No, You're Not Supporting Ride-Sharing, You're Killing Austin

It finally happened, everyone. We killed Austin. What we all once declared was an incorruptible, self nourishing cultural hub has finally been transformed into another gooey mound in the globalized American money pit. You know, in a way, I have to say I'm relieved. When I saw the backlash against the City of Austin mandating minor regulations against ride sharing companies, it was like taking a look at my bank statement for the first time in three months. Yes, we overdrew our funds, but at least now we know that we aren't as culturally rich as anybody else anymore.

This is what the mandate boils down to- people who drive for Lyft and Uber now have to undergo a fingerprint based background check, they have to carry a fire extinguisher in their car, and they can no longer drop people off in the middle lane of 6^th street on a Friday night. Meanwhile, the companies themselves have to pay a 1% tax to maintain the roads they use to make millions of dollars.

If this doesn't sound like something that will immediately end the world, then clearly you haven't been to Twitter or Facebook lately (or you don't live here, in which case, be warned: There are people here who are pants-shitting furious that massive conglomerates from across the country are making empty threats to leave because the city wants to give them slightly stronger ground rules.  Most of these people will also bully and belittle you for moving here.)

You really have to stand in awe of this blustering lack of self-awareness. Try this: think about every single person in this town who would fight a stranger to the death over whether or not Mighty Fine was better than In-N-Out burger, and every single person who ironically mocks people who wear “Keep Austin Weird” shirts (often while wearing Tyler's shirts) and every person who's ever “DURR OLD EMO'S WAS BETTER THAT'S NOT THE REAL ANTONE'S ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE USED TO BE COUCHES WHY ARE THERE SO MANY PEOPLE HERE” and now realize that they and everyone else have gone completely bat-shit crazy because their city government passed a few safety regulations on multi-billion dollar companies that originated in San Francisco.

I can get why Uber and Lyft aren't happy, and I even understand why they're lying through their teeth about why they're upset. They have investors they have to answer to, and anything that keeps them from expanding their market share, like guaranteeing the people who drive for them aren't serial rapists, is obviously not the optimal endgame.

The common argument you hear from the sniveling little shits that share their rage (all of whom aren't stockholders- both of these companies are privately owned, meaning that this doesn't directly affect them in any meaningful way) is that this is a secret cabal between the Taxi companies and the city employees- the Taxi companies are upset that Uber is taking their market share away, and they're using shady, underhanded tactics to attack companies with government regulations as opposed to changing their business models or just politely going bankrupt.

I'm calling bullshit.

To be fair, the Taxi industry hasn't exactly been awesome- their longstanding monopoly on transportation and the stunts they pulled on both their customers and employees are the reasons that Uber and Lyft exist in the first place.  But this doesn't give Uber or Lyft the excuse to operate without any kind of oversight.  

First of all, the Taxi companies have a pretty decent reason to be upset- they're being held to a higher standard because they've been around a lot longer.  Sure, it's not fun, but put yourself where they are: If you own a restaurant, and you find out that one of your competitors doesn't have to make their employees wash their hands, or that they can sell rat meat and call it Wagyu, then I'd think you'd be a little pissed off too.

Second, these regulations didn't simply happen at the will of an ornery taxi driver- they're in response to actual, real-world events. This is worth mentioning, because it's hard to imagine a shadowy group of corrupt government officials forming in the seedy underbelly of city politics for the purpose of holding Uber responsible if, say, a driver ends up being beyond creepy, or one of their drivers kills a seven year old girl.

And third of all-and this goes out to the guy who won't shut up about how he used to hang out with Leslie and Gary Clark Jr back when 6^th street wasn't full of yuppies-The cab companies, not the ride sharing companies, are the local businesses you claim to support. Yellow Cab started as American Cab in Austin in 1985. If you invariably support the Austin businesses in disputes, then by simple logic you're standing with the company that started seven years before Pete's Piano Bar.

So way to pick the right side, Austin. We might not get to be honest when we claim we're keeping the Capital City weird, but at least we've figured out how to keep our righteous indignation as steady as it ever was.

Sam lives and works in Austin, Texas.  The articles he writes tend to be shorter when he's also completing his online defensive driving course.  Follow him on Twitter, or send him some hate mail at swellbo@gmail.com.

Trump is What The Media Deserve

So this is no longer a controversial opinion: Donald Trump is horrifying.

Everything he represents, everything he says, and everything he does is awful. When people need inspirations for their super-villians, they overtly bite off Donald Trump. He's defrauded people of billions of dollars. He's grievously injured and insulted billions of people. His terrible rhetoric is used as justification for hate crimes across the country. This shouldn't be news to any person who would describe themselves as “informed” or “alive.”

