30 November 2004

Chron: blogging built on "questionable ethical foundation"

The Chronicle's entertainment editor Andrew Dansby continued with a line of recent Chronicle tributes to Dan Rather last week, and took some shots at bloggers:

Capacity to become a pundit has increased since blogging software (and the term itself) surfaced almost six years ago.

Unlike the cool delivery of news in years past, the new lawn-chair pundit and his minions engage in discourse and the processing and proliferation of ideas. It's active, and because it is governed by no apparent rules, it is built on a questionable ethical foundation.

Blogging is built on a questionable ethical foundation?

Well, THERE is a quantum leap of logic! Of course, if Dansby spends any time reading his newspaper's "blogger," we can certainly forgive his confusion about blogs.

For a more compelling view of blogging and big media, here's a recent article by N.Z. Bear (a blogger) on Tech Central Station.

(12-01-2004 Update) Here's another interesting take on blogging and Dan Rather from Chris Weinkopf, editorial page editor of the LA Daily News. I found it via PowerLine, the blog that drove the Rathergate story.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/30/04 08:54 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)

Odd police priorities for White/Hurtt

KHOU-11's Jeremy Rogalski has done some excellent reporting on more funding problems within HPD, raising serious questions about the training and equipment in traffic accident investigation:

"It's just terrible," said Sam, one recent HPD accident investigator, who wished to remain anonymous. "If we ask for equipment they say well you didn't have it last year, why do you need it this year?"

And so Sam says officers are forced to dip into their own pockets to buy cameras, measuring wheels, even laptop computers that work because the city-issued gear often doesn't.

"We're just not in a position right now to buy everything that we need," said Police Chief Harold Hurtt, who took the job in March.

When asked if he sees a problem in assigning someone to do a job and not giving him the basic tools to do that job?

"Well, I don't know if we're not giving them the basic tools to do that job," said Hurtt.

But HPD, at one point, investigators tell us, wouldn't even buy spray paint to mark up a scene -- spray paint that costs just a few bucks a can.

And that's not all.

"Some officers are spenindg thousands of dollars to get their own training," said Sam. "It's been the norm for several, several years."

And frustrated cops have put it in writing, like a blistering letter to the police chief and others in which an officer wrote, "I'm appalled that our department is not willing to equip or train officers in the Traffic Division ... proper fatality investigations should be one of the top priorities."

Chief Hurtt has managed to convince City Council to spend $5 million on Tasers, and Mayor White's priorities include spending millions on a downtown park.

Meanwhile, one of the most basic functions of any municipality -- police protection -- continues to suffer from underfunding and misplaced priorities from the dynamic duo of Hurtt and White.

Rogalski's full interview with Chief Hurtt is located here. Note that the police chief is still uniformless. Perhaps passing a test so he can wear the HPD uniform isn't a priority of our chief. Who knows, maybe he's not planning on staying in Houston much longer.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/30/04 07:28 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)

Mayor's tree lighting ceremony

Wednesday night, Mayor White will be hosting a tree lighting ceremony at City Hall:

Included in this year’s program are the Houston Voices of New Hope Choir under the direction of Hanq Neal, the Houston Metropolitan Dance Company, Pancho Claus, Mecca Mariachis, and the Houston High School for the Performing and Visual Arts String Quartet.

The event culminates with the lighting of the holiday tree, accompanied by a fireworks display synchronized to Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus.

Pancho Claus? Well, there are those who say Houston is world class.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/30/04 06:10 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)

29 November 2004

Food and drink roundup (11-29-2004 edition)

The usual food and drink roundup that we normally post on Thursday is making a belated appearance today, as it just didn't seem worth posting while everyone was enjoying (or not enjoying) turkey leftovers.

Now that we're sick of those leftovers, here's the usual roundup.

It's a double shot from Robb Walsh this week, who says fajitas are the way to go at Herrera's Mexicatessen. Whether you go with bacon or not is a purely personal decision, he notes. Walsh also checks in on La Tour d'Argent, reopened under the direction of chef Cedric Guerin, who is hopeful the boycotts that wrecked the local French culinary scene for a while are well behind us.

Alison Cook pays a visit to Arcodoro, where it's imported fall truffle time. For those after less sophisticated -- or at least expensive -- fare, I might recommend the pizza at Arcodoro, which I've greatly enjoyed in the past. Then again, if pizza's what you're after, you might just as well head to Kenneally's, which serves a fine pizza in a relaxed Irish pub atmosphere.

If you're just in the mood for a sandwich, Ken Hoffman has the lowdown on the Subway Toasted Meatball Marinara sub, which is not, with its 126 grams of carbs, for followers of the late Dr. Atkins.

Finally, Dai Huynh visits west Houston's Java Coffee & Tea Co., while Lance Walker checks out the Six Degrees Lounge downtown.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/29/04 04:51 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)

Blending education and technology

Two local middle schools have been selected to participate in the Technology Immersion Program, which will study how student achievement in core subjects is impacted when students and teachers have computers, special educational software, online tools and immediate tech support:

Round Rock-based Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) is providing notebook computers and technology training for students and teachers in 18 schools in Texas, including Woodland Acres Middle School in Galena Park ISD and Kaleidoscope Middle School (a Charter School) in Houston ISD.

TIP explores the impact of technology immersion on student progress by providing teachers and students the resources for developing 21st century skills.

In addition to professional development, the 18 TIP schools receive Dell notebook computers, productivity software, online content focused on core curriculum areas, online assessment tools and technical support.

The Texas Center for Educational Research has been hired to measure the impact of all this technology on student achievement and it will be interesting to see the results, when they are published.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/29/04 04:50 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

TxDOT meetings scheduled for 288 expansion project

The Chronicle reports that TxDOT will be holding public meetings on its plans to expand highway 288 from downtown Houston to Freeport:

TxDOT and its consultants will present the expansion concept from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Pearland Junior High South, 4719 Bailey, Pearland; Wednesday at Pilgrim Community Center, 3118 Blodgett, Houston; and Thursday at Angleton High School, 1201 Henderson, Angleton. For more information, call 713-802-5074.

More information is available on the TxDOT website.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/29/04 04:06 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)

Blogging about Enron

Local attorney and blogger Tom Kirkendall comments on an op-ed by Ken Lay's defense attorney Mike Ramsey.

Ramsey is highly critical of the Chronicle for what he calls tabloid/lynch mob journalism with regard to its treatment of Ken Lay.

It's not entirely surprising that the newspaper that missed the collapse of Enron while it was happening has now resorted to portraying certain figures in the controversy as "bad guys." That's the sort of journalism that the Chronicle specializes in, especially on the editorial page.

Kirkendall, of course, has followed the Enron proceedings closely on his blog, and has frequently criticized the government's weak case. His blog is a valuable supplement to fairly disappointing coverage from local print media.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/29/04 03:12 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (0)

What to do with an old rail corridor in the Heights

Residents in the Heights are concerned that a toll road is coming soon to an old rail line, according to this Houston Press story:

For years, residents in the Houston Heights have been pushing to build a bike trail along an abandoned rail line, connecting their historic neighborhood with the heart of downtown. Last week, many of them learned that Harris County bureaucrats have been discussing plans of their own for the route: a toll road.

Excerpts from a letter to this effect, written by Mike Strech, director of the Harris County Toll Road Authority, were pinging around the Internet last week, inspiring confessions of fear and outrage from bicyclists and soccer moms.

[snip]

Harris County Commissioners Court oversees the toll road authority. In August, commissioners voted unanimously to authorize the authority to begin negotiations to purchase the rail corridor.

Yet County Judge Robert Eckels, who is closely involved in transportation planning, says that siting a toll road along the rail bed would be very unlikely. "I'm not going to say it's impossible," he says. "Somebody could come along in 20 years and do it, but it's not on my plans. I cannot foresee the need for a toll road."

He says the commissioners are seeking the property, which soon will go up for sale, to keep it open for future public use. The toll road authority was the agency of choice to acquire it, he adds, because it has sufficient funds on hand to pay for the land.

Even so, that assurance has done little to quell neighborhood fears. A toll road could serve as a traffic-bristling concrete barrier, bisecting historic Heights Boulevard and assorted enclaves of one of Houston's oldest and most established communities.

[snip]

In the plans, TxDOT has required the city to place the trail along the edge of the corridor, to leave space for other uses. One possibility would be the spur near Shepherd Drive outlined in the toll study. Metro also has considered running light rail down the corridor and then cutting south along Yale Street to link up with a possible Washington Avenue line.

Who can blame the residents for not wanting a toll road bisecting their neighborhood? And all of us have enough experience with government to know that when government says don't worry, then it is time to worry.

The Chronicle has an editorial on this subject today (the only place I saw the Chronicle previously mention this story was last week in the regional This Week section for the Heights area) where the editors bemoan the possible plan to build a toll road. The editors would like the space to be turned into a hike and bike trail, which sounds swell, except for that bolded part above from the Press story, about Metro wanting to use the old rail corridor for a light rail line. The editors don't mention the idea and since the Chronicle is extremely pro-light rail, I'll be curious to see which side the editors take on the issue.

Also, the Chronicle's This Week story never mentions Metro's interest in the rail corridor, while the Press story mentions it twice. Interesting omission on the part of the Chronicle, or maybe it was a problem of not-so-thorough reporting.

28 November 2004

The ultimate sacrifice

Today's Chronicle has the story of some local families who have lost loved ones in Iraq:

"It's tough," said Barbara Rozier, of Katy, whose son, Jonathan, was slain in Iraq 16 months ago, making this the family's second holiday season without him. Rozier, a 25-year-old Army lieutenant, died in a Baghdad ambush on July 19, 2003, leaving behind his wife, Jessica, and 2-year-old son, Justin.

"There are times when it's almost like a fresh wound, where things will trigger it. You just feel that emptiness and that ache all over again. And then it heals up and you move on," she said.

For her Cinco Ranch family, a key to coping with the grief has been maintaining routines and traditions and doing charitable works to honor their hero, Rozier said.

Saturday, family members continued their private initiative to help troops still in the fray. Led by the soldier's sister, Elizabeth, they used several thousand dollars in donations to buy long-distance calling cards for sailors and soldiers in the war zone and planned to put them in the mail. They've shipped several hundred of the phone cards already this year.

Local blogger Chris Elam knows the Rozier family, and on his blog shared some thoughts:

We both knew Elizabeth Rozier from home school activities, and Liz and I both went on to attend Texas A&M. Her older brother Jonathan, was also a home-schooled young man, a corps member at Texas A&M, and graduated the same year I did. Last year, we heard with sadness, that he had been killed during a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Iraq. He left behind a young wife, and a 9-month old son.

It is a very sad story, but the confidence and hope the Rozier's have, is that they will see Jonathan again in Paradise. In the meanwhile, they are obviously staying active in supporting the military, and Elizabeth has had many opportunities to become active in GOP politics, and from what I hear, has a bright future in our party. This past August, she was the first at-large alternate (Governor Perry's) of the Texas Delegation to the GOP Convention in NYC.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/28/04 12:34 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

27 November 2004

Journalists face the mystery of economics

Today's Chronicle has a story on the challenges local food banks face with more fresh and frozen food being donated and the increased need for cold storage, which isn't cheap:

To meet consumer demands for more healthful food choices, grocery stores are stocking more fresh and frozen foods — and donating their excess supplies to food banks.

"If you look at the grocery stores, the can and box aisles are shrinking. Produce is expanding. There are more frozen foods," said Jan Pruitt, chief executive officer of the North Texas Food Bank and president of the Texas Association of Second Harvest Food Banks.

"Whatever those retail stores look like, food banks have to mirror because that's the product that is going to be donated to us. We're following the lead of the food industry."

This increase in fresh and frozen food donations has meant a more nutritionally balanced meal for those who need food assistance, but it's also meant agencies have had to expand their cold storage space — a costly proposition for charities already struggling with a tight economy and increased demand for their services.

"Once upon a time, food banks were mostly dry goods," said Ross Fraser, a spokesman with America's Second Harvest, the largest domestic hunger-relief organization.

"There is now an increase in the amount of produce, fruit, dairy. To do that you have to have refrigeration and freezer space. It's a big demand."

The reporter, Salatheia Bryant, does a little editorializing by stating that cold storage space is "a costly proposition for charities already struggling with a tight economy..." What evidence does Bryant provide for the "tight economy"? Or, better yet, what does a "tight economy" actually mean to Bryant?

The U.S. economy is in pretty good shape, according to this Bloomberg story:

Initial jobless claims dropped to the lowest level since early September, and October new home sales rose to the third- highest ever, other reports showed today. Orders for durable goods, or items made to last at least three years, decreased 0.4 percent after a 0.9 percent gain in September that was four times more than first estimated, the Commerce Department said in Washington.

"The economy is in quite good shape,'' said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Greenwich Capital in Greenwich, Connecticut, in an interview. "We are looking at good growth, not blowout numbers.''

Thomas Sowell, who should have a regular op-ed place in the Chronicle's Outlook section, wrote a column on the problem of journalists and economics: journalists very often don't understand even the basics of economics:

The time is long overdue for schools of journalism to start teaching economics. It would eliminate much of the nonsense and hysteria in the media, and with it perhaps some of the demagoguery in politics.

The Chronicle reporter passes on what is conventional wisdom in newsrooms, without providing any actual backup for the claim of a "tight economy." If Bryant meant to say that current funding levels and donations need to increase so food banks can pay for cold storage, then that's what should have been said, without the editorializing.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/27/04 10:25 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

26 November 2004

Fairness in labeling

Curves has rapidly become a hot name in fitness club circles and it has a Texas/Houston connection. So of course, the Chronicle picks up an AP story about the company and its founder, Gary Heavin:

The company is the creation of Gary Heavin, 49, who heads Curves International in Waco. Heavin was a millionaire by age 30 after taking over a failing health club in Houston and expanding it into a chain of 17 clubs. But then came a divorce, bankruptcy and business failure. He spent 2 1/2 months in jail when he couldn't make child support payments.

In 1992, Heavin and his second wife, Diane, opened the first Curves club. It was small and simple, a place where women could feel comfortable.

Three years later, Heavin was selling franchises, and by 1998 there were 500. Curves aims to have more than 25,000 — including 8,000 in Asia and 8,000 in Europe — within five years. By comparison, Gold's Gyms and Bally Total Fitness, two of the biggest fitness clubs in the country, have about 1,000 facilities between them.

Toward the end of the article, the AP reporter passes on this important information:

Curves and Heavin, however, aren't without critics.

Some dismiss Curves as a fad. Heavin, a born-again Christian, has been criticized for his conservative political views and donations to anti-abortion causes. Some members have quit the clubs over his political stands.

At the annual Curves convention in Las Vegas this month, one of the topics was "the fallout from my values," Heavin said.

Oh no! He's a born-again Christian!

Chronicle glosses over Rather "controversy"

Dan Rather's "retirement" announcement on Tuesday was obviously intended to accomplish two things: pre-empt what is likely to be damning criticism from the internal investigation of the fraudulent documents he presented to television viewers during an election campaign, and pre-empt it when everyone's attention is focused on Thanksgiving and not the usual news cycle.

Of course, if every media outlet could be counted on to cover Rather's announcement as sympathetically as the Chronicle, then CBS News wouldn't have had to bother with the announcement.

Here is the way the Chronicle's Mike McDaniel describes the "controversy" related to Rather's retirement:

Rather drew fire for a 60 Minutes report, aired in September, that raised questions about President Bush's service while in the Texas Air National Guard. An internal investigation was launched, with the probe led by former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh and former Associated Press executive Louis D. Boccardi. Results of the investigation are expected soon.

and

During the election, Rather came under attack by conservatives who accused him of being the poster boy for liberal media.

and

The mood inside CBS has been tense since the controversy over the National Guard story. "Morale is not great for all the obvious reasons," veteran reporter and Face the Nation anchor Bob Schieffer said. "CBS made a mistake, Dan admitted it, the company apologized for it, and (the report will) be made public without CBS having a chance to edit it.

Not once in the story does McDaniel elaborate on the "mistake" Dan Rather and Mary Mapes made -- airing a story with fraudulent documents obtained from questionable sources and without proper vetting in the midst of a close election contest.

If one didn't already know the details of the "mistake" and "controversy" (hat tip: bloggers), one wouldn't have a clue what Mike McDaniel was talking about, and might actually feel sorry for the retiring old dinosaur. (And contrary to that cherrypicked Schieffer quote, Rather has never admitted he presented fraudulent documents, or apologized for it.)

