31 March 2005

What's Jon Lindsay up to now?

Houston Architecture Info Forum has posted a bill that state Sen. Jon Lindsay (I'm suspicious already) has filed "relating to the planning, construction, and operation of toll road projects by certain counties."

Since Sen. Lindsay is doing his darndest to get the Grand Parkway segment built through Spring, I am concerned that his proposed amendments are to facilitate that construction through the Harris County Toll Road Authority.

It looks like some of the HAIF folks are trying to decipher the intent of Lindsay's bill. If any of our readers have legislative-speak deciphering abilities, I would appreciate your thoughts on what Lindsay is trying to do.

Thanks goes to the blogHOUSTON reader who alerted me to the thread at HAIF, and for also pointing out that the Trans-Texas Corridor Committee has been selected. If you scroll down to the thirteenth entry in the thread, you'll see the names of people selected to the committee.

UPDATE: In the forum, Bill F has translated the bill and it's not good.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/31/05 07:27 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (2)

Councilwoman calls for SAFEclear audit

KPRC-2 is reporting that Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs is requesting an audit of the SAFEclear program:

Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs asked the city controller for a thorough accounting of the controversial program.

"It's important to know not only things about the efficiencies of the program, but it's also important to know the price tag of the program," she said.

Sekula-Gibbs is concerned that taxpayers are not getting their money's worth for the program.

"What resources are going to be cut? Is it going to be from the health department? Is it going to be from the police department? Where are we going to take the money in order to pay for Safe Clear?" she said.

On Tuesday, the mayor touted the program as a success story. It began on Jan. 1.

"This is one of the most cost-effective programs," Houston Mayor Bill White said.

The mayor confirmed that the price tag has risen to nearly $900,000, mainly due to the city offering free tows to some motorists.

"I'm very comfortable with $900,000 going to this program because 2 million people or 3 million people are benefiting by less congestion and fewer accidents and lives saved," Houston City Council member Michael Berry said.

The audit of Safe Clear is expected to take six months.

We would certainly appreciate the unfiltered facts.

I've decided the mayor has a SAFEclear motto: "less congestion, fewer accidents and lives saved." Lather, rinse, repeat.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/31/05 06:55 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (3)

Texas shield law for journalists rears its head again

A few weeks back, the Chronicle editors wrote an editorial encouraging the Legislature to pass HB188, a bill that would give journalists special privileges -- in essence, a shield law. We pointed out then that the bill is poorly worded and it would be unwise to grant special privileges to journalists.

A blogHOUSTON reader gave us a heads up today that the Senate side has its own bill -- SB604 -- introduced by state Sen. Rodney Ellis (D), and the reader suggests that Ellis may have the votes needed to move it out of committee.

We cannot emphasize enough what a lousy piece of legislation this is. The press already has a protection in place -- it's called the First Amendment.

Amusingly, in its earlier editorial, the Chronicle said:

The bill would not create a special class of persons. Journalism is an activity open to anyone with a copier or Web site. The bill stipulates only that the journalism must be disseminated, drawing the distinction between reporters and commentators, and diarists and people who merely agree to keep a secret.

However, the two bills do not make that distinction. Here is how the (identical) bills define "journalist" and "news medium":

(1) "Journalist" means a person, or an employee,
independent contractor, or agent of that person, engaged in the
business of gathering, compiling, writing, editing, photographing,
recording, or processing information for dissemination by any news
medium.

(2) "News medium" means a person who in the ordinary
course of business publishes, broadcasts, or otherwise
disseminates news by print, television, radio, or other electronic
means accessible to the public.

There is nothing in those definitions that draws a distinction between reporters and commentators. How many times have we seen columnists and bloggers dig up news that the "professional" media doesn't, for whatever reasons? And bloggers and columnists use the internet which would be included in "other electronic means accessible to the public."

My question then, as now, is if Rick Casey is covered, in the Chronicle's interpretation? What about Clay Robison or Cragg Hines? They are commentators. What about Kyrie O'Connor? She writes the blog MeMo, which is available online only. Are bloggers considered journalists?

These definitions are muddy and open to numerous interpretations. We don't agree that "professional journalists" should be given special privileges that would not be given to any average citizen -- including diarists and secret-keepers. The First Amendment is sufficient protection.

