Guns, God, and Real Estate

It’s really cool to be alive in America at this point in history because it’s like the collapse of the Roman Empire but with Wi-Fi.” 

– Billy Addington, Exec. Dir., Founder, Save Sierra Blanca (Texas) Foundation

A Gun Story

There are more ironies in this tragedy than can be addressed. You don’t expect this kind of dying in a tiny town with a name like Eden, nor do you anticipate an argument about chasing a dog to turn into a deadly gunfight.

And it all happened just as the governor of Texas was salivating over the chance to sign a permit-less gun carry bill into law. Everybody get your gun?

Nobody knows at the moment where Jeffrey Nicholas got his gun, though. And we aren’t likely to ask many questions because we are Texas. But it couldn’t be that difficult for a 28-year-old living in West Texas. Concho County is hunting country. Guns are as common as pickups. Lots of folks own firearms. Even people who also have tempers. And are mentally unstable. Because there is no other explanation for what happened with Nicholas.

There was a dispute with the young man about a dog. Two police officers and an animal control worker with the city of Eden were trying to catch a dog that had bitten someone. When it went into Nicholas’ yard, he told police to get off his property and that he “had his civil rights.” When they refused, he said he was going to shoot them. An eyewitness claims, the two sheriff’s deputies rushed him, and he opened fire, killing them both. Over a dog. On a quiet side street in Eden just two blocks off the little town square.

There was no gun battle. The witness description makes it sound like a straight up assassination, two deputies were dead, and the Eden city employee was gut shot. By a man who clearly should not have been in possession of a firearm, or maybe even a butter knife. Deputy Samuel Leonard and Sgt. Stephen Jones surely thought they were making a routine house call to help local authorities deal with an animal that might be rabid. Instead, they encountered a human who was unbalanced.

How and where Nicholas got his gun needs to be scrutinized because it is an almost iconic example of the way weapons complicate simple circumstances. Were he not armed, police officers might have been able to arrest him with a physical scuffle, jail him for resisting arrest and disturbing the peace, and he could’ve, maybe, realized his own stupidity and gotten on with his life?

Instead, he now has no hope for a future, and destroyed at least two families by murdering the deputies. Over a dog. Nicholas is in jail on a $4 million dollar bond facing capital murder charges for killing peace officers. Within the year, he is likely to be on death row, awaiting the results of appeals that will almost surely be denied. But he might see his mid-thirties behind prison walls before a needle is stuck into his arm.

Was he on meth? Or drunk? Angry at the world for reasons unknown? We don’t know. But we do know this case is a perfect example of why so many law enforcement agencies had urged the state legislature and our gun-loving governor to not pass the permit-less carry law. If anyone who wants can get a gun, and tote it around without training or licensing, there will be more basic disputes that cascade into violence.

The Texas governor does not care. He cares about guns more than people. He issued a statement after this tragedy saying, “Our hearts are broken,” but he made no mention of working with law enforcement on gun accessibility issues. He wants to praise police but do nothing about the safety of officers and now two are no longer here for his hollow plaudits, in part, because Texas has become a free-for-all for firearms. Cursory background checks have not seemed to make a difference in reducing gun violence.

In fact, on the same day the two lawmen were gunned down, Abbott was also distressed by a federal court’s ruling in New York that prohibits the National Rifle Association from moving to Texas. A judge dismissed the NRA’s bankruptcy filing by claiming it was more of a legal scheme to avoid debt and reorganize as a non-profit in the more gun-friendly state of Texas. Governor Abbott said he will continue to work with the NRA on moving here where the organization has 400,000 paid members.

Meanwhile, Texans can become even more efficient at the post-killing rituals.

Less than twelve hours after being murdered, lawmen and women from around the state had gathered in Eden and organized a procession to escort the bodies of the fallen officers to Lubbock for autopsies and fewer than 24 hours had passed before nearby residents gathered at the town square for a memorial vigil. There were prayers, lit candles, tears, and a few brief comments. Everyone went home, hoping lessons were learned and nothing like this would ever happen again.

But they know it will. And you do, too.

Unreal Estate

There is a confluence of factors that are making the real estate market in Texas both glorious and confounding, depending on whether you are buyer, seller, or builder. Construction has slowed because of material costs; lumber, an 8 foot 2 by 4, for instance, is $8, and the price of steel has gone up as much as 150 percent in the past six months. One report said the average cost of a home in the U.S. had increased $36,000 because of building materials.

