bonnieblue

Anyone have any info on the school board candidates? Obviously Toolin (for At Large) is a nut job, but what about Clint Small in District 4? He seems to have a ton of support in the neighborhood, and I like his position on the bond measure, but otherwise his website is extremely sparse/vague as to his positions. His credentials seem to be limited to the fact that his father and grandfather are much beloved and did a lot for AISD, but I’m not seeing much about anything that he has personally done in this area? I’m getting fox in the hen house vibes (which may be completely unwarranted), but would love to know if someone had more first-hand info.

Good rule of thumb: If it all goes dark and you wake up and see Jimmy Carter, you’re probably right where you want to be. If you see Johnny Sack, Poe and /or Bob Stoops… you might be in the Bad Place. If you see Workswithseed, you should probably quit doing meth.

Living in Texas at this point is like realizing that your current boyfriend isn’t just an asshole that you’re too lazy to leave because you share a lease on an apartment you really like, but that he’s also been actively taking out credit cards in your name and cheating on you all over town.

Great info, thanks so much. We’re really into sailing, love the arts and both can work remotely, so that area holds a lot of appeal. Incredibly bummed I’m apparently missing the Yeah yeah yeahs by a week. That will be a killer show.

Thank you, great info. Are you enjoying it there? We’re actually considering Westport a bit down the line if we end up leaving Austin.

Great idea. I’ve always wanted to check out that area. Many thanks

Anyone have any good autumn recs for Fairfield County burbs (probably Westport)? I have a client thing in October and wanted to make the most of it.

Loving Bad Sisters so far, great little black comedy. Show is much better than the trailer. Fantastic music supervision and Sharon Horgan is again bringing some Catastrophe energy.

Exactly. I grew up very lower middle class so I rejected my dream school in favor of UT on a full ride plus stipend. Similar story for law school (less $). I still had some significant law school loans which I repaid promptly. In many ways I put aside my dreams to do the responsible thing. Instead of sour grapes over not qualifying for this extremely limited loan forgiveness here, I instead reflect back on what my life was like during OCI interviews, where hiring for big firms was on life support at the time. I had fantastic grades and was very personable. I also had a good connection with the hiring manager at one of the firms. I got the job, many of my similarly-situated classmates (also great grades and very personable) did not and were given starting salaries that were half of what mine was. I was a fantastic hire, but I was also incredibly lucky and privileged to have that connection. I would take that outcome and salary over the past ~decade over the ability to avail myself of a 10k forgiveness package any day. Instead of morality scolding the less fortunate, perhaps this is a good occasion to reflect on how often luck plays a tremendous part of our lives and be grateful for our good fortune.

It’s funny how these people never complain about “free stuff” that goes in the pockets of corporations and the extremely wealthy. It’s been proven time and time again that this “free stuff” doesn’t do anything for the economy, but when we invest in our own people, that’s when people start complaining about unfairness. If we’re going to complain, why not complain to the boomers/gen x about the enormous schools cost that younger gens had to incur as a direct result of the policies they supported that destroyed affordable higher education (that they were beneficiaries of) for generations to come. That’s unfair. At the end of the day, I honestly think that the majority of people in this country would much prefer that their neighbor’s life be worse than their own than to equally improve both of their lives, and that’s so depressing. We’re a nation of selfish cunts.

The internet says he’s 5’9 so that means 5’7. He’s blowing up like Violet from Willy Wonka, but an orange instead of a blueberry.

Men who are super anti choice are creepy and give off Sandusky energy. Back to thread topic, Desantis looks like a hog that’s been roasting over a fire and seems like a fucking fascist. Discuss.

While I’m sure he spends most of his day flogging himself while starting at a life-size rendering of the Original Sin, he did need another hobby to fill up the rest of his time.

I disagree with your Highland Park voter take. Sure it checks out for the above scenario (and I would probably agree if republicans hadn’t decided to go batshit on some of these recent laws and hospital response to them), but I think even someone with means has to be a little freaked out for their wanted pregnancies right now. I certainly am. There are a lot of things that can go wrong for the whole length of pregnancy. Once you start miscarrying / have an ectopic, do you have enough time to grab a flight to denver? What about in your last month? You’re not supposed to fly. Will your doctor prioritize your life? Do you need to have your delivery in another state? Some scary scary stuff that money can’t necessarily protect you from.