If you are so inclined, please call your state representative and senator and politely voice your opinion on this proposed journalist shield law.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/31/05 05:59 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

I-45 meeting this Saturday

Charles Kuffner has information on a meeting this Saturday to discuss TxDOT's plan to widen I-45.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/31/05 10:59 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)

Groups fret over Taser usage; Chronicle hops to attention

The Chronicle's Roma Khanna -- who has done yeoman's work for Jeff Cohen in exposing the shocking fact that HPD officers have actually had to use their guns when dealing with bad guys, and in doing makeovers of death row killer guys -- has a story today about Tasers being disproportionately used on minorities:

Houston police officers used Tasers on minorities in almost 90 percent of the incidents in which they shocked people in recent months, prompting civil rights groups Wednesday to call for tighter controls on the use of the stun guns.

Leaders from the ACLU, LULAC and NAACP requested a meeting with Police Chief Harold Hurtt to express concern about officers' use of the 50,000-volt alternative weapons since the police department bought 3,700 of them last year.

Officers stunned people with Tasers in 144 incidents between Dec. 3 and March 10, according to the department, shocking blacks or Hispanics in 125 cases, or 87 percent.

"It always seems that the minorities are the first to get a taste of something like this," said Sylvia Gonzalez, director of the local chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens. "We are very concerned."

Executive Assistant Police Chief Charles McClelland said, however, that the racial breakdown on Taser use mirrors statistics of other police interaction with minorities.

"The Taser itself is not a racial device," he said. "Officers' decision to deploy the Taser is based on the suspects' behavior and the officers' training."

In police shootings throughout the county, however, about 70 percent of people shot from 1999 through August 2004 were minorities, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis.

I don't know why, but I am constantly amazed at "professional" journalists' inability to do any critical thinking. Does Khanna really think that HPD officers specifically target minorities? REALLY?

The Chronicle was supportive when HPD purchased Tasers to use as an alternative to guns. Are we now seeing another crusade, to completely disarm law enforcement? We've asked this before, but what exactly would the Chronicle like HPD to do when faced with bad guys? Hand them a cookie? Give them a gift certificate? Maybe a teddy bear? WHAT should HPD do?

And let's not forget what happened when the Chronicle's editorial board was invited to test a law enforcement training simulator:

Earlier this year, Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal invited members of the editorial board to the basement of the Harris County Court House to experience the Shoot/Don’t Shoot Course – a state-of-the-art virtual reality program used to train law enforcement officers how to deal with a variety of simulated, life-threatening scenarios. According to those who witnessed the exercise, a majority of the editorial board members “killed” both innocent citizens and unarmed suspects. One reportedly shot a child – and was, understandably, so upset by their decision they could not continue the course.

Split-second decision-making, in potentially life-threatening situations, is not easy.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/31/05 10:34 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (5)

Chron garners award for Enron-related coverage

The Houston Chronicle, criticized for its coverage of Enron as the company was unravelling, has won an award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers in the Breaking News category, for its more recent coverage of the indictment of Ken Lay.

Local business/legal blogger extraordinaire Tom Kirkendall has followed the Enron saga closely, and his site remains an invaluable local resource for opinion on recent and past developments.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/31/05 09:30 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

30 March 2005

New mainstream = secretive group that targets GOP?

Orrin Judd points us to an editorial posted to The Hill that excoriates Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), an interest group that promotes greater transparency in politics but, as the editorial points out, doesn't much believe in transparency for itself. As the editorial also points out, the group tends to target Republican lawmakers.

What does this have to do with Houston?

As it turns out, this secretive group that targets Republicans played a role in helping Chris Bell (D) file his ethics complaint against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R) after Bell lost his Congressional primary to Democrat Al Green in a redrawn district:

CREW assisted former Rep. Chris Bell (D-Texas) in drafting a complaint against Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) that resulted in the majority leader’s admonishment by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.

More on CREW's role is revealed by liberal columnist Katrina vanden Heuvel:

CREW proved its mettle when it used the ethics process in the House to expose House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's corrupt activities (including allegedly bribing his Republican colleagues to win their votes for the GOP's sham Medicare legislation, engaging in quid pro quos with corporations seeking legislative favors and violating campaign finance laws in Texas in 2002.) Sloan discussed filing a complaint against DeLay with members of the House, but nobody bit. But then, Chris Bell, the Congressman from Texas whom DeLay had effectively redistricted out of his seat, phoned her. He agreed to take the complaint to the Ethics Committee.