Buying a home in the state of Texas, as of mid-May 2021, is a challenge in the four major cities. Inventory has gone down because of slow construction and at the worst possible time as the state is booming with population growth. In Austin, there are bidding wars for basic builders’ homes in far suburbs. I saw one ad on Zillow and the agent had told viewers that the home had been on the market 24 hours and she was in “a multiple offer situation.” Poor darlin’. Sounded like she was being held hostage. The realtor did agree to let others send her offers for the next 24 hours but they could only view the house online. She just didn’t have time for this silly business of showing the property.

Looking to Downsize in a Hot Market?

There has never been a real estate boom of this nature in Austin. Anecdotes about offers or bids are endless. I’ve a friend who was about to put his 3600 square foot builder’s floor plan on the market with a “Coming Soon” sign in his front yard. A knock came on the door from a prospective buyer who said he didn’t want to wait until it was formally offered. He convinced the seller to let him take a quick look and called the next morning with an offer that was almost $400,000 above the asking price, and he paid cash. A neighbor had thirty couples lined up on the sidewalk to tour her house the morning it showed up on MLS. She had a dozen offers by noon, all over $200,000 above the list price. The average cost of a home in the Austin metro has increased 40 percent in the past year. Logic appears to have suffered a big loss, though.

What, exactly, then, are the options for the young wanting home ownership?

The numbers don’t look good. A starter home from a builder is probably about $250,000. Even though mortgage interest rates remain low, the price of the home consumes those savings by the time of closing. How does a young family get started? Unless they have access to creative financing, a 20 percent down payment on $250k is $50,000. Know any newlyweds or young couples with that in their bank accounts?

The other problem is property taxes. Because Texas has built its economic myth on not taxing corporations and giving them huge abatements that have to be supplemented and paid back by consumers, property taxes are onerous. On a quarter million-dollar home the bill will likely be $5000 annually, depending on the school district, which means the mortgage company will want that total in escrow before you can sign papers and move into your “dream?”

So, $50,000 down, $5,000 tax escrow, utility deposits, commuting in from the suburbs, car payments, furniture for the new house, and a 30-year mortgage of probably $2000 a month, until property values or tax rates rise, which, inevitably, they will.

Rethink your American dream?

There were deals in the Rio Grande Valley, if you were willing to live on the border. Those days, however, have fallen astern. Urban planners in McAllen, Harlingen, Brownsville, and Mission all decided years ago that they wanted to be like every other homogenized city in Texas and they started attracting name brand and big box stores to spread across what used to be orange and grapefruit orchards. The goal was to attract shoppers from Mexico, and it has worked. But in the process, much of the culture that made the Valley authentic and unique has been paved over by strip malls and franchises that can be found a mile or two from every major airport in America.

I used to wake up mornings at 3:30 am and ride my motorcycle into town to sign on the radio station in McAllen and when the orange blossoms were opening, I took the long route down through the big groves and along the levees of the irrigation canals. Nothing, in my view, not even spring honeysuckle, rivals the sweet perfume of an orange blossom in full flower. I thought we might never leave such a place. But we did.

Maybe we should have gone to El Paso, and yes, I am serious. I have always been drawn to the Franklin Mountains and the views of “them rollin’ smokey hills of old Juarez.” Still am, so I frequently check out real estate in that city sitting in the Western time zone. My guess, after constant research and surfing Zillow and Trulia for several years, is that house prices out there are about half of what they are in Houston, Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio.

Last summer, we toured a four-bedroom home up on a mountain west of town. The interior had Saltillo floors throughout, fiber optic Internet and speakers in every room, an outdoor kitchen with big screen TV under a lanai, swimming pool and spa, entry courtyard at the front of the house, and a finished-out garage with black and white checkerboard tile floor, cabinets, and a man-cave corner with TV and mini-bar.

Total square footage on the 9-year-old house was just under 2700 and asking price was $267,000, and the owners couldn’t get an offer. Five minutes on either of the two major home listing sites and you will be contemplating moving to the West Texas town of El Paso. Let’s also clear up the nonsense about it being a dangerous town on the border. Almost every year the FBI’s uniform crime statistics show El Paso to be the safest city in America. Yeah, there are some bad actors on the other side of the big river, but on the north bank there are probably more law enforcement officers per capita than any other city in the country. Consider the work force of the Border Patrol, Customs, FBI, DEA, El Paso Police Department, the county sheriffs’ office, and the military police at Fort Bliss. Even criminals are smart enough to know their odds aren’t good in that kind of an environment.

