Author Archives: waterlooatx

4th QTR 2021 In October of 2020 I reported on data from CrimeViewer, the on-line tool that allows you to view crime reports from the Austin Police Department.  I reviewed the CrimeViewer data again in April of 2021.  In that report, crime had not increased significantly from October 2020, but it certainly did not go down. I justContinue reading “Crime in Downtown Austin “

A year ago, I wrote an article suggesting that we should replace politicians who are not accomplishing legislation in support of their constituents.  The most recent polling data from November 2021 puts the Congressional approval rating at 20%.  Congress achieved an approval rating in March 2021 of 36%, which just happened to coincide with passage of theContinue reading “We Still Have a Democracy – Let’s use it”

On December 14, 2021, the United States surpassed 800,000 COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began.  On July 30, there were about 612,000 deaths.  That means that since the time that all adults could have been vaccinated in the U.S. there have been close to 200,000 more deaths.  Almost all of the deaths since July have been adults andContinue reading “Pandemic Update 7:  Why do we need mandates?”

I originally wrote this post back in December of 2021. Of course, almost six months later nothing has changed. Yesterday, a young man who was 18 years and 9 days old murdered 19 elementary school children and two teachers using an assault rifle. He bought two assault rifles, high capacity magazines and 375 rounds ofContinue reading “What’s Wrong with This Picture? – It’s time to change the gun culture in the U.S.”

On March 19, 2020 Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order closing bars, restaurants and schools in Texas, the first response to documented community spread of the Covid-19 virus in Texas.  On March 22, 2020, Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Collin and Travis Counties issued stay at home orders, effectively shutting down economic activity in the largestContinue reading “Pandemic Update 6: It’s time for accountability”

I started writing this article over two weeks ago.  Generally, I put a draft article aside and come back to it the next day to review and edit.  The problem is that each day when I came back to this article on the state of the pandemic in July 2021, the numbers had significantly changed for theContinue reading “Pandemic Update 5: It’s not science, it’s common sense”

In October of 2020 I reported on data from CrimeViewer, the on-line tool that allows you to view crime reports from the Austin Police Department.  I decided to do a review of the data 6 months later, for the month of April 2021.  During that time, we had an increase in at least the visibility of theContinue reading “Crime in Downtown Austin April 2021”

As of May 31, there were 315 mass shootings in the US in 2021 (based on 4 people killed or wounded during an incident).  There were over 600 mass shootings in 2020.  The Center for Disease Control reported that 39,707 people died by firearms in 2019, 23,941 by suicide and 14,414 by homicide.  The rate of death inContinue reading “Gun Violence in the US – Why is this not a public health priority?”

In previous articles I have said that Proposition B would not put an end to homelessness in Austin.  It was not intended to do that.  It was intended to protect the health and safety of people living in the high-density areas of downtown and the University of Texas, and force the Austin City Council to address theContinue reading “Homelessness in Austin Part 5 – so you thought Prop. B would fix things?”