Even better than that, McDaniel managed to find perhaps the only media critics in the nation who were "surprised" and "taken aback" by the Rather announcement.

The newspaper that missed Enron continues to prove it is no one-hit wonder when it comes to journalistic ineptitude.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/26/04 10:41 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)

It's official: Pallilo to move to KBME

David Barron reports that it's now official after 20 days of silence -- former KILT-610 sports talker Charlie Pallilo will be the featured personality on Clear Channel's new sports talk station in Houston, after making a pre-launch stop at his old home, KTRH-740:

Charlie Pallilo is back on the air at KTRH (740 AM), where he will co-anchor SportsBeat until Clear Channel Houston launches its all-sports format on KBME (790 AM) in late December or early January.

Pallilo returned to KTRH, where he worked for more than a decade before joining KILT (610 AM) in September 1999, on Wednesday night. He will remain on KTRH, working with Carl Dukes and Ted DeLuca, until KBME launches, then will work afternoon drive from 3 to 7 p.m. on the rebranded ESPN 790, the "Sports Animal."

"It will be an exciting, challenging enterprise, going from one good company (Infinity Broadcasting, owner of KILT) to another (Clear Channel) that has established its ability to build a good station," Pallilo said. "Having ESPN as the anchor network will open up some possibilities and elements that you can build into a show over time.

"And sometimes, change is a part of life."

The last comment was a reference, in part, to the end of his on-air partnership with Rich Lord. The two worked together at KTRH in the early 1990s and shared the mike for five years on KILT's afternoon drive show.

"We had a great time doing that show together, and I would have no problem ever working with him and other people (at KILT) again," Pallilo said. "I just had to make a decision and decided to take on the challenge of being part of something from square one."

Lord said he and Pallilo "enjoyed a chemistry that's hard to find. The time we worked together is always going to be special to me."

Pallilo, whose contract at KILT expired in September, received an offer from Clear Channel late last month. Infinity had 20 days to match the offer and took Pallilo off the air during that time.

When the 20-day period expired earlier this week, Ken Charles, Clear Channel Houston's director of AM programming, rushed him onto KTRH rather than waiting for KBME's all-sports debut.

"He's the best sports talk host in town," Charles said. "And if we're going to launch this station, we want to launch with the best. We will have ESPN Radio, Fox Sports Radio, Dan Patrick and we wanted Charlie.

Pallilo will be great, but Patrick is awful. Please PLEASE learn from The Ticket in Dallas, and give us interesting personalities talking about local sports and life. Patrick is a cure for insomnia.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/26/04 10:02 AM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (1)

Safety claims by Taser called into question

Alex Berenson of the New York Times reports today that many of the safety claims of Taser International regarding its weapons have been somewhat exaggerated:

Taser International, whose electrical guns are used by thousands of police departments nationwide, says that a federal study endorses the safety of its guns, but the laboratory that conducted the research disagrees.

Taser said last month that the government study, whose full results have not yet been released, found that its guns were safe. Since that statement, the company's stock has soared and its executives and directors have sold $68 million in shares, about 5 percent of Taser's stock and nearly half their holdings.

But the Air Force laboratory that conducted the study now says that it actually found that the guns could be dangerous and that more data was needed to evaluate their risks. The guns "may cause several unintended effects, albeit with low probabilities of occurrence," the laboratory said last week in a statement released after a symposium on Tasers, as the company's guns are known, and other weapons intended to incapacitate people without killing them.

Taser said Wednesday that it stood behind its October statement.

Other data presented at the symposium raised questions about one of Taser's key claims about the effectiveness of its newest and most expensive weapon.

Who knew?

Certainly not the city leaders who approved a $5 million contract with Taser.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/26/04 09:24 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

The Chronicle's list of blessings

Yesterday's Chronicle ran a Thanksgiving editorial that started off in the right direction:

It is a time of the year when many American families will more keenly feel the absence of loved ones serving in combat zones abroad. And it is a time for all Americans to recognize the sacrifice made by those men and women who have given their life trying to secure freedom and democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But it quickly went downhill from there:

25 November 2004

Heflin campaign goes nuclear

Republican Talmadge Heflin's campaign has now "gone nuclear" with regard to his most recent race against Democrat Hubert Vo (the certified winner of the race):

State Rep. Talmadge Heflin asked the state House of Representatives today to overturn the results of his failed re-election bid and either order him returned to the Legislature or call for a new election.

Heflin's attorney, Andy Taylor, said the election results in state House District 149 in southwest Harris County were fraught with voting irregularities and potential fraud, most of which occurred in predominantly Democratic precincts.

"The true outcome of this election was stolen from the voters in House District 149," Taylor said Tuesday. "We will prove that Representative Talmadge Heflin was re-elected."

Heflin, a Republican member of the House since 1983 and chairman of its Appropriations Committee, lost to Democratic businessman Hubert Vo by 32 votes earlier this month. But Heflin's campaign alleges that those election results include at least 248 irregularities that could have altered the outcome.

I'm rarely surprised by political events -- indeed, I make a living by predicting such events (at least in the international sphere) -- but this one surprises me.

24 November 2004

Kicking off the holiday season

There are quite a few goings-on this Thanksgiving weekend, besides the parade Thursday morning.

The Uptown Holiday Lighting will take place Thursday, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., on Post Oak Blvd., between San Felipe and Westheimer.

On Friday, Galveston's Harbor Parade of Lights will take place at 6 p.m., along Pier 21; and the Holiday Lights in Hermann Park kicks off at 6 p.m. at the Molly Ann Smith Plaza. That will be followed by a Houston Symphony Holiday Concert performed at Miller Outdoor Theatre at 7:00 p.m.

On Saturday, Market Street in The Woodlands hosts a Lighted Carriage Parade at 6 p.m.; and Galveston holds its official tree lighting ceremony from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the San Luis Resort.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/24/04 05:16 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)

Who's really supporting Cy-Fair ISD bond initiative?

Cy-Fair ISD is taking a $700 million bond initiative to the voters and the Chronicle's Jason Spencer has uncovered a bit more to the story:

A political action committee, or PAC, calling itself Citizens for Cy-Fair ISD Bonds plans to spend more than $60,000 on the campaign, touting "local support" for the referendum, which begins early voting today. But what the ads don't say is that almost all the money behind the ads is coming from companies that stand to make millions if the proposal passes.

Among the biggest contributors are four architectural firms that have a history of doing business with the district, which stretches across 186 square miles in northwest Harris County.

And apparently this is par for the course:

"Potentially, it means a lot of work for a lot of companies," said Ken Simonson, chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America based in Alexandria, Va.

Construction firms spending money to promote bond packages isn't unusual, he said. In 2002, for example, when the Houston Independent School District asked voters for $808 million to build new schools, Atlanta-based Heery International gave $15,000 to the PAC that successfully advocated for the bond package. Heery is now managing construction projects worth nearly $200 million in bond money.

Records show the four architectural firms have already won plenty of school contracts, collectively billing Cy-Fair ISD $7.2 million last school year for design work related to a $470.5 million bond package approved by voters in 2001.

Good for Spencer, getting this information out in the open. He's the same reporter who unmasked the HISD superintendent candidates.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/24/04 01:14 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

A Safire column that could serve as "another voice"

Yesterday, the Chronicle posted a typically simplistic editorial, in which the editors hyperventilated about several relevant, experienced GOP committee chairmen putting the brakes on a massive intelligence "reform" bill that had been moving through the Congress at breakneck speed (certainly faster than many Bush judicial nominees, which only require an up/down vote of the Senate).

Today, William Safire -- whose columns are regularly picked up by the Chronicle -- pens a sober response to mainstream media types that, like the Chronicle, have criticized the administration for strong-arming its critics (on the left and right), but now argue that it needs to whip into line committee chairmen who presumably know more about their areas of expertise than, say, Jeff Cohen or Andrea Georgsson:

The sore-loser set has been complaining that the president has banished healthy internal dissent. Darryl Zanuck's classic line to quavering executives has been evoked, "Don't say yes until I finish talking!"

But wait: that was before a minority of a hundred or so members of Congress, basing their stand on the testimony of the nation's five most senior military officers, refused to say yes to the private lobbying juggernaut set up by the disbanded 9/11 commission. This group had already brought the media, the Congressional leadership and finally the president to their knees.

The principled refusal of two House committee chairmen to be steamrollered into hasty passage of a pre-election-driven bill has flipped the previous bashing of the supposedly domineering Bush 180 degrees.

Now the party line is: "Whatsamatter, W., you can't whip these right-wingers of yours into line? The Establishment has decreed that our intelligence operations will be reorganized now, quick, before the new Congress takes the oath and holds further hearings. Why can't you force your generals and your saluting solons to get with the program? Where's Tom (the Hammer) DeLay when we need him?"

That's quite a flip-flop.

Speaking of flip-flops, in a delicious twist, the Chron editors actually tossed a little praise towards DeLay:

If, as has been reported, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, spoke up for going ahead with the bill, good for him.

As Safire asks, what's the rush? Who can be opposed to getting the thing right?

One wonders whether the Chronicle will pick up this Safire column.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/24/04 10:00 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

New parking lot at Bush Intercontinental

Bush Intercontinental has opened a special parking lot for people awaiting passenger arrivals:

During this busy Thanksgiving holiday travel period, which officially starts today, people can wait for passengers in the newly opened cell phone parking lot about one mile east of the terminals near Will Clayton and Colonel Fischer.

After receiving a phone call, drivers can make their way to the terminals to pick up passengers waiting outside.

"It works much better than circling (the terminal)," said Jessica Berger, who went to Bush on Tuesday to pick up her father, Elliott Berger, of Illinois.

The free lot is important because airport officials will be enforcing stricter rules on curb-side loading and unloading of passengers and baggage at terminals. Officials are hoping the permanent lot will prevent congestion caused when drivers repeatedly circle the terminals waiting for passengers to come outside.

When I first came to Houston, I was surprised at the number of cars allowed to park outside the terminals at Bush Intercontinental, waiting for...whatever. Post-9/11, my experience at other airports has been that you either keep moving or a police officer will promptly come over and tell you to get moving, but Bush Intercontinental seemed to have a more relaxed attitude. Sounds like this is a step in the direction of changing that relaxed attitude.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/24/04 07:56 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (3)

23 November 2004

Chronicle breaks out the airbrush

The Chronicle ran a story with the following headline earlier today:

Testaverde keeps his job as starter

I read the article with some interest earlier, because I knew for a fact the headline was misleading. Bill Parcells announced yesterday that he wasn't ready to name a starter, that it would be Testaverde if he could go, but that his recovery from injury seemed doubtful.

Today, Parcells actually said that Drew Henson most likely would start.

Interestingly, after today's announcement from Parcells, the Chronicle posted the related AP article to its website, and deleted the old, erroneous article altogether (link via Google News).

It's strange that the Chronicle deleted the article from the website, because it appeared in print editions of the newspaper with the same erroneous headline as above. But then again, it's a newspaper that regularly engages in strange practices with regard to web archiving.

(11-24-2004 Update) Respected NFL beat writer John McClain writes more in today's Chronicle:

Parcells never will admit it, of course, but you just know that he knew Monday exactly who was going to start against Chicago.

Sure, any Cowboys fan knew that. But McClain's newspaper reported the wrong guy.

And then took down the story.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/23/04 11:54 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

Thanksgiving Day Parade

Houston's 55th annual Thanksgiving Day Parade will take place Thursday morning (naturally):

Organizers expect nearly 400,000 spectators will line a 20-block route through downtown for the 55th annual Washington Mutual Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday morning.

The theme of the parade will be "Just Believe," said parade director Susan Moriarty.

"We've got some fantastic floats, lots of animation," she said.

The celebrity guest of the big downtown event is hometown singing star Jennifer Holliday, winner of two Grammys and a Tony. She had a Top 40 hit with And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going, and has appeared on Broadway, TV and in movies and has performed at the White House and at Carnegie Hall.

Looks like the weather will cooperate, too.

The Chronicle also provides the parade route:

The parade will head west on Texas to Fannin, turning south to Dallas. East on Dallas for four blocks turning north on La Branch proceeding east on Rusk and ending at Crawford.

KHOU-11 has more coverage.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/23/04 09:11 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (4)

Big tree trips up light rail train; bus called in

MetroRail had a weather-related problem yesterday evening:

Heavy rainstorms uprooted a tree at Hermann Park tonight, severing a MetroRail power line when the tree fell across the southbound tracks.

The tree snapped the cable about 8:45 p.m. near the Hermann Park/Rice University station along Fannin near Sunset. No one was injured.

Metro Police Sgt. Herbert Darby said the tree would have to be removed from the tracks before the line can be repaired and power restored to the system.

"It's a pretty good-sized tree," Darby said.

Kerry Vick of Victoria and about 10 other MetroRail passengers were stranded for about 90 minutes when their southbound train suddenly lost power.

[snip]

A Metro bus was later called to ferry Vick and the other passengers to their final destinations.

The line is expected to be repaired early this morning, officials said.

Good thing a bus was able to get through so Metro's passengers could continue their travels.

UPDATE 1: That above link now takes you to a "new" Chronicle story, telling us the line was repaired today around 10 a.m. blogHOUSTON gets very annoyed when the Chronicle puts an updated story in a link used for the original story, because the original story just disappears. Poof!

UPDATE 2: Metro has put out a news release:

A "bus bridge" was immediately deployed to provide service between the inactive stations. After safely transferring passengers to buses for the rest of their trip, METRO maintenance crews began removing the fallen tree. However, repair of the downed power line was delayed due to continued lightning in the area overnight.

Partial METRORail service resumed Tuesday morning, with trains running on a six-minute frequency between UH-Downtown Station and Wheeler Station and two-car trains running on a 10-minute frequency between Fannin South and Memorial Hermann Hospital/Houston Zoo Station.

A bus bridge, which requires a bus-train transfer, remained in effect between Wheeler Station and the TMC Transit Center for those traveling north and south between the affected METRORail section until full service was restored at about 10 a.m. today.

Thank goodness for those under-appreciated buses. And with all the cuts in bus service, Metro has lots of buses available to help out when the train becomes inoperable.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/23/04 06:35 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (9)

22 November 2004

Heflin asks for recount

KHOU-11 reports that Talmadge Heflin has requested a recount in his extremely close contest with Hubert Vo:

A longtime Houston legislator who lost his re-election bid by 32 votes -- requested a recount Monday.

Republican Representative Talmadge Heflin lost to Democrat Hubert Vo.

The recount request has gone to the Texas Secretary of State's Office.

Harris County election officials have until next Monday to finish the recount.

Heflin's attorneys have said they're also considering challenging the vote, which would take the argument to the Republican-ruled Texas House for consideration.

I don't think any reasonable person can begrudge Heflin a recount in such a close race, but I really don't expect it to move to the Texas House if the recount confirms his loss.

(Update) Joe Stinebaker reports for the Chronicle. The Heflin camp seems to be suggesting fraudulent ballots. But can they prove it? Stay tuned.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/22/04 09:13 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

Plane crash near Hobby

Local news stations are reporting a small, Gulfstream plane has gone down near the Beltway and 288. The Beltway between Cullen and Wayside is closed as a result.

(Update) More from KHOU-11/Belo.

(Update 2) KHOU is now reporting that the plane that crashed was to be used by former President Bush to fly to Ecuador. That trip has now been canceled. The KTRK-13 link above has been updated to reflect that the plane was to be used by the former President to fly to "Equador."

(Update 3) KTRK has corrected the "Equador" mistake. :)

Posted by Callie Markantonis @ 11/22/04 07:19 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (1)

21 November 2004

Covering the news important to... Nebraskans

The Chronicle reprints a Washington Post story on Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel (R), who is apparently "thinking seriously" about running for President in 2008.

Hagel is the sort of Republican who impresses some Democrats with his occasional "contrarian" views, but he is little known within his own party, does not seem all that enamored of trying to appeal to the sorts of voters who decide Republican primaries, and is notably lacking charisma.

So, why tie up column space to (re)print this story? There's no local connection. 2008 is far away, and people are still suffering from election fatigue. And at this point, the Senator seems more popular among journalists than among the grassroots.

