31 October 2004
What about Proposition 3?
Chronicle metro/state columnist Rick Casey wrote a column on Friday in favor of Proposition 3.
While Propositions 1 and 2 have been discussed quite a bit, Proposition 3 has received far less attention. Basically, as Casey explains, the proposition would grant the city controller authority to conduct performance audits of city offices and services.
In terms of providing another check on the Mayor and Council, the proposal makes sense institutionally. However, one potential drawback is, as Casey points out, that the authority might be used in a purely vindictive manner, as has been the case with state controller Carol Keeton Strayhorn, whose use of the power became so personal that the state legislature finally stripped her of it.
Even with the potential drawbacks, Casey's conclusion seems compelling to me:
But in a city that gives its mayor more power than virtually any other mayor in the nation, we need an elected official with the authority to seek and present independent information.
When the mayor and the controller squabble, as they inevitably will, the public can choose whom to believe.
We might add that future squabbles between the mayor and city controller might also serve the purpose of forcing the city's only newspaper to cover municipal politics more closely. The public would certainly benefit.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/31/04 10:18 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)
Robison's world - cont'd
Clay Robison, the Chronicle's Austin news bureau chief who moonlights as hyperpartisan editorialist every Sunday, penned another column blasting Governor Rick Perry (R) and conservatives today.
This excerpt from the column is all too typical of Robison:
Perry's political "sensitivities," if you can call them that, are more limited and defined by what must be an overwhelming urge not to be blindsided from the right.In a concrete sense, that urge has led to such things as cuts in health care for children and other important state services, an unwillingness to raise state taxes to adequately and equitably fund the public schools, and a hard-line stance in favor of the death penalty. You may recall that a few months ago Perry even allowed a severely mentally ill man to be executed after the governor's own appointees on the Board of Pardons and Paroles had recommended commutation of the sentence to life imprisonment.
In Robison's worldview, mean conservatives are all out to hurt children, execute the innocent, and keep taxes low for rich people.
As we frequently point out, if the Chronicle's editors want to feature such childish, simplistic columns on their editorial pages, that's certainly their prerogative. However, it continues to boggle the mind that Jeff Cohen lets someone who writes columns like this on Sundays direct the newspaper's coverage of state politics the rest of the week.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/31/04 09:23 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
Be yourself, Houston
A few days ago, the Chronicle ran a question and answer session with Joel Kotkin, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation who writes on urban development issues, broadly conceived.
It's a little shocking that the interview made it into print, since most of Kotkin's answers are antithetical to the most deeply held beliefs of so many Chronicle editors. Here's an excerpt:
Q: When discussing quality of life in Houston, words like heat, mosquitoes and traffic seem to permeate the conversation. How do we overcome this negative perception?
A: What is quality of life? Is it to most people what they can do in their neighborhood or back yard? Or is it having some magnificent edifice in the center of the city where they can go, "Oh my God, isn't that spectacular?"
Is the quality of life in Houston really bad? There are some things you can't do anything about. The climate is what it is. It's not like you don't pay attention to quality of life, but is quality of life defined by pouring billions of dollars into downtown so a bunch of yuppies can make believe they're in Manhattan?
Or is quality of life about hundreds of thousands and millions of people getting a house and having a decent quality of life and in many cases, for the immigrants, a quality of life that was unimaginable to their parents. Isn't that what America is about, or not?
Q: Some $300 million was spent on a 7.5-mile light rail system that runs from downtown to the Astrodome complex. Supporters said the train would help bring the city into the 21st century. Do you agree with that theory?
A: I think you are a 21st-century city. The cities that are built on transit are 20th-century cities. It's a good thing to have, but does a business move to Houston because it has a transit system? I hate to tell you your traffic's not that bad compared to a lot of cities.
It is a good thing to have. It's part of your infrastructure, like your airport and your port. But this idea that, "Oh, we'll be a world-class city." This endless excuse the expression this endless penis envy that cities have about, "Oh, if we can only be like someone else," instead of saying how do we work with who we are to make ourselves better?
I think it is a good thing, but it can't be more than a fraction of the solution. This is not going to be a city of straphangers. It's never going to happen. You probably can't afford to build a system to carry the number of people that go to work every day. Plus, if you look at the employment projection charts, they're moving further and further out.
Go read the entire article. I'm an admitted contrarian, but I don't have a contention with a single word from Kotkin.
Of course, I'm also a Houston booster, for which I make no apologies (and which partly explains the existence of this website). This quote is music to my ears:
This is a city of upward mobility and aspiration, and that's what Houston should be selling itself as. Not as, "Well, we're kind of getting like Boston, we're kind of hip and cool." To hell with that crap.
Houston has vitality. It's got young demographics. It's a city of opportunity. If I was 25 years old, I probably couldn't move to Los Angeles. Houston would be one of those places you'd look at: Houston, Phoenix, Las Vegas.
Are you listening, Jordy Tollett?!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/31/04 03:10 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (2)
Mayor still using false FAA revenue attack to discredit Prop. 2
Last week, I ran across this AP story about the Prop. 1/Prop. 2 battle:
Proposition 1, created by Mayor Bill White and other city leaders, would limit increases in property taxes and water and sewer rates. Those rates could only be raised by the combined increases of population and inflation or 4.5 percent, whichever is lower.
Proposition 2, developed by a group called RevCap and placed on the ballot through a petition drive, asks for a cap on all revenue collected by the city also based on the combined rate of population and inflation, with any excess revenue refunded to taxpayers.
Both initiatives require voter approval before the city can spend any revenue that would exceed their respective caps.
It gets interesting when Mayor White is allowed to characterize Prop. 2, the initiative the mayor doesn't support:
But White says Proposition 2 would limit revenues from water services, airport landing fees and pollution fines that vary from year to year. Those fluctuations could force the city to cut crucial services to stay below the cap because enterprise funds only can be used for specific expenditures, he said.
The Federal Aviation Administration has warned White that if airport revenue is used for property tax refunds, the city could risk losing federal grants for improvements.
"Anything that would cut the federal funding for airport expansion or would result in cutting police protection is not what I would think of as (fiscally) conservative," he said.
The problem is that airport revenue cannot be used for property tax refunds, according to Harris County Tax Assessor Paul Bettencourt. Chronically Biased dealt with this recently:
In a nutshell, the news release is based upon a letter from the Federal Aviation Administration, which Mr. Frank Michel from the Mayor's office agreed was based upon a faulty premise. The faulty premise is that the FAA was told that airport revenue could be used for property tax refunds. According to Mr. Bettencourt, and Mr. Michel agreed, this is not correct.
Frank Michel agreed with Paul Bettencourt on KSEV that what the FAA letter said was wrong, yet the mayor is still out there repeating it.
And the intrepid AP reporter didn't do any further digging. But he should have.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/31/04 09:56 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)
Maybe it will be an endowed dumpster?
Various Houston media outlets reported earlier this week that former Houston police chief and mayor Lee P. Brown will be donating his personal papers to Rice University.
The blogHOUSTON crew couldn't come up with a better response to that news than Laurence Simon's.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/31/04 09:41 AM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (1)
30 October 2004
The alternative media in Houston isn't the Press
A professional journalist with "big media" here in town asked in an email recently why we focused on the Chronicle so much but ignored the Press.
I thought that was a good question.
We do occasionally refer to the alt-weekly Press as more dinosaur than alternative media these days, but don't say much else because while the publication isn't objectionable, it's also not that interesting.
That was pretty much my answer to my correspondent, along with some examples from the most recent issue.
In the past, publications like the Press and the old Public News were edgy. They'd dig up interesting stuff nobody else would print. Sometimes, in the case of departed columnist Tim Fleck, they'd dig up stuff nobody else would even dig up. They would beat local media to the punch with stories. Basically, they would push the local media. The publications were reliably left-of-center and often cynical, but that wasn't really their selling point. That they were well-written, hard-hitting, and ahead-of-the-curve was.
Looking at the latest Press, though, I see very little of that.