I was able to get my requested value (~$250k off). I went in person and gave a speech channeling Otter from Animal House and it appeared to work pretty well. Would highly recommend figuring out a way to emotionally connect with the panel members that seem more sympathetic. I bypassed the obviously unsympathetic member, found my guy and got him so worked up in my favor that he convinced the final guy to side with us. I should’ve been a litigator.

Regardless of your feelings on fucking abortion, there should NOT be a single goddamn scenario where a group of doctors, lawyers and administrators are forced to huddle together to decide whether or not a woman is severely injured enough by a pregnancy to provide her the care she needs. The fact that each and every one of these politicians hasn’t yet been castrated or what have you by an angry mob only speaks to the generally less violent nature of women. Every single person who believes this is fine or an acceptable trade off for some other political pet issue should be run out of town with pitchforks at their tail. A woman (or child) is more important than a fetus. JFC

That’s kind of a short summary of most of the issues with Texas these days. We’re breaking institutions that served us pretty well (not perfect), for the benefit of a handful of people (you and I are not any of those people). As to schools, it’s not like taxes will go down, they will just be funneled to these bullshit religious schools. I went to one of these schools to avoid the dreaded “bad public school”. It was not a complete education (evolution isn’t real, Jesus walked with dinosaurs) and the voucher didn’t even completely cover cost of admission. My mom regrets it immensely. From a selfish dollars/cents standpoint, this shift is bullshit for the bottom line. Whereas before your kid could previously get a pretty solid education and social experience (provided you were in a good district), it’s now looking like your taxes will stay just as high (gotta make those 10 rich people more wealthy and Jesus), but you now have to hope you have the honor of paying $30k + per year per kid if your kid is one of the handful that actually gets in to the (increasingly competitive) privates that actually provides a good education. It’s a completely sham and fleecing of the middle and upper middle class.

While several of the current issues affect my day-to-day more (marriage equality/ abortion healthcare rights, etc.), I think I find this one to be the most depressing. I suppose I understand why the mouth-breathing morons would support this (although if you don’t think schools will raise their tuition once the gov is writing voucher checks, I have a bridge to sell you), but it’s the upper-middle class people I just don’t get. If you look at Austin, there are only a handful of private schools worth a damn and those are already very competitive. If you removed public schools (Anderson, west lake etc) from the equation, they’re only going to get exponentially more competitive. After that, you are left with a handful of anti-vax schools and charters/non-elite religious schools that don’t have to adhere to any sort of minimum standards and are often advancing a very particular agenda of their founders. They’re unwittingly killing their own children’s futures, not to mention the greater societal implications of having generations of undereducated or uneducated children across all strata of society (except the most wealthy and/or connected).

Haven’t had time to dig into the article yet, but per NYT it sounds like he now backs lifting the filibuster to codify RvW.

Then you don’t seem financially stable enough to afford an expensive watch. You should really practice fiscal responsibility.

Hmmm, in column A we have toys and “tax savings” so you can buy a fancy watch, in column B, keeping my family together and protecting our rights to exist. I think I can definitively state that yes, my issues are more important than yours. At the end of the day, you don’t seem to be much different from the deer sitting in my front yard. Your whole world consists of your perceived needs, unable to engage in higher-level thinking or empathize with the world around you. I would pity you if you weren’t actively making the world worse around you. You’re trash and not worth engaging with.

Well I sure am glad that my marriage cert will be set on fire all so you can continue your toy hobby and “save on taxes”. I’m sure you’re not at all an upper middle class squeaker who doesn’t realize he’s getting fisted in 18 directions from the powers that be in amounts that far exceed any perceived tax savings.

We’re heavily considering a move to Virginia, Maryland (DMV area, Richmond or CVA), or possibly Chicago. Would love Colorado or Washington, but with the fires and water issues, we’re thinking east coast instead. We’re multi-generation Texans and I love it dearly, but with a kiddo now on the way, we’re not going to stand by if our marriage gets dissolved. Also quite worried about the thought of carrying even a wanted pregnancy in this state. * I can easily deal with bad governance and diversity of beliefs in my day to day life, but I refuse to stay here as our rights get stripped away. I posted something to the contrary a month or so ago (same story, but the ending went a bit differently) in hopes of de-doxxing myself, but oh well, sometimes it’s more important to illustrate how terrible policies and rhetoric actual affect other people.

Loved Verona! Had a fabulous meal at Alcova del Frate.

Remove all guns from men and give them consolation meat smokers or golf clubs and bows/arrows. Presto, 99% of mass shootings resolved.