Seems like a majority of people I run into on a daily basis just don’t give a shit – about their job, about customer service, about doing the right thing, basic courtesy or pretty much everything. Not everyone but most folks. Just this morning I was treated to several examples of this, two in the same store (Academy on Research Blvd); a situation that would make one believe the give-a-shit button is turned off at the management level as well. If you run a business you depend on customers. If your customers do not feel like they matter why should they shop at your store? Seems pretty basic to me but apparently it’s an advanced concept in today’s world.
Author Archives: Todd Jagger
Buyer’s Remorse
Primary Obama 2012
Man, I’m so disappointed in our President. Obama has proved to be essentially a Trojan Horse – worse than a Republican because he’s given them more than they ever dreamed. What happened to the guy we voted for? He’s gonna take your Social Security and Medicare; even W couldn’t get that done. Only answer is a primary challenge to Obama with all the vigor we expended getting him elected in 2008. What fools we were.
The Myth of Ubiquitous Internet
Apple will release OS X Lion tomorrow. From all advance information it will be available only as a download directly to your computer through the Mac App Store. This underscores something I’m seeing a lot these days: they myth of ubiquitous internet. Companies assume all locations have access to broadband internet when it’s just not true. For example at our home in the Davis Mountains we have internet but it’s not broadband (it’s satellite). Download speeds are okay, not really fast, the latency is excruciating, but the real problem is the bandwidth caps. We get 17GB per “rolling 30 day period” – a stupid and confusing method of doling out bandwidth – and typically, even though we do not download movies, don’t do file sharing or anything else that would be bandwidth intensive, we are almost constantly hovering at 75-80% usage. If something makes the usage trip the 90% mark our connection is throttled to below dialup speeds (we can’t even use our bank’s web site at these speeds). We have three Macs at the house and I would like to upgrade each of them to Lion. Can’t do it. Sure I can take our laptops to town but what about the Mac Pro? How do I update that machine?
Unprepared
Bird the dog went ballistic this afternoon at the door. I looked up from my desk and saw three guys with backpacks on my porch. This is strange for at least a couple reasons. First my place is 3/4 mile from the highway behind a locked gate. Second, we had experienced three guys with backpacks coming through here a couple months ago but they weren’t hikers, they were almost certainly drug smugglers. These guys were white and looked benign but you never know. I opened the door and they said they were lost. They said they had been trying to find the quaking aspen trees on the Nature Conservancy preserve and got lost going back to their truck, which was parked at Madera Canyon roadside park. They said they had been walking for 8 hours, that they had to stop and rest under a Ponderosa pine somewhere up canyon. They were wearing tennis shoes. I gave them water and told them I’d drive them back to their truck. Still… I put a pistol in my pocket as I got my keys. On the way to the truck I stopped and said, “I just gotta ask: You guys didn’t have a map?” “No” “A compass?” “No… I guess we didn’t think it was that big a deal… We were kind of unprepared…” While driving them back I told them they were lucky nobody took a shot at them, that we have had smugglers in this area and that there was an article in the paper this week about a rancher in Hudspeth County who shot two guys trespassing. That they would have been fine had they gotten permission from the Nature Conservancy, checked in and got a map. They were lucky nobody got hurt.
It’s amazing to me how people get out in nature and have no idea what to do, how to prepare, how to get out of situations. You hear about it on tv all the time. Sometimes it seems like people have lost a certain human know-how that we, from another generation, seem to take for granted.
Renewing The Pioneer Spirit
About 50 yards from my home in Elbow Canyon is an old abandoned telephone line. Two wires on a 10- foot pole that leans almost to the ground. The wires go up and over the hill back towards Fort Davis and over the ridge in the opposite direction to points west. I like to think of the conversations these wires carried half a century or more ago, the news they brought––joyful and sad, the wonder and satisfaction of hearing a voice on the other end of a handset for the first time. The men who set the poles were almost certainly ranchers putting it together on their own, no phone company involved, literally bringing the future to their homes, tying the ranches, town and families together. Creating community.
A few evenings ago our town displayed something very different from that spirit of community. Rather than utilizing the opportunity at our Town Hall meeting to honestly and constructively discuss, analyze and learn from the many things that went right and the few things that went wrong during the Rock House Fire, we apparently chose instead to re-enact the familiar yet worn-out theater of “locals vs. newcomers”.
We should ask ourselves: How many years does a resident of Jeff Davis County have to call this place home to be seen as a legitimate member of the community? At what point does their voice matter? Five years? Ten years? Fifty years? If so, perhaps we ought to make that number known to families thinking about putting down roots here. Or maybe there isn’t a number but only some intricate web of family ties and acres owned that bestows the crown of legitimacy on a citizen, like feudal societies of the past.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I always thought our system of representative democracy was designed so all citizens could have a voice and that each voice mattered; that the decisions of our elected officials were supposed to be made in transparency for the public good and with the public’s involvement in the process, and that asking questions of our representatives is not only a right but a duty. You know: “Of the People, By the People, For the People.”