It’s a dark thought but you could also abandon Texas and go north of El Paso to the college town of Las Cruces, New Mexico in the morning shadow of the Organ Mountains. The light that comes across Cruces is comparable to evenings in Santa Fe, but the real estate is even more appealing. Beautiful new homes are available with pools and courtyards and mountain views for under $300,000. There is no shortage to choose from, and the city and New Mexico State University’s campus are just minutes distant. You are also only a few hours from skiing in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, or Ruidoso, and to the west is the Gila National Forest and Silver City, not to mention a joint called Sparky’s just up the road in Hatch that creates what has to be the greatest hamburger ever devised, the green chili cheeseburger. Find ‘em anywhere in New Mexico, but nothing like Sparky’s.

It has become less expensive to live almost anywhere other than Texas, regardless of the rhetorical flourishes of the state’s promotional leadership. The increasing property tax burden alone is going to affect decisions by people looking for a fresh chance at prosperity and financial security. And places like Austin are running out of room. The lack of a housing inventory will affect new companies coming to the area like Elon Musk’s giant factory and Apple’s second sprawling campus along with another global facility of Samsung. Those $20 dollar cocktails downtown and $1500 a square foot high rise condos are going to lose their appeal, eventually, too.

Where does it all stop? Or does it even have to?

Down by the Sea

Their ghosts must surely moan audibly when a freshening wind crosses the western shores of Matagorda Bay on the Texas Gulf Coast. Even after 150 years, there is something palpable about the beginning of hurricane season in this sandy fish camp by the shallow water. People who don’t know what happened there have claimed they sensed a dramatic history before they even learned of the astounding tragedies.

Thousands of lives went un-lived at a place called Indianola. There is little present now to suggest the wind-scoured remains are traces of what was once an energetic city on the edge of a shining future. When the tide goes out, the foundation of an old city hall is visible. A cistern sits not far from the green waters of the bay and a few concrete pilings stand as relics of busy commerce by the waterfront. A large city had been platted and the dreamers expected it to become bigger than Galveston or Houston. There is also a historical marker that tells visitors of the improbable and permanent demise of the vision that was Indianola.

In the decade after the end of the Civil War, Indianola grew as a natural port of entry into the American Southwest. The Morgan Lines steamship service docked at the end of a long wharf with travelers who had booked through passage from New York City and train tracks ran out on the docks to pick up the weary seafarers and take them to their hotels. Indianola was the first location West of the Mississippi River to have mechanically produced ice, which was used to ship processed beef to New Orleans. There were also theaters, photography studios, a baseball diamond, grand hotels, billiard halls, schools and churches as the population rose to more than six thousand by 1875. In an attempt to get supplies to the westernmost forts in Texas, the U.S. military brought camels through Indianola from the Mideast for a long trek to the mountain ranges of the Trans-Pecos region.

And then the first hurricane struck. Nobody knows how many died, possibly thousands. Most of the people living in Indianola were European immigrants and had no idea about tropical storms. They came to the city for opportunity; it was the easternmost point of the old Chihuahua Trail that went to San Antonio and Chihuahua City before the Pacific Coast. German and Czech settlers had landed there and moved inland up the Guadalupe River to places like Fredericksburg and Praha to raise cattle and grow crops in the hard, unforgiving ground. 

The telegram that went out from a nearby wire told of the horrific scene after the first storm:

(Indianola, September 20) To the Editors of The News:

We are destitute. The town is gone. One quarter of the people are gone. Dead bodies are strewn for twenty miles along the bay. Nine-tenths of the houses are destroyed. Send us help, for God’s sake.

(signed) D.W. Crain, District Attorney

Survivors rebuilt Indianola after the 1875 storm but eleven years later another hurricane knocked the city down with fire and rain and floods, and, eventually, the place where singers had performed on stages and baseball had been played before large crowds was turned into an abandoned strip of beach. The storms of Indianola prompted Galveston leaders to push for a seawall to be constructed, which never happened, and the island was sundered by a hurricane in 1900 that remains the greatest natural disaster in American history with an estimated 6000-12000 deaths.

