Recent editorials from Texas newspapers

Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Texas newspapers:

Corsicana Daily Sun. Sept. 22, 2019.

In his novel “Fahrenheit 451,” author Ray Bradbury tells the dystopian story of a “fireman” - one who burns books for a living - who one day picks up a book to read it instead of setting it on fire.

In the story, reading is banned, and Montag knows that full well. His boss explains why: Better to have an ignorant public than one that worries its head over controversial, politically charged topics. Or so the argument goes.

“Peace, Montag,” his boss tells him. “Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data . Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving.”

We won’t spoil the rest of the story. Suffice it to say, Montag wrestles with that argument and finds where it falls short. He starts memorizing verses from a few scraps of a Bible he salvaged from a fire. He chooses the books - or better said, the world of ideas he can discover through books.

The irony? This book about banning books has itself been the subject of attempts to ban it.

Sept. 22-28 is Banned Books Week, celebrating your freedom to read. “Fahrenheit 451” is just one of many books that people have tried to have removed from school, university or public libraries for various reasons, and next week is when librarians, booksellers, publishers and teachers support people’s freedom to seek out ideas even if they’re unpopular.

Simply put, it’s your right to read what you choose and to make that same decision for your children. Somebody else shouldn’t make that decision for you.

There might be very good reasons that a particular person shouldn’t read a particular book, especially where children are concerned. Some books contain explicit scenes of violence or sexuality, language that some consider offensive or other content that readers need to be mature enough to handle.

But whether a child should read a particular book is for that child’s parents to decide, not a government employee - a librarian or a teacher or anyone else.

We encourage families to be involved in their children’s reading habits. But we also recognize that just because one person thinks something is inappropriate doesn’t mean everyone else must abide by that standard. Enjoying the freedom to read what we choose means standing up for that same freedom for everyone else.

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The Monitor. Sept. 22, 2019.

Years before disturbed, gun-toting killers began charging into schools, stores and other venues, many Rio Grande Valley families learned the bitter pain of losing a large number of children in a single, devastating blow.

Thirty years ago, on Sept. 21, 1989, a school bus packed with 81 students headed to Mission schools collided with a commercial truck and veered into an abandoned caliche pit in Alton. The bus plunged 40 feet and sank into about 10 feet of water. Twenty-one junior and senior high school students died, another 64 were injured.

The area would never be the same. It remains the worst school bus tragedy in Texas history. Entire Valley families lost their next generation, perhaps the very future of their bloodlines, on that September morning. They are left with happy memories of their children, horrific memories of the tragedy, and thoughts of what the victims might have become as adults.

The Alton bus crash isn’t the only tragedy that darkens the first part of every September. We join the rest of America in remembering the thousands lost in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in New York, and we also pay our eternal respects to the eight people who died four days later in the partial collapse of the Queen Isabella Causeway over the Laguna Madre. The crest of the bridge fell after a chain of barges struck one of the support structures. Drivers, unable to see that the top part of the bridge was missing, plunged into the water below.

We’ll always wonder if any of those victims might have become a great statesman, inventor of business leader, or contributed in more subtle ways in their respective communities.

We hope the victims’ families can take some solace in knowing that their sacrifice has saved unknown numbers of lives by prompting new procedures and safety measures.

Bus designs were changed as a result of the Alton crash, some mandated by law. Exits were added to the buses, including on the roofs, giving riders more escape options. Windows are easier to remove and larger, to make it easier for people to pass through them. Guardrails and other barriers are more common on our nation’s roads, both rural and urban, and more abandoned mining pits have been filled in rather than left open.

Likewise, the causeway, which has been renamed the Queen Isabella Memorial Bridge, was fitted with structural changes that make it stronger, and warning systems that would alert drivers of a breach they wouldn’t be able to see until it was too late. The channel under the bridge was redesigned, and navigation rules were changed for the Texas Intracoastal Waterway.

After both events, emergency response teams saw the need for better training and specialized equipment, which has been utilized in more recent accidents.

And of course, federal changes prompted by the 9/11 attacks affect air travelers and others.

Nothing will take away the pain that these September tragedies have caused. We hope, however, that the knowledge that their loss has improved safety measures and surely saved lives will in some way temper the sorrow that we all share.

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Houston Chronicle. Sept. 24, 2019.

On a typical night in America, nearly half a million people experience homelessness. In a given year, 1.4 million spend time in a shelter.

That so many of our fellow Americans are without a permanent place to live should concern us all. The problem of homelessness is serious, stubborn and complex, so it’s commendable when elected officials call attention to the issue and seek real, lasting solutions.

We’re not sure that’s what President Donald Trump was doing when he blamed the homeless for ruining the “prestige” of addresses in California by living on the “best highways, our best streets, our best entrances to buildings.” Or when he directed the Environmental Protection Agency to fine San Francisco for environmental violations related to homelessness.

Certainly, California, even accounting for its size, has an alarming homeless problem. Nearly half of the nation’s unsheltered population - people sleeping on sidewalks, parks and abandoned buildings - lives in the state.

Potential solutions tossed out by the Trump administration - razing tent cities, putting the homeless in government facilities, using police to get people off the street - are widely seen as harmful or ineffective by advocates.

If the White House is truly committed to eradicating homelessness, we have a suggestion: Look at Houston.

Over the past eight years, the Houston region, which includes Fort Bend and Montgomery counties, has seen a 54% decrease in the homeless population, according to the Point-in-Time Count, a census done every January across the country. In 2011, about 8,500 homeless people were counted; this year, there were 3,900.

During that time frame, 17,000 formerly homeless people have been housed in permanent supportive housing, said Michael Nichols, interim president and CEO of the Coalition for the Homeless.

Even more impressive: Nearly 90% were still in housing a year later.

The number of homeless had been steadily dropping until 2018, after Hurricane Harvey stalled progress for a time.

Even so, while other cities are experiencing increases in homelessness, Houston has succeeded in getting people out of shelters and off the street.

What has worked?

A coordinated effort to solve homelessness, called The Way Home, which encompasses more than 100 agencies, including the city of Houston, the counties, nonprofit agencies, businesses and HUD, and is led by the Coalition for the Homeless. It also includes a police force that Nichols says is interested in helping, not criminalizing, the homeless.

A “housing first” approach that prioritizes getting people into permanent housing and providing voluntary wraparound services to keep them there.

Partnerships with the city and Harris County housing authorities that provide long-term housing vouchers, which allow funding to be used for other services.

A joint campaign with the Department of Veterans Affairs to focus on military veterans, who make up about 9% of the country’s homeless. It began in 2011 with the goal of finding permanent homes for 100 veterans in 100 days. Three years later, 3,650 veterans had homes.

While encouraging, more needs to be done. The homeless remaining are increasingly visible, pushed out by development of bayous and empty warehouses where they had lived unseen. They are among the most vulnerable and challenging, grappling with chronic illnesses and substance abuse.

The criminal justice and mental health systems still serve as pipelines to homelessness, as people are released from custody and hospitalization without housing or respite care. The money saved by keeping people out of jail through diversion programs can help fund support to prevent homelessness.

Houston, like most cities, also needs more affordable housing, more incentives for developers to build it and penalties for landlords who shun housing vouchers.

Some of Trump’s other proposals - cutting federal housing dollars, barring households that may include someone in the U.S. illegally from housing assistance and allowing shelters to reject transgender people - will only make things worse. If the president really wants to fix homelessness, Houston is an able teacher.