A former Assistant US Attorney from 1998 to 2003, Sloan drafted the complaint as if "I was writing an indictment." After Bell and Sloan traded several drafts, the complaint was filed.

It's always good to know which interest groups constitute "the new mainstream."

UPDATE: Betty Friedan, Howard Metzenbaum, and Jim Hightower lend their names to a different group that seems to be clamoring to be part of "the new mainstream" also.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/30/05 09:44 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (4)

HPD crime lab has new leadership to conduct probe

The Chronicle is reporting a development in the HPD crime lab probe:

The former inspector general for the U.S. Justice Department will head the probe of the Houston Police Department's embattled crime laboratory.

The City Council this morning approved the hiring of Michael R. Bromwich to conduct a comprehensive review and analysis of the work of the HPD lab — in some cases going back as far as 1987.

The contract calls for Bromwich, and the Washington, D.C. law firm that employs him, to be paid as much as $2.2 million to carry out the investigation.

According to the contract, Bromwich and his crew of assistants and subcontractors will examine the operations of these crime lab divisions during the period from 1998 through 2004: trace analysis, controlled substances, firearms, questioned documents and toxicology.

The investigators will review the work of the department's serology and DNA labs, dating back to 1987.

Previously, Chief Hurtt has been criticized for not moving faster to deal with crime lab problems.

RELATED: HPD crime lab fails to gain accreditation (blogHOUSTON), HPD Chief says crime lab to be accredited soon (blogHOUSTON)

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/30/05 03:43 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

Houston's tricky water billing method

I'd call this a creative way to increase water revenues:

Let's say your March bill says you used 3,000 gallons, but unknown to you, you actually used 3,800 gallons.

The additional 800 gallons are rolled over to the next month, even though the bill doesn't explain this.

In April, let's say you used 3,600 gallons. With the rollover, it adds up to 4,400 gallons. The cost then rises to the higher rate of $27.

Then the remaining 400 gallons roll over to the next month.

I saw the original KHOU-11 story last week and was absolutely floored by this method of water billing. It sounds like some councilmembers were surprised, too:

The leaders at City Council made it clear that they were unaware of this billing practice.

"Your presentation on the television was very interesting. I am glad you brought this to our attention," said councilmember Shelly Sekula-Gibbs.

[snip]

"Mr. Miller you shouldn't be mad at the water department that has to execute. That's our fault that we put in place a system that works this way, and I will tell you, it's the first news to me. OK, it's a big city. I will be the first to admit that I did not realize that that is the way it works," said Councilmember Michael Berry.

Here's the water rate chart on the city's website. If you use KHOU's example of 3,600 gallons rolling over to 4,400, you can see what a jump in rate it is.

I suppose we shouldn't be surprised by something like this, but it makes me wonder what other unknown surprises like this are out there.

UPDATE: KHOU-11 now has a story about water rates going up.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/30/05 12:20 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (6)

Chron: high gas prices makes Metro appealing

Owen Courreges points out that in today's Chronicle editorial on high gas prices, the editorial board takes an opportunity to promote Metro:

The more the price of gasoline increases, the better Houston Metro's $2 day pass for bus or light-rail service starts to look.

Aha. This would be the bus service that continues to be cut and "improved," and the light rail service that covers a whopping 7.5 miles of downtown streets.

Probably not.

By the way, I wonder if the Chronicle is putting its advocacy into practice yet, by getting rid of its parking garage, or if Metro has cancelled a planned parking area for its senior staff?

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/30/05 10:48 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

Hispanics support school vouchers

A large percentage of Hispanics in Harris County support school vouchers, according to a new poll:

In a poll sponsored by a group working to pass a school voucher bill, almost 73 percent of Harris County Hispanics support the proposed legislation for at-risk children.

"This poll unequivocally verifies what we have known for a long time: Hispanic parents, particularly those in Texas' largest, inner-city school districts, understand school choice offers their children a better future," said Rebeca Nieves Huffman, president and CEO of the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options, the group that sponsored the poll.

The poll of about 1,000 Hispanic voters in Bexar, Dallas, Harris, Tarrant and Travis counties shows that almost 76 percent favor a pilot voucher program in Texas' largest, inner-city school districts.