Sarah Fenske's article on Police Chief Hurtt's Taser initiative was good work, to be sure, but isn't really groundbreaking investigative journalism. Regular music columnist John Nova Lomax turns in too many insomnia-curing columns like this one these days. Richard Connelly's column on the Astros was certainly cynical, but otherwise seemed to be a mean, not to mention mundane, effort by a good writer who seemed bored. His Hair Balls column remains an inadequate replacement for the old News Hostage column he used to do, and too much of the content is largely "olds" that's already been discussed and put in the grave by local bloggers much earlier. Speaking of bloggers, the column by Catherine Matusow on Matt Mullenweg, local blogger and programmer of some great blogging software very similar to what powers this site, was a nice profile of a good guy. But Matusow squandered an opportunity to turn a run-of-the-mill profile that really missed the mark with its focus on "blogs as fun little social club" into a more interesting article about blogs as a new form of alternative media.
Of course, Robb Walsh is brilliant, almost without fail. He's the main reason to pick up the thing each week -- unless, of course, one is in need of an escort service.
As I concluded in my email correspondence, that's really not the stuff of interesting media criticism (which is what we like to do here). The Press has become boring and predictable. And it was probably only a matter of time before "alternative" journalism as practiced by New Times would come to resemble the "radio" formula as practiced by Clear Channel/Infinity: targeted to a certain demographic, designed to sell ads, but otherwise not that adventurous, and certainly not outside the mold carefully crafted by the suits in corporate.
Fortunately, weblogs are increasingly assuming that "alternative" niche even as formerly alt publications like the Press become just another part of dinosaur media. Readers, not to mention folks in dinosaur media who are open-minded (like the handful who regularly correspond with us here), are the beneficiaries.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/30/04 03:37 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (2)
Media hypes flawed study
100,000 Iraqi civilians estimated killed
That's the headline of a Washington Post story the Chronicle ran the other day, based on a newly released "analysis" done by some researchers. In the fourth paragraph of the story, Human Rights Watch says the numbers appear to be inflated. Human Rights Watch! Which pretty much tells us that what follows is junk, if that group doesn't even buy it.
The study has been demolished here, here, and here. (There are probably more out there.)
But since the Chronicle didn't feel the need to offer a second, more skeptical follow-up story, today we find this letter to the editor in the Chronicle:
Everyone should read the Chronicle's Oct. 29 article "100,000 Iraqi civilians estimated killed."
More than 10 percent of the population of Fallujah (mostly women and children) have been killed by bombs dropped by the U.S. military since we invaded Iraq.
While at work or at the grocery store, just imagine one in every 10 people you see being killed.
Or just imagine one in 10 in your own family being killed from traumatic injuries sustained during attacks.
Is it any wonder that the civilian workers and military personnel associated with the U.S. occupation in Iraq are being targeted?
DOUG MARVY
Houston
Sure the Washington Post story carried a couple of quotes from people saying they didn't think the numbers were right, but that's not what the headline conveys and obviously that's not what the major thrust of the story conveys, either. How do our troops feel, seeing a report like that? Eleanor Clift was on the McLaughlin Group last night, shrieking, "100,000 dead!" Some people will take this report as gospel, no matter what the truth is.
Which leads us to how this happened. Newspapers have editors for a reason - they are supposed to be the grown-ups who prevent missteps like this. That Human Rights Watch quote should have made an editor take a hard look at running this story. Just because the story came from the Washington Post is not a safeguard in and of itself. Yes, this was news, but it wasn't the only news. And running with it because everyone else was doesn't make it any less objectionable, now that the study has been shown to be terribly flawed.
Update: Here's another skeptic who questions the timing of the study. There was some politics involved here? Who would have thought that?
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/30/04 02:33 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)
A mole in Mayor White's administration?
Dan Patrick's successor website to Chronically Biased has obtained what appears to be an internal memo to Mayor White highlighting a loophole in city finances that might allow the city to evade the requirements of Proposition 2 if it passes.
While I'm not completely surprised that the administration would be researching ways to mitigate the impact of Proposition 2, one does hope they are just as diligently researching areas of the city budget that could use some discipline, even if said discipline ultimately has to be imposed by voters.
One thing that does surprise me is that Mayor White's administration apparently has a mole. I wonder who shot that memo over to Dan Patrick. And does that make David Benzion the new HouSnitch?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/30/04 02:18 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)
29 October 2004
Improving customer skills
Yesterday, L.M. Sixel had an interesting column on how Chipotle Mexican Grill is beefing up its employees' communication skills:
In June, Chipotle decided to go beyond its basic training of burrito-making and key English phrases to its daylong confidence building sessions as part of its diversity efforts. The chain, which began in Denver 11 years ago, realized it had to go further to explain its unusual menu offerings.
Its next step is to roll out more intensive training on how the food is prepared so employees can answer questions such as "What is free-range pork?"
"It's going beyond, 'This is the rice, and this is the beans,' " Bishop said.
The chain also plans to teach employees phone skills. Sometimes if the manager isn't available, employees who aren't native English speakers are reluctant to answer the phone.
Bishop said the chain encourages its employees identified for promotion to learn English and sends them to classes.
While it's hard for employees who are often juggling two jobs, they're often willing to make the commitment because they've seen line workers move into management. And it doesn't hurt that Chipotle plans to open more than 100 stores during the next year.
Taking a page from Southwest Airlines and others like it, lower-level employees were encouraged to take matters into their own hands. Act like you own the place, Robinson stressed. Make customers feel as if they've walked into your home.
Everyone appreciates good customer service, but those skills really come into play when a dining experience is in trouble, for whatever reason. An employee who is able to listen, empathize and communicate can often turn a bad experience into a positive one, which benefits the company.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/29/04 06:04 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (5)
The Astros offseason gets underway
The Astros announced yesterday that the team will pick up the $3 million option on Craig Biggio's contract for next year. However, the Astros declined to pick up the $9 million option for Jeff Kent's contract (opting for a $700,000 buyout). The team appears interested in Kent returning, if he'll agree to less money.
Tom Kirkendall offers the sort of detailed analysis and speculation that is perfectly suited to weblogs and not dinosaur media on dead tree. The Astro in Exile weblog offers some pithy thoughts on the offseason work ahead of the team as well.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/29/04 11:47 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
28 October 2004
Get Houston moving
blogHOUSTON sometimes questions the city's priorities, but Houston drivers will certainly appreciate this news from KHOU-11's Dan Lauck:
"Getting traffic signals timed right, getting the stalled or wrecked vehicle off the road quickly, making sure that the traffic signals you have replaced with the latest technology actually work," says Mayor White.
A good example is that buried beneath the street at many intersections throughout Houston are loop detectors that can sense whether there are cars waiting in the left-turn lane.
If no cars are waiting, the computer inside a box is supposed to skip the green light for that lane. When White's administration took over, they discovered that only 20 percent of the loop detectors actually worked.
They say their predecessors didn't want to pay to maintain them. That meant that drivers would sit and wait -- for nothing.
Drivers on Memorial, for example, have to stop for a red light at Brittmore, even when there's not a single car coming from the other direction.
"There's all kinds of situations at which we arrive at a light and there's no cars around. It's the middle of the night, that sort of thing, and it drives you nuts to sit through a long light," says one driver.
At a number of locations there are no loop detectors or motion-detecting cameras, and the traffic ends up tied in knots.
David Crossley, a transportation expert, says just take a look at Westheimer from above to get a better idea.
"You'll see these knots of cars, then a quarter mile of empty space. Then there is another knot of cars. That's because the traffic lights aren't working," he says.
Timing those lights is now a city priority....
Mayor White ran on a "Get Houston Moving" platform. He would be well served to spend more time on mobility and less time on Tasers, park boondoggles, smoking, and African American museums.
Posted by Callie Markantonis @ 10/28/04 11:08 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)
Local media on Rosenthal
Rick Casey penned yet another column that takes shots at Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal on Wednesday, continuing a pattern of coverage by the anti-death-penalty Chronicle of tying Rosenthal negatively to the ongoing controversy of the police crime lab (and frequently misrepresenting or underrepresenting his views).
Casey is an editorialist of sorts, which gives him some cover for his opinions I suppose. But when every column treats Rosenthal so negatively or -- in the case of this Casey column -- effectively serves as a press release for Rosenthal's inexperienced and flawed opponent, a careful media watcher can't help but wonder if an agenda is at work, especially given the newspaper's efforts to paint a convicted murderer as a nice guy who repented in prison after meeting some really swell people:
Though he doesn't want to die, the boyish-looking Green expressed gratitude for the lessons he learned from some of the most violent criminals in the state.