Oh, wait -- I seem to have answered my question.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/21/04 04:51 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

Still hoping for Texas Magazine Sundays

Last Sunday's "star" section was dominated by a huge picture of a couple of hikers ascending a hilltop, behind them a beautiful carpet of trees, and a story all about exploring Texas' great outdoors. It was Texas Magazine-heaven:

Across the state, people hoping to experience fall in the wild are flocking to state and national park campgrounds from Big Bend to the Gulf Coast. Although camping statistics are difficult to track, it is estimated that more than 50 million people go camping each year. In Texas alone, state parks saw 2.4 million overnight visits in fiscal year 2004, up from 1.5 million the previous year -- not including overnight campers at Texas parks run by the National Park Service or those who visit private campgrounds.

With those figures, dropping temperatures and the beauty of leaves turning shades of yellow, orange and red, it should be no surprise that camping sites are packed with people enjoying a cooler taste of the outdoors.

And for one week I wondered if MeMo would give us Sunday "star" sections that resembled Texas Magazine.

Alas, no. Today's "star" front page is dominated by this story about the Way Station and its mission to help the homeless. A fine story no doubt, but it could have run last week in place of this, and today we could have had another Texas Magazine Sunday.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/21/04 04:00 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

More on the demise of KLOL

Michael McGuff has more thoughts on the demise of radio station KLOL for KTRK-13.

He even mentions a number of websites, including blogHOUSTON and Off The Kuff, in yet another sign that blogs have officially arrived as alt-media.

Unfortunately, our earlier speculation that Ken Charles could just be pulling a publicity stunt before unrolling a new album-rock station remains just that -- fun speculation at this point.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/21/04 03:22 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (0)

Collective Soul at Jones Plaza

We normally leave Houston's live rock scene to David Cobb, linking over to his great blog when appropriate.

However, when a big band like Collective Soul comes to town to put on a free show, it's definitely worth a mention here.

They'll be playing Jones Plaza downtown as part of a Texans pre-game party that appears to be sponsored by Clear Channel, Ford and Subway (among others). Apparently, a giant screen will be available for tailgaters to watch the game downtown. The festivities are set to begin around 5 pm, according to the various Clear Channel websites.

The Texans, of course, have to deal with Green Bay and the great Brett Favre tonight at Reliant, so a free Collective Soul concert may well be the highlight of the day for Texans fans.

Now if we could just do something about this rain...

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/21/04 08:54 AM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)

20 November 2004

Food and drink roundup (11-20-2004 edition)

We're running a few days behind on the food and drink update, as life has intruded on the blogging lately -- that, and the Houston Press web redesign was so extensive that the link to Robb Walsh's column was broken for a while. It's just not a food and drink roundup without that guy.

Empanadas are a favorite in Houston, and this week Robb Walsh checks out Marine's Empanadas:

In the course of writing this review, a strange coincidence came to light. A restaurant called Original Marini's Empanada House (3522 South Mason Road) has recently opened in Katy's Cinco Ranch neighborhood. It is owned by none other than Sergio "Alex" Marini, the son of the old Westheimer Marini's founders, Leonilda and Marcello Marini, who also are helping out at the new spot. The new restaurant reportedly features the same monkey juice and Viva Zapata empanadas that were originally concocted at the Westheimer location in the 1970s.

No doubt there are lots of other menu similarities between Marine's Empanadas at Richmond and Hillcroft and the freshly resurrected Original Marini's Empanada House in Katy. That's because the two restaurants share a much-beloved common ancestor. And both are helping to keep the fond memories alive.

blogHOUSTON readers will, of course, recall that Alison Cook visited the Original Marini's in Katy a few weeks ago.

This week, Cook stays in Houston (!) to pay a visit to Monica Pope's T'afia:

The beauty of T'afia is that it presents you with food worth thinking about. Now I'm less reluctant to mix and match (b3r beef filet with a crystalline, seasoned sea salt? yum), then pick one of the enticing $5 side dishes that include Pope's famous vegetables, many of them organic.

Here's where her longtime passion for sustainable agriculture and local growers really shines: In farmer Lola Daniel's glorious shell beans, perhaps bathed in a sherried vinaigrette; in glossy baby spinach leaves that seem to be five minutes from the garden; in a milky gratin of potato and the haunting, underutilized gem known as celery root. These are the kinds of dishes that make me happy to be alive.

Most of all, though, I'm happy that chef Pope and her partner, Andrea Lazar, have finally created a world from scratch. Goodbye, landlords, pint-size kitchens, immutable buildings and decor. With T'afia's pristine brick rectangle gutted and a huge kitchen built on, the pair are free to indulge their taste for modern design and local artists.

So T'afia is all of a piece, from its enormous paper lanterns in the garden room to the alluring Ratafia Royale cocktails. Coriander and lemon verbena never tasted so good as they do melded with vodka, white wine and a dash of sugar, then fizzed with inexpensive champagne. This is inspired cooking in a flute goblet, an evocative way to begin -- or end -- a meal.

Foodies have always loved Pope, and from the sounds of it, this restaurant will be an even bigger hit with them than her Boulevard Bistro, my favorite brunch joint in its heyday.

Dai Huynh interviews Robert Gadsby, who is overseeing the opening of Houston's rendition of his Noé restaurant (at the Omni Hotel). He's spending big money and making big promises:

Noé-Houston is the springboard to produce the style of cuisine I really like to do -- the recipes where Robert Gadsby can strut.

Strut away.

Finally, Ken Hoffman ponders IHOP's obscene caramel combos. Breakfast, dessert, who really knows? General Mills started us in this direction with Cookie Crisp. It's only a matter of time before chocolate cake is just another breakfast food.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/20/04 11:52 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (1)

19 November 2004

Metro still waiting for working "smart card" system

The story in the Chronicle this morning about Metro hiring a consultant to monitor a contractor who has yet to deliver the "smart card" system, is humorous, in a sad, wasting-more-taxpayer-dollars kind of way:

The Metro board voted Thursday to spend up to $100,000 on a consultant to oversee a contractor that has yet to implement a system that would allow bus and rail riders to buy fares with a "smart card."

San Diego-based Cubic Corp. was supposed to have the card system ready when Metro's 7.5-mile light rail line opened Jan. 1. But nearly a year later, the fare-buying system still is not functional.

The board of directors authorized hiring LCL Advisors, whose clients have included the Port Authority of New York and the New Jersey toll roads system, to monitor Cubic Corp.'s work. LCL will be paid $150 an hour, plus expenses, up to $100,000.

Metropolitan Transit Authority Vice President John Sedlak said the company and its principal consultant Richard J. Lobron will "assess the work activity" of Cubic and help test the system's accuracy.

Sedlak said Metro no longer has an expected date for the cards to be in use, "and that is one of the reasons why we're bringing a consultant in."

Metro awarded Cubic an $8 million contract in 2002 to develop and provide the fare collection system.

Metro's not exactly rolling in the dough these days, thanks to the shiny choo choo, in spite of the fact that we are told Metro is always looking for the best use of taxpayer money. We see bus routes being cut right and left to help offset Metro funding problems. And KTRK-13 says there is some question about Metro's bus maintenance. We certainly hope there is some clause in the contract with Cubic Corp. that will allow Metro to recoup some of that $8 million, at the very least to repay the cost of hiring a babysitter.

Then there is this sentence, which is icing on the cake, so to speak:

A Cubic spokeswoman said she was not aware of problems with the system in Houston.

The "smart card" system is not functional a year after it was supposed to be implemented, and Cubic Corp. is unaware of any problems. It's absurd.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/19/04 05:41 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)

A&M Wins Championship!*

* In meat judging.

Texas A&M won the International Intercollegiate Meat Judging Contest by scoring 4,087 points – nine points more than second place winner, Texas Tech University.

Read all about it in AgNews.

Posted by Ethan Glading @ 11/19/04 10:34 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)

Steffy: KLOL is victim of deregulation

Loren Steffy has a column in today's Chronicle about the demise of KLOL-101. He says the blame is not with Clear Channel, but with Washington, D.C. and deregulation. He calls it the "Wal-Marting of the airwaves":

Fewer media owners mean fewer media choices. If you own eight stations, as Clear Channel does, in a broadcast area the size of Houston, you can create vertical markets, nice little demographic compartments tailor made for advertisers.

No matter what your business, Clear Channel has a cookie-cutter market segment for your target customer base: Latino hip-hop, "new mix" pop, Fleetwood Mac-inundated "classic rock," news/talk and gooey "easy listening" to name a few.

There's lots of real estate on the dial, with little format overlap. What's the point in dominating a market if you have to compete with yourself?

In the name of cost efficiency, the prefab formatting can be replicated in city and after city. Media consolidation becomes media coagulation, the Wal-Marting of the airwaves. Call it McRadio.

[snip]

The betrayal of the public trust didn't happen in San Antonio; it happened in Washington.

Clear Channel has an obligation to grow. That is, after all, what businesses do, and Clear Channel has simply done that better than any of its rivals, gobbling up stations like Pac Man since the broadcast industry was deregulated in 1996. It now owns 1,200 nationwide.

Deregulation has meant an end to incremental revenue. Broadcasting now is about growth, and big money is in the buying of stations, not the owning of them.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/19/04 10:05 AM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (0)

Opposition to the Grand Parkway

State Rep. Debbie Riddle has spoken out strongly against the Grand Parkway section that is scheduled to be built through Spring:

Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Houston, used the Grand Parkway Association's 20th annual report to the Texas Transportation Commission to state concerns the proposed route between Texas 249 and Interstate 45 "would just decimate the property values" in the Spring area and "import traffic into my district."

She pointed out several subdivisions and a Catholic school the highway would wipe out.

"There is tremendous concern over what this would do to Spring," she said. "Because of the tremendous growth in our area, so many lives are going to be disrupted."

After two hearings produced overwhelming public opposition to the proposed 12-mile segment, the Texas Department of Transportation declined in July to proceed on final environmental reviews. It directed the association to conduct a supplemental study re-evaluating other routes. That review is due by spring.

On the other hand, state Sen. Jon Lindsay appears to be working to get the segment fast-tracked, as noted here previously.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/19/04 08:06 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)

18 November 2004

Live music roundup (11-18-2004 edition)

As usual, David Cobb has posted his weekly rock-oriented live music roundup.

The following are notable live alt-country/Americana/Texas country music shows around town this weekend.

Thursday, November 18
Micky and the Motorcars, Blanco's

Friday, November 19
Texas High Life (F-Co opens), Firehouse Saloon
The Clumsy Lovers, Mucky Duck
Big Sandy and his Fly Rite Boys & Sean Reefer, Continental Club
Stephanie Urbina Jones, Anderson Fair

Saturday, November 20
Jesse Dayton, Continental Club
Deryl Dodd, Firehouse Saloon
Patrice Pike, Mucky Duck
Texas High Life, Sidecar Pub
Shake Russell and Mike Hearne, Anderson Fair
Peach Truck Republic, Last Concert Cafe

Sunday, November 21
Ian Moore, Rudyard's

Be sure and check with the venue before heading out to any of the shows. Schedules do change, and you can't always trust a bunch of yahoos with a weblog, after all!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/18/04 10:27 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)

Scabby Hates El Paso

Scabby The Rat made an appearance today in downtown Houston. The 13-foot-tall inflatable rat is famous for his management hatin’ and his menacing scowl. Also, he has appeared in an episode of The Sopranos. The men who accompanied Scabby were chanting, “El Paso Sucks.” It’s true. I drove through there once.

Posted by Ethan Glading @ 11/18/04 06:32 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)

Covering what's important to...NYC residents

With all there is to see and do in Texas, what do you suppose MeMo chose to give front page "star" treatment today? New York City's Museum of Modern Art, of course:

It's huge and luminous, with soaring new spaces and an enviable collection of paintings and sculptures that define 20th-century art.

After a two-year expansion and renovation, the Museum of Modern Art is settling into its new home, designed by architect Yoshio Taniguchi. In the process, it's reinforcing its identity as the progressive institution envisioned by its founders 75 years ago.

How exciting, for Houstonians.

Since the story has a Chronicle byline, we assume MeMo sent a Chronicle staffer to do the front-line reporting. Just think of the money the Chronicle could have saved if MeMo had decided to cover a museum here in Texas.

And right below that MoMA piece is a Clifford Pugh story about "Desperate Housewives" fashion.

Seriously.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/18/04 01:30 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)

Hearings scheduled for Metro service "changes"

We noted here Metro's latest proposal of service changes (mostly service cuts) and if you have a sharp eye you'll spot the little notice in today's Chronicle alerting Houstonians to tomorrow's Metro hearings to "discuss" the proposed cuts, oh uh, changes:

Metro will hold two public hearings Friday to receive comments on proposed service changes that would go into effect early next year. Changes being considered for January include ending service to the Alief Park & Ride on Route 262 and closing the lot. Also planned is an extension of Route 137 to the Maxey Road Park & Ride on Sundays. Routes facing potential elimination in April include 35, 41, 54, 64 and 89. The hearings will be at noon and 6 p.m. in the Metro board room at 1201 Louisiana.

So, up for "discussion" (let's face it - this "discussion" is window-dressing only) is ending service to the Alief Park & Ride on Route 262 and closing the lot there, eliminating routes 35, 41, 64 and 89. Oh, and extending one route.

Which leaves us to wonder how this fits into Metro's Solutions transit plan to add:

72 miles of additional rail service
50% more bus service
Signature Express bus service
250 miles of two-way,
all day Park & Ride service
Nine new Park & Ride lots
Nine new Transit Centers
and more!

Maybe that "and more!" is where all the cuts should be listed.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/18/04 10:10 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (1)

17 November 2004

KHOU's unfortunate language

KHOU-11 reports on a big raid on prostitution houses in Houston:

Houston Police Vice Squad officers have shut down 10 houses of prostitution.

Police raided the locations of the Wildflower Group and Escape in Houston Group Tuesday.

In all, 54 people were arrested, but only seven were charged.

Those charged are the owners and managers of the establishments.

The women working at the establishments who cooperated with investigators were granted testimonial immunity.

Officers call the bust "huge" and say by going after the biggest operators they hope others will close down.

That bolded portion is just unfortunate, if you think about it.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/17/04 09:35 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (0)

Maybe that's why he's undercover

A man who turned out to have a loaded gun wandered into HPD on Monday and demanded to see Police Chief Harold Hurtt.

Fortunately, the man was arrested without incident.

Police Chief Hurtt was out of town, apparently not realizing that Out-of-Town Hurtt doesn't roll off the tongue nearly as well as Out-of-Town Brown.

Maybe now, though, we understand why he's the plainclothes police chief -- he wants to confuse random crazy people who wander into HPD with weapons!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/17/04 09:30 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)

All hail Houston's busybody brigade

The Chronicle's Robert Crowe can't heap enough praise on the Houstonians who are writing parking tickets as part of the Municipal Volunteer Parking Program.

While we certainly appreciate the city's concern for making sure ineligible drivers aren't occupying handicapped parking spaces, we can't help but wonder why the city has to rely on "volunteers" to take care of city services like traffic/parking enforcement.

A city that has millions of dollars to spend on Tasers shouldn't have to depend on mostly unaccountable busybodies plucked off the street and given four hours of training for what should be basic city services.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/17/04 08:42 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)

Chron eye for the death row killer guy - cont'd

On Monday, it seemed Roma Khanna had let Jeff Cohen down.

In that installment of the Chron Eye for the Death Row Killer Guy, Khanna departed slightly from the Chron Eye formula, neglecting to mention redeeming prison activities of the death row killer (like poetry or knitting) and also neglecting any reference to HPD or the crime lab, while actually devoting column space to the victim.

However, Khanna rebounded strongly today (the death row killer guy is scheduled to be executed tonight), as lawyers brought out the kitchen sink in an effort to save the death row killer guy:

An attorney representing a Houston man scheduled to be executed today argued Tuesday his life should be spared because of problems with the police work and prosecution in the case.

Anthony Guy Fuentes, 30, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection this evening for the shooting death of Robert Pres-ton Tate, 28, after a robbery of a convenience store on Feb. 18, 1994. Fuentes admits he participated in the robbery but maintains he did not kill Tate.

An appeal filed Monday notes discrepancies in the testimony of eyewitnesses and argues that Houston police officers improperly questioned witnesses. Defense attorneys also argued that Harris County prosecutors knowingly allowed a witness to give false testimony and withheld information that would have allowed defense attorneys to expose inconsistencies.

