV show was enjoying. Soon after the 80's were over, and Dallas was off the air, corporations began moving again - out of their glassy towers in and around downtown, and into even newer office parks in the suburbs. Developers kept churning out new subdivisions like farmers plowing dirt, and before long, the lure of new construction drew hundreds of thousands of middle-class Dallasites out of the big city into sprawling suburbs with ever more modern homes with even better luxuries - luxuries that definitely made Southfork look dowdy.
All of a sudden, the streets which Dallas laid out so hurriedly during the 80's had aged, with potholes and empty storefronts and blocks and blocks of rental homes whose owners had moved on to the more prosperous suburbs. For a while, wide swaths of Dallas languished, until America's unprecedented interest in re-discovering central cities began to take hold, and more and more families committed to moving back into marginalized neighborhoods. Trees that earlier residents had planted over twenty years ago were now full and lush, far bigger than those in the suburbs. Homes that up-and-coming families once considered small and dated now appealed to new owners who appreciated their solid construction and retro aesthetics. Then there came the McMansion phenomenon, where perfectly good homes are torn down on central city lots and replaced with towering new luxury homes. The allure of Dallas' centralized neighborhoods makes sense when you consider how living closer-in to the city's core means that more jobs are more accessible. By now, of course, nobody counted on working for the same employer in the same place for their entire career, and being stuck out in some exurb when the only job you can find is clear across the city can make your remote house surprisingly less attractive.
And the traffic! Dallas' population may have leveled off, but the population all around it has continued to explode. And those wide freeways they built around Dallas have now became obsolete. Yes, Dallas has a fledgling mass transit system, but it's not even as reliable as sitting in gridlock, nor is it as safe. Back in the 80's, Dallas leaders were planning massive construction projects to widen two of the city's most popular freeways - the LBJ and Central Expressway - and provide the driving public with years of easier driving. Yet today, one small fender-bender can soon snarl any local freeway, and the state has begun another multi-year expansion project for the LBJ. Now, however, nobody really expects such grand plans to solve much of anything.
Not that Dallas has become some awful place to live. Like anywhere else, it is what you make of it, with its good neighborhoods and bad. Some of the glossy pockets of stunning wealth that remain scattered across the city make the Ewing fortune look downright humble. And hipsters flock to redeveloped neighborhoods carved out of urban blight around downtown. We call them the thirty-thousand-dollar millionaires, because they work mostly in entry-level jobs but act like they're made of money, driving around in sleek foreign luxury cars and renting high-dollar apartments - all paid either with credit or indulgent parents. Still, despite the sheen, it's hardly the metropolis of swashbuckling enthusiasm and 1980's glamor of both its own history and its portrayal by the original TV show.
Dallas has matured, and developed big-city problems common among much older municipalities; municipalities that have had their heyday at one time, and are now learning to get by in our brave new world of marginal public schools, a stagnant tax base, outdated infrastructure, incessant competition from suburbs which are also aging, and even competition from cities half a world away.
Hopes were running high when AT&T moved its international headquarters downtown from San Antonio, but the euphoria didn't last long when the corporation announced it was a temporary home while they built a new corporate campus in - where else? - one of the city's suburbs. These days, the only new construction downtown has been a high-rise hotel for the struggling convention center and some luxury apartment towers which sit half-rented.
Yet streets and freeways in and around downtown are still almost always choked with traffic.
TV critics may be anxious to see if the new Dallas will be even a fraction of a hit its predecessor was.
I care more about today's Dallas reinventing itself to be even better than it was back during the old Dallas.
_____
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)