"There are a lot of great men here," he said. "They taught me things I wouldn't have learned otherwise. They taught me about responsibility and respect and how to be a human being."
Presumably, he wasn't hanging out with these great men.
Judy Stokes, on the other hand, provides some balance for the Houston Community Newspapers, in the form of an interview with Rosenthal. The article is worth reading in its entirety.
It's nice to see this sort of coverage from a local media outlet. It's a welcome contrast from the Chronicle's efforts to portray Rosenthal as one of their "bad guys" in news and editorial coverage. Ultimately, savvy news consumers need enough information to decide whether Rosenthal merits criticism, praise, or something in between. The Chronicle hasn't done a great job providing that information.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/28/04 10:25 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (6)
Effectiveness of Tasers questioned
We have previously questioned the city's priorities in light of plans to purchase nearly $5 million in Taser equipment at a time when HPD is having to deal with manpower shortages because political leaders have not allocated adequate resources to training and recruitment of new officers.
In a Houston Press article this week, Sarah Fenske points out that Tasers are not the panacea that uniformless HPD chief Harold Hurtt has made them out to be.
I'm not going to excerpt this one. Just go read it in its entirety.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/28/04 09:48 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)
Food and drink roundup (10-28-2004 edition)
This was a busy week for Houston's food and drink writers, with plenty of good new stuff posted.
Robb Walsh makes a trip to the Barbecue Inn in the Heights with fried chicken aficionado John T. Edge, and offers up this ringing endorsement:
I go to Barbecue Inn as often as possible these days. You can't miss with the chicken-fried steak, the fried chicken or the fried shrimp. And now, I can say with some authority that the ribs aren't half bad either.
That's good enough for me. Elsewhere, Walsh shares some dirt on the Beard Foundation that may interest local foodies.
Alison Cook visits Pasha in the Village, and finds it a mostly good addition to Houston's lineup of Turkish restaurants:
In the end, though, a sweet earnestness pervades this cozy small house, and it triumphs.
Lean back amid all that pomegranate-colored warmth. Lift a feta-stuffed cigar and a glass of bone-dry Turkish white wine. And toast our collective good fortune in Turkish restaurants.
Diners on the northwest side of town may want to check out Molly Glentzer's thoughts on Red Onion Seafood y Mas.
Mona Shoup runs a letter about my favorite Tex-Mex joint in this week's Whine and Dine section:
Houstonian Mark Russell organized a celebration for 60 people at Spanish Village Restaurant, 4720 Almeda, that was scheduled after a memorial service.
"Imagine my surprise when many unexpected guests showed up. (The owners), who are genuinely good people, took it all in stride, took care of business and didn't get upset when we stayed after closing. This is the reason they have been in business almost 50 years and have more regulars than any place I've been."
Russell says the eatery serves great Tex-Mex and excellent margaritas in a fun atmosphere.
The family who run Spanish Village treat customers as extended family, but newbies who go there have to understand it's not Pappasito's. Things move a little more slowly, and the atmosphere is not as upscale. Those of us who are regulars consider those to be features, not flaws. And the enchiladas and shaved-ice margaritas are the best I've had in this great state. blogHOUSTON highly recommends Spanish Village.
Finally, Viet Doan reviews Proletariat, a funky little bar just off Montrose on Richmond. It's a good writeup, but neglects to mention that the Proletariat was resurrected on the site of the old Blue Iguana bar, one of this city's best dive bars (but a place that honestly did need some upgrades -- such as the holes in the old floor).
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/28/04 09:14 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)
Live Music Roundup (10-28-2004 edition)
I usually link to David Cobb's weekly roundup of live rock music in Houston, but he hasn't posted one for a couple of weeks (although he is running an interesting interview with local musician Jeff Greer).
The local rock scene is not really one that I follow, so I'm just going to stick to the usual roundup of the Americana/alt-country/Texas music that I follow more closely.
Thursday, October 28
Mark David Manders, Blanco's
Micky and the Motorcars, Firehouse Saloon
Friday, October 29
Reckless Kelly, Fitzgerald's
Tommy Alverson, Firehouse Saloon
Guy Forsyth, Mucky Duck
Patrice Pike, Continental Club (Lisa Novak opens)
Honeybrowne, Sidecar Pub
The Watchman, Anderson Fair
Saturday, October 30
Randy Rogers Band, Firehouse Saloon (Wade Bowen opens)
Austin Lounge Lizards, Mucky Duck
Peach Truck Republic, Last Concert Cafe
(Update) I forgot to mention, but always check with the venue before heading out to a show. We're not perfect here, and schedules sometimes change at the last minute.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/28/04 07:52 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (6)
The N.Y. Times covers catblogging!
You know you've made it when the N.Y. Times recognizes you, right? Well, ok, that may not hold the same wowza it once did, but still, this is very cool:
Some participants take Friday catblogging very seriously. Laurence Simon, a 35-year-old Houston technical support engineer, decided a while back that with so many people catblogging, it would be good to have a weekly compendium of the best of each week's entries.
So he began to post what he called the "Carnival of the Cats," a roundup (www.carnivalofthecats.com) of that week's Friday catblogging, available the following Sunday.
"The reason why I do it on Sunday evening is that most people aren't online," Mr. Simon said, "so on Monday morning, when people get into the office and are facing their first horrible cup of coffee, they can look at pictures of cats until they get screamed at for the first time of the day."
For a while, Mr. Simon was the host of Carnival of the Cats, but he decided to pass along the honor. Now, a different person handles the Carnival of the Cats each Sunday, compiling a healthy group of Friday postings for that groggy Monday morning audience.
Well, all right! Mr. Simon's Carnival of the Cats is GREAT fun. Where else can you find top notch entertainment like CSI Feline and Kitty Survivor? Not to mention Edloe, the perfect hostess.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/28/04 06:55 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (2)
Memories... of the way we were
Lee P. Brown may be gone as mayor, but his legacy lives on:
A sink hole has opened up in the Highland Village area.
The gaping hole appeared on Westheimer at Mid Lane Thursday afternoon. Motorists first noticed the hole around 2pm.
City workers believe the six foot wide and four foot deep hole was caused by a water main break. Water can be seen rushing into the hole.
One right westbound lane of Westheimer is closed to traffic. No injuries have been reported. There's no word yet how long repairs could take.
Six years of neglect of the city's infrastructure suggests we'll see more stories like this, not fewer. Mayor White does seem to have a better handle on things, though.
I'm heading over to the Vintage Wine bar near Westheimer and Mid Lane later, so maybe I'll come back with some firsthand shots of the sinkhole to replace the ABC-13 graphic.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/28/04 05:38 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)
A little less TMi; a little more Texas Mag
At a time when newspapers are experiencing declining readership, one would think the decision makers at these papers would not try to alienate any remaining readers.
We've written before about Texas Magazine being cancelled by the Chronicle. I am still missing it. And even though the Chronicle told us we could expect to see those types of stories in the "star" section, it hasn't happened. The Chronicle still publishes Preview and Zest, and inside the "star" section we are treated to Yo! and TMi (yes, that's "Too Much information" - how hip), but not Texas Magazine stories. Why can't the "star" editor devote the Sunday "star" section to those Texas Magazine stories that we were promised? Last Sunday this was the big story on the front of "star":
The next time you dine out, just consider the food set before you. Typically, the portions are plenty more than you need to refuel your body at one sitting. Even when you order healthy choices, you may still be overeating if you're not aware of how much you're eating. It's hard to notice because you're not going back for seconds, just cleaning your plate.
Have you checked out the plates lately? Some are really platters.
We asked a registered dietitian to analyze three popular entrees served at well-known Houston restaurants: Kung Pao Chicken at P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Tacos α la Ninfa at Ninfa's Mexican Restaurant and the Chop Baker at Luther's BAR-B-Q.
The goal: How to eat wisely without giving up these favorites.
A lecture on how not to overindulge when dining out. Talk about a snoozer.