"You have all of these witnesses who witness the same event, and they are all seeing different things — some of them are dramatically different," said Jim Marcus, executive director of the Texas Defender Service and one of Fuentes' lawyers. "There are so many problems with the eyewitness testimony, and the case really hangs on putting the right gun in Fuentes' hands."

Chronicle editor Jeff Cohen's wife, Kathryn Kase, is a prominent member of the Texas Defender Service.

Maybe that explains the journalistic resources devoted to the Chron Eye for the Death Row Killer Guy, even as entire sections are dropped and staff is laid off.

(Update) Anne Linehan calls my attention to the fact that the Texas Defender Service's website links to a recent Chronicle series, A Deadly Distinction, on Harris County as the "pipeline to death row" in Texas. How convenient!

(Update 2) This particular Death Row Killer Guy is no longer with us.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/17/04 08:21 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

Houston housing market is still hot

Houston home sales set a record for the month of October and are still on a record-setting pace for the year, according to this Houston Business Journal article:

Despite some signs of home sales slowing in other parts of the country, Houston's residential housing market continued to set records, according to statistics released by the Houston Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service.

Total property sales for October reached 5,741, which represents the highest number of sales ever recorded in Houston in the month of October.

Year-to-date existing-home sales continue to rise ahead of last year's record-setting pace with 60,334 listings sold so far this year, a gain of more than 9 percent from the same period last year.

Year-to-date existing property sales through October 2003 totaled 55,154.

"The continuation of highly-favorable interest rates coupled with a net gain of 24,600 new jobs in the past 12 months in Houston resulted in an all-time record for housing sales for October," says Ted C. Jones, HAR chairman and Stewart Title chief economist.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/17/04 02:18 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)

Denigrating Rod Paige

Here's the last paragraph from today's Chronicle editorial on outgoing Education Secretary Rod Paige:

Perhaps the greatest irony of Paige's career is that although he grew up in segregated schools in Mississippi and served as dean of education at Houston's heavily black Texas Southern University, his biggest supporters, both in Washington and at HISD, have been white conservatives. However his accomplishments as education secretary are eventually rated by history, as a prophet he has clearly been underappreciated in his own community.

The left and the old media keep telling us that America is too divided by race, and that we need to become colorblind. So why does the old media keep defining people by race? Why can't Rod Paige's achievements stand on their own? Instead, the Chronicle attempts to minimize those achievements by saying he was only supported by white conservatives. That's so disrespectful. If Rod Paige was a liberal Democrat, I have no doubt the Chronicle would NOT have described him as being supported by white liberals.

But, just for fun, let's take a brief moment to look at who white liberals (including the Chronicle editors) have supported: former mayor Lee Brown, and former police chief C.O. Bradford.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/17/04 09:01 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (5)

Disconsolate editors

The Chronicle editors are not happy campers. This whole media effort to unseat President Bush didn't turn out well, and that fact is settling in:

Specter, who supports a woman's right to choose abortion, is in line to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Anti-abortion activists who supported President Bush's bid for re-election are demanding that Specter be barred from the chairmanship.

Although Republican senators thwarted many of President Bill Clinton's judicial nominations, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is incensed at Democratic filibusters that have kept a few of Bush's nominees off the appeals courts. Frist's frustration is evident in his threat to change the rule allowing 41 senators to prevent a bill or nomination from coming up for a final vote.

Meanwhile, outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft criticized federal judges who refuse to exempt the Bush administration from laws and treaties outlawing inhumane treatment and imprisonment without charge or counsel. Ashcroft accused the judges of jeopardizing national security.

The Constitution, with its checks and balances, was expressly designed to keep such blanket exemptions from happening. The Senate rule requiring 60 votes to close debate has the same purpose and effect. These restrictions are frustrating to politicians eager for change. To date, however, the nation has suffered less harm from the checks and balances than it would suffer without them.

Andrew McCarthy of NRO has some thoughts on this issue of judges:

Nationally, Democrats are in the thrall of trial lawyers, civil-liberties activists, and the pro-choice lobby. These interest groups are no dummies — they fully appreciate that much of what they want to bring about as policy (e.g., abortion-on-demand, affirmative action, according constitutional protections to foreign enemy combatants) is unpopular with voters, while much of what is popular with voters (e.g., tort-reform) is anathema to them. They are reliant on activist judges willing to stretch the Constitution as a sheath that gives their preferences the cover of "fundamental law," insulating them from challenge at the ballot box. For them, then, there is no issue in national politics more crucial than the composition of the federal bench. It is, bluntly, the whole ballgame.

Does anyone think that if John Kerry had won the election, he wouldn't have nominated judges that followed his lines of thinking? The American people sent a message by reelecting President Bush and increasing the Republican majorities in the House and the Senate, and one issue (of many) was judicial appointments. The editors obviously aren't happy about it, but they're clearly not in the mainstream these days.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/17/04 07:29 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

16 November 2004

Is KLOL's demise just another publicity stunt?

Since KLOL-101's abrupt switch of format from album rock to Latino music, Ken Charles and Clear Channel have certainly generated a buzz.

The news has been on television. The news has been on other radio stations. The news has been on blogs. The news has even led to at least two online petitions.

With its death, KLOL has generated more buzz than it has generated in ages.

I'm starting to wonder if that's as coincidental as it seems.

Does anyone else remember the big controversy that ensued when 107.5 "The Buzz" FM announced that it would be closing up shop -- only to have the news trickle out a bit later that the alternative station would actually be swapping places on the dial with another Clear Channel station (moving to 94.5)?

What about the buzz Ken Charles generated when he dropped CBS News from KPRC after the Rathergate controversy?

And not all that long ago, he generated buzz in reaction to the agreement between Jerry Jones and Bob McNair not to offer Dallas Cowboys games on the radio to the Houston market (he wasn't able to pick up the Cowboys radio network, but instead a generic broadcast of selected Cowboys games).

I'm not saying that Charles has definitely pulled another publicity stunt and that a resurrected KLOL is going miraculously to reappear on the Houston radio dial. Only Ken Charles and the Clear Channel crew know that. But I am saying it wouldn't shock me.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/16/04 11:45 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (0)

Where's MeMo's Pulitzer Prize?

Here's MeMo's homage to William Safire:

Speaking of which, the Father of the Nattering Nabob is hanging up his quill after many years of nabobbing and other pointless alliteration. Alas, he intends to keep his language column.

So after that jab at Safire, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, she continues with these profundities:

3.Have you seen these online CNN ads? They're very subservient chicken! Oooh, Anderson Cooper as a subservient chicken. We're totally there.

a. Octopus sex (warning: not for pre-adolescent invertebrates).
b. eBay: because people are basically good at heart. So they yank the grilled cheese sandwich that looks like the Blessed Virgin.

4. During the fight, an awards ceremony broke out. How will this play on UPN? (There's still a UPN?)

a. C'mon. When was the last time you heard the phrase "rap session"? 1978? Sheesh. There goes Vanity Fair's street cred.

5. You can't sleep because of work. You can't work because you can't sleep. Soothe yourself with pretty things.

Sort of leaves one stunned.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/16/04 06:36 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (5)

KSEV's "Financial Desk" misstates why Viagra ad was pulled

This morning on KSEV-700, Steve Drake, of KSEV's "Financial Desk," said that the FDA ordered Pfizer to pull its "Wild Thing" Viagra ad because the ad was too suggestive. That is NOT the reason why the FDA ordered the ad pulled:

"The TV ads omit the indication for the drug (namely, treatment of erectile dysfunction) and fail to provide information relating to the major side effects and contraindications of the drug, as required," Christine Hemler Smith, a Food and Drug Administration regulatory review officer, informed Pfizer in a letter posted on the agency's Web site.

[snip]

"The TV ads claim that Viagra will provide a return to a previous level of sexual desire and activity," Smith wrote to Robert B. Clark, a Pfizer vice president. "FDA is not aware of substantial evidence or substantial clinical experience demonstrating this benefit for patients who take Viagra," Smith wrote.

[snip]

Men who already have heart disease can risk further heart woes when they have sex, Smith's letter said. Viagra, approved to treat erectile dysfunction, should not be used by men with heart conditions whose doctors have warned them not to have sex. Also, patients taking drugs that contain nitrates have been warned not to take Viagra because of sudden, unsafe drops in blood pressure.

What Drake said is just flat-out wrong, according to the FDA letter to Pfizer.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/16/04 10:42 AM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (8)

Moving on and moving in

Heflin team in limbo over election challenge: Many in Capitol ready to move on after defeat by Vo (from the Chronicle):

Although veteran Republican state Rep. Talmadge Heflin still is contemplating a challenge to his 31-vote defeat, some members of both parties are acting like he's out and some are saying openly that he should accept his loss.

Heflin's lawyers said they hope to decide by Friday whether to request a recount, although the deadline for doing so isn't until after the Texas secretary of state certifies the election result next week. The Houston lawmaker also could contest the election in the state House.

[snip]

Some people in Austin already are waiting to move in, with a senior legislator claiming Heflin's Capitol office in a ritual that follows legislative elections. Based on seniority, returning House members get the chance to pick new offices being vacated by retiring or defeated members.

State Rep. Edmund Kuempel, R-Seguin, the only remaining member of the legislative group first seated in 1983 along with Heflin, claimed Heflin's third-floor office, one of the bigger ones in the Capitol.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/16/04 06:31 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)

15 November 2004

Quannel X found guilty of reduced charge

Dale Lezon reports that the jury has reached a verdict in the Quannel X trial:

A jury today found Quanell X guilty of fleeing a police officer, a lesser offense than the charge of evading arrest he received when a fugitive was found in his car in June.

The jury had the option of convicting him on a lesser charge if all the conditions for that offense were met.

State Criminal District Judge Brock Thomas sentenced Quanell X to six months probation, a $300 fine and 30 hours of community service.

That resolution seems fair enough. We had previously predicted a guilty verdict, but given former Chief Bradford's testimony about unwritten policies that his successors didn't know about (but were still policies in his view), it's hard to blame the jury for reducing the charge.

Here is additional coverage from KPRC-2, KHOU-11, and KTRK-13.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/15/04 06:44 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (7)

The Chronicle is right, but late

The Chronicle's top editorial this morning is about HISD's finalist for superintendent:

After a perfunctory search, HISD trustees appoint the first Hispanic to be superintendent, a job thatapparently was his from the start.

Abelardo "Abe" Saavedra might be the best person in the nation to lead the Houston Independent School District. Unfortunately, Houstonians have no way of knowing. After a search that did not rise to the level of the pro forma, HISD trustees named Saavedra the only finalist.

Several HISD trustees had made it plain from the start that the job was Saavedra's to lose. Saavedra has been interim superintendent since Superintendent Kaye Stripling retired in June. To ensure that Saavedra did not lose it, HISD's search team limited the list of candidates to unemployed or soon to be unemployed school superintendents from much smaller districts.

Running one of the nation's largest school districts presents a daunting challenge. There is no person alive who can single-handedly ensure that every penny of the district's $1 billion annual budget is spent efficiently; every child is taught and encouraged to succeed; and all parents take an interest in their children's studies. However, if the search team could not find more than one talented leader from the field of public education, it should have broadened the search.

Certainly we agree with the Chronicle, as evidenced by blogHOUSTON's previous posts on this search. However, it would have been more helpful if the editors had spoken out like this BEFORE the sole finalist was chosen. A little prodding from Houston's one major paper could have pressured the trustees to put more effort into the superintendent search.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/15/04 10:59 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

TranStar gets a nod

Houston's TranStar gets a mention in this Reuters story on CNN.com about websites that help commuters:

The Greater Houston Transportation and Emergency Management Center provides a real-time traffic map with color-coded trouble spots in addition to up-to-the-minute reports on weather, accidents and incidents, road closures and construction projects.

The site is among the most sophisticated of its kind.

Kevin has written previously about TranStar here and here.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/15/04 09:24 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (1)

Updated flood maps

After the widespread flooding from Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, FEMA and the Harris County Flood Control District formed the Tropical Storm Allison Recovery Project:

When the local rains finally eased, Allison had left Harris County, Texas, with 22 fatalities, 95,000 damaged automobiles and trucks, 73,000 damaged residences, 30,000 stranded residents in shelters, and over $5 billion in property damage in its wake. Simply put, everything about Allison was "off-the-charts."

One of the goals of the project was to redraw the Flood Insurance Rate Maps:

The purpose of the TSARP project is to develop technical products that will assist the local community in recovery from the devastating flooding, and provide the community with a greater understanding of flooding and flood risks. An end product of the study will include new Flood Insurance Rate Maps, with new delineations of Special Flood Hazard Areas.

Those maps are now available here. Residents can enter an address to see the map for a specific area.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/15/04 07:04 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

14 November 2004

Avoiding Metro Rail like the plague

Here's a smart driver's education teacher:

Steve Trimble has been teaching driver's education for more than 20 years and owns Courtesy Driving School of Katy.

[snip]

"People say, `It's a driver's ed. car, stay away.' But we've got dual controls, extra brakes. We are paying attention to what we're doing. (An accident) is rare."

And no, he doesn't take students downtown by Metro Rail.

"We avoid that like the plague," Trimble said.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/14/04 07:20 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)

Recollection day at the Chronicle

The Chronicle's three partisan staff editorialists must be worn out from all the electioneering and "bad guy" articles they've penned through the election season.

That's the best explanation I can manage for today's "recollection series," in which Clay Robison recalls Governor Bush's efforts at tax reform in Texas, Rick Casey recalls his time as a non-Harris County grand juror, and Robison further recalls various Texas election challenges (a double shot of Robison).

While it's not especially groundbreaking or exciting journalism (although Robison seems way out there with his speculation of what might happen to Republicans IF they vote for a new election in the Heflin/Vo race IF Heflin contests the election -- so many IFs would suggest to good editors this story isn't ripe for publication yet), it's at least not offensive journalism.

Even Cragg Hines seems to have dialed down the rhetoric on the editorial page today.

We're happy to applaud such baby steps from those three columnists. Maybe more trips down memory lane are in order for at least two of them. Whatever it takes!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/14/04 04:44 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

Those Mr.'s can be tricky

Here's an amusing edit job by the Chronicle of a N.Y. Times story. It's a piece about Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada who is expected to become the new Senate minority leader. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska likens Sen. Reid to Mister Rogers:

"When the conservative talk show hosts start saying bad things about Harry Reid, it will be like attacking Mr. Rogers," Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, said of Mr. Reid, who shares Mr. Rogers's affection for a cardigan.

The N.Y. Times often refers to people in articles with a Mr. or a Ms. in front of the last name. So Sen. Reid was referred to as Mr. Reid and Sen. Joe Biden was referred to as Mr. Biden. The problem begins with the N.Y. Times reporters writing Mr. Rogers. The correct way is to spell out Mister. Then, the Chronicle takes all the Mr.'s out of the story, as is its norm, and we get this:

"When the conservative talk show hosts start saying bad things about Harry Reid, it will be like attacking Rogers," Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said of Reid, who shares Rogers' affection for cardigans.

Woops! It took me several readings and a check of the story on the N.Y. Times website to confirm that Sen. Nelson was talking about Mister Rogers.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/14/04 01:44 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

13 November 2004

Saavedra is HISD superintendent finalist

In what clearly is not a stunning development, the HISD board has announced its finalist for superintendent:

The Houston Independent School District's board named interim Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra as the person it wants to succeed Kaye Stripling as superintendent of the nation's seventh-largest school district.

Saavedra emerged from a field of 22 candidates as the sole finalist today after an interview. He was one of four semifinalists. The board plans to vote on Stripling's successor Dec. 9.

Those quality candidates HISD brought in sure gave Saavedra a run for it. Look, Saavedra may indeed be the best person for the job, but conducting a less than half-hearted search doesn't benefit the students and parents of HISD. Saavedra should have been made to fight for the job, to rise to the level of the challenge. Instead the outcome was almost predetermined with some board members making it clear that Saavedra was their first choice.

This is an AP story, but it's pretty much taken straight from the HISD press release, quotes and all. I would assume that Jason Spencer of the Chronicle will have an actual story in tomorrow's paper.

UPDATE: The link at the top of this post now takes you to the Chronicle-authored story, not the AP press release story.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/13/04 06:04 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

Sorting out the Quanell/Bradford/HPD/media confusion

Testimony in the Quanell X trial ended this week, with Quannel X's attorneys contending that he had a deal to bring in cop-shooter Derrick Forney and HPD brass contending there was no such deal in place.