The other side, of course, cries foul:

Carolyn Boyle, coordinator of the Coalition for Public Schools, said Tuesday the poll is "totally bogus," because it didn't give the full story.

"The people who promote private school vouchers always want to ask nebulous questions, and they never ask about the cost," she said. "Had they asked, 'Do you think we should spend a couple of hundred million dollars taken away from neighborhood schools?' they would have said no."

In a Scripps Howard Texas Poll earlier this year, 55 percent said they were opposed to using taxpayer-funded vouchers to allow public students to attend private schools, and 39 percent were in favor.

That's irritating, when the Chronicle reporter assists Carolyn Boyle by adding a reference to a Texas Poll question, because as I have pointed out before, the Texas Poll is not available for public scrutiny. It is only available to subscribing media outlets.

So, since we can't see exactly what the Texas Poll question asked, let me guess how the question was framed: Do you support the state providing private school vouchers, if it would take money away from schools that have already seen a (fill in the blank) percentage drop in funding?

THAT is what's bogus, Ms. Boyle. Why be afraid of a little competition?

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/30/05 10:15 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (3)

Filling city coffers

Here's a letter to the editor in today's Chronicle:

A tax to fill coffers

If the city of Houston is broke, then why not just say so and stop coming up with all these ways to collect additional revenue for the city?

Mayor Bill White ran on the campaign promise that he would not raise taxes — and he hasn't, but he has found ways to raise revenue for the city at the expense of taxpayers. Why not just tell everyone that the city is broke and raise the city sales tax? That way, everyone would pay their fair share.

MARTHA HERNANDEZ
Houston

We agree. Mayor White should come out and sell Houstonians on the need to raise revenue. Stealth taxes are unfair and often, I would argue, disproportionately affect those least able to afford them.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/30/05 08:18 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (5)

29 March 2005

KTRK runs a story on Galveston's Social Security experiment

We recently wondered when the Chronicle would ever get around to reporting on the Galveston Social Security model. Well, now there's an AP story on the subject that is making the rounds, and KTRK-13 is running a shortened version of it:

When county employees in Galveston learned 25 years ago that Social Security could be in trouble, they took a gamble on their retirement and opted out of the federal system.

A similar private plan was later adopted in neighboring Brazoria and Matagorda counties.

Residents say they haven't hit the jackpot, but they maintain it is possible to retire more comfortably with their plan than with Social Security.

The county plans let workers invest a portion of their income in annuities and bonds, as a model for the privatization of Social Security.

About five million Americans in government jobs already rely on retirement plans other than Social Security.

The three Texas counties are among a small number of state and local governments around the country that opted out of Social Security for government employees or never joined up at all, like Massachusetts and Ohio.

There's no sign of the AP story on the Chronicle's website yet.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/29/05 07:49 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)

A Houston protest in support of Terri Schiavo

It's too bad this protest didn't take place in front of the Chronicle building:

Disabled Houstonians held a protest in downtown Tuesday over the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, Local 2 reported.

The severely brain-damaged woman has gone without food or water at a Florida hospice since March 18 after years of legal battles between her husband and parents.

ADAPT, which stands for American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, protested in front of the municipal courthouse, 1400 Lubbock, at noon.

The small group of wheelchair-bound protesters displayed handmade signs that said "Disabled Americans Have Rights Too" and "Save Terri's Life."

"I've been on life support twice. I’m very thankful to be alive," protester Andre Gaines said.

"Now I'm thinking, 'How many tubes are going to be pulled? What's going to be next?'" another protester said.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/29/05 07:06 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)

Houston is #1 in rental car sticker shock

The disparity between the base rate for a rental car and the final bill is higher at Bush Intercontinental than at any other airport:

Rental car customers experience more severe sticker shock at Bush Intercontinental Airport than any other airport in the country when it comes to the final bill, according to a study released Tuesday.

A study conducted by online travel agent Travelocity.com found that the difference between the base rate and the actual price paid by car renters at the Houston airport is 66.1 percent -- the highest discrepancy in the country.

Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport swept in second behind Houston, Austin Bergstrom International Airport flew in at fourth, and San Antonio International Airport landed at sixth on the list of top 10 airports with the largest difference in price between daily rental car base rates and the total amount due at airport locations.

