Archives for September 2017

Texas Standard: September 8, 2017

As Irma bears down on a Harvey hit US, our neighbors to the south prepare for their own dual front disaster, we’ll explore. Also, it’s been more than 2 years since the waco biker shootout, and so far not a single conviction. How much did police know about the likelihood of violence that day, and why didn’t they intervene? Documents obtained by the Texas Standard shed new light on those questions, and we’ll talk with our investigative reporter. Those stories and so much more today on the Texas Standard:

Trampolines

There’s no feeling like soaring higher and higher on a trampoline. That pure gravity-defying glee is the topic of this week’s Typewriter Rodeo poem.

The Value of Understanding

As gratifying as applied research is, to set out to answer a specific research question, it’s not always the best way to come up with new ideas, discover new things, and develop understanding. For these things you need basic research or just a curiosity about the world and how it works.

As Dr. Art Markman and Dr. Bob Duke talk about on this edition of Two Guys on Your Head, developing and valuing understanding, as opposed to the bottom line, is an important part of uncovering what we don’t even know we don’t know.

 

Texas Standard: September 7, 2017

After Harvey, next Rita, and another hurricane building in the Gulf of Mexico. We’re monitoring the latest on all three fronts today. Plus, for the first time in recent memory, members of the Texas delegation to the US House will do something they haven’t before: republicans and democrats will meet in the same room for the purposes of getting on the same page. And that page is hurricane relief. But if they’re successful, where will the money go? And rethinking runoff: if Texas swings between floods and droughts, shouldn’t we be banking some of the floodwater for the next dry spell? Those stories and so much more today on the Texas Standard:

This Song: Ty Segall

Psychedelic garage-rocker Ty Segall tells KUTX host Taylor Wallace how The Band’s “The Weight” inspired the name of his new puppy, how much he loves The Grateful Dead, and how both bands helped him wrap his head around lyrical storytelling.

Subscribe via the Podcasts App, iTunes or Stitcher to get the new episodes of This Song delivered to you as soon as they come out.

Check out Ty Segall’s Tour Dates

Listen to the This Song Episode Featuring Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo here

Listen to Songs from Episode 99 of This Song

 

Texas Standard: September 6, 2017

Is DACA really dead? Though Texas top law enforcement official is celebrating, other Texas lawmakers say not so fast, we’ll explore. Also- the Texas congressional delegation set to return to Washington for a special conference, as lone star lawmakers try to come up with a strategy to bring home aid money post Harvey, we’ll hear what they’re planning. And for years strict rules kept Texas from moving forward with telemedicine. Harvey underscores how much is changing. Finally, a fix for Texas’ troubled foster care system? Our reporter finds the solution isn’t likely to be one size fits all. Those stories and so much more today on the Texas Standard:

Bass Boat Heroes

Every destructive hurricane is remembered in a unique way. Katrina is largely remembered for levees breaking and the paralyzing chaos that followed. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900, whose anniversary is in two days, is remembered for a horrific number – 6-thousand. 6-thousand people perished. It was the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history. I believe that Hurricane Harvey will be remembered for the greatest amount of rain ever to fall in one place in the U.S. within 24 hours, but I believe it will also be remembered for the bass boat heroes.

Someone on social media suggested that we should build a monument to “two regular guys in a bass boat.” And that idea has been seconded by tens of thousands.

Even from where I live in deep south Texas, I saw dozens of trucks pulling boats, headed north on Highway 77: bass boats, swamp boats, pontoons, skiffs and navy seal type zodiacs. The call went out for help across the state and Texans answered. They came from San Antonio and San Angelo and Austin, Waco, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Tyler, even I understand, from the Panhandle and El Paso. From every nook and cranny of the state, they rolled toward the floods, spontaneous convoys racing to the coast. It was magnificent to see them: Texas flags bent by speed and proudly waving from their trucks and trailers, a genuine cavalry to the rescue. These men and women didn’t ask for money or mileage or payback of any kind. They didn’t ask for whom the bell tolled, they just concluded, it tolls for me – and away they went.