A common chorus in the above-referenced theater is “This isn’t Houston/Dallas/Austin/whatever.” I believe newcomers understand that, and I don’t believe people who move here want to see this place become like those places. After all, they come here for a reason. At the same time does that mean we should close the door on progress? Sure, there’s a conversation to be had as to what progress means and how that should manifest, but by having that conversation we are then working together towards a common goal, not alienating our neighbors and perpetuating divisiveness in our community.
Honestly, look at our main street. How many businesses have come and gone over the last decade or so, and are struggling to survive today; how many buildings are idle or underutilized? How many of our kids have had to leave to find simple work, let alone careers? Sure, times are tough, but we cannot be willfully blind to economic decline while trying to put the brakes on “change.”
One thing is certain: change is inevitable. It can either be for the better or for the worse. We can’t stop change; we can only try to influence it in a positive direction. As sad and tragic as the wildfires have been for our area they also brought us an extraordinary opportunity to renew and revitalize our area by articulating a vision of the future and working together to achieve it.
Regardless of where they settled, when our ancestors laid the first rock for a home’s foundation, drove the first fencepost, dug the first well, cleared the first road or built a rural phone line, they were all creating change––bringing “progress” to an area that benefited from their vision and hard work. When we cling to the unattainable stance of “I like things the way they are,” we are, in truth, failing to honor the pioneer spirit and very real efforts of our forebears, who toiled and bled to make a better place for their children and their children’s children. Isn’t that what we all want? A place that’s better tomorrow than it was yesterday because of our efforts?
Our tomorrow can be a model of community with our feet firmly placed in the rich and proud past, our eyes looking forward and our hands working together today.
The only thing we lack is a renewed pioneer spirit for Jeff Davis County––an attitude that welcomes the energy and expertise of people who want to call this land home, who have come here to build their lives and a more vibrant community––like our ancestors did so many years ago. The people of our county––at this moment––have an incredible opportunity to renew the pioneer spirit that built this wonderful country and to share a common ground of respect. Let’s start today.
Renewing the Pioneer Spirit
Editorial in the Jeff Davis County Mountain Dispatch following the Rock House Fire of 2011 – May 25, 2011
About 50 yards from my home in Elbow Canyon is an old abandoned telephone line. Two wires on a 10- foot pole lean almost to the ground. The wires run up and over the hill back towards Fort Davis and across the ridge in the opposite direction to points west. I like to think of the conversations these wires carried half a century or more ago, the news they brought––joyful and sad, the wonder and satisfaction of hearing a voice on the other end of a handset for the first time. The men who set the poles were almost certainly ranchers putting it together on their own, no phone company involved, literally bringing the future to their homes, tying the ranches, town and families together. Creating community.
A few evenings ago our town displayed something very different from that spirit of community. Rather than utilizing the opportunity at our Town Hall meeting to honestly and constructively discuss, analyze and learn from the many things that went right and the few things that went wrong during the Rock House Fire, we apparently chose instead to re-enact the familiar yet worn-out theater of “locals vs. newcomers”.
We should ask ourselves: How many years does a resident of Jeff Davis County have to call this place home to be seen as a legitimate member of the community? At what point does their voice matter? Five years? Ten years? Fifty years? If so, perhaps we ought to make that number known to families thinking about putting down roots here. Or maybe there isn’t a number but only some intricate web of family ties and acres owned that bestows the crown of legitimacy on a citizen, like the feudal societies of the past.
Perhaps I’m wrong, but I always thought our system of representative democracy was designed so all citizens could have a voice and that every voice matters; that the decisions of our elected officials were supposed to be made in transparency for the public good and with the public’s involvement in the process, and that asking questions of our representatives is not only a right but a duty. You know: “Of the People, By the People, For the People.”
A common chorus in the above-referenced theater is “This isn’t Houston/Dallas/Austin/whatever.” I believe newcomers understand that, and I don’t believe people who move here want to see this place become like those places. After all, they come here for a reason. At the same time does that mean we should close the door on progress? Certainly there’s a conversation to be had as to what progress means and how that should manifest, and by having that conversation we are then working together towards a common goal, not alienating our neighbors and perpetuating divisiveness in our community.
Honestly, look at our main street. How many businesses have come and gone over the last decade or so, or are struggling to survive today? How many buildings are idle or underutilized? How many of our kids have had to leave to find simple work, let alone careers? Sure, times are tough, but we cannot be willfully blind to economic decline while trying to put the brakes on “change.”
One thing is certain: change is inevitable. It can either be for the better or for the worse. We can’t stop change; we can only try to influence it in a positive direction. As sad and tragic as the wildfires have been for our area they also brought us an extraordinary opportunity to renew and revitalize our area by articulating a vision of the future and working together to achieve it.
