Austin in the News

I noticed this coming up today.....a report from the Austin, Texas’s Equity Office.  They say there's some problems brewing over existing Confederate monuments, some neighborhoods in the city of Austin, at least ten streets, and the city name itself.

The Austin name?  Well.....it comes from Stephen F. Austin, who happened to oppose Mexico's effort in the mid-1800s to dump slavery in the Tejas region.  Austin at the time said that freed slaves would become "vagabonds, a nuisance and a menace."

So, the question is.....would this discussion reach a stage where you'd have to rename an entire city?

Someone did a study and said that if you just went out and renamed one single street....it costs around $5,000 to do the signs, maps, and paperwork required. But then you have to go and figure out the new names, and folks tend to get real creative.

Like.....some idiot could say Lee Street is a bad thing, and then you'd get sixty suggestions on the new street name (Barney Street (after the dinosaur), or Hippy Street, or Skywalker Driver, or Dallas Cowboy Avenue, or Stormy Daniels Street).

But then a whole city?

You'd have some idiots suggest Humperville, DaWaDaWaDaWa or Meth-City.  Or how about Batmanville, Dusty Rhodes (after the wrestler), or West Trump. 

The odds that it'd get this far?  You might be able to persuade folks to just accept a couple of street name changes, but an entire neighborhood being renamed?  I have my doubts, and there's zero chance that the city itself might change it's name. 

But we are at a stage with society where people are cynical and sarcastic.....willing to rename their city 'Kim-City' after North Korea's dictator, or Hooterville after the TV show.