Where to start?Virtually all US news this week—at least that reaching us over here in
Greece on US TV—focused on Southeast Texas flooding, plus of course,
tantalizing Presidential touches like pardoning a partisan supporter, banning
willing soldiers from serving in the military, and substantially cutting taxes
for the yet to be determined. Oh yes, and North Korea.
Sort of makes you think everything is underwater.
As some of you may know, my son is a chaplain with the
Harris County Sheriff’s Department, which includes the city of Houston.He was on site for the recovery of the six
members of a single family (two great grandparents and four of their great
grandchildren, ages 6 to 16) who perished when the van they were in was swept
off the road into the water.May God
have mercy on their souls, and grant serenity of thought to the many torn apart
by what this great storm has wrought.
But for the courage and perseverance of first responders,
and an army of volunteers, each one risking his or her own life to save others,
the death toll would be far greater.Let
us stop for a moment and look at the faces of these brave saviors.They’re people of every color, gender,
ethnicity, economic strata, religion, and sexual preference working together
for a single purpose, to save another person’s life.
That is not a Houston or Texas phenomenon in times of
crisis. It is a tried and true, deeply engrained American trait. We saw the
same courage in New Orleans during Katrina, and in New York and New Jersey with
Sandy.In trying times like these we see
our true strength and values as a country come to the fore.
It is not a time for politics, polemics, or pettiness.
This is a time for reflecting on what brings us together,
not to hammer away at what drives us apart.Let us find a lesson in how individual Texans are pulling together to
battle an unmitigated disaster, let us bring that sense of camaraderie into our
hearts, allow it to fill our souls, and pray that it serves as an honest guide to
what we all truly share as American values.
Amen.
And for those who wish to donate to American Red Cross
Hurricane Harvey Disaster Relief, here is the link.
Cara here on Tuesday. I'm having a great time on this book tour and catching up with so many pals, especially our MIE gang or the usual suspects as some might say.
Here's a suspect, doesn't EvKa look guilty of something here in Portland?
Now we come to our Lisa Brackman in San Diego where she gave me a grilling. With us is Marc Ellsberg, who's from Vienna and has written a great thriller - and scary, too. Imagine the power grids go out in Europe...so we took him out for a craft beer to chill in 'SD'style
If that weren't enough hot coals, our own Tim Hallinan hit me with a page of questions at Chevalier's books in LA...fantastic store and Tim, fantastic comme toujours.
Along the way I got to hang out with the boss at Murder By the Book in Houston - Jack Reacher and his lovely human, McKenna
Here's the chocolate gateau at the Orange County launch party courtesy of Debbie at Mystery Ink
Chocolate, chocolate and more dense chocolate - as delicious as it looks.
But most of the time the glamorous touring life is fueled by gummy bears, a Léo Malet pulp novel and trusty laptop at the boarding gate and looks like this.
Tonight I'm catching up with Stan in Minneapolis!
Cara on Tuesday
I’m spending a few days with my son and his family in
Houston, Texas.Actually just north of
Houston in Spring, hometown to Lyle Lovett. And if you have to ask who he is
(that’s him in the above photo with his Pretty
Woman ex-bride), just skip the next paragraph entirely.
Ray Wylie Hubbard (Photo Todd Wolfson)
Anyway, every time I come down here I learn something
new.Like, for instance, a new
musician—new to me at least—Ray Wylie Hubbard.His work mixes country, folk, and blues elements and he’s an “elder
statesman” of the Texas music scene with such catchy tunes as “Drunken Poet’s
Dream,” and the ever-popular, “Snake Farm.”
This trip I also learned that the new Super Mario 3D World Wii U game by Nintendo is a sure hit with eight- and six-year-old grandkids
celebrating their birthdays.
Those games always seemed such a big waste of time to me
compared to all the many other things they could be doing. Then I witnessed the
dexterity and quick thinking required to master the controller for those games
and realized that, with all the progress in robotics, there’s no telling where
such a developed skill set might take them.Though I still prefer to watch them playing with Gus-the-runnerdog in
their backyard.
In two weeks it’s off to Mykonos for me, and in case any of
you are wondering why I’m not writing about what’s happening in Greece, the
answer’s simple. I’m taking a sabbatical on the subject until I land
there.Besides no one really knows
what’s going on, though possibly another of Ray Wylie Hubbard’s tunes might
lend a clue to the currently postured attitude of Greece’s powers that be:
“Screw You, We’re From Texas.”
