Keep Austin Weird

Sunday I was wearing my "Keep Austin Weird" tie-die T-shirt (with my Obama 2008 button) knowing that I would be asked to explain my shirt to at least a few people, and of course I was.

I attended High School in Austin, Texas and when I went back this June for my high school reunion, the city was in the middle of 'Weird-Fest.'

I bought the shirt and the coffee mug and the bumper sticker because I identify with the concept and this is how I have come to articulate it as I see it:

Austin is one of the only places in Texas where people of open minds can feel at home. Keep Austin Weird is a movement in favor of keeping it that way.

I started to say 'where Liberals can feel at home,' but I've come to realize that although I identify as a proud and unabashed Liberal, liberals can be just as strident and dogmatic and intransigent as the conservatives, and just as big a pain in the ass.