Instead of remaking the whole paper to entice younger readers who aren't even interested in newspapers, why not give us dedicated, and paying, readers a little of what we want?
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/28/04 03:00 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
27 October 2004
Boo!
Halloween's right around the corner and ghosts seem to be in the news.
An HPD veteran insists his house is haunted in this month's City Savvy.
And a couple of local entrepreneurs get into the spirit by offering ghost tours of Houston area "haunted" buildings.
If none of this floats your boat, take heart. I heard Christmas music while shopping last Sunday.
(10-28-2004 Update) More on the Spaghetti Warehouse haunting here.
Posted by Callie Markantonis @ 10/27/04 11:43 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)
Shamelessly copying D Magazine's Frontburner
Scott Chaffin points me to this Tim Rogers post over at D Magazine's blog:
Last week, I made the offer to buy the first beer for any fired Newsy who cared to meet at the Old Monk. The offer was premature--though I did get one e-mail asking me if I was serious. Yes, I was serious. And since I understand today is actually the day when blood will flow, I'm offering the same deal:
If you get fired from the News today, I will buy your first beer at the Old Monk at 5. But you have to RSVP via e-mail to me, and you have to be able to prove you were fired.
I'll make a similar offer to any Chronicle staffers who were let go in the big shakeup.
I'll buy the first round at the West Alabama Icehouse this weekend for any laid off Chron staffer who will RSVP me (click on my name at the bottom of this post to send a message to me). I'll want some proof of the firing since blogHOUSTON suffers from *ahem* limited resources to say the least. But I'm genuinely interested in hearing about your experiences with Houston's leading information source.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/27/04 11:25 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)
Charlie Wilson to speak on Thursday
Thursday, The Houston World Affairs Council will be sponsoring a luncheon talk by former U.S. Representative Charlie Wilson, one of the legislative architects of America's foreign policy towards Afghanistan in the 1980s and the obvious focus of George Crile's book, Charlie Wilson's War.
The talk will begin at Noon at the Houston Club's Texas Ballroom and is entitled "The Afghan Struggle Against the Soviet Union and its Aftermath."
More information is available here.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/27/04 10:56 PM | Houston Arts/Culture | Technorati | Comments (0)
The dueling propositions
The Chronicle specializes in simplistic house editorials, and today's endorsement of Proposition 1 was certainly a good example.
Indeed, the headline really tells you all you need to know about what's coming: Proposition No. 1 is useful and desirable; Proposition No. 2 isn't
In the interest of providing an alternative voice, this political scientist will offer some voting advice:
If you are serious about limiting the growth of municipal government by constraining the revenues it takes in from all sources, then you should vote for Proposition 2.
If you think there should be no such artificial limitations on the growth of municipal government (one reason being we elect representatives to make that determination), then you should vote for neither proposition.
If you fear that your fellow voters, if given the choice between a true revenue limitation mechanism or none at all, will choose the true revenue limitation mechanism (Proposition 2), then you might consider a defensive vote in favor of Proposition 1, which limits some income streams for the city, but not in a very stringent manner. The vote would be defensive, since the proposition with the most votes takes precedence if both win a majority. Mayor White's a shrewd politician who understands Houston moderates. That's why Proposition 1 is on the ballot.
Anyway, there's something to chew on for those of you who still haven't made up your mind on the dueling propositions.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/27/04 10:38 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)
The same voice on redistricting
The Chronicle again runs one of those insipid "Another Voice" editorials, in which they take another newspaper's editorial, chop it down, and present it on their own rather empty editorial page.
Today, the newspaper that has pounded home its opposition to the recent Texas redistricting was more than happy to run the "voice" of the Dallas Morning News criticizing redistricting.
Here's a hint guys: it's not really a great example of another voice if it's indistinguishable from your own.
Just once, it might be nice to see a radically different point of view, from someone actually willing to argue that redistricting is an inherently political process that should remain political.
That would truly be "another" voice!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/27/04 09:53 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
Harris county commissioners fire contractor
Three weeks ago, KHOU-11's Jeremy Desel broke the story that a construction firm had basically abandoned construction on the Westpark Tollway in the middle of the job.
Yesterday, Harris County Commissioners Court terminated the contract with the company in question.
The remaining work will be put to bid, and a new contract awarded in December. Work will not resume until January, according to the Chronicle.
More: Coverage from KHOU-11, KTRK-13, and KPRC-2
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/27/04 05:20 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)
Job cuts at the Chronicle
We noted a few weeks ago that the Chronicle buried some rather ominous news about "restructuring" at the newspaper in the business section.
We speculated at the time that layoffs were coming. Now, the shoe has dropped:
The Houston Chronicle has cut nearly 10 percent of its work force, or 243 positions, as part of a previously announced program to reduce operating expenses, the company said today.
More than 64 percent of the reduction was in contract labor and outside work force positions, 28 percent through voluntary buyouts and elimination of open positions, and 8 percent through layoffs. The Chronicle provided severance packages and job placement services to employees who left.
Virtually all of the positions in the news and advertising divisions remain intact.
In a letter to employees, Chronicle Publisher and President Jack Sweeney said it was important to cut costs to pay for initiatives that will add circulation, readership and advertising revenue.
Sweeney is not very convincing. A 10% workforce reduction is MASSIVE, no matter how he tries to spin it.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/27/04 04:59 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (5)
Local sports talk radio to get competition
David Barron reports that local sports talk radio station KILT-610 will be getting some competition shortly:
Houston will add a second all-sports radio outlet in late December or early January, when KBME (790 AM) switches from its beautiful music format to compete with KILT (610 AM).
KBME, owned by Clear Channel Communications, will mix local programming with ESPN Radio and Fox Sports Radio shows, said Ken Charles, Clear Channel's Houston AM cluster programming vice president.
"Sports is a huge franchise for our cluster," Charles said. "With KPRC and KTRH and our rock stations, we talk to 85 percent of the men in this market, and a number of them are unhappy with the way sports is covered by the sports station currently. We want to give them an option, and with ESPN and Fox, we're giving them a great option."
KILT, owned by Infinity Broadcasting, currently airs ESPN Radio programs, including a tape-delayed segment of Dan Patrick's midday show. It will lose the ESPN franchise to KBME as part of the format change.
Losing Dan Patrick (the national sports guy, not the local conservative talker) will actually be a case of addition by subtraction by KILT.
Unfortunately, KILT will still have their local talk hosts, none of whom blow away listeners with their wit or knowledge (with the possible exception of Charlie Palillo, who loses points because of that squeaky voice thing he does).
We can hope that Ken Charles will put together something better than the sports dreck KILT broadcasts. He could do a lot worse than locking himself in a room and listening to Dallas's The Ticket for about a week straight. That sort of radio station would be refreshing.
As Barron notes, it's unfortunate that the Houston radio market will be losing Paul Berlin. Here's hoping he'll find a home somewhere on the dial, although given the current Clear Channel/Infinity dominance, I'm not hopeful.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/27/04 04:07 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (5)
We aim to please
MeMo says she doesn't like the term "mainstream" media:
3. Russell Simmons says "mainstream" -- hate that word -- media simply don't get the impact of hiphop culture. Ummmm, no spit. Which means "mainstream" media (and yeah, yeah, mea culpa) don't even get what's going on in their own houses, hiphop or not.
We'll just move right to MeMo's complaint: ' "mainstream" -- hate that word.' No problem. Some of us prefer to call you "old" media, anyway.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/27/04 04:05 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
CenterPoint Energy's neighborliness
CenterPoint Energy is not making any friends in the Maplewood West subdivision, according to this Chronicle story:
Behind Jim Laughlin's home on Twin Hills in the Maplewood West subdivision is a garden replete with a rain tree, flower beds and crape myrtles he and his dad planted in a final, shared project before the elder Laughlin's death.
His scenic back yard and those belonging to 22 of his neighbors were made possible more than three decades ago, when Houston Lighting and Power now CenterPoint Energy requested that residents extend their fence, landscape and maintain the utility company's property easement backing their property. The arrangement more than quadrupled the size of the yards over the original lot's dimensions.