Some guidance might also be found in those fantasy aspects
of the Super Mario game where gold and renewed power is pulled out of
thin air.
But for those of you looking for a solid news update, here’s
an opinion piece posted a few days back in The
New York Times. It’s written by
Nikos Konstandaras, managing editor of Greece’s Kathimerini and is titled, “Greece’s Eerie Calm.”
Nikos Konstandaras
As Greece teeters on the
edge of default and possible exit from the European common currency, foreign
officials cannot understand how Greek government officials can appear so
sanguine.
An explanation of the
government’s motives and behavior can be found in spheres beyond the economy,
where the government has moved swiftly to impose its agenda on domestic and
foreign policy — to the alarm of allies, opposition parties and investors.
Nowhere has the
government shown an appetite to compromise. This mentality is rooted in a
century of conflict between left and right, when foreign powers helped
right-wing governments maintain power at the expense of leftist forces. Now,
with a radical leftist party, Syriza, in power for the first time, working
through this situation could be as self-destructive as it is inevitable.
Since its election on
Jan. 25, Syriza has adopted programs aimed at easing some of the effects of
austerity, while promising to crack down on tax evasion, particularly by the
rich.
It has taken a more
tolerant policy toward migrants and refugees, tested relations with foreign
partners, and frozen or rolled back a number of reforms, not only in the
economy.
In education, a new law
would give students and political parties greater influence in the running of
universities, restoring a model adopted in the early 1980s that seriously
undermined universities (and was changed only in 2011).
The police have been
instructed to tolerate self-described “anti-establishment” activists, to the
point that protesters painted insults against the police on riot squad buses.
On judicial issues,
prosecutors claim that a new law aimed at easing prison congestion and setting
free ailing prisoners will release too many convicts unconditionally; the
United States and families of the victims of the November 17 terrorist group
condemn an impending decision that would allow Savvas Xiros, who is serving
five life terms (for, among other crimes, the murder of a United States defense
attaché in 1988 and a United States Air Force sergeant in 1991), to finish his
sentence at home because of injuries sustained in 2002 when a bomb he had
intended to plant at a shipping company’s office exploded in his hands.
In foreign policy, Prime
Minister Alexis Tsipras raised eyebrows in Washington and Brussels when he
visited President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow earlier this month, after his
government had made clear its opposition to sanctions against Russia for its
incursion into Ukraine. Last week, his defense minister was also in Russia,
renewing calls for an end to sanctions. (Apart from words, however, Athens has
not broken ranks with its partners.)
And even as the
government says it wants investments and growth, several ministers and Syriza
deputies oppose a Canadian company’s gold-mining operation in northern Greece,
while government members have given out conflicting signals about the potential
expansion of a Chinese company’s container terminal in Piraeus.
Mr. Tsipras’s first act
as prime minister was to visit a site where German occupying forces carried out
a mass execution during World War II.Since then, Parliament has debated Greek claims for reparations for
German atrocities and damages, and for the repayment of a loan the Nazis forced
the Greek central bank to provide during the occupation.
A government official
said that the total claim came to 278.7 billion euros. Germany, which directly
or indirectly guarantees some €65 billion of the €240 billion bailout, says
this was dealt with in past agreements.
But the Greek Parliament
has set up a committee to investigate — and press — the issue.
Another inquiry is
looking into how Greece amassed a debt that reached €317 billion at the end of
2014; the committee is expected to recommend that part of the debt not be paid.
A third committee is investigating the circumstances of the bailout deal signed
in 2010.
The reparation and debt
inquiries are headed by Zoe Konstantopoulou, the Parliament’s speaker, a high-profile
opponent of the bailout agreement. They appear designed to play on the
government’s message that Greece is the victim of foreign loan sharks and of a
corrupt local elite, rather than a country that needs to reform its economy and
public administration.
Suspicion of foreign
powers is the glue that holds the coalition’s two disparate parties together.
Independent Greeks, the junior partner, is a hard-line right-wing nationalist
group born out of opposition to the bailout; Syriza is the offspring of part of
the Communist-led resistance against the Germans in World War II. In the civil
war that followed Germany’s defeat, first Britain and then the United States
backed a right-wing government, and during most of the Cold War leftists were
marginalized in Greece.