Despite having plenty of time to work on this story, the local media hasn't been much help in sorting it out.

Editorial contortions, Chron style

The Chronicle's editors really betray themselves as dull thinkers sometimes.

It's far-Left conventional wisdom that John Ashcroft is an evil man who lives for the chance to lock up innocents and turn America into a theocracy.

His defenders are just as adamant that he's a man of integrity who has effectively used new anti-terror powers bestowed upon his office by an overwhelming majority of Congress, not to mention pursuing those guilty of corporate malfeasance at a time when scandals like Enron and Global Crossing and such were threatening to wreck the economy.

In an editorial celebrating Ashcroft's resignation, the Chronicle's editors of course adopt the far-Left conventional wisdom, accusing Ashcroft of "prudery," "contempt for individual rights," being "delusional," and even scaring away foreign exchange students!

The editorial doesn't get far beyond the name calling, which is fairly typical when the editors are dealing with their favorite "bad guys."

Amusingly, though, the editors offer praise for Alberto Gonzales, who has been nominated to replaced Ashcroft as Attorney General.

12 November 2004

Gotta use the facility for something

I'm sure this is an important program. I have no qualms with any of this. Gotta start somewhere, right? But...is this a clue that we shouldn't expect a new police academy cadet class any time soon?

In conjunction with the Holocaust Museum and the local branch of the Anti-Defamation League, the Houston Police Department's Blue Bridge Program could begin unloading buses of students for the one-day course at the police training academy soon after the first of the year, said Karen Krinsky Collman, a program cofounder.

Posted by Callie Markantonis @ 11/12/04 09:06 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)

The Chronicle makes Best of the Web (again)

Today's Best of the Web references the front page picture from Wednesday's Chronicle, which also ran on the front of the N.Y. Post. (Here's a N.Y. Post link to the same picture the Chronicle ran.)

Could we trade editorial staffs?

The Chronicle ran an editorial today about the passing of Yasser Arafat.

So did the Austin American-Statesman.

One editorial wandered all over the place and never really seemed to make a point. The other one was quite good.

Maybe the Chron should just hang it up. Instead of trying to write editorials themselves, they could just run one of those "Another Voice" columns and grab some good copy. Sure, the editorial page would always be a day behind, but so much of the news coverage is "olds" that it would be kind of appropriate.

(11-13-2004 Update) Today's newspaper carries "Other Voices" from the Star-Telegram, among other sources (but not the American-Statesman).

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/12/04 08:00 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)

Food and drink (11-12-2004 edition)

Houston's food and drink reviewers have been busy again this week. Here's the roundup for all you hungry and thirsty Houstonians.

Brian McManus likes the New American cuisine being turned out by Jeff Armstrong in the Sam Houston's Hotel's 17 restaurant:

[Q]uibbles about 17 are hard to come by. To bring such wildly different flavors together in peace is quite a feat. Armstrong is one of Houston's most exciting new chefs, and certainly its best new diplomat.

Alison Cook heads out of town again, this time to Pearland, where she enjoyed her trip to Lemond New World Cuisine. Good for her and good for Pearland, but maybe Houston's newspaper could review some Houston restaurants every once in a while? Just a suggestion (for the second week in a row).

TP pays a brunch visit to a forgotten (and neglected) favorite of mine, The Raven Grill, and gives the experience four out of five rolls:

[T]he Raven Grill does very well what it does, and in this reviewer's opinion, it need not do any more.

I didn't even realize they serve brunch, so that could well be a destination of at least two blogHOUSTONians this weekend.

Dai Huynh comments on the opening of the new Fox Sports Grill in the Galleria, as well as other food news (the most notable being the closing of Chef G's). I'm not sure how the location is going to work out for Fox (it's on the far east end, near the Sage entrance), but it's going to work out great for me, as it's right across the street from where I work. Yum!

Robb Walsh notes that Anthony Bourdain will be in town promoting his cookbook. Sadly, the blogHOUSTON crew did not see Walsh at the Wolfgang Puck promotion.

Finally, Gracie Ochoa checks out the R Bar, which is apparently next door to an easily viewed motorcycle shop. That's different, but kind of appealing.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/12/04 04:07 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)

RIP KLOL

Modern rock station 101 KLOL has changed music formats. For this lifelong Houstonian, this is sad news indeed. This was one of the radio stations of my childhood.

I guess Houston needs another Latino radio station?

Popular morning show hosts Walton and Johnson had this to say on their website:

As of Friday morning 11/11/04 our current flagship station KLOL FM in Houston will become yet another spanish station for Houston and W&J have emphatically not been offered a Clear Channel alternative. You will no doubt hear or read corporate spin as to how the show just did not work out in Houston. Don't you buy it. In the lastest morning ratings W&J were the top ranked (non-ethnic) morning show in Houston in our target 25-54 demographic. We had great trepidation early on about associating the show with CC Radio since they had a well documented history of hiring away successful shows that they could not beat in other markets and then icing them when they thought it safe to do so. But we accepted the risk because the lure of putting our beloved show on the air in our own hometown seemed to outweigh the risk of this type of competition elimination. In this case we think they were confounded by our success in spite of a complete lack of support in marketing, advertising, and PR by CC Radio for the Walton and Johnson Show. Since we have now built a large and loyal listener base that exceeded the performance of the base radio station on a regular basis we do not intend to throw it away and leave Houston. This is our home and we will not be disposed of so easily. Houston listeners keep checking this website and we will let you know where to find us.

We'll post any updates if they happen.

(Update from Kevin) Well, the Walton and Johnson snippet above has now disappeared from their website. Maybe the Clear Channel suits suggested they take it down (we'll email 'W&J and ask what happened). Whatever the case, it was there earlier, and we cut and pasted it.

(11-13-2004 Update from Kevin) Walton and Johnson have posted the following on their website:

I know many of you are confused and looking for answers as to what's going on with the W&J show right now. Don't worry, plans are in the works and as soon as we have some news to give, you'll get it here on waltonandjohnson.com first.

Check back for news updates, and a re-worked website in the coming weeks.

We'll put any further useful updates up as a new entry, if relevant to Houston radio.

Posted by Callie Markantonis @ 11/12/04 12:05 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (12)

Live music roundup (11-12-2004 edition)

David Cobb posts his useful, rock-oriented live music roundup again this week.

I'm running a day behind the usual Thursday posting, but here's our usual supplement of live alt-country/Americana/Texas country music picks for the weekend (better late than never):

Friday, November 12
Beaver Nelson, Anderson Fair
Two Tons of Steel, Continental Club
Gary P. Nunn, Firehouse Saloon
Robby Fulks, Mucky Duck
Guy Forsyth, Rhythm Room
Stoney Larue, Sidecar Pub

Saturday, November 13
Opie Hendrix, Dan Electro's
Wade Bowen, Firehouse Saloon (Eli Young opens)
Hayes Carll, Mucky Duck

Sunday, November 14
Drive By Truckers, Meridian

As always, be sure to check with the venue before heading out to any show. Schedules can change, and we can make mistakes. :)

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/12/04 09:11 AM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)

Metro is looking out for our tax dollars

Metro is pondering some new service adjustments. Translation: more service cuts are on the horizon:

Among the proposed changes scheduled for Jan. 23, 2005, are the discontinuation of the Alief Park & Ride portion of the 262 Alief/Westwood Park & Ride route; closure of the Alief Park & Ride lot at 8901 Boone Road in far west Houston; and extension of the 137 Northshore Express route via Woodforest to the Maxey Road Park & Ride lot on Sundays.

METRO also is evaluating the proposed discontinuation of several previously identified low-performing routes, including the 35 Leeland (weekday), 41 Gulf Meadows Circulator (weekday), 54 Aldine-Hollyvale (weekday and Saturday), 64 Lincoln City Circulator (weekday) and 89 South Park Circulator (weekday). These routes currently are on a six-month probationary period. If ridership on these routes fails to rise to a sustainable level, they may be discontinued on April 3, 2005.

And there's this bit of humor:

NOTE: Routes considered for elimination have experienced low ridership for an extended time. In most cases, METRO offers alternate service in the affected areas. By discontinuing low-performing routes, METRO makes the best use of its resources, including your tax dollars, and continues to offer affordable, reliable and accessible service to our community

Yeah, that's Metro - always looking for the best use of our tax dollars, while providing innovative mobility solutions for Houstonians.

Tarif Abboushi, a Chronicle favorite

Tarif Abboushi makes another appearance in the Chronicle, this time in a Chronicle puff piece on that known statesman, Yasser Arafat:

Houston businessman Tarif Abboushi recalls the recent visit of a cousin from the West Bank. The only thing the cousins argued about was Arafat.

"He was defending Arafat entirely," Abboushi said.

" ... His legacy in my mind will be forever tarnished by the mediocrity and corruption that he allowed to prevail to this day in the Palestinian Authority. I'm not saying he was per-sonally corrupt, but he knew it was happening and let it continue."

He's not just a Houston businessman. Last month Abboushi wrote an op-ed for the Chronicle which included a byline that said he is a Palestinian-American Houstonian. At that time, I pointed out that Abboushi was more than that:

Abboushi is a bit more than just a Palestinian-American Houstonian. He also appears to be a past director of the Houston chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Now there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it should have been included in the byline. Abboushi obviously has a point of view, perhaps even an agenda, and many readers would appreciate knowing this after reading his op-ed.

The op-ed Abboushi wrote is no longer available on the Chronicle's website, but the same column appears at Counterpunch.org.

This does make one wonder how the Chronicle (and the rest of the media) find people to give quotes for stories. Maybe there's a Rolodex somewhere that is categorized by topic: for Palestinian stories, contact Tarif Abboushi - average Palestinian-American Houstonian.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/12/04 05:53 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

11 November 2004

A traffic blog

We keep hoping that one day the Chronicle will wake up and get a real blog, instead of this, whatever it is. And, in fact, reading Lucas Wall earlier this week, one gets the feeling he was interviewing for a traffic blog:

I'm on vacation this week. And for the first time all year, I've decided to stay put on my days off rather than make a planned trip to Big Bend National Park.

After some 16 out-of-town trips so far this year for work and pleasure (I'm starting to lose count), my weary body decided it was time to enjoy being here for a week.

Wow. Sounds rough.

You know, this is exactly the kind of information I look for when I read the Chronicle's traffic column. I want to know how Lucas Wall is spending his vacation, if he's going to make it to Big Bend this year, and if he is weary from all his travels.

Apparently that Chronicle belt-tightening didn't affect Wall's travel schedule, as evidenced by his recent trip to Scandinavia to give us a report on 20th-century public transportation.

Can't wait for the traffic blog.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/11/04 03:49 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (4)

One superintendent candidate is out

Jason Spencer has a follow-up story in the Chronicle today, noting that the list of HISD superintendent candidates is now down to three:

Pittsburgh schools Superintendent John Thompson is no longer a candidate for the Houston Independent School District's top job, his spokeswoman said Wednesday.

It was unclear whether Thompson withdrew his name from consideration or simply did not make the cut for a second interview with HISD trustees.

"He didn't give me a reason," said Pittsburgh Public Schools spokeswoman Pat Crawford.

Thompson was a candidate for the Washington, D.C., superintendency in July but reportedly bowed out of the competition because officials there released his name to the media.

Thompson also had tried to interview secretly for the Houston job.

Don't know if Thompson's problem is that he wanted to stay incognito, but this is a big job for a whole list of reasons, and candidates should not expect to fly under the radar, even though HISD tried its best to make that happen.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/11/04 02:42 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

Chris Baker takes on the Chronicle

Yesterday the Chronicle ran a story on the changes occurring at KPRC-950 (AM) and KTRH-740 (AM). To recap, Chris Baker's show is moving from KPRC to KTRH, with a slight time change, and Sean Hannity's show will move from KTRH to KPRC, all of which takes place November 15. The Chronicle's Clifford Pugh interviewed Baker, and gave us the story:

Chris Baker, a former stand-up comic whose talk show currently airs on KPRC-AM (950), will move to KTRH-AM (740). His show will air from 3 to 7 p.m. weekdays.

Baker started his show yesterday with both barrels blasting - at the Chronicle. The first problem, he said, is that he's not a former stand-up comic - he still is a comedian, which I think faithful listeners can agree with. The guy is funny. The second problem (I hope I get this right as I don't want both barrels aimed at me!) is that Baker feels Pugh missed the point of the soon-to-be changes and wrote the story in a way that put the emphasis on the negative:

Herskowitz v. Justice

Last week, Tom Kirkendall wrote a thoughtful post on Chronicle sportswriter Mickey Herskowitz's treatment of Gerry Hunsicker's resignation, versus Richard Justice's rather shabby treatment of the same.

I meant to link to it, and promptly forgot. Everyone here is probably already reading Tom already, but if not, you should be.

It's surprising that the newspaper doesn't make better use of Herskowitz's wealth of knowledge of the Houston sports scene, just as it was surprising that Herskowitz didn't leave earlier this year after Jeff Cohen's public humiliation.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/11/04 07:21 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

A salute to Casey Owens

Rob Booth salutes Houston Marine Casey Owens, who is recovering from losing both legs in combat in Iraq.

We join Rob in thanking Casey and all of our soldiers on this Veterans Day.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/11/04 07:07 AM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (0)

Chron eye for the death row killer guy - cont'd

We missed pointing out the latest installment of Chron Eye for the Death Row Killer Guy on Monday.

It departed slightly from Jeff Cohen's tried and true formula since it didn't feature a gratuitous reference to HPD and/or the crime lab.

Juan Lezon is surely not going to move up the Chron hierarchy if he doesn't get with the Cohen program on death row advocacy journalism!

Two more executions are scheduled for next week, so maybe Lezon will have another shot at it.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/11/04 12:11 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

10 November 2004

Tough luck for Astros/Rockets fans without cable

David Barron reports that the Astros and Rockets have reached a deal with Fox Sports Southwest that will make them more competitive in some ways, but that may come at a cost to some fans:

The Astros and Rockets will abandon plans to launch their Houston-based regional sports network and have signed new broadcast agreements with FSN Southwest that could produce nearly $600 million for the teams over the next decade and beyond.

The agreement, which was finalized over the weekend and announced Monday, will end the 20-month legal battle between the teams and the network and ensures that Houston's two oldest big-league sports franchises will air on the cable channel that helped launch the era of regional sports networks 20 years ago.

"We've reached a very good agreement — certainly better than either team could have done by itself," said Rockets president George Postolos. "It's like the Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains characters in Casablanca — the beginning of a beautiful relationship."

The most immediate impact on Rockets fans will be the return of virtually all Rockets games to cable, beginning with tonight's game against the Memphis Grizzlies at Toyota Center. FSN Southwest has the right to produce the remaining 68 games not scheduled as part of the national network television packages, and FSN said virtually all of those games will air on cable.

Rockets games have aired for the last two seasons on KNWS (Channel 51). Channel 51's schedule, however, will be reduced to include only games that cannot air on FSN Southwest because of other commitments.

For Astros fans, the new deal means more games on television — a minimum of 130, up from 120 a year in recent seasons. Again, officials said, the "vast majority" will air on FSN Southwest, leaving only a few games on Channel 51 or another over-the-air carrier.

The increased emphasis on cable will be a hardship for some fans in Greater Houston, where only 54.5 percent of TV households have cable and the combined cable/satellite penetration rate of 73.4 percent is well below the national average of 85.1 percent.

Longer term, one can't help but wonder if this won't hurt the fan base of both teams because of Houston's cable/satellite penetration. Short term, however, one hopes that the enhanced revenue situation will help the Astros in securing the services of one Carlos Beltran.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/10/04 10:40 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)

Reckless accusations from the metro/state columnist

The Chronicle regularly justifies our contentions that it is one of the worst major daily newspapers in the country.

Sometimes, though, it goes beyond that, into the territory of vile and reprehensible.

That's the only way to explain this column from known plagiarist Rick Casey, who accuses Talmadge Heflin of trying to steal both elections and babies and concludes by getting in a potshot at Chron "bad guy" Tom DeLay. Casey just couldn't resist, one supposes.

It's the sort of spiteful column that has no place in any respectable major daily.

Indeed, it contrasts sharply with recent coverage of this race from two of the state's other major newspapers (here and here), and seems more like something one would find on partisan websites (except the writing tends to be better on the lefty websites).

