H-Down Trees
Vote early today, please. In the local Harris County Democratic Party Primary runoff election, we have the State Senate District 15 race, the State Rep Districts 139 and 146 runoffs, a couple of judicial races, the Tax Assessor-Collector race, and Constable, Precinct 5. Got it?
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The Chron has a front-page story on GOP Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan fighting for his reelection next Tuesday. In the story GOP State Rep. Drew Darby of San Angelo is quoted. See this:
“If we don’t invigorate people who are invested in the state and its infrastructure to get out and work for it, then, in my estimation, we’re going to lose Texas.”
Lose Texas to who or what? To the MAGA crowd? Isn’t that already happening?
Folks know that Commentary isn’t a fan of Speaker Phelan. The Texas GOP legislature has done a lot of harm to Texans during his terms as Texas House Speaker. If Phelan loses Tuesday night, I am not going to wake up Wednesday morning in a woe is us mood. We are already in a woe is us era in Texas.
Speaker Phelan has been nurturing hate in Texas for the past few years and now hate is fixing to bite his arse off. The punkarse brought it on himself. Don’t feel sorry for him.
Maybe, just maybe, if Speaker Phelan loses, maybe, just maybe Texas voters will wake up to this madness and start voting to get Texas back to the road to sanity. Just maybe.
Here is the entire Chron read: Dade Phelan, David Covey head for seismic GOP primary runoff (houstonchronicle.com).
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It has been a little over a week since we got our arses handed to us by the storm. Driving around in my neighborhood, I have seen a lot of downed trees. The one in the featured photo is a few blocks from my house close to where 20th, Cavalcade, Studewood, and N. Main streets converge.
I have one big tree on my property and a few smaller ones. I lost a big limb from my tree. It got me to thinking. How many of the downed trees in my neighborhood were the only trees on said property. My neighborhood doesn’t have huge yards. If I was to lose my huge tree, I would be heartbroken of sorts. I lost a huge tree during Hurricane Ike in 2008.
See this related story on the front page of today’s Chron hard copy:
Two stormless summers with back-to-back droughts likely set the stage for the Houston area’s massive tree loss as Thursday’s tornado and straight-line winds cut a destructive path, tackling weakened trees with surprising ease.
A falling tree killed a woman in her car in East End, while toppled trees took out house facades and power lines, leaving much of the city without electricity for days. The city of Houston‘s 311 help line got swamped with calls for tree or branch removal, particularly in hard-hit areas such as the Heights and East End, where winds from the so-called derecho storm uprooted some hundred-year-old trees and cracked the tops off others.
Tree experts said they think many of the toppled trees were quietly weakened by earlier damage from droughts, recent freezes and related diseases.
And this:
The area’s canopy has already been shrinking, despite recent city goals to increase tree planting for infrastructure resilience and climate change mitigation. Federal satellite data analyzed by Rice University’s Kinder Institute showed that Harris County lost almost 10% of its overall tree canopy between 2011 and 2021. East Downtown saw the quickest tree depletion, losing over 46% of its canopy over that decade.
Houston’s trees are a key piece of its green infrastructure, guarding the area against unhealthy heat islands, improving air and water quality and helping trap stormwater. But with climate change triggering bigger and more intense storms, the same extreme weather that trees guard against — from hot droughts to wet storms — is hastening their decline.
“The challenge that we’re trying to meet is damaging our ability to defend ourselves. That’s a really wicked problem,” said Jaime Gonzalez, a local conservation expert.
Here is the entire read: Houston tree loss from ‘derecho’ storm dramatic after droughts (houstonchronicle.com).
Heights Boulevard got hit pretty hard.
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The Memorial Day Weekend always features World War Two movies on cable TV. Among my favorite WWII flicks are “The Great Escape,” “The Dirty Dozen,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “The Longest Day,” and “Bridge on the River Kwai.” I am sure I left off some of your favorites.
I must say there have not been very many Korean War flicks made. “M*A*S*H” comes to mind and maybe “MacArthur.” My favorite is “Pork Chop Hill” with Gregory Peck, who was also in “MacArthur.”
I will watch the Astros on the flatscreen this weekend, run a few errands, and take it easy. Stay safe this Memorial Day Weekend.