Challenging Greece’s
allies and highlighting claims against Germany give Syriza street credibility,
and allow it to appear more “patriotic” than previous governments, which had
raised but not forced the issue of reparations.
In negotiations with
creditors, the government refuses to reform pensions and labor law, increase
value-added taxes and encourage privatization. Yet it expresses confidence that
Greece’s European Union partners, the European Central Bank and the
International Monetary Fund will back down.
“I remain firmly
optimistic that there will be an agreement by the end of the month,” Mr.
Tsipras told Reuters on April 16. Europe would not “choose the path of
unethical and brutal financial blackmail,” he said, but would opt for “the path
of bridging differences.”
To avoid rifts in his
party, save face over unrealistic promises he made to voters and underline that
he will not be “blackmailed,” Mr. Tsipras prefers to risk a breakup with
creditors, which could destroy the economy.
Relishing their rise to
power, he and his party display intransigence while demanding compromise. They
either have unshakable confidence that they will get their way, or blind faith
that, as time runs out, others will care more about the Greek people than they
appear to and will step in to avert disaster.
New Years is bye-bye. The eight days of Chanukah, gone. The Twelve Days of Christmas, poof! All there is to look forward to in the US is Valentine’s Day, exactly one month away. Whoopee. Yes, in the US there’s MLK Day on Monday but it’s the kind of holiday that bounces from one Monday to the next depending on the year. Like Presidents’ Day (this year that one’s on February 20th); the kind that doesn’t fit into your internal, since childhood celebratory calendar. They’re more like a grown-up’s day off from the office sort of holiday.
By the way, for those of you wondering what is MLK and which Presidents have their own day I’ll tell you, but if you have to ask I doubt you’re celebrating either. MLK stands for Martin Luther King, Jr. and Presidents’ Day replaces George Washington’s birthday, but it’s never celebrated on his actual birthday of February 22nd, although some places still call it Washington’s Birthday and in others it also replaces the celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday (on February 12). Confused? That’s only fitting; after all it ended up this way because Congress couldn’t agree on what to call it. Frankly, I think it’s largely called Presidents’ Day because other Presidents felt left out. Sort of like the US electorate does the day after the Presidential Elections.
Two celebrating Presidents (Washington & Jefferson College)
But this isn’t about the state of US politics. It’s about … well, frankly I’m not sure what it’s about.
I’m on a plane out of Houston after a weeklong visit with my grandkids. They each had colds, but being the well-mannered four- and two-year olds that they are they shared what they had with their parents. So far not with their grandfather but their big, wet, sneezy, goodbye kisses at the airport have yet to report in to my immune system.
So, here I am on a flight back to New York. Wish it were back to Greece. But not yet. Sigh.
Then again, most of my Mykonian buddies are away on off-island holidays this time of the year. Those who can afford it. If you haven’t heard, there is a financial crisis in Greece. But this isn’t about that either. It’s about…
Interesting people on this plane. A true mix of skin colors and ethnicities. They look to be from Africa, Asia, Europe, India, Latin America, South America, The Middle East, you name it, and at least one (the fella next to me) is definitely from some yet to be discovered distant galaxy. Yet, when they speak, it’s usually in perfect English (FYI Dan, Michael, and Stanley, that’s American English.).
It seems to be that way almost everywhere I fly in the US these days, and I don’t think that’s because of the routes I choose. More likely it’s because Americans all look as if they’re from somewhere else—and they are. Even the Indians. All 312,851,346 of US and counting.
Flag of Faces at Ellis Island Immigration Museum, New York
But this is not about immigration policy…
Or American football. Although from the way Houstonians are carrying on about their team you’d think they believe every single American is rooting for the Houston Texans to beat the New England Patriots in this weekend’s Super Bowl playoff game. Yes, Beth, I was tempted to tell them that the other team does have its loyal fans, but as practically everyone in Texas is allowed to carry a gun, I decided it wiser to wait and twitter them the news once I’m back in gun-free (ha-ha) NYC.
Yes, I’m afraid you do, oh fourth largest city in the United States. Let’s be honest, if someone says the name of one of America’s three more populated cities, New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago, there is an immediate sense of energy in the air. But mention Houston—the true energy capital of the world—and the enthusiasm meter flatlines.