It was also an unwritten agreement, leaving residents with no legal recourse in CenterPoint's plan to take over its easement Nov. 1, tearing down wooden fences, digging up flower beds and cutting down trees that have long blocked the view of its power lines and steel towers.
"The crape myrtles my dad and I planted will be gone. All I'll be able to see will be the power lines," said Laughlin, 50. "The company says it doesn't have a lease with us, we're not a business, so they don't have to honor the agreement."
[snip]
His neighbor and fellow dog-owner Judith Watson said the plans will take a chunk about 70 feet wide by 120 feet deep of land from each yard fronting the CenterPoint easement, land each resident has mowed, landscaped, fenced and carefully maintained over the years.
[snip]
Emily Mir-Thompson, CenterPoint spokeswoman, said the company is still studying the plan to reclaim all of its 150 feet of right of way by Nov. 1, "but we are moving forward with that deadline."
The decision, she said, was spurred in part by safety concerns stemming from the August 2003 power blackout in New York City and several other large cities.
"Since the blackout, there are regulations to make sure that the company's transmission lines are reliable. We need to clear those rights of way and make sure we have access to our lines and our equipment," Mir-Thompson said.
This looks bad, on the part of CenterPoint. Is the company saying that there are some new, mandatory regulations that must be followed, no matter what? There's no room for compromise here? Because this seems terribly heavy-handed. For more than 30 years these residents have been caring for this property and improving it, and CenterPoint is now going to repay them by giving them a new fence. Well, big whoopee-ding. CenterPoint owes these homeowners more than new fencing. If CenterPoint is going to follow through on taking away these backyards, it needs to compensate homeowners for 30 years of property care and for the decrease in property values they are now going to suffer.
This is not how a company enhances its image and this is not being a good neighbor in a community. This just stinks. CenterPoint should either find a way for the residents to keep their backyards, or compensate them justly for their losses. A new fence doesn't cut it.
And if the Chronicle has any sense of civic duty, the editors would get this story on the front page, of the A section. This sounds like one "bad guy" story the Chronicle should continue to pursue.
(Here's KTRK-13's coverage of this story.)
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/27/04 12:05 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
26 October 2004
The Tulsa World likes James T. Campbell
My good friend and current Tulsa resident David Hamby emails the following news:
Your Houston Chronicle reader representative had a column reprinted in Sunday's World. It was about the feud between Eminem and Michael Jackson. Hard-hitting stuff. Glad to see that he's branched out from covering waste management issues.
I'm pleased to hear he's a hit with the editors of the Tulsa World, but I wish the editors here in town would give him a bit more authority as ombudsman to correct some of that newspaper's problems.
Readers may be surprised to hear that I'm actually starting to warm to Mr. Campbell. We hope to interview him in the near future, if Jeff Cohen will let him talk to us on the record.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/26/04 07:07 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
Freight trains hinder mobility, part two
KTRK-13 reports that Mayor White and other local officials are looking at ways to solve congestion caused by freight trains within the city:
Railroad crossings tie up traffic all over the city. Mayor Bill White and other city, county and state officials are trying to come up with a plan that would help clear the congestion.
They want to accommodate more freight cargo, but not inconvenience drivers. As you'd imagine, there's no easy, cheap solution. The mayor hopes funds from the federal government will help.
There are more than 700 crossings in the Houston area that back up traffic as the trains make their way through town. Mayor White wants a plan in place by March to find money to pay for a new rail traffic system.
This is a problem that I've been blogging about for a while now. When I first moved to Houston in 1995, it was stunning to me that freight rail traffic literally blocked so many important thoroughfares all through the day. Since then, the problem has not been addressed.
Ultimately, it may be difficult to find the financial resources to build the sorts of overpasses and underpasses we need to free Houston drivers from these freight train bottlenecks, but we won't know that until we recognize the problem and get to work on it. Kudos to Mayor White for getting us moving in that direction.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/26/04 06:13 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)
Shell Houston Open woes
What's up with the Shell Houston Open? Tom Kirkendall has the details and it's all about location, location, location:
First, despite HGA protestations to the contrary, the Redstone Golf Course is not a PGA Tour-quality golf course. Redstone is the renovated result of the old El Dorado Country Club course and, although the redesign improved that old course significantly, it is still not close to as good a tournament venue as the TPC in The Woodlands.
Second, Redstone Golf Club is out in the middle of nowhere with no nearby quality hotels and other acccomodations to attract the Tour players or visitors to the golf tournament. Consequently, the Tour players must stay in either second rate Intercontinental Airport-area hotels or far away quality hotels in either the downtown or Galleria-areas of Houston.
In the meantime, The Woodlands has developed the Houston area's best destination resort, along with a beautiful downtown riverwalk area dotted with quality restaurants, entertainment venues, shops, and hotels. As one anonymous Tour player commented to me after viewing the latest commercial developments in The Woodlands: "They [meaning the HGA] left this for that[meaning Redstone]?"
The short terms results tend to support that view. Not only are charitable donations generated by the tournament down for the first time in 12 years, this year's Houston Open attracted only 3 of the top 20 money-winners on the PGA Tour. Prospects for next year's tournament do not look much better.
The full post has lots more on what appears to be a decline. I hope it's only temporary.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/26/04 04:14 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
Running with a debunked story
It wasn't terribly surprising to see that big New York Times story on the front page of the Chronicle yesterday. You know, the one about the 300+ tons of missing weapons material. It WAS surprising to see the Chronicle cover the same story today and put it on the front page, again, despite the problems with the story:
The discovery that 380 tons of Iraqi explosives have disappeared gave Kerry an opportunity to strike at Bush on the president's strongest issue. Polls have shown voters believe Bush would be the strongest leader in the war on terrorism.
"George W. Bush, who talks tough talks tough and brags about making America safer, has once again failed to deliver," Kerry said. "This is ... one of the greatest blunders of this administration. And the incredible incompetence of this president and this administration has put our troops at risk and this country at greater risk."
The New York Times and CBS first reported about the missing weapons. On Monday, the United Nations confirmed the reports. The explosives may have vanished shortly after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's army in April 2003, when, despite the U.S.-led coalition's presence, looting was rampant.
Well, the first problem is immediately evident: using CBS and the New York Times as content sources. There is some risk there.
Last night, NBC effectively took away all the oomph of the story with this:
NBC News: Miklaszewski: April 10, 2003, only three weeks into the war, NBC News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they temporarily take over the Al Qakaa weapons installation south of Baghdad. But these troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing. The U.S. troops did find large stockpiles of more conventional weapons, but no HMX or RDX, so powerful less than a pound brought down Pan Am 103 in 1988, and can be used to trigger a nuclear weapon. In a letter this month, the Iraqi interim government told the International Atomic Energy Agency the high explosives were lost to theft and looting due to lack of security. Critics claim there were simply not enough U.S. troops to guard hundreds of weapons stockpiles, weapons now being used by insurgents and terrorists to wage a guerrilla war in Iraq. (NBCs Nightly News, 10/25/04)
There's a very good question in that New York Times story. Unfortunately, it's not the one the old media is asking. Here's Ed Morrissey to ask it:
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/26/04 01:06 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (5)
Ship channel security increasing
KPRC-2 is reporting that security around the ship channel has been increased:
Harris County authorities stepped up security Monday around the ship channel as Election Day draws near.
Officials said they have not received a specific threat and that the increase in security is just a precaution.
However, they are already putting more deputies on patrol in the Houston Ship Channel's petrochemical corridor.
Deputies said plants and refineries in east Harris County could be possible targets for terrorists.
"The fear is that al-Qaida or terrorist might try to influence the American election similar to what was done in Madrid prior to the elections there," East Harris County Manufacturers Association spokesman Rick Hagar said.
Security will also be beefed up at local polling places, but officials said it would be unnoticeable to voters.
KTRH-740 AM also covers the story here.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/26/04 09:07 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
Lunar eclipse
Tomorrow evening, Houston-area residents are in for a treat -- a total lunar eclipse:
The eclipse that will occur on Oct. 27 should last for one hour and 21 minutes. The next lunar eclipse visible in North America will be in mid-October 2005, but the Earth's shadow will only cover about seven percent of the moon.