Reckless accusations posing as journalism -- and from the star metro/state columnist no less -- really say quite a bit about the operation Jeff Cohen oversees. The Chronicle should be so much better than this.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/10/04 10:31 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

The Chronicle should use its bully pulpit more wisely

Today's Chronicle has an editorial taking HISD to task for its secretive superintendent search. Good for the Chronicle - except that it's really late in coming. This has been an issue for weeks now.

Richard Connelly first brought this secrecy to light at the end of September. It took the Chronicle more than two weeks after that to get the story into print. And then, yet another two weeks before the Chronicle's Jason Spencer doggedly got on the case and we learned, not only who the candidates are, but what tactics HISD was using to keep the candidates' identities a secret:

All the candidate interviews are being conducted in secret and trustees have gone through great pains to protect the applicants' identities. They've hidden the candidates in various meeting rooms throughout the HISD headquarters building on Richmond to elude a reporter waiting outside. Four HISD police officers working overtime used their radios to make sure no one was looking when the candidates left, getting into different vehicles from the ones in which they had arrived.

The Chronicle has the bully pulpit in this town and isn't afraid to use it for Jeff Cohen's pet causes, but the education of Houston's children should be at the top of Jeff Cohen's pet cause list. And I'm not talking about teen summits for tolerance and understanding. The Chronicle should have been all over this secret superintendent search from the beginning.

One last point - using the term "ill-serves" is not grammatically correct:

Since these candidates have no future with their current or former employer, HISD trustees had no reason for holding secret interviews other than keeping the public in the dark. Public knowledge of the interviews harms no one, while secrecy ill-serves parents and taxpayers.

It's slangy, but not correct. A more appropriate wording would be "while secrecy does not serve parents and taxpayers well."

Hines is generally wrong on abortion

Cragg Hines does some more post-election analysis in today's Chronicle. Mostly it is his usual stuff, but this should be addressed:

"On these values issues, Bush faces a dilemma now," Shrum argued at a breakfast Monday, also sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. "He's going to soon, I think, have the opportunity or peril, in terms of Supreme Court appointments, for example, of satisfying constituencies he's been speaking to in a targeted way and who turned out for him, who happen to disagree with the majority of the country on some of these issues. To actually perform on some of these issues will create great difficulties for him."

Shrum spoke specifically of abortion rights, which generally are still favored by a majority of Americans.

That's not exactly right. Most Americans, when asked abortion questions in a detailed way, favor more restrictions on abortion, unless the health of the mother is in jeopardy, or the pregnancy is caused by rape or incest. Ninety percent of abortions are done for "social" reasons; Americans are increasingly aware of this and a majority are in favor of making abortion-on-demand not the norm.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/10/04 07:07 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (8)

09 November 2004

HISD is aiming for better science education

HISD is looking to improve science education at its elementary schools:

HISD has a new plan to boost students' exposure to science here in the Space City.

Superintendent Abe Saavedra announced a new plan to equip elementary schools throughout the city with new and modern science labs and to beef up science instruction. He says Houston sits in the shadow of the space program, yet many HISD elementary schools have little or no science equipment for students.

"We have come up with a plan to equip elementary schools throughout the city with new science labs and beefed up science instruction programs," said Dr. Saavedra.

Dr. Saavedra's plan will cost the district four million dollars. He plans to ask the board for approval at the school board meeting on Thursday.

KHOU-11 also has a short mention of this story on its site, but it says Saavedra will be asking for one million dollars. The press release on HISD's website uses the four million dollar figure, so we will assume that one is correct.

American businesses have been crying for years about the lack of quality science education public schools are providing. This is a step in the right direction. Schools need to get kids interested and learning while they are young, and they'll stand a better chance of doing well in later grades.

UPDATE: Here's the Chronicle's coverage which includes this quote from a principal:

Gregg Elementary already has a science lab for third- through fifth-graders. McDonald wants to use the extra money to open a science lab for younger students.

"At fifth grade, there is a lot of student apathy for science," McDonald said. "So if we don't start to build an interest early, then by the time they get to the fifth grade, it's almost too late."

Absolutely. Get those kids excited about science, as early as possible.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/09/04 09:18 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

Hoffman's on a roll

Ken Hoffman's one of the few reasons to read the local newspaper, and he's certainly on a roll today as he takes aim at KPRC-2:

In case you missed it, Channel 2 anchor Dominique Sachse's heavily promoted "secret that she couldn't tell anybody, not even her co-workers" was ... she's pregnant.

Congratulations to Dominique. She's one of the good people of Houston TV. But whew! What a relief.

Because, as a veteran watcher of the Jerry Springer Show, I can tell you — when a good-looking woman has a secret to reveal, and she can only do it on television — usually it's "I'm really a guy."

Of course, this revelation starts a major brawl with her unsuspecting boyfriend (a whole other issue). The wig generally is yanked off first.

A few minutes after Sachse fessed up, weatherman Frank Billingsley announced that he was pregnant, too. Not to question anybody's news judgment, but shouldn't Billingsley have been the lead story?

At least he came in from the weather garden for Sachse's big announcement.

The rest of Hoffman's column is here. There's more good stuff about KPRC, Calvin Murphy, and ... well, just go read it.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/09/04 09:02 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (1)

Neighborhood districts do not enjoy power of eminent domain

Houston has a growing number of quasi-governmental neighborhood districts, which enjoy limited powers of taxation.

However, the state attorney general has ruled that these entities do not enjoy the power of eminent domain:

The Upper Kirby Management District — which had threatened to condemn a building that it and the Girl Scouts both wanted to buy — does not have authority to take property, a legal opinion by the Texas attorney general's office says.

Although the fate of the two-story building at 3000 Southwest Freeway has been settled, Attorney General Greg Abbott responded Thursday to a May request by state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, for a legal opinion on the issue.

The Girl Scouts of San Jacinto Council was negotiating to buy the building from AAA Texas to expand scouting programs and its next-door offices and to house a museum. The Upper Kirby district, which has power to collect taxes for economic development and improvements, wanted the building for a community center.

AAA broke off talks with the Scouts after receiving a letter from the district threatening to use eminent domain power if necessary to acquire the building. The Scouts responded with a lawsuit challenging the district's power. The lawsuit was settled confidentially, and the Scouts purchased the building Nov. 1, said spokeswoman Delphia Duckens.

Abbott's opinion says the Legislature has created special districts under a complicated set of laws, endowing them with differing powers. But because "the Legislature's intent is unclear," the opinion says, "we consequently conclude that (the district) does not have the power of eminent domain."

These management districts do some good in neighborhood beautification, but there is concern that they are too unaccountable to be given broad powers -- and eminent domain certainly qualifies as a broad power. If the Upper Kirby folks want a building, they should compete on the market to buy it. They certainly should not be intimidating Girl Scouts with threats of eminent domain.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/09/04 08:47 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

A teen summit for tolerance is just what we need

blogHOUSTON is getting very concerned about the Chronicle's editorials. Well, more for the readers who actually read the things. Today's lecture appears to have been authored by Tolerance.org:

Clemens wins number seven

Congratulations to Astros pitcher Roger Clemens, who won his seventh Cy Young award today.

Let's hope he comes back to try for number eight next season.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/09/04 02:11 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (3)

blogHOUSTON meets Wolfgang Puck (sort of)

Wolfgang Puck is coming to his Westheimer Express restaurant tomorrow (Wednesday), from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., for a cookbook-signing event.

The blogHOUSTON crew will be there also, hanging out with Wolfgang. Well, okay, he'll probably be busy meeting his Houston fans, but we'll see if we can convince him to take a picture with us. And, of course, we'll be eating - mmmmm!

Please come join us tomorrow. We'd love to see (and meet) you too.

(Wolfgang Puck Express is located at 10001 Westheimer, in the Carrillon Center, between Gessner and Beltway 8.)

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/09/04 09:35 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)

CenterPoint Energy's neighborliness, part 2

It looks like CenterPoint Energy is in a tree-cutting mood again:

Sugar Land's First Colony is trying to save 200 Crape myrtle and Wax myrtle trees, which were planted along the sidewalks of Austin Parkway near Commonwealth.

CenterPoint Energy is threatening to cut down all these trees under its 70-foot transmission lines. Most are less than 10 feet tall. None are on the current list of what's approved to grow under power lines.

Utilities have become more strict since last year's blackout in the northeast was traced to trees tangling with lines in Ohio.

But these are nowhere close to each other and there is even 60 feet between the two.

"We're not interested in being hard-nosed. We want to work with the communities. We have continued to work with the City of Sugar Land, Ms. Hall, and various homeowners associations out in Sugar Land and we will from now on," said Mike Boone, CenterPoint Energy.

Reducing property values, raising rates, cutting down trees. This is an interesting public relations campaign CenterPoint Energy is in the middle of.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/09/04 06:08 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

08 November 2004

Port of Houston competes with California for Asian trade

Bill Hensel pens an article for the Chronicle business section on our busy Port of Houston:

When Wal-Mart's enormous distribution center in Chambers County opens next year, it will trigger a substantial increase in shipments from Asia through the Port of Houston.

And it didn't happen by accident.

The costly statewide push to snare the 2 million-square-foot warehouse operation is a big win. The facility under construction will cover 50 acres and ultimately could double in size.

Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, depends so much on shipments from the East that shipping lines are adding service.

This is good news for Houston and Texas. And it's good news in part because Texas is more competitive than some places:

Zero tolerance nightmare

In Baytown there is a zero tolerance battle brewing over the expulsion of a student for having a fishing knife in his truck:

More than a dozen Robert E. Lee High School students, in the Goose Creek Independent School District, wore orange armbands declaring, "Keep Kirby in Baytown," as they attended classes Monday.

"They started as a protest to keep him in school and one thing led to another, so we got started. We're trying to keep him in school," an unidentified student said.

Kirby Ball, 18, was expelled from Lee recently after a random security search discovered a knife in his pickup truck. He said the knife belonged to a buddy who accidentally left it in the passenger door after a fishing trip.

"We just always leave our knives in there. It's not like we want to bring them to school and use them. We just keep them in there," said Jill Sayers, a high school student.

Superintendent Barbara Sultis said Ball's knife fit the state law description of a weapon, and the Texas Education Code calls for expulsion when students posses a weapon.

The district released the following statement to Local 2.

"The situation involving the Robert E. Lee High School student was handled in accordance with district policy. We take very seriously any incidents involving weapons at our schools in keeping with our commitment to provide safe and secure learning environments for all of our students."

There are times when tough punishment is called for, and there are times when common sense should prevail. Zero tolerance policies often criminalize students for minor infractions or oversights, as the above case shows.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/08/04 07:29 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

The Dallas Morning News checks in on Hubert Vo

Bruce Nichols of the Dallas Morning News has penned an interesting article on Hubert Vo.

Here's a teaser:

The regulars at Sally Jo's Old Houston Bar-Be-Que weren't surprised to see a Vietnamese-American bidding to upset their longtime Anglo state representative in last week's election.

Their neighborhood, suburban Alief, has changed. Once a bastion of whites who fled Houston in the 1960s and '70s, Alief began going international in the late '80s and it has become a polyglot, 18 percent Asian, 20 percent black and 21 percent Hispanic.

Many businesses in the area are now Asian. When it opened in 1979, Sally Jo's shared a strip center with an Anglo grocery, Mary Jo's Furniture and Rack and Roll billiards and bowling, owner John Gembala said. Now it's surrounded by Asian restaurants and shops.

"I give them full credit for bringing the area back up," said breakfast regular Darla Bogard, noting that parts of Alief were blighted in the early '90s as whites fled the immigrant influx.

Elections are reflecting the growing Asian presence. A part of the area sent a Pakistani-American Muslim to Houston City Council last year, and it is within an eyelash of electing Vietnamese-American businessman Hubert Vo to the Texas Legislature.

After counting, Mr. Vo, a Democrat, led Talmadge Heflin, a 22-year Republican incumbent and House Appropriations Committee chairman, by 38 votes out of 41,000 cast Tuesday in the District 149 race.

The entire article is worth a read. It is unfortunate Houstonians have to turn to the Dallas newspaper for such interesting coverage of local stories.

As of the time of this post, the Heflin/Vo ballot counting still had not been completed.

(11-09-2004 Update) It appears that Vo will hold on for the victory, although a full recount may still be in the works.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/08/04 07:18 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (0)

07 November 2004

Chron eye for the death row killer guy - cont'd

It's time for another installment of Chron Eye for the Death Row Killer Guy.

For a while now, we've been noticing that the anti-death-penalty Chronicle has a tendency sympathetically to cover death row killers about to be executed.

The usual formula is along the lines of pointing out some nice quality of the killer (for example, keeping poetry in prison), some bad quality of his childhood (perceived or real), and the problems at HPD and its crime lab (whether relevant or not to the killer being discussed).

Metro spreads good cheer

Please forgive one more Metro-related post, but these letters to the editor, in today's Chronicle, were too good to pass up:

The Metropolitan Transit Authority continues to shoot itself in the foot! Do any of the board members live on a bus line?

The Bellaire bus No. 2 used to go all the way downtown, but now it stops midstream in the Medical Center and turns around to go back the way it came.

The same for the Kirby, Hiram Clarke and wonderful Main Street buses!

Does Metro not understand that people want to ride the bus and focus on getting to work — not worry about having to get off the bus, and wait for the rail going in the right direction to ride a mere two blocks?

Invariably, those who cannot drive cannot afford a vehicle — much less parking fees — so the poor and the handicapped have to suffer because of Metro's stupidity. This is causing much ill will.

BARBARA SHAIDNAGLE
Houston

And:

Whatever happened to the bus service that called on transfer locations in downtown, the Galleria area, Greenway Plaza and the Texas Medical Center back in the 1970s and '80s?

I think it would be a good idea to restore these services.

I recall the Metropolitan Transit Authority used to use regular city buses to run them and that they appeared to have a limited number of park and ride parking spaces available.

A bus service would be quite desirable today, especially with increasing gasoline prices and auto maintenance and insurance rates.

Personally, I can't afford to take taxi cabs.

The last time I called a cab to get to a doctor's appointment, it was more than $15 each way.

I can't imagine how much it would cost me to ride to the airport.

HOWARD BINGHAM
Houston

Ms. Shaidnagle and Mr. Bingham, it is a big mystery how the expert minds at Metro operate.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/07/04 02:11 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)

Metro and Lucas Wall - on the forefront of transportation solutions

Surely it is unintended humor, but Lucas Wall's story in today's Chronicle is pretty funny. You see, Metro has decided to look into starting an "express" bus route from downtown to Bush Intercontinental and Lucas gives us the heads up.

It's humorous because Ken Hoffman already covered this, weeks ago. He wrote a laugh-out-loud column, that Publiustx highlighted, about his own experience with the current Metro "express" from Bush Intercontinental to downtown. Here's a taste of that:

According to METRO's itinerary, the 102 Bush IAH Express makes five stops between Terminal C and downtown. Sounds good to me.

You know how when you get off a long flight, you just want to get home, right?

Ever want to just scream?

I knew I was in trouble when the bus left the airport and didn't turn onto Interstate 45. Instead, it started hitting side streets and feeder roads.

And stopping. And stopping. And stopping. And stopping.

Stop with the stopping already!

I wasn't counting, but I swear the bus stopped 20-plus times before we reached Gallery Furniture "on I-45 between Tidwell and Parker."

Along Greens Road, we stopped every two blocks. Then we made some weird turns on small streets. I thought I saw Hansel and Gretel dropping bread crumbs so they'd remember how to get back.

That was at the beginning of September. One month later, Hoffman wrote this:

06 November 2004

Apply Casey's reasoning to his own newspaper

The spirit of conciliation that follows national elections has surely spread to blogHOUSTON.

How else to explain that we've found an area of agreement with noxious Chron metro/state columnist Rick Casey?

But we mostly agree with this snippet from Casey's Friday column:

In politics, we're still in the days when Ma Bell had no competition.

The difference is, the courts broke up that monopoly, spawning huge rate cuts and unimagined innovation.

We're pleased that Rick Casey is coming around to our way of thinking. Just substitute "local newspapers" for "politics" in that paragraph above, and we're with him 99%.

We come up 1% short, because we're not that enthusiastic about courts telling newspapers what to do.

But the idea of a competing newspaper in this town sounds great!