"Smokey City" Pittsburgh, midday 1940
I know that syndrome far too well, for I grew up in a place long-suffering from the same ailment: poor public image management. To this day people ask me if Pittsburgh still is as smoke-filled as it was in the “old days.” Since the skies over Pittsburgh have been clear since the late 1940’s, and Forbes Magazine (again) picked Pittsburgh as “America’s most livable city,” I’m not quite sure how to respond to such an ill-informed comment other than with a fist-pumping “GO STEELERS.” [No offense intended to the wonderful folks of Green Bay, Wisconsin, but one must stick with one’s hometown football team in the Super Bowl, unless of course you happen to be the native Pittsburgher coach of the Packers.]
Sam Houston (1793-1863)
But this is not about expressions of civic pride for Pittsburgh. This is about Space City/Bayou City/H-Town. And there are at least a half-dozen more nicknames for that southeast Texas metropolis down by the Gulf of Mexico created by two New Yorkers (the Allen Brothers) in 1836 and named after the President of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston. Yes, Texas was indeed an independent country between 1836 and 1845 and some down here seem to long for those days to return.
As far as I can tell, Houston generally gets picked-on in one of three ways: for having hot humid summers, no zoning, and one of the fattest populations in the United States. But the weather is really no different from Florida, there are beautiful residential communities to be found all over the city, and at least four other Texas towns rank higher than Houston on the “fat list.” Besides, “Fat City” is the nickname for New Orleans.
Murder By The Book, Houston
So, why am I suddenly springing to the defense of a city I’m just coming to know? Answer: because it’s the right thing to do. The fact my son and his family just moved there and I kicked off my book tour this week for Prey on Patmos at Houston’s wonderful Murder By The Book is purely coincidental.
What is the real Houston? Let’s start off with a pithy description given to me by a Houstonian. “Houston is Los Angeles without the pretensions.” Having far more friends in Los Angeles than Green Bay, I hasten to say those are not my words, but at least it’s a place to start.
So, how do those two great cities compare?
Downtown Houston
Though both LA and Houston have distinct downtown areas, to get around either city you must live in your car because mass transit is virtually non-existent. Nor does either have what most would consider traditional, neighborhood street life; rather each seems an amalgam of small towns connected by freeways. Yes, Houston is flat while LA has its mountains and canyons, but that is a difference likely lost on most commuters plodding along on their respective, clogged rush-hour freeways.
Downtown Los Angeles
On the natural disaster front, LA has its earthquakes, Houston its hurricanes. A tradeoff.
Both cities have terrific restaurants, shopping, and civic pride. Both have lovely residential communities, though the price of a home in Houston is likely to be one-tenth that of a similar one in LA.
1956 film of Edna Ferber novel
But how can one possibly find a comparison in Houston to the glitzy intriguing world of LA’s Hollywood. Simple, ever hear of Enron? Yes, LA may have the movie business, but Houston has big oil, big gas, big medicine, and the U.S. Space industry. When is the last time you heard a commercial on an LA radio station for Saudi Aramco oil soliciting teachers to relocate to Saudi Arabia? Or on behalf of the C.I.A. offering career opportunities in the National Clandestine Services? The stories filmed in LA arise out of lives lived in Houston. [Okay, a bit dramatic, but you get the point.]
Stop! you say. Everyone knows Houston is redneck, while LA is
Houston's Wunsche Bros. in Old Town Spring
chic and sophisticated. Not sure what that means. Yes, politics in Houston is more conservative than in LA, but isn’t the fairer measure of a people the way they treat others rather than the color of their necks? Houston’s robust economy has and continues to welcome those fleeing difficult economic times elsewhere in the country, and let’s not forget how wide Houston opened its heart to the rush of New Orleans refugees fleeing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Honorable Mayor of Houston
And, oh yes, this redneck, conservative town just elected a new mayor, Annise Parker. A Democrat, female, and the first elected mayor of a U.S. city with over a million residents who is openly gay—something NYC, LA, and Chicago haven’t come close to doing.
Now, about managing that public image thing…win a Super Bowl (or seven), it does wonders.
Downtown Pittsburgh today
By the way, tonight (Saturday) at 5 PM I'll be at Poisoned Pen Books in Scottsdale, Arizona for a joint good time event and signing with Donis Case, Dana Stabenow, and Tina Whittle, and on Monday at noon I'll be at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop. I'd mention my signing next Saturday at M is For Mystery in San Mateo, California, but I think I'll save that bit of BSP for next Saturday's piece.
And for those who wish to donate to American Red Cross
Hurricane Harvey Disaster Relief, here is the link.
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