Regardless of where they settled, when our ancestors laid the first rock for a home’s foundation, drove the first fencepost, dug the first well, cleared the first road or built a rural phone line, they were all creating change––bringing “progress” to an area that benefited from their vision and hard work. When we cling to the unattainable stance of “I like things the way they are,” we are, in truth, failing to honor the pioneer spirit and very real efforts of our forebears, who toiled and bled to make a better place for their children and their children’s children. Isn’t that what we all want? A place that’s better tomorrow than it was yesterday because of our efforts?
Our tomorrow can be a model of community with our feet firmly placed in the rich and proud past, our eyes looking forward and our hands working together today.
The only thing we lack is a renewed pioneer spirit for Jeff Davis County––an attitude that welcomes the energy and expertise of people who want to call this land home, who have come here to build their lives and a more vibrant community––like our ancestors did so many years ago. The people of our county––at this moment––have an incredible opportunity to renew the pioneer spirit that built this wonderful country and to share a common ground of respect. Let’s start today.
It’s cold
Coldest day ever here at Elbow Canyon, at least the coldest since I’ve been here (10 years almost). Pretty sure it’s a record; will have to check. Real temp -2 this morning; wind chill -11. The whole North side of the house has no water; I’m sure the pipe is frozen in the ground. South side is okay. Kind of struggling to heat the place; have the heaters and the wood stove going strong but it’s still in the low 60s inside the house. Light snow falling and no sunshine so I’m having to run the generator for a while, and it was pretty hard to start.
There are many wonderful things about living up here and living off-grid (rest of Texas and much of the US is enjoying rolling blackouts for electricity) but we’re really not well suited for these kind of extreme temperatures.
Music has changed
Over the end credits on “Dexter” tonight (yes, I’m about a month behind) they played “I’m Your Vehicle” by Blood Sweat & Tears. I asked Anjela if she remember that song and she said it was a little before her time… I was listening to the horns on the TV speakers and was taken back to Jr. High listening to that album. Really loud on the “good stereo” in my parents’ living room. Where the analog notes would reverberate through your spine. The horns! That bari sax! A true wall of sound!
And then I thought how different our interaction with music is today. Digitized. Shrunk into little ear pods that cannot possibly reproduce sound properly. I realized I don’t even have a good stereo in my house any more. Me! The guy with 10 feet of vinyl and a few hundred CDs, not to mention about 15,000 songs on my hard drive. That’s just not right. Gonna have to fix that. I still have the gear, just no good speakers any more.
We used to sit down and listen to music. Now music is either a soundtrack to our daily lives (if we are lucky) or an event we participate in at great expense (a concert). Or if we’re lucky an experience where you get to be in the same room with one or more talented musicians and hear them make good, handmade music on fine instruments in a good setting.
That’s what we like to do with the Border Blasters. It’s what we do best, really.
Cenizo Journal
Last month I spent an embarrassingly long time talking about myself with Jim Glendenning who was writing his portrait article for the Cenizo Journal; the spiritual successor to the wonderful Desert Candle quarterly arts magazine for the Trans-Pecos. I picked up the issue and read the little blurb about me.
It’s strange to read about yourself. Even stranger to see an hour conversation about your life history distilled into a few paragraphs in print – sort of like reading your own obituary written by someone who doesn’t know you real well. Jim did a fine job, don’t misunderstand, but it’s just a little odd, y’know.
And I want to clarify one thing that isn’t completely correct in the article: I did not launch the Harvest Moon & Tunes Festival here in FD. Yes, I suppose it was mostly my idea and I worked really hard on producing the music part of it, but there were so many people who actually took the “Hey, this would be a great place for a small music festival” idea and made it a reality. Lanna Duncan produced basically everything besides the music part, and I’ll get into trouble if I try to mention others because I’ll forget somebody. It’s time for something like that in Fort Davis again. I’ll produce the music again if we can get enough backing to make it viable.
The Social Network
Just saw The Social Network. Not only is it a well-crafted film but it is a snapshot of our American culture today. Where riches are made overnight on an “Idea” (and in this case someone else’s idea!) – not by years of hard work, or actually making something you can touch, see or hear. Zuckerberg’s character comes across as pathetic, lonely, no social skills, impressionable by the “cool guys” and quite probably amoral, perhaps bordering sociopathic. If there is a human villain in the movie it is Sean Parker’s character, who is yesterday’s news trying very hard to remain relevant and sees an opportunity. But the true villain is greed. Greed for power, status and money of course.
It’s a brilliant social commentary and you don’t have to be a computer nerd to get it.
Like I’ve said before we have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. If there were another open-source place that did it right it would leave Facebook in the dust. With Facebook you are not the customer, you are the product and don’t ever forget it.