And in the absence of an actual competing newspaper, maybe just one right-of-center staff columnist to balance the out-of-touch lefty trio of Rick Casey, Clay Robison, and Cragg Hines?

We're sure Casey will join us in urging his boss and friend Jeff Cohen to act quickly on our suggestion. Right, Rick?

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/06/04 10:09 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

Chron editors fail Political Science 101

As we frequently point out, Chronicle staff editorials are frequently childish and simplistic (and sometimes just plain mean).

Those first two characteristics were never more evident than in Friday's editorial criticizing the electoral college.

The editors spent exactly one paragraph (out of eight) laying out the position of defenders of the electoral college, which to them is this:

Defenders of the system claim it clears the field of fringe candidates who might dilute elections early on and obfuscate clear winners. Small states, meanwhile, would be loathe to give up the attention guaranteed by their outsized electoral clout.

Defenders actually have far better claims than that silliness concocted by the Chronicle editors. Walter Berns lays out some of those in this essay. And if that academic prose is too complicated for the editors of the Chron, here's an LA Times op ed by Benjamin Zycher. We know the Chron's editors are familiar with the LA Times, since so much of the Chron pages reflect the editorial choices of the LA and New York Times.

Hard to believe they would be unfamiliar with Zycher's arguments, eh?

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/06/04 09:50 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

Kristen Mack profiles Mustafa Tameez

Chronicle local politics columnist Kristen Mack profiled political consultant Mustafa Tameez in Friday's Chronicle.

Tameez is the consultant who helped engineer the victory for Mayor White's referendum to change the municipal employees' pension plan earlier this year, as well as Proposition 1 in this most recent election. He also managed the campaign of Hubert Vo (D), who narrowly leads incumbent Talmadge Heflin (R) in votes counted so far (with some absentee and provisional ballots outstanding). That's a nice recent track record.

Tameez may well represent the future of politics in Texas for Democrats, if they are to have one any time soon. His ability to reach across the aisle on specific issues -- for example, he had the KSEV crew eating out of his hand on the pension plan referendum -- is the sort of coalition-building his party will need to do while it is the minority party in this state. That he knows how to do so definitely makes him a consultant to watch (and makes Mayor White someone to watch as well).

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/06/04 09:18 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (0)

Bush Intercontinental tops in on-time performance

Bill Hensel reports that Bush Intercontinental Airport led the nation in on-time performance in September:

Bush Intercontinental Airport was No. 1 one in on-time arrivals and departures in September, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported Thursday.

That's a far cry from rainy June, when Houston's biggest airport reported more flight delays than any other U.S. airport.

"We know there are always factors which can make it take a little longer to get into or out of the airport," said Roger Smith, a spokesman for the Houston airport System.

Bush Intercontinental logged an on-time arrival rate of nearly 92 percent in September, well above the 86 percent for the same month last year, when it placed No. 18.

At the other extreme, service at many airports in Florida suffered when three hurricanes hit the state in September. The worst was Fort Lauderdale, which reported just a 67 percent on-time arrival rate for the month.

For departures, Bush Intercontinental had a nearly 94 percent on-time rate, compared to a nearly 92 percent departure rate in September 2003.

The worst was the Miami airport, which recorded a 70.4 percent on-time departure
rate.

Weather certainly plays a major role in these ratings, but the weather can't be uniformly bad in every city but Houston, so it's not insignificant to finish first. Good job IAH!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/06/04 08:55 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)

The "hideout" returns to Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo

KTRK-13 reports that the secondary music venue "The Hideout" will return to next year's rodeo:

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is bringing back an old favorite for music fans this year.

The Hideout, which took a break last year, is returning. It will be set up inside the Reliant Astrodome. The Coca-Cola Texas stage will be set up along Fannin in the food court area, with more picnic tables and places for people to sit, eat, and enjoy the music.

Those readers who enjoy our Thursday Americana/alt-country/Texas live music updates should particularly welcome this news. The Hideout has been the place for rodeo fans to see some of the best in that genre of music, especially Texas artists -- as opposed to the Nashville hat acts regularly featured on the big stage.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/06/04 10:58 AM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)

New park will eat up parking spaces

Today's Chronicle has a story about Houston's planned Central Park and a potential problem with parking around the George R. Brown Convention Center:

When the city of Houston turns 13 acres of downtown land into an urban green space, two parking lots in front of the George R. Brown Convention Center will disappear.

Those who use the convention center say the loss of parking means a crowded situation will become a nightmare.

"There's just not enough parking downtown," said Bridal Extravaganza producer Linda Miller, who relies on the front-door lots for her exhibitors and patrons. "That's gold to me."

When the park is built, Miller and others like her fear they will lose customers because they will have to park so far away from the event.

"Brides are pushing mothers and grandmothers in wheelchairs," said Miller, who has used the George R. Brown for 15 years. "When you get downtown and see nowhere to park, you want to turn around and run away."

Jennie Crowder, coordinator for the Hunters Extravaganza, said it has become so bad that she has been looking at other facilities to house her annual event.

"I've called Reliant and am waiting to hear back from them," she said. "I've heard they have ample parking."

The city, of course, says there is no problem with parking:

HISD top job candidates are secret no more

It looks like the Chronicle dug up the names of the superintendent candidates for HISD, and, according to the Chronicle's reporting, we now know why the names were so hush hush:

All three candidates trying to win interim HISD Superintendent Abe Saavedra's job come from smaller school districts that don't want them anymore.

On Thursday night, Houston Independent School District trustees interviewed Pittsburgh Superintendent John Thompson and former Tucson, Ariz., Superintendent Stan Paz. They were scheduled to meet with Bridgeport, Conn., Superintendent Sonia Díaz-Salcedo on Friday night.

She and Thompson are lame-duck superintendents who have been informed by their school boards that their contracts will not be renewed when they expire at the end of the school year. Paz was forced into early retirement this spring after losing the Tucson school board's support.

Here's a big thank you to the Chronicle reporter for persevering and getting this information. This is why these things should not be kept secret. Parents and community leaders have a right to know who is in the running for the superintendent's job.

Unfortunately, this is not uncommon in school district circles. Underwhelming superintendents will often be able to find a job somewhere else without the new community fully knowing what went on at the old district. There's lots of privacy and secrecy and good ol' boys protecting one another. As a parent, it's very discouraging.

Next, the Chronicle points out something interesting:

Saavedra, who has run the 211,000-student district since former superintendent Kaye Stripling retired in June, is scheduled to interview for the permanent job today. Several trustees have said all along that the job is Saavedra's to lose. Those comments, and the relatively low $30,000 price they paid for the search for other candidates, have prompted questions about how serious the trustees are about considering other applicants.

That's what I was wondering. A big district like HISD, where Secretary of Education Rodney Paige came from, should be able to attract fine candidates. It seems pretty clear that the trustees consider this interview process a mere formality, before giving it to Saavedra. That doesn't serve HISD students well at all.

Then there's this:

All the candidate interviews are being conducted in secret and trustees have gone through great pains to protect the applicants' identities. They've hidden the candidates in various meeting rooms throughout the HISD headquarters building on Richmond to elude a reporter waiting outside. Four HISD police officers working overtime used their radios to make sure no one was looking when the candidates left,getting into different vehicles from the ones in which they had arrived.

All this was necessary, according to the consultants hired to conduct the superintendent search, to ensure the best candidates would agree to interview for the job. Trustees were required to sign confidentiality agreements, promising not to divulge names. The candidates don't want their current employers to know they are job hunting, according to the consultants from the Texas Association of School Boards.

But it is clear that the candidates' school boards won't be too upset if they leave.

HISD parents should be outraged that this has taken place. Their children deserve better. And kudos to Jason Spencer and the Chronicle for working this story.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/06/04 06:19 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

05 November 2004

Pallilo to join new sports talk station?

A few days ago, Gary C. pointed out in the comments to this post that Charlie Pallilo had not been on KILT-610 all week, leading to speculation he might be making the jump to the new Clear Channel sports talk station.

The Chronicle's David Barron adds to the speculation today:

Charlie Pallilo has not been on the air this week on KILT's (610 AM) afternoon talk show.

Pardon me for belaboring the obvious, but the obvious is the only element that anyone will acknowledge this week regarding Pallilo's employment status.

The expectation and speculation in Houston radio circles is that Pallilo, whose contract with KILT expired in September, has worked his final shift on KILT and that he will begin work in December or January with Clear Channel Radio when KBME (790 AM) becomes the market's second all-sports outlet.

However, as Daffy Duck was fond of saying, there are legalities involved here. Pallilo as of earlier this week continued to refer to KILT as his employer but declined to comment on his future. Laura Morris, KILT's station manager, and Ken Charles, director of AM programming for Clear Channel in Houston, also declined to comment.

In Pallilo's absence, Rich Lord has worked the afternoon shift this week solo and with David Dalati.

That could continue through December or whenever KBME signs on with the rights to broadcast ESPN Radio in Houston.

At that point, KILT is expected to use morning hosts John Granato and Lance Zierlein from 6 to 11 a.m., followed by the Jim Rome show from 11 to 2 p.m. One scenario has Marc Vandermeer working from 2 to 4 p.m.; another has him teaming with Lord during afternoon drive time.

That's really not much more detail than we came up with here.

In any case, the new station is showing good sense if it's pursuing Pallilo as a major personality. Unfortunately for KILT, his absence lowers the average IQ of that station's talkers significantly.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/05/04 08:28 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (1)

Metro is slashing more bus routes

Apparently the glare coming off those shiny light rail trains has obscured the vision of Metro Bigs, because in the past couple of weeks two more bus routes have been discontinued. Here's the Chronicle's story about the end of Route 55:

Metro officials said that consistent low ridership on Route 55 and new transit authority leadership were the primary reasons for the cancellation of the service which started in June.

"It's costing us more to run the service than its worth," Metro spokesman Chip Lambert said. "There is also a philosophical shift on how we provide service, thanks to a new management. Services are going to be provided where they are most needed."

He said that when service began in May, officials expected more than 2,300 people to use the service every week. In the first month, ridership averaged 541. He added that the highest number was in August when the route averaged 856 passengers, but that average fell to 835 in September and continues to decline.

Well, Metro IS concerned about cost. That's good to know.

Now might be the right time to have another look at something still posted on Metro's website:

The METRO Solutions transit plan for better mobility calls for the creation and improvement of numerous transportation options over the next 20 years:

72 miles of additional rail service
50% more bus service
Signature Express bus service
250 miles of two-way,
all day Park & Ride service
Nine new Park & Ride lots
Nine new Transit Centers
and more!

50% more bus service. How does Metro expect to get there if it keeps cancelling bus routes? Metro says it "is an innovative regional transportation organization...committed to...provide the safest, highest quality services and mobility solutions that exceed our customers' expectations while creating economic growth." That mission statement is due for an overhaul.

Here's the second Chronicle article on a disappearing bus route, and this one includes some riders who are not happy:

A few would-be riders still stand at designated stops in northwest Houston, waiting for Bus No. 43 — the Pinemont Circulator — to take them to work.

They have a long wait.

On Oct. 30, Bus 43 was one of several routes eliminated by the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County. The reduction in bus transit service was made necessary by the laws of supply and demand, said Bill Peterson, Metro's director of service development.

"If people don't need the service or use the service as it's provided — like everything else in life — there's change involved," Peterson said Monday, shortly after No. 43 completed its last run.

The Metro board's decision to curtail the bus, one of several either eliminated outright or on weekdays or weekends, hasn't gone down well with several of the riders who say they depend on the bus to get to work. About 1,000 of them signed a petition asking Metro to reconsider the decision, signatures Peterson received Oct. 20.

This is not how Metro is going to win friends in the community. By pouring every dime it can scrounge up into the seven miles of retro trains, the grand poo-bahs of Metro are leaving the people who genuinely need transportation services standing at bus stops waiting for busses that aren't coming. That's not a very innovative mobility solution.

It's good to see the Chronicle run these stories, but it's necessary to point out that these didn't run in the "City/State" section. Both of these stories ran in the regional "This Week" sections, which guarantees a much smaller readership. That's akin to burying them. It's long past time for the Chronicle to get past its Metro advocacy and start advocating for the people who REALLY need what Metro should be providing.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/05/04 06:37 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (1)

04 November 2004

A followup we'd like to see on KTRK-13

KTRK-13's Jessica Willey had the following story earlier tonight:

Exclusive interview with woman accused of severing husband's penis

We know there's incredible pressure to deliver ratings in the tv news game, but is this really the sort of thing to trumpet as an exclusive (at least in a sensible world)?

We think for a followup that KTRK should get Marvin Zindler an exclusive with the man who's missing his member now. We hear some of Marvin's Angels are amazing plastic surgeons, and we'd definitely tune in to see Marvin triumphantly proclaim "Thanks to one of Marvin's Angels, this man now has a prosthetic penis!"

Dave Ward's reaction would surely be worth seeing, too.

KTRK (aka "Houston's news leader") shouldn't name me as an executive producer any time soon.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/04/04 08:47 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (2)

How long before Houston imitates Fort Worth?

Mayor White and Chief Hurtt defend the decision to spend $5 million on Taser equipment (despite the city's failure to address HPD's manpower shortages) because they contend it will save lives.

Meanwhile, our friends at Y'all Blog report that a Fort Worth man has died after police there used a Taser on him. The man had allegedly been stealing electricity by running an extension cord to a utility pole.

Is this really something that should be a priority in Houston?

Mayor White and uniformless Chief Hurtt apparently think so.

(11-05-2004 Update) Predictably, Chronicle reporters Lise Olsen and Rhea Davis go to work spinning the news in favor of the White/Hurtt position. It's unclear why it took two reporters to reproduce the Hurtt/Taser International talking points. Maybe one of these days, the Chronicle can spare one reporter to press city officials on HPD's manpower issues.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/04/04 08:29 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)

Food and drink roundup (11-04-2004 edition)

This week in Houston food reviews has Robb Walsh visiting Saffron, a new Moroccan restaurant on Lexington just off Shepherd. After a review that foodies should appreciate, Walsh concludes:

Belly dancers, exotic cocktails and an assortment of delicacies make Saffron one of the most exciting new restaurants to open in the city this year. With a few logistical adjustments to the silverware and seating, it could also become one of the most popular.

Great stuff from the most compelling writer at the Press.

Alison Cook pays a visit to Katy to the new Original Marini's Empanada House (which is obviously not quite original, since it's located some 30 miles from what was the original in the heart of Montrose). Cook's happy with the old favorite, which is great for folks in Katy one supposes. It would be nice, however, if Houston's only newspaper might devote at least one food review per week to a Houston restaurant.

They do go exploring bars this week, though. Gracie Ochoa devotes five paragraphs to the Indigo Lounge, and leaves the reader wondering if three wouldn't have been enough. And R.J. Middleton visits a few English-themed pubs, but not the Stag's Head Pub (unfortunately), which offers patrons wireless internet access in addition to a great selection of brews on tap.

And after a bit of a hiatus, Trivial Pursuits returns to food blogging, with a review of Kenny & Ziggy's Delicatessen in the Galleria area. blogHOUSTON readers should encourage TP to keep these great reviews coming. And if readers know of any other bloggers posting on Houston restaurants, please let us know, as it's an area where the local print publications are coming up a little short.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/04/04 07:31 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (3)

Live music roundup (11-04-2004 edition)

David Cobb returns with his great rock-oriented local music roundup this week.

As usual, we're happy to highlight notable live music in the Americana/folk/Texas country music genre:

Thursday, November 4
Davin James, Blancos
Honky Tonk Heros, Firehouse Saloon
Sidehill Gougers, Mucky Duck

Friday, November 5
Chris Duarte, Continental Club
Peter Dawson, Firehouse Saloon
Phil Pritchett, Fitzgerald's
Jack Saunders, Mucky Duck

Saturday, November 6
Adam Carroll and Nathan Hamilton, Anderson Fair
Patrick Murphy, Firehouse Saloon
Mando Saenz, Mucky Duck

Always check with the venue before heading out to a show, as schedules can change (and we are far from perfect).

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/04/04 06:53 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)

Chris Baker is moving on up!

Recently on the Chris Baker radio show (KPRC-950 AM), program director Ken Charles gave Chris the big news that he is now the number one afternoon radio host in Houston. Today that is followed up with Chris giving his listeners more big news: he'll be moving over to KTRH -740 AM next week and his show time will change to 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Sean Hannity's show will move to KPRC-950 AM. Chris pointed out that this move will give his program a chance at a much larger audience because KTRH-740's signal is stronger.