A lunar eclipse can be seen anywhere that the moon can be seen. The backyard will work fine. There are a few star parties in the Houston area that will give enthusiasts the opportunity to talk to astronomers and gaze through their telescopes.
The North Houston Astronomy Club will be hosting a party near Humble at the Jack Fields Elementary School on South Houston Avenue (information and map on the Humble ISD Web site: www.humble.k12.tx.us). The Fort Bend Astronomy Club will be hosting one at the George Observatory in Brazos Bend State Park southwest of Houston (information and directions on their Web site: www.fbac.org). The Observatory at Sam Houston State University, northeast of Huntsville will be hosting a star party (map on their Web site: www.shsu.edu/~phy_www/map.pdf) and the Johnson Space Center Astronomical Society will be hosting one at the Lunar and Planetary Institute on Bay Area Boulevard in Houston (directions on their Web site: www.lpi.usra.edu/education/other_programs/space_days.shtml).
All programs are free and open to the public.Astronomers and enthusiasts urge Houstonians to watch the eclipse. It will be many years before southeast Texas sees another total lunar eclipse.
Pretty cool!
Update: Laurence Simon points out (in the forum) that the eclipse will be total at 9:23 p.m.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/26/04 05:42 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
25 October 2004
Two Texas country music shows of note
We normally post an Americana/alt-country/Texas country music roundup on Thursdays, but lately there have been midweek shows that deserve a mention.
That's surely true this week at the Mucky Duck.
Tuesday night, up-and-comer Randy Rogers will sit down with the legendary Kent Finlay of Cheatham Street Warehouse for a songwriters' night. Finlay has given many a Texas singer/songwriter a chance over the years, including Randy Rogers. Lately he's been suffering from some pretty serious health issues. It'll be my first time to see Finlay, and I'm looking forward to it. The show starts at 8:30 and is non-smoking, which should please a certain dermatologist-councilwoman.
Wednesday night, the legendary Joe Ely sits down for two separate acoustic shows that are also non-smoking. In the past, Ely has been joined in this setting by Joel Guzman, who is a genius with the accordion, but I don't know if that will be the case for these shows. No matter -- Ely can more than fill up the room himself.
I know I used the word "legendary" twice, but I'm not just throwing it around. Texas country music doesn't get any better than these two shows.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/25/04 10:08 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)
Hurtt on manpower issues: patrol city desks more vigorously!
Carolyn Campbell of KHOU-11 reports that the Houston Police Department is moving cops from the city beat to the desk beat:
Dozens of Houston police officers are being pulled off the street next week and some say they're being punished for writing too few traffic tickets.
Some officers say they're being punished because they didn't meet a ticket quota.
An officer with a radar gun is probably the last thing you want to see if you're speeding. But writing tickets is one way officers are measured by their supervisors.
Patrol officers are also expected to respond to citizens' calls, make arrests and investigate crimes.
Approximately 30 patrol officers will be taken off the streets on Monday because their supervisors say they're not productive enough.
"We want to ensure that the taxpayers get full value for their dollar," said HPD Lt. Robert Manzo.
The low-performing officers in every sub-station will be reassigned for 20 days to answer non-emergency calls from citizens in the Teleserve Division.
"This was not a decision that was arrived at lightly," said Manzo. "We took great deal of effort to ensure that this process was done as fairly as could possibly have been done."
Teleserve usually is staffed by officers who have been injured or assigned to desk duty.
We share the reservations of Hans Marticiuc:
"We can't afford to lose any more people out of the patrol loop," said Hans Marticiuc, head of the Houston Patrol Officers Union.
To elaborate -- we can't afford to lose any more street manpower because it's already dangerously thin!
Whether the name is Brown or Bradford or Hurtt, HPD seems to suffer from chronic mismanagement.
Other city leaders aren't much help when it comes to public safety either, with their focus on smoking, Tasers, African-American museums, and downtown park boondoggles.
More: Additional coverage from KHOU-11's Carolyn Campbell.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/25/04 09:13 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (4)
Dermatologist-councilwoman won't give up on smoking ban
Dermatologist-councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs just won't give up on her grand plans to ban smoking in Houston.
Today, she chooses to ignore any scientific evidence she might deploy for her cause in favor of pure emotionalism:
My fight against secondhand smoking started more than 20 years ago during my family practice residency at a Jacksonville, Fla., charity hospital. There, I met 7-year-old Charlie, a beautiful little boy with a frail body and big eyes. Charlie suffered from severe asthma. His medical chart was thick, and he visited the emergency room so frequently that we all grew attached. Charlie knew he needed help and didn't like to leave the hospital. He constantly worried about breathing and preferred the emergency room to his home, where nearly all of his family members smoked. When you are out of breath, you are so frightened, and Charlie always seemed so innocent and vulnerable.
One day, I noticed Charlie had stopped coming to the emergency room. When I asked around, one of the nurses told me that paramedics had found him dead, clutching his inhaler. Charlie's death filled my heart with sorrow and strengthened my resolve that no one should have to breathe secondhand smoke.
At the time, doctors and nurses still smoked in the emergency room. The first step was to eliminate smoke in hospitals. Next, we needed to clean up the air in other workplace environments.
We've come a long way in 20 years, but more work needs to be done.
It's time for a smoke-free Houston.
Since the dermatologist-councilwoman is not proposing to ban smoking in private homes (we don't think), poor Charlie would still have suffered from secondhand smoke, even if he had lived to enjoy dermatologist-councilwoman Gibbs' proposed ban on smoking in all of Houston's public places.
But seriously, do we actually believe that emergency room professionals actually smoked in treatment areas in the hospital? I can't help but think dermatologist-councilwoman Gibbs is exaggerating.
In any case, City Council should have many higher priorities than banning smoking citywide. We encourage dermatologist-councilwoman Gibbs to read these pages more frequently if she can't figure them out on her own.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/25/04 08:36 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)
A record-setting transit authority
Callie Markantonis previously noted that Metro posted a press release on its website on October 19 praising itself for breaking its safety record.
She snarkily wondered if Lucas Wall might explain the "safety record" to us in light of the train's crash rate.
Lo and behold, it's only five days since the press release, and Wall has finally reported on the press release. We would call it "olds" but he does offer the following useful, new information:
Metro's light rail line, however, had a crash rate of more than 10 per 100,000 miles traveled in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.
The Main Street line, which opened Jan. 1, is on pace to set record highs nationally for collisions.
It's just a record-breaking year for Metro!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/25/04 08:02 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)
Does anybody edit the thing?
The Chronicle recently ran a story by Rhea Davis and Rosanna Ruiz on a spate of vandalism that has seen cell phone and radio towers in northern Harris and southern Montgomery counties damaged significantly in the last two months. According to legal authorities, there are no leads and no motives.
The story is unobjectionable, although we can't help but wonder why it took two staff members to compile.
Maybe one of the reporters was responsible for the penultimate sentence:
Cell phone towers have sparked controversy in recent years as some companies have proposed putting the towers in or near residential communities.
Nobody in the story asserted that the vandals were motivated by opposition to cell phone towers in residential areas. Indeed, the story made it clear that the motive remains unknown. But perhaps one of the reporters hails from the Chronicle's Department of Non Sequiturs and hadn't met her departmental quota when this article was written.
That's the only explanation we can come up with. Feel free to offer alternative theories on our discussion board.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/25/04 07:45 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
PJ's and politics
C-SPAN's BookTV.org links to a discussion on politics between John O'Neill, author of Unfit for Command, and Glenn Smith, author of Unfit Commander. The broadcast was recorded at Houston's own PJ's Sports bar, home of one of the best steak nights in town.
Posted by Callie Markantonis @ 10/25/04 07:37 PM | Houston Arts/Culture | Technorati | Comments (1)
The Dallas Morning News on the crime lab controversy
The Dallas Morning News ran a column by Bruce Nichols last Friday on the ongoing controversy over Houston's disgraced police crime lab.
The story is noteworthy because it actually treats the controversy in a balanced manner, unlike the Chronicle, which has engaged in one-sided reporting and mischaracterized Harris County DA Chuck Rosenthal's position repeatedly.
Here are some excerpts from the Nichols story that would never make it into the Chronicle:
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/25/04 07:20 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)
Boosting the coupon coverage for those to our southeast
KPRC-2 reports that The Galveston County Daily News and The Texas City Sun will merge into one newspaper, effective November 7.