And I sincerely hope this next part isn't a spoiler for anyone, because I never want to have to break any news this bad to anybody: He is a more-than-viable candidate for his party's nomination for President of the United States of America.

It's painful to say. It's like saying “this sentence is false.” It's like being sentenced to tell everyone you meet that Creed is your favorite band. It's like using a saw in your right hand to saw off your right arm. If I think about it too hard, I literally get nauseous.

You almost have to stand in awe that in this wonderful golden age of never-ending information and freedom of the press, something this bat-shit crazy could even happen. Perhaps, like me, you take a shot of whiskey, read a few different headlines, sadly realize this is actually happening and that you aren't in some kind of Matrix-gone-wrong, take a second, larger shot of whiskey, and then wonder:

How did this happen? Who can we blame?

I don't mean who's responsible- we already know the players. There's Trump, but you can't really blame him for doing what he's doing- that would be like blaming shit for smelling terrible. That's just what it does. Following that same logic, you can't really blame his supporters, either- they're either gullible or equally terrible, and based on the lovely discussions I've had with some of them, not the type of people who can be convinced. In fact, there probably aren't that many of them who sincerely believe what Trump believes. Most people who support the guy understand that as awful as he is, he's the man who's most able to operate in this political climate, and therefore the man most able to represent at least some of their political interests should he be elected.

The reason that Trump has momentum is because there is no serious entity left to challenge him. Trevor Noah can poke fun, but can't say he's wrong. Same with The Onion, or any other satirical medium. His Republican opponents can't stop him, because he's simply executing the play book better than they are. His Democratic opponents, should he make it out of the primaries, are going to destroy him, but that's not for months. There's no stopping this train wreck until then.

There certainly used to be. The media greats who worked tirelessly to deliver facts- your Pulitzer's, your Koppel's, your Cronkite's- could be depended on for objectivity and fairness. Had Trump tried this in the fifties, Edward R. Murrow would have metaphorically kicked his teeth in, and that would be the last we'd hear. But they're gone, and in their place is a hallow shell of what journalism used to be.

It took Trump less than 20 seconds to prove the inefficacy of even the most serious news outlets. This is George Stephanopoulos countering the claim Trump made that Muslims were cheering the collapse of the World Trade Center towers:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Police say it didn’t happen.

TRUMP: There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down. I know it might be not politically correct for you to talk about it, but there were people cheering as that building came down – as those buildings came down. And that tells you something. It was well covered at the time, George. Now, I know they don’t like to talk about it, but it was well covered at the time. There were people over in New Jersey that were watching it, a heavy Arab population, that were cheering as the buildings came down. Not good.

STEPHANOPOULOS: As I said, the police have said it didn’t happen.

That should have been it. But when Trump says “It was well covered at the time, George,” enough people can bring up a memory Rolodex of some of the things that happens on Fox News to realize that Trump has as much authority over what's true as the journalists do. I hate to be the one to tell this people in the news business, but unless you have the credibility and public trust to assert facts, people can say whatever the hell they want to you, and get off unpunished in the court of public opinion.

This, unfortunately, is catharsis. Since the creation of the 24 hour news cycle, the most popular outfits in news (mostly television, but by no means exclusively) have had a problem: “How can we find faster and better ways to sacrifice our ethics, obfuscate reality, and sensationalize meaninglessness? Fuck real news, we need to appeal to the masses for larger profit margins and market shares!”

They've gotten so good at fucking up what should be somewhat straightforward jobs that there are Emmy-winning shows that exists solely to make fun of them.

And the end result is delusion and disagreements- when information should be the most accessible it's ever been, it's also become the most obscured, because news outlets traded reporting the news for 

broadcasting bullshit and lost their credibility in the process.

Now they're forced to cover Trump- the monkey at the other side of the equals sign, the result of what happens when you refuse, for decades, to uphold journalistic responsibility in exchange for profit. They have to continue to give air time and column inches to the guy who brazenly shits in the graves of the journalists who worked to ensure this could never happen. And they have to smile while they do it, because that's what the shareholders demand.

So, media- congratulations. You've lost the trust of the nation you're in charge of educating and defending, and the prize is that you get to watch an attention-whoring gorilla throw his shit at you until his momentum finally runs out and his supporters begrudgingly abandon him. Have fun with that.

If you're lucky, you might not be remembered as the people who gave him all of the fuel he needed to embarrass you.

But again- you sure as hell deserve to be.

Sam Wellborn lives in Austin, waits tables, and enjoy s long walks on the beach.  Email him or follow him on Twitter.