I talked to a man at a station near my house who was filling up his slightly lifted GMC. He was pulling a 15-foot bass boat with a trolling motor. I asked him if he was going to Houston. He said, “My brother and me thought we might head up that way. I mean I got a truck and a boat. Might be of help to somebody. I know they’d do it for us if things were turned around.”

And they didn’t just come from Texas. The Cajun Navy, as they are so beautifully named, came from Louisiana in large numbers, as did others from Arkansas and Oklahoma, and no doubt other states too.

A National Guard Officer said on the Weather Channel: “These people are showing up with air boats, swamp boats, and jet skis. They go out and rescue people and bring them to us. I don’t know where these people are coming from, but it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.”

An old friend of mine, Matt Carr, from Central Texas, answered the call. He said: “Driving into Houston in the storm was surreal. I-10, 290, and 610 had no cars on them. It was apocalyptic. Fields full of water, cows huddling on tiny islands above rising water. We felt all alone. We got there in a window of time before the world arrived again.”

He said the police were busy with calls and told the rescuers they were free to go where they pleased and help in any way they could. So they did. He said once the National Guard arrived, the process became more efficient. “It felt like a Texas version of Dunkirk,” he said, “less dangerous, but the same spirit.”

Matt rescued a 90-year-old woman named Hazel. She didn’t have anyone in her life. She was alone. She didn’t want to leave her house, but she was cold. Matt convinced her to go. He said, “I took her to a bus so they could take her to a shelter. She was scared. So I knelt down next to her in the aisle on the bus and we said a prayer together. And then I got back to work.”

Matt’s was one of thousands of similar stories from that night. Here’s another from my buddy Manny Fernandez who is the Houston Bureau chief for the New York Times. He was out riding along with many of these rescuers, impressed with their instinct for navigating what was now an urban bay. And it was dark except for helmet headlamps. Dangerous work. Manny asked many of these rescuers why they had come so far to take these risks. He said that almost to a person, they answered, with three words: “This is Texas.”

Texas Standard: September 5, 2017

Getting back to business across Harvey-hit Texas: it was no holiday weekend for roughly 1 in 3 in the Lone Star State. The mucking, the cleanup, the drywall, the carpet, the debris left behind by harvey: put it all together and how much is there and where does it go? And what about all that water? As trillions of gallons flow back to the gulf, some wonder if there’s not a quicker and better way to drain east Texas. Plus a price tag bigger than Katrina says the Texas governor. Not so fast say others in Washington. And now a new storm brewing over who and how to pay for the effects of an historic storm. Those stories and so much more today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: September 4, 2017

Over 95 percent of Houston is now dry, says the mayor- as the city issues new mandatory evacuation orders. The latest today on the Texas Standard.

Last night the 4th largest city in the nation started cutting power to some residents trying to get them to leave their homes. We’ll hear what officials are concerned about even as the city dries out.

In Victoria–as people try to return home, many are greeted by eviction notices? The Harvey-hit working poor at a tipping point.

You’ve navigated the floodwaters: can you navigate the process to get help?

Plus: a decision on DACA? Reading, writing and the rural retention of teachers and a whole lot more.

KUT Weekend – September 1, 2017

Why so many gas stations in Austin have no fuel. Plus, stories from Hurricane Harvey, its aftermath and how people are stepping up to help. All that and more in this edition of KUT Weekend!

Subscribe at https://weekend.kut.org

Pronouns

When it comes to language, the psychology around how we use words is as interesting and as consequential as the words themselves.

In this edition of Two Guys on Your Head, Dr. Art Markman and Dr. Bob Duke talk about the psychology of closed classed words in English like pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, and prepositions, and why it’s so hard for us to change them.

Texas Standard: September 1, 2017

As cleanup crews converge on Houston, just a bit to the east its still very much rescue mode. From the heart of the Golden Triangle, this is the Texas Standard.

82,000 homes damaged across Texas.
Harvey’s gone but it left Beaumont and Orange virtual islands…and emergencies in both cities as a military task force turns a big part of its resources to east Texas.

Water water everywhere? Not a drop to drink where we are. Nothing from the tap. Bottled water long gone…
Another growing shortage: gasoline. Rescuers say they’re running low, travelers stalled along backed up roads are running out. But the problem’s not one of supply.