Other cities in highly taxed states like California and New York include taxes in their base rates, which study administrators say kept them off the list.

That last paragraph is interesting. So, either Houston needs to change its base rate (it actually sounds deceptive to have a big difference like that), or else it will stay atop the discrepancy list. I hope all those tax dollars are being put to good use.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/29/05 04:52 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (1)

SAFEclear success?

This morning the Chronicle ran a story that said Mayor White was going to announce some SAFEclear statistics.

Matt Bramanti at Lone Star Times has some thoughts on the story that was running earlier this morning.

Now the Chronicle's story includes the details of the mayor's announcement:

Collisions on Houston freeways dropped 12 percent in the first two months of this year compared with the same period in 2003 and 2004, Mayor Bill White announced today, attributing the improvement at least partly to a mandatory towing program that took effect Jan. 1.

The mayor reported 2,177 freeway crashes in January and February of this year, down from 2,489 in the first two months of 2003 and 2,469 last year.

Um, okay. That's our SAFEclear success? I was hoping for more. Can a reduction in collisions really be attributed to SAFEclear? Apparently so.

And there's this:

"It's easier to get around Houston," said White, who previewed his announcement last week in a meeting with the Houston Chronicle Editorial Board. "Every day people come up to me and other members of council ... and say, 'I notice a difference.' "

Does that seem odd to anyone else? The statistics are what they are -- why did he need to preview them for the Chronicle's editorial board? I find that really strange.

Of course, if the Chronicle took one of our suggestions and put editorial meetings on the record, we'd know the answer to those questions. But as it stands now, it was an exclusive meeting between some very influential people in Houston.

What was it the Chronicle was touting recently? Oh yes -- Sunshine Week for open government.

Let's cut to the chase: Mayor White desperately needs to sell SAFEclear as a successful program. We know that other cities are looking at SAFEclear as a model for their own traffic problems, and the mayor may have further political aspirations. He needs to be able to point to SAFEclear as an example of his innovative and bold thinking, in order to get things done.

I hope the Chronicle won't blindly accept the mayor's announcement without asking some hard questions and doing some thorough checking. Sunshine Week should also extend to city government.

UPDATE: I've had some time to ponder this and I am completely underwhelmed with the mayor's announcement. Well, guess what? I'm not the only one. Matt Bramanti dissects it:

The Mayor’s office has unveiled statistics "proving" that the Safe Clear program has been an unbridled success. The lack of consistency and detail in these numbers is simply stunning

Follow the link to see his full take.

Also, Chris Baker is talking about the mayor's announcement and he's doing some "redneck math." He sounds underwhelmed, too.

RELATED COVERAGE: KPRC-2, KHOU-11, KTRK-13

UPDATE (03-30-2005) Don't miss commenter Bill F's analysis of the mayor's numbers.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/29/05 12:25 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (5)

DMN: Rodeo gives Houston reporter a rough ride

As usual, Dallas Morning News Houston reporter Bruce Nichols is beating the Chronicle in their backyard, with a solid story on Wayne Dolcefino and his recent dustup with the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo (and apparently his own television station).

Here is news that we haven't seen elsewhere:

When Mr. Dolcefino pressed questions about how charitable the rodeo actually is – asking about cushy offices, high staff salaries and how much officials pay big-name musical acts – the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo filed suit to rein him in.

Mr. Dolcefino's employers, KTRK-TV, a longtime rodeo supporter and ABC affiliate, declined to air his story. Mr. Dolcefino threatened to quit and went on what amounts to a strike. He's had little to say publicly, and station officials have declined to comment.

This is amusing:

Journalists worry when it appears community pressure is blocking a news inquiry, but the dust-up has gone almost unnoticed outside media circles. The Houston Chronicle, which touted the rodeo's success on the front page, has run two inside stories on problems in Wayne's world.

Where is the Chronicle on this local story?

Trailing the Dallas Morning News, once more.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/29/05 10:24 AM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (1)

28 March 2005

Chron editorialists reject the Constitutional Option

The Chronicle editorialists try to pull a fast one in today's ranting against what the Powerline crew has dubbed The Constitutional Option:

Frustrated that Democratic senators have used extended debate to reject seven of Bush's judicial nominees, some Republican senators want to implement what has come to be known as the nuclear option: allowing 51 senators (or 50 senators and the vice president) to end debate on judicial nominees. They wish to forget that Republicans held up or rejected confirmation of an even greater number of President Clinton's judicial nominees.