Not much exists today to remind the world of Indianola, beyond the historical marker, a diorama of the town site in the Calhoun County Museum, and a sad ballad by singer-songwriter Brian Burns.

Theocracy Texas

You have to work hard to keep up with the idjits in the GOP right wing of the Texas legislature, and the federal government in Washington. Their strategy and tactics appear to involve overwhelming the taxpaying public with ideas that are sufficiently absurd as to defy believability. And they are determined to insert their religious beliefs into governments that were founded to serve everyone, not just Christians.

Office-holding Christians and their constituencies are trying to nibble democracy to death while blaming others for “holding this nation in contempt.” The people most sane individuals would like to hold in contempt are fools like state rep Phil Stephenson, a CPA and Republican from Wharton, who suggested on the house floor of the Texas legislature that certain “forces have mistaken the notion of separation of church and state to mean that government should be hostile toward any expression of faith.”

Utter nonsense, of course, and ignorance of what that separation delineates. The purpose of the clause is to keep government neutral in the matters of personal religious beliefs. Instead, conservative Christians keep trying to force their dogma into government and law. In a Ken Herman piece in the Austin American-Statesman, Stephenson was quoted from a floor speech in the house about a concurrent resolution he was wanting to get passed by his colleagues.

“We are reminded every Sunday about what we should do to follow the Lord,” he said. “And this country was based on religion. It was. And some people forgot what’s got us to the game. And I’m sorry that you may not agree with this. And I don’t really care if you do or not. I just wish the American people would wake up. Yes or no. We know the Big Guy always counts.”

Actually, there’s a pretty good argument to be made that this country was based on slavery, genocide, greed, and racism, but that’s another discussion. Stephenson got his resolution passed, handily, because, well, hell, who wants to vote against the “Big Guy.” What if it’s the Big Gal? Herman wrote the representative said that coaches were getting fired for asking their kids to pray, but he couldn’t name an incident where such a thing had happened. Of course, the Big Guy knows all so need to tell him about fired coaches.

The resolution was for the state to support the Big Guy and the use of prayer and the posting of the Ten Commandments, approximately seven of which the Texas legislature violates on a daily basis. Imagine, if you will, what Stephenson might have said had a Muslim or Jewish member stood to speak to have their religious icons codified into law. The use of the term “the Lord” is a simple reminder of what religion we are talking about here.

Looks like the Big Guy has been on a bit of a roll lately, in any case. A report from the Small Business Administration indicates that 46 Texas churches (not Mosques or Synagogues) each got a minimum of $1 million dollars in Paycheck Protection Loans from the federal government. (Here comes that whole separation of Big Guy and state again). Under U.S. law, religions pay no taxes, which, obviously, prompts the question of why in the hell they are getting tax dollars, and not just a few.

The leading con man has been the usual frontrunner for Jesus, Joel Osteen, whose Houston megachurch got $4.4 million of your tax dollars. The prosperity pastor who lives in a ridiculous many-roomed mansion and drives expensive foreign automobiles and travels on private jets, has 368 employees and they needed to be paid during the pandemic, so they came for your tax dollars and got them. He’s the same Joey for Jesus who kept people out of his church during a Hurricane Harvey because, well, those refugees probably had mud on their shoes. Osteen originally lied when asked about applying for PPP money and said his Lakewood church did not seek the assistance from the feds.

The House that Joey and Jesus Built

Up in Dallas, another one of these stadiums for Jesus, run by Robert Jeffress, a spiritual advisor to D. Trump, was granted a $2-$5-million-dollar forgivable loan just weeks after former VP Mike Pence came to speak at a rally. Here’s my favorite, though. The AP also reported that a special and unprecedented exemption from federal rules allowed the U.S. Roman Catholic Church to nab $1.4 billion in coronavirus aid from taxpayers. Even cooler? Unreported millions went to dioceses that have paid huge settlements and sought bankruptcy protection because of sexual abuse and coverups by their clergy. That’s right, your tax money went to protect churches and sustain them even after they were guilty of pedophilia and lying to protect pedophiles. Is that in the constitution somewhere?

“The notion of separation of church and state is dead, and the PPP loan program is the evidence of that,” Micah Schwartzman, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law told the Associated Press. “The money is going to fund core activities of many organizations, including religious organizations. That’s something we’ve not seen before.”

Whatever we’ve gotta do to keep the Big Guy happy.

Next Week: UFOs, Texas, and What We Really Know