People depending on the two newspapers for news will surely be delighted to hear that the merged entity will feature an enlarged coupons section.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/25/04 06:35 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (0)
24 October 2004
Phoenix, Dallas, and Decatur have world class health inspection priorities
Eileen Faxas of 11 News Defenders continues to pound the issue of accessible online food inspections, this time managing to get the mayor to sit down and answer some questions:
So after talking with many people on this subject, 11 News' consumer reporter Eileen Faxas got to talk with the one person who has the power to make the ultimate decision.
Bill White's staff gave 11 News 25 minutes, so Eileen Faxas asked Houston's mayor the kinds of questions she thought Houstonians would ask.
The city has already purchased the software and system designed to provide this service for its citizens. Unfortunately, the issue still seems to be one that doesn't concern the mayor:
Mayor White's top priorities, he said, aren't online health inspections, but traffic, drainage, and jobs. Which means taxpayers will have to wait to see what their $217,000 bought in that brand-new computer system sitting in the Health Department.
Faxas: "At what point will you make this a priority?" Mayor White: "It will be sometime soon."
I guess after the mayor tackles more important priorities like Tasers, African-American museums, and a new park boondoggle.
Posted by Callie Markantonis @ 10/24/04 09:31 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (1)
Lech Walesa to speak in Houston on Monday
The Houston World Affairs Council will be sponsoring a talk by Poland's Lech Walesa on Monday.
The event will take place from 6:30 to 7:30 pm at the Westin Oaks Hotel Consort Ballroom in the Galleria.
More information is available here.
The Houston World Affairs Council is a nonpartisan group that regularly brings important speakers on international topics to Houston.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/24/04 08:56 PM | Houston Arts/Culture | Technorati | Comments (0)
Houston's Chinatown shifts
Nancy Sarnoff pens an interesting article on southwest Houston's Chinatown area.
The area she describes is absolutely bustling. When I first moved to Houston (in 1995), much of the area she describes was blighted and crime-ridden. Now, it's almost totally unrecognizable. This is the sort of urban renewal that takes place constantly in Houston, with little fanfare. Sometimes, we even criticize it (as an unwillingness to preserve our past). This story shows the more positive side of such renewal.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/24/04 08:51 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (1)
Covering the "olds" important to the Lampson campaign
With the election approaching, the Chronicle today follows up on a story that didn't especially have legs two weeks ago when Kristen Mack wrote about it (coincidentally the same day as the Houston Press story on the same topic came out): the recent complaints of several women against former judge and current Congressional candidate Ted Poe (R).
At least the Chronicle didn't repeat its last mistake of uncritically writing about the affiliation of the women with an advocacy group that doesn't turn up on google or in other databases.
Still, this "olds" coverage amounts to little more than a press release for the Nick Lampson (D) campaign. A quality newspaper might not have bitten once on this "story," and surely wouldn't have done so twice.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/24/04 08:42 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
A rather transparent endorsement
As we noted earlier, Sherry Sylvester predicted that the state's major newspapers would endorse President Bush, and then use that endorsement as cover to continue their left-of-center coverage the rest of the time.
In the case of the Chronicle, it didn't take long to get to the "rest of the time."
In the same edition that endorses President Bush, the Chronicle's staff editorialists consist of:
1) Cragg Hines, who blasts top Chronicle "bad guy" Tom DeLay (R) while penning a column that could pass as a press release from Charlie Stenholm (D), given the praise of Stenholm and criticism of opponent Randy Neugebauer (R) as an "over the top Republican robot."
2) Clay Robison, who gets in digs at DeLay and another favorite "bad guy," Governor Rick Perry (R) for their role in redistricting before moving on to the main point of a column critical of Governor Perry and the state GOP broadly for failing (so far) to deliver on the reform of the state's controversial "Robin Hood" education finance scheme.
3) Rick Casey, who is a little more subtle than Hines or Robison (who don't seem to know the meaning of the word) in a column that portrays Harris County DA Chuck Rosenthal (R) and his prosecutors as uncaring lawyers who pursue the death penalty at all costs.
It's most problematic that Clay Robison serves as Austin News Bureau chief during the week, even as he engages in flamethrowing on the editorial page every Sunday. But it's also problematic that the Chronicle's other two regular opinion columnists (Casey's columns are merely op-eds running on the metro/state pages) consistently pen hard-left columns, with no regular balance from any conservative staff writer.
One endorsement for President isn't balance.
(Update) I should add that Hines' column on the editorial page is another example of editorializing on news the newspaper doesn't really cover with any depth, effectively letting the editorial serve as the news coverage. It's a peculiar practice, as we've noted before.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/24/04 07:50 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
Preserving some history in the Fourth Ward
Yesterday's Chronicle carried an interesting story about an archaeologist's efforts to find and catalog historical artifacts on the future site of two HISD schools, in the Fourth Ward:
If he could do things the way he wanted, McGhee said, he would assemble a team a couple of fellow archaeologists and about 20 graduate students and they would spend the next 10 years excavating the area by hand.
But he knows that would take too much money and postpone for too long the new buildings for the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and Gregory Lincoln School.
So his realistic goal, he said, "is to try to get archaeology done in this area in a manner that is scientifically acceptable while keeping within the realistic funding constraints that HISD has imposed ... We will not only focus on burials, we will focus on artifacts. There will be interpretation and analysis."
[snip]
HISD cleared structures from the land two years ago despite a written notice from the THC [Texas Historical Commission] that many of the buildings appeared eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.
The site, portions of which were seized using eminent domain laws, also may contain a Civil War-era cemetery.
It sounds like a very worthwhile effort, and it appears to be fast-tracked, so the school construction can get underway soon. But today's Chronicle has this letter to the editor:
Regarding the flap over the proposed location of Houston Independent School District's High School for the Performing and Visual Arts: Why would the possibility of an old graveyard on the site make a difference? It was of little concern to the builders and buyers of homes in the area. I personally believe the dead would not be pleased if their corporeal remains impeded the growth and education of children.
GLEN BROOKS
Houston
That seems unduly harsh. Of course the dead could not care less what happens, but society does care and benefits when the time is taken to preserve and study history. Studying the past, besides being very interesting, can teach us a lot about ourselves, our society, and even our future. And it appears that HISD and the Texas Historical Commission have reached a consensus on how to expedite this important work. We should support that.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/24/04 06:34 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
Breaking news
U.N. PROGRAM WAS EXPLOITED BY SADDAM
Yes, this is an AP story the Chronicle is running and it says it contains new information, but it's still amusing that more than two weeks after this story really was news and after the Chronicle editors pooh-poohed the charges contained in the Duelfer Report, it is now the Big Headline Story on the Chronicle's front page.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/24/04 05:47 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
Sylvester prediction comes to pass at the Chronicle
In an update posted on October 22, Sherry Sylvester suggested why the state's major newspapers would endorse President Bush's re-election:
The guys who are watching the bottom line at the big Texas papers know that media credibility is already at a record low. With declines in circulation and daily copy sales, Texas publishers will think long and hard before they invite the wave of subscription cancellations that would surely result if they took a stand against the President.
Just as the Boston Globe had little choice but to endorse Sen. John Kerry, in 2000 all of the states [sic] major newspapers endorsed Bush.
The Chronicle endorsed President Bush today, following the lead of the DFW and San Antonio newspapers.
When accused of bias, the Chronicle frequently resorts to tired claims that it gets angry letters from both liberals and conservatives, and therefore it's not biased. One can expect it to use its endorsement of President Bush for similar cover, another prediction offered by Sylvester:
Unfortunately, the Bush endorsements provide convenient cover for those reporters and editors who shamelessly slant the daily news. They will point to editorial page support for the president as proof their newspaper is balanced.
But the endorsements will not effect on the chronic bias that permeates the Texas news coverage in numerous ways from opinion driven news stories to misleading headlines. The endorsements will not counter the slanted political and public policy messages which are published in place of balanced news reports.
Texas journalists often insist that they are as hard on liberal Democrats as conservative Republicans and that may have been true at one time.