He assured his faithful listeners that the show will stay the same, with everyone (producer Jennifer and Beauregard the Rooster) and everything (debris game) making the move. Good news! (Some of us at blogHOUSTON find the debris game highly entertaining.)

There's no information about this on either website (as I am writing this) and I am relaying what I heard on the radio, so if any of this needs clarification, feel free to send along a correction or update.

UPDATE: The station switch will happen on 11/15.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/04/04 02:41 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (5)

HISD candidates still shrouded in secrecy

The list of candidates for HISD's top job has been narrowed to four, but those names are, shhh, still a secret:

Board President Karla Cisneros declined to reveal any information about the candidates the trustees are planning to interview through Saturday. She would say only that at least one of the candidates is from outside Texas. Cisneros also would not say how many of the candidates are men and how many are women.

[snip]

Interim Superintendent Abe Saavedra is among the four, according to trustee Larry Marshall. He and other trustees have repeatedly said Saavedra would receive strong consideration for the job, and most observers consider him the front-runner.

[snip]

Trustees are paying the association $30,000 to conduct the search, a relatively small sum compared with other urban districts that have recently spent twice that amount on superintendent searches. That, and the association's inexperience handling searches for school districts Houston's size, have raised questions about how serious trustees are about considering anyone for the job besides Saavedra.

Marshall said the association exceeded his expectations.

"The quality of the search has just been awesome," he said.

The association's consultants have insisted that the names of candidates be kept private. Making the names public, they said, would scare some candidates away from applying.

Mmm hmmm. Shining a light on government is only good in certain cases. Way to go Chronicle, for putting on that unrelenting pressure, so HISD parents can know who is in the running to affect their children's futures.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/04/04 10:40 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

03 November 2004

Hurtt gets his stun guns

Two weeks ago, City Council shelved a decision to pay $5 million for Taser equipment.

KHOU-11 reports that City Council approved the purchase today.

It's good to know that city has $5 million to throw around for stun guns, but the Mayor and Council have yet to address HPD's manpower issues.

(11-04-2004 Update) Mike Snyder covers the story for the Chronicle. Councilmembers Addie Wiseman and Ada Edwards voted against the authorization, arguing against the expenditure in light of the fact the city has not addressed HPD manpower shortages. A Houston police officers' union also argued the city should forego Tasers and spend the money on addressing manpower problems.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/03/04 08:36 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)

Haven't they had enough practice?

Metro has announced they will be conducting an emergency drill on November 10:

METRO will conduct an emergency response drill from 1 to 2:30 p.m. November 10 adjacent to the Fannin South parking area at the south end of the METRORail line.

The drill will center on a simulated accident between a METRORail train and a passenger car. The drill will simulate a fatality in the passenger car and a loss of power to the train. The purpose of the exercise is to verify the ability of METRORail personnel to respond to a major collision and power loss on the rail line.

The drill will be centered at Fannin and Bellfort, south of the Fannin South Station, and will have no effect on METRORail service.

Media are welcome to cover the drill, and are asked to set up about 12:35, before the exercise begins, on the southeast corner of Fannin and Bellfort. Parking will be available in the Fannin South lot.

I wonder if Metro Police Chief Lambert considers blogHOUSTON to be media? Probably not. We may have to cover the exercise regardless.

After 69 accidents, we expect the emergency personnel to perform flawlessly.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/03/04 03:42 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (1)

Three city propositions pass

All three propositions on municipal ballots passed yesterday.

Proposition 1 garnered more votes than Proposition 2, which almost certainly means that it will take precedence once possible legal challenges are done.

Our friend David Benzion urges Mayor White to abide by both propositions, but it seems pretty clear (and has for a while even to listeners of KSEV if not readers of Chronically Biased) that he's under no legal obligation to do so.

The Proposition 2 folks lost, to a mayor who outmaneuvered them. It's doubtful KSEV/Chronically Biased had the reach to have overcome the final losing margin, but one can't help but think it couldn't have hurt their cause for Dan Patrick to spend a little more pushing Proposition 2 and a little less time on constantly changing election predictions and "Astros Destiny" prognostication.

Interestingly, Proposition 3 cruised to an easy victory. That one may prove to be more of an irritant to the mayor's office over time than either of the revenue limitation proposals.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/03/04 02:47 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (1)

Train shuts down because of rain

The light rail tram that Metro frequently describes as its transit backbone shut down because of the rain yesterday:

Flooding shut down MetroRail service early Tuesday between the Texas Medical Center and downtown, delaying commutes for thousands of workers.

Heavy rain overnight left 9 inches of water atop the tracks on Fannin where it passes under Holcombe, according to the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Maggi Stewart, Metro spokeswoman, said it was apparent by 4:20 a.m., shortly before rail service was scheduled to begin, that trains would not be able to travel past the Texas Medical Center Transit Center.

"People were able to get to the transit center, but then the trains couldn't go in the underpass," Stewart said. "When it's more than 4 inches, it's difficult to maintain service."

Four inches of rain rarely disrupts bus service. Nine inches presumably makes things dicey for buses, but they do ride pretty high.

Metro also is still having trouble getting the word out when service is disrupted:

In response to confusion during other incidents this year, the transit authority began distributing a brochure onboard trains last week explaining to riders what to do if light rail service is disrupted. That information is not available at stations, however.

Metro needs to serve its constituents better than this.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/03/04 01:54 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (2)

The editors need some sleep

Obviously a late election night impacted the judgment of the Chronicle editors. There is simply no other explanation for this editorial:

In contrast, the number of Iraqi civilians who have died in the past 18 months should be a key barometer for measuring this war's success. Embedded media and aid groups earlier calculated that somewhere between 10,000 to 30,000 noncombatants have been killed during the Iraq war. This week, however, scholars from Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, and Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad placed the number of deaths much higher. Studying death rates in 32 neighborhoods — not including ultraviolent Fallujah — the researchers extrapolated that 100,000 more Iraqi civilians died in the last 18 months than would have died if the United States had not invaded. Most fell in coalition bomb or rocket strikes. Though the research was duly peer-reviewed before it appeared in the medical journal the Lancet, the authors stress that it is not definitive. The pool surveyed was small, and the study went to press more quickly than do most articles in scientific journals.

Oh come on! That study was so flawed that it was questioned immediately and its methods were shown to be wildly "out there."

We just had some big goings-on yesterday. Surely there was something else the editors could have written about?

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/03/04 06:32 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

02 November 2004

A little opera, anyone?

Here's an election-night diversion:

On Tuesday, the Houston Grand Opera hopes to lure people from their television sets with an election-night special for Puccini's Madame Butterfly.

If you bring your voter registration card to the Wortham Theater Center box office, 501 Texas, and say that you've voted, you'll get an orchestra-level ticket for $50. The regular price ranges from $105 to $255, depending on the seat.

The performance starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets will offered on a space-available basis. For information, call 713-228-6737.

For those who are electioned-out.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/02/04 10:46 AM | Houston Arts/Culture | Technorati | Comments (0)

Dumbing down the Chronicle = bigger circulation?

The Chronicle gave itself a pat on the back this morning:

The Houston Chronicle's daily circulation grew in the last six months, while Sunday circulation declined, the Audit Bureau of Circulations has reported.

And the Chronicle has moved up in the ranking of the country's biggest newspapers.

"We're now the nation's seventh-largest daily metropolitan newspaper and the eighth-largest on Sunday," said Chronicle President and Publisher Jack Sweeney. "Given the economic challenges we've faced this year, we're not all that unhappy with the numbers."

Sweeney cited recent improvements in the Chronicle as reasons for optimism. "It's our commitment to strong news coverage, our easy-to-read format and our first redesign in more than 20 years that will attract younger readers going forward," Sweeney said.

According to the ABC report, the Chronicle's daily circulation increased an average of 1,767 copies — to 554,783. Sunday circulation declined by 9,822 — to 737,580.

[snip]

John Sturm, president of the newspaper association, said of the figures, "We're not wild about it because it shows a bit of a decrease again," but he added that the declines were in line with recent trends. He also said publishers were finding ways to attract new readers despite new rules governing telemarketing such as the do-not-call lists.

Sweeney agreed. "The ways newspapers used to build home delivery have changed," he said. "We have to come up with entirely new approaches to sell the newspaper."

Yes, well, those new approaches didn't actually include improving content or editorial decision-making. Nonetheless, Sweeney is putting the best possible spin on this, in light of the Chronicle's recent downsizing. And he's careful to say the Chronicle is seventh-largest, among metropolitan papers. When the nation's two biggest papers, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, are added in, then the Chronicle is number nine. And that's for weekday readership. Sunday's numbers declined.

This whole circulation number thing is iffy, as the recent Enron-like scandal within the newspaper industry shows (and which the Chronicle has carefully avoided reporting on). The Audit Bureau of Circulations, the supposed watchdog of the industry, has come under fire itself for its, uh, oversight. Indeed a fast look at the guidelines for counting newspaper circulation shows many loopholes.

As long as a newspaper charges 25% of its basic price for a newspaper, that paper can be counted as circulation. Newspapers used in schools, generally paid for by sponsors, are counted as circulation. Newspapers at hotels, as long as some rules are followed, are counted as circulation. Newspapers "sold" at events, again following some guidelines, are counted as circulation. And, if a newspaper sells its product electronically, there are even guidelines for counting that! I don't think the Chronicle is selling electronic subscriptions yet, but since I am a paying subscriber, I don't know for sure. (Someone at blogHOUSTON has to make the supreme sacrifice and take the dead tree version so we don't miss fabulous stuff like this.)

What is kind of interesting, and perhaps is a better indicator of where things really stand at the Chronicle, is the Sunday numbers decline. I don't know about you, but for years the Sunday paper was what I looked forward to the most. All those ads and extras. In my mind, the Sunday paper is truly a subscriber paper, as opposed to the weekday paper which can be pawned off on schools, hotels, and businesses. Wonder what has changed?

Mr. Sweeney can happily tout his circulation standing, but trust me, he knows, just like many of us know, that newspapers are old media, that newspaper content is often suspect, and that newspaper circulation numbers are to be taken with a grain of salt. And no amount of spinning (or "easy-to-read" formatting) will change those perceptions.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/02/04 09:58 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (3)

Smaller classes are not a cure-all

Today's Chronicle has an editorial on the need to keep classroom sizes small, which the editors think helps students:

IN Texas, state law requires public schools to have no more than 22 students per classroom in the lower grades. Smaller classes allow teachers to give students the minimum individual attention they need to learn to read, write and calculate.

Smaller classes correlate with recent academic progress. However, the law is ineffective if school districts are allowed — and even encouraged — to avoid its strictures.

Last week, State Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley withdrew a directive that would have made it easier for school districts to increase class sizes. With the approval of the school board, superintendents could have requested an exemption on their signature alone, on a letter rather than a waiver form.

The commissioner claims she was just trying to streamline the paperwork. However, Texans do not want to make it more convenient to avoid the requirement. School districts should find it easier to maintain smaller classes than gain a waiver. Neeley's attempted streamlining sends the message that virtually any request for a waiver will be granted.

It would have been helpful if the editors had provided some numbers to back up this assertion: "Smaller classes correlate with recent academic progress." I have no reason to dispute it, but it would still be nice to see the study or numbers the editors are using to back that up.

Smaller classes are not a cure-all for public education woes. It is certainly a plus, in many parents' eyes to have their kids be able to get some personalized attention. The problem is that if the curriculum is poor or the teacher is not well-trained, then smaller classes aren't going to make much difference.

Edward Lazear, of the Hoover Institute, addressed this issue succinctly a few years ago, when he said smaller classes are not a magic bullet. His take on this is that smaller classes benefit disadvantaged and special-needs children the most. In the majority of circumstances, a well-trained teacher, supported by a good curriculum and good classroom discipline will be very effective in teaching, as evidenced by the general success of Catholic schools.

And, of course, smaller class sizes equals more teachers which (surprise!) is supported by the nation's teachers unions. Go figure.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/02/04 06:45 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

01 November 2004

Chron eye for the death row killer guy: the series

Despite massive layoffs, the anti-death-penalty Chronicle always seems to have adequate staff to profile death row killers sympathetically.

In fact, we've noticed that it happens with such consistency that it can't just be a coincidence. Chron editors are making a conscious decision to portray the state's most violent criminals as sympathetic figures. Presumably, the newspaper's anti-death-penalty editors think this sort of coverage will weaken public support for the death penalty in Texas -- Jeff Cohen being the condescending sort of editor who wants to teach his readers the right way to think, instead of covering the news important to them.

It's great blog fodder, though, as it gives us a chance to call attention to the sort of "coverage" the newspaper that missed Enron actually excels at these days. Future posts on this subject will also carry the title above.

Without further ado, here's a look back through Chron eyes at some upstanding criminals (some of whom are no longer part of this world).

Galveston, oh Galveston

Thanks to our neighbors in Galveston, Houstonians may well get a sneak preview of products before other parts of the country:

Marketers launching any new product are nagged by an age-old question: "Will it play in Peoria?"

They should be asking: "Will it play in Galveston?"

Galveston, Texas, nestled along the Gulf of Mexico about 50 miles southeast of Houston, is the best test market in the United States, according to a new study by American City Business Journals.

ACBJ analyzed all 3,141 counties and independent cities across the nation, comparing them to the national averages for 20 statistical indicators. The closer a county comes to being a perfect microcosm of America, the higher its score is on ACBJ's 100-point scale.

First place belongs to Galveston County with a score of 89.24 points. Camden County, N.J., is second, followed by Hillsborough County, Fla.; Jackson County, Mo.; and Greenville County, S.C.

The supposed exemplar of middle-American values, Peoria County, Ill., can't match Galveston's prowess as a test market, but still ranks a respectable 19th with 85.27 points.

Congratulations, Galveston, on being so... average!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/01/04 09:23 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)

Hunsicker steps down

Astros general manager Gerry Hunsicker announced he is stepping down today.

Longtime assistant Tim Purpura will assume the job immediately.

Hunsicker says he will remain as an advisor next season. One can't help but wonder how long it will be before he moves on to a club without the budget constraints imposed by Drayton McLane.

(Update) Tom Kirkendall's review of Hunsicker's tenure is better than anything that will appear in the Chronicle tomorrow, AND has the virtue of being more timely.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/01/04 11:01 AM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)

Police or playgrounds?

Here's a "Wrap-Up" story in today's Chronicle:

In a project called "City of Houston: Problem Solved," teams of fourth- and fifth-graders have been learning about government by allocating a fictitious $2.8 million among city departments.

Needless to say, the departments' needs exceed the money available.

At first, said computer lab teacher Lilene Caldwell, "some of the children wanted all the departments to get the same amount of money. Otherwise, they said, 'It's not fair.' "

Caldwell said she explained, "You can do that if you want to, but you're going to have to fire half the police."

Then there's this:

City Councilman Mark Goldberg, whose district includes the school, visited with the students recently.

"They were really interested, on more of an adult level than a children's level," he said. "There wasn't much talk about playgrounds. It was more about public safety and what the police do. There was even one question about the pension."

Interesting, huh? Fourth- and fifth-graders, when faced with city budget funding dilemmas, chose to fund public safety over playgrounds. Mayor White, on the other hand, when faced with a police manpower shortage, has chosen to focus on Houston's own Central Park. Among other things.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/01/04 09:44 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)

Sugar Land's Brazos River project

Sugar Land is closer to having a recreation area along the Brazos River:

During a workshop session held Tuesday night, the Sugar Land Parks and Recreation department recommended that the city approve the first phase of development of the Brazos River Corridor.

The corridor consists of 420 acres along 2 1/2 miles of the river. The plot of land is bounded on the north end by the University of Houston System at Sugar Land, on the east by University Boulevard, on the west by Highway 59, and on the south by the Brazos River.

"For seven or eight years, we have talked a lot about the corridor," said Joe Chesser assistant director of Parks and Recreation. "We're getting close to where something can actually happen on the site."

[snip]

The northern section of the corridor is projected to have vehicular trails, an open amphitheater, a 6- to 10-foot deep lake, playgrounds and parking.

The southern portion of the corridor will have pedestrian trails, a pond, picnic areas, a family activity center, a playground, parking spaces, a one-mile vehicular drive, a pavilion, restrooms, and possibly a dog park.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/01/04 08:34 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

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