More than Mere Words Honoree of the month - Pooka's View
By Faith Chatham - July 14, 2007
I don't know who writes it. The posts are signed by "HARVEY", a Pooka (from old Celtic mytholoogy - a fairy spirit in animal form which appears here and there.) His address is listed as "TRINITY RIVER, US." From the graphics on the site I suspect he's appeared in hit shows on and off of Broadway! He's smarter in black and white than most critters are in livin' color!
I "stumbled upon" Pooka's View today and was throughly delighted at the wisdom of "HARVEY." Though New York/Hollywood inspired, Harvey appears to be a native son (or native rabbit) with ties to both sided of the Trinity River. His commentary on Dallas (Our Town)is superior to the "stump speeches" of many local candidates. He reminds me of John F. Kennedy urging America to build rockets to the moon!
Our town has great potential but it is up to everyone to decide that it will live up to that potential. The city's ability to stay healthy as it grows is a measure of sustainability. New heroes must stand up and be counted and lead the city to better goals and to inspire its people to achievements they never thought possible. The few must be brave and courageous to stand the rigors of fighting the good fight of protecting the interests of the people. The people must take an interest in what affects their neighbors as well as what affects themselves. Sustainability is not just doing the everyday things as they are now. It takes changing mindsets and opinions of how people will live here not only for today but for generations to come. We must look to the future. All of us....now and tomorrow..
Look beyond yourself and help your neighbor. This is what a citizen does
In Dallas IS Green - But Not in the Friendly Way
Harvey writes:
One of the most wonderful facets of Dallas that I love so much is its rich, and yet relatively short, history. There are so many characters that have come and gone. Good and evil. Poor and rich. The flavor of Dallas entices me back time and again.
He acknowledges crime and with great insight writes:
But some 'crimes' are not the visible physical injuries or thefts that our society fights to stamp out. The 'crimes' that are more diabolical are done in the back rooms of municipal and state offices, the attorney's palaces, and the development consultant's workshops. In fact, these 'crimes' are not even considered 'crimes' under a court of law. In fact, it's considered economic progress. These 'crimes' are tedious and methodical and altered by additions, revisions and interpretations of laws. They can only be understood in fullness by those trained to understand them. Even then, they might yet again be altered by a system where dollars rate higher than a human's soul in order to help the economic engine. They are made legal by the societal actions of the masses that are ignorant to these slow-as-molasses changes that allow them to continue.
I hope Harvey will join us at the NCTCOG meetings as DFW Regional Concerned Citizens sits through RTC and Air Quality meetings monitoring and scratching our heads at the reasoning and methodology of some decision-makers. I hope he pops into the Texas Legislature (and visits with Senators and Legislators while they are out-of-session). Maybe a 6'3.5" Pookha will make a deeper impression on them than mere mortals seem to be making. Harvey really "gets it!"
Crime can have several meanings, but in the end, be it violation of written law or a violation of human ethics, they all have the same result. They are damaging to a person, or persons, in an act of violating a written or moral code. A crime will always have negative effects to someone. The problems I discuss lie in the root of 'crimes' that are allowed by the societal courts as being legal and yet they violate the civil moral code that protects society and allows for people to stand together in one community. You can legally violate a persons property rights in the act of upholding your own right to profit from your own property. It's a great irony in our society that a person can legally be injured by the acts of the neighbor and the state will support them. Am I the only one who sees this as a rather defeating process?
Oh Harvey, what you write is so true!
I which we'd have you with us when we spoke with Mayor Cluck of Arlington earlier this month. We urged him to help save property near Brown Trail which delvelopers are trying to preserve as a nature habitat following the Aububon Societies guideline. TxDOT plans of taking most of the land for one of those infernal "three bridges" which are supposed to help speed sports fans to Jerry Jones' new tax supported monster Stadium! Mayor Cluck says the bridges are a "done deal." So sad, Harvey, Mayor Cluck has signed the Sierra Club's Cool Ciities pact. Maybe you could have impressed him more than we did about the advantage of grass and flora over concrete! I hope you sit in and have voice on planning and zoning meetings. We need members who really "get it! like you do.
A builder can buy a property. He can remove the house and vegetation that was standing there before that brought value to the neighborhood. He can then build a much larger and 'valuable' structure on the property. This mysteriously changes the property value, not only for this one lot, but for all of the lots nearby. The nearby owners property values go up and the taxes skyrocket. The folks who lived in their comfortable homes and were just getting by are now forced to make critical decisions. In many cases, they move out unable to continue to pay the county who appraised them to exile. The cycle continues as the speculative buyer spans out further into the neighborhood, accelerating the cancer of the Prince Prospero's that are fed by the divine system of wealth over moral duty. Nobody is responsible. Nobody is guilty.
I've for change. Lots of change needs to happen. We have a lot that needs to be changed! We need to stop thsese government authorized (and inflicted) changes!
I'm giving Harvey (and any human friend who helps him with the typing on Pookha's View) the "MORE THAN MERE WORDS AWARD" this week. Every article on this site deserves the award. These final two paragraphs are true enough to merit it:
This is all done under the mottoes of 'Change Happens' and 'Me First', and the blood red flag of a once proud capitalist dogma that has gone terribly wrong. Capitalism and Industry once served the People of this nation in a past age. Now in our 'service' society, the people are the servants to those who can control and manipulate Capitalism and Industry to their favor - under the careful and watchful arms of the state. It's so sad that so few can see this path that will lead America toward ruin. We are willing to continue as long as we have our own little piece of the pie.
Dallas fields run a fervent green as money flows to potentially build an North American 'Rio' where the economic polarity of class societies will one day merge and clash and the wealthy few will continue to suckle from the tit of the vaulted taxes of the masses which they forced to falsely escalate.
Let's not forget where we are today and the injuries laid upon our citizens.
A GREAT SITE TO BOOKMARK IS: POOKAHSVIEW
Scroll down and check out Harvey's insight into tollroads through a floodplane:
Here's a teaser:
BOONDOGGLE, FRAUD OR GRANDEUR
I just can't figure out where this tollway along the river idea found the momentum to carry forward as an idea that could actually take physical form.
...Help me figure this out. I figure this is either a grand idea of learned minds who have no sense of the living realities around them, or a boondoggle that came together and no one can seem to figure out how to get out from under it, or it's a deliberate path to lead people down a road (so to speak) to reap personal gains for a few entrepeneurs through some death-defying leap of logic that it would actually benefit someone.
..
I won't even get into the big suspenders about to span the man-made open-aired storm sewer called the Trinity River. A city must look to its people first. All I can see is a big expensive toy (a billion dollars plus BIG) to help (through some witchcraft I'm unaware of) some well-to-do folks become even more well-to-doer. How does a billion dollars (or even a fraction of a billion) aimed at a pointless roadway - in a floodway - help common every day people? The only purpose for any road in the floodway would be to get the good people to their play areas they promised themselves years ago. Perhaps the good people who thought this was a good use of money forgot the first interest of a government administration. It is to serve ALL of the people it represents - not just the ones with the big wallets. I see very few people being aided by this money that could be better spent for affordable housing initiatives and giving aid to the growing population of 'lower' class citizens who have trouble just getting by day to day. We're looking at the same mindsets of rather aggressive folk, or even profiteers, that closes affordable housing in a growing city to build a mega-retail center because its highly profitable to them to do so.
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