But those of us who monitor bias in the Texas press know those even-handed days are long gone regardless of who gets the presidential endorsements.
Yes, we do.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/24/04 04:34 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
Propositions one and two to be discussed
blogHOUSTON hears that Bill Balleza's Newsmakers program will feature an interesting discussion of Proposition One and Proposition Two.
The program airs on KPRC-2 at 9 am on Sunday, for those who are interested.
MORE: Websites in support of Proposition One and Proposition Two.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/24/04 07:34 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)
23 October 2004
Maybe they should just drop the house editorials?
Lately, the Chronicle has been producing some silly staff editorials.
We don't especially want to turn this site into a daily Fisking of their latest pablum, but it's hard to ignore an editorial page that is beginning to resemble a poorly written left-of-center blog.
Take the staff editorial from earlier this week explaining that those "draft cards" sent out by the Rock the Vote organization were a "hoax" and describing Rock the Vote as "liberal-leaning" in its first two paragraphs.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/23/04 09:38 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
Local journalism gets personal
Friend Rob Booth has posted some thoughts on that Josh Harkinson column on the Heflin/Vo race that we noted a few days ago.
Rob also has an amusing new description for the Houston Press.
With Chronically Biased in some sort of transition, it's nice to see Rob posting on his own site again.
(Update) Speaking of Chronically Biased, there's just something fun about their commissioning a graphic to generate excitement about their new "mystery blog" and to have that graphic contain a spelling error. Whoops!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/23/04 01:55 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (1)
Governor's communications director criticizes Chronicle columnist
Eric Bearse, communications director for Governor Rick Perry (R), engages in some textual analysis of recent Clay Robison columns in a letter the Chronicle published earlier this week:
Though it is not unusual for Chronicle columnist Clay Robison to take issue with Gov. Rick Perry's approach to governing after all, Robison's Oct. 17 column, "Texas' vulnerable pay the price of limited government," was the 22nd time this year he has mentioned our governor in a negative light I take great exception to the way in which he ignored the full context of the governor's remarks.
Gov. Perry's speech to a conservative audience hosted by the National Center for Policy Analysis included a challenge to conservatives to see the importance of protecting abused and neglected children, as well as adults unable to care for themselves.
The governor's comment that there is "not only a limited role for government, but a legitimate role for government" was a strong acknowledgment of the need for a strong safety net to protect the most vulnerable among us.
He also advocated for more spending at Child Protective Services and Adult Protective Services to hire more caseworkers, which is consistent with his record of supporting past funding increases at CPS.
Robison's negative column amounts to "drive-by journalism," where a member of the media doesn't stop to explore the facts, but instead finds a few words to nitpick in order to continue a drumbeat of criticism.
Hopefully your many readers will see it for what it is: a reflexive ideological reaction, not a reflective look at Gov. Perry's policies.
As we frequently point out, the Chronicle is welcome to whatever partisan stance it chooses to adopt for its editorial pages, however out of tune it may be with a majority of Texans (and Harris County readers).
The problem with Robison is not so much his extreme ideological leanings, but that he engages in partisan flamethrowing every Sunday, even as he serves as the newspaper's Austin news bureau chief. It boggles the mind that Jeff Cohen expects readers to believe Robison will confine his partisan flamethrowing to Sundays and cover state politics objectively the rest of the week. A quality newspaper would have more of a firewall between its news and editorial coverage.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/23/04 12:17 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
Cutting the noise around Bush Intercontinental
A noise-reduction plan has been sent to the FAA by residents surrounding Bush Intercontinental Airport, and local congressional representatives are supporting the plan:
Speaking at a press conference at a home in the Foxwood subdivision, just north of the airport, several area congressmen challenged the FAA to join the Houston Airport System in implementing an effective noise abatement plan.
"If it can be changed at other airports, it can be changed here," said Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Beaumont, who serves on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
U.S. Reps. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands; Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston; and Gene Green, D-Houston, also were present and said they would push the FAA to resolve the noise problem fairly.
Residents in the 22 neighborhoods surrounding Bush have complained for the last year that noise levels have soared since the city opened a new runway.
Houston Airport System officials have said they have implemented an airport management system to reduce the number of overnight flights and have opened an additional runway to reduce traffic on the tarmac closest to residences.
Next week will mark the first anniversary of the newest east-west runway at Bush, said Hank Husky, president of the Coalition of Homeowner Alliances Requiring Government Equity, or CHARGE.
"When that runway was opened, residents in over 20 neighborhoods, including this one, began to experience aircraft noise not experienced before," he said.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/23/04 08:29 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
22 October 2004
Haunted house time
The Chronicle's Joey Guerra points to the following online guide to Houston's haunted houses: HoustonHaunts.com
Personally, I'm not really a fan of flash websites, but this one looks good and has plenty of information on Houston's various spook sites. They also have a forum for all your ghoulish discussion needs.
Boo!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/22/04 11:21 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (1)
A busy day for MetroRail
It's been a dangerous day around Houston's light rail line.
Another car ran into the train, for collision #69 (KPRC-2's count is off).
And in an unrelated incident, KHOU-11 reports that a man has been shot while waiting for the train:
A man was rushed to the hospital after reportedly being shot at a light rail station Friday evening.
Witnesses say the suspects were on bicycles.
It happened around 6:30 p.m. at the station near Wheeler and Main.
Witnesses say two men on bicycles rode by and one of them apparently fired the shot.
The motive is unclear.
At last check, police were still searching for the suspects.
The shooting is the latest incident at a train station. Other people have reported being held up. Obviously, Metro's response to that problem has not been adequate if people are now being shot.
Instead of focusing Metro police manpower on ticketing jaywalkers and people who clip the train, the city needs to get serious about protecting riders of the train.
Of course, we can expect incidents of dangerous crime to increase as Mayor White and council continue to ignore police manpower shortages and focus instead on Tasers and African-American museums.
(10-23-2004 Update) Laurence Simon points out in the comments that MetroRail actually shut down service for a time on Thursday night after Game 7 of the National League Championship Series, stranding passengers downtown watching the game and leaving them uninformed as to the problem:
Service was suspended for safety reasons just as the contest ended about 10:15 p.m., however, and it took almost 40 minutes for a train to arrive at Preston Station to ferry the disappointed fans home. Some irate passengers complained there was no sight of an obstruction on the tracks and no communication from the Metropolitan Transit Authority about the reason for the wait.
Several said the continuing troubles with rail service during downtown events make them less likely to ride again.
"I don't appreciate how the city is like, 'Come downtown and use rail,' but you don't have enough respect for your patrons to let us know what's going on," a visibly upset Cassie Reid of Midtown told a MetroRail supervisor at Preston Station. "I could have walked home by this point."
The supervisor had just arrived at the platform more than 30 minutes into the delay to inform the 100-plus waiting riders that rail service north of Jefferson Street had been suspended and there was a bus available on Fannin Street to ferry them to the Downtown Transit Center.
Only minutes after more than 50 people left the station and began walking the block to Fannin, a train finally pulled in. Only 50 or so people were left to board it, and the trip south was hampered by numerous delays. From the end of the game, it took almost an hour for the train to reach Midtown, only a mile away.
The affluent upwardly mobile types who wanted a toy train and disdain buses must have been quite upset at having to rely on the bus once again.
A Metro executive added the following:
None of the incidents appeared to affect the rail line, but Arndt said "we will always err on the side of safety."
Except, of course, for laying the rail line down a busy, narrow traffic corridor in a manner that, 69 incidents later, has proven to be dangerous.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/22/04 07:34 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (1)
Does journalism warp reasoning?
How does this happen? How do trained and professional journalists write editorials that, day after day, seem to defy common sense?
This week a soldier with a nickname right out of a mid-20th century, all-American sit-com, Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, pleaded guilty to eight of 12 counts of abusing Iraqi prisoners.
Frederick admitted that he knew his behavior including the attachment of wires to a prisoner to make him think he could be electrocuted was wrong at the time he engaged in it. His admission earned him a sentence of eight years in prison, and the judge stripped him of rank and pay.
If a noncommissioned officer in the Army repeatedly and openly does what he knows is wrong, his actions suggest he has little fear of punishment. Frederick said an Army investigator encouraged him and other guards to