Note that the last sentence implies that Republicans used the filibuster to hold up or reject confirmation of that "even greater number" of Clinton nominees. But they did not use the filibuster.

Rather, the filibuster has become a mechanism by which the Democratic minority in the Senate has frustrated judicial nominations in an unprecedented manner, because they realize those nominees would command a simple majority if allowed to proceed to an up/down vote on the floor. However, the maneuver is only possible because of Senate rules, and is not required by the relevant portion of the Constitution, which states:

[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

Nope, nothing there that requires a filibuster-proof majority to confirm judges.

One can understand that the Chron editorial idealists aren't too happy with the ideological inclinations of an electorate that has chosen Republican control of the Presidency, House, and Senate, but sometimes democratic republicanism results in outcomes that don't please everyone.

Republicans may well decide not to exercise the Constitutional Option. Still, the best way for the minority party to ensure that Republicans don't exercise the Constitutional Option is not editorial whining or relying on the whims of Susan Collins, but beating the Republicans in elections.

UPDATE: The New York Times weighs in against the Constitutional Option, while admitting they supported nearly full obliteration of the filibuster when it was used to delay the Clinton Administration's agenda. They also admit -- honestly -- that "the filibuster has not traditionally been used to stop judicial confirmations...."

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/28/05 09:46 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (3)

A perplexing correction from the Chron

The Chronicle ran a confusing correction today:

An article on page A12 of Sunday's Chronicle inaccurately described President Bush's explanation of Mexican Independence Day. In a television interview, the president said the day is celebrated on "Dieciseis de Septiembre" and added in English that the date is Sept. 15. The holiday is celebrated on Sept. 16.

In the original article, Julie Mason of the Chronicle's Washington bureau wrote:

A bit of a Spanish flourish is typical of Bush, even if it sometimes goes awry.

He once famously informed Chris Matthews on Hardball that Mexican Independence Day is "el Dieciseis de Septiembre," or Sept. 16. In truth, the date is Sept. 15, but he gave it a shot.

Here's a bit of information that is readily available from Wikipedia on Mexican Independence Day:

Dieciséis de septiembre commemorates Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla's Grito de Dolores — "cry of Dolores"; "Dolores" also means "sorrow", and it comes from the Virgin of Dolores, the village's patron — on September 16, 1810, in the village of Dolores, near Guanajuato. Hidalgo called for the end of Spanish rule in Mexico. On September 16, 1825, the Republic of Mexico officially declared Dieciséis de septiembre its national Independence Day.

[snip]

Contrary to popular wisdom (particularly as manifested in the United States), Cinco de mayo is not the most important national holiday in Mexico. That distinction is reserved for Dieciséis de septiembre, which is celebrated from the eve of September 15 with a re-creation of the Grito de Dolores by all executive office-holders (from the President of the Republic down to municipal mayors) and lasts through the night. In contrast, Cinco de mayo is observed as a notable date, but it is not considered more or less important than the other holidays excepting Dieciséis de septiembre

So, President Bush was actually right to suggest that the celebration of Mexican Independence Day begins on September 15, even though the anniversary itself is September 16.

And the Chronicle correction taken with Mason's original prose doesn't especially enlighten the reader.

But why let facts get in the way of spreading the "President Bush is dumb but well meaning" meme, right?

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/28/05 09:14 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

MetroRail's service disruption inconvenienced Lucas Wall

Poor Lucas Wall was inconvenienced by Metro. It's really not wise to do that to the Chronicle's transportation guy, because then he doesn't write a happy column:

27 March 2005

When will the Chron version be posted?

The LA Times runs a piece today on House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R), and his family's decision in 1988 to refrain from extraordinary measures to keep his terminal father artificially alive.

The point of the story is so obvious that it will be shocking if the Chronicle doesn't run some version of it (likely a chopped version).

Orrin Judd dismisses some of the nastier insinuations of the story with his usual precision:

Even by its own abysmal standards the press has done a terrible job covering the issues surrounding the Schiavo case--there's a great difference between the question of whether it's morally necessary to initiate heroic measures to prolong life and whether it's morally permissible to withdraw simple sustenance from someone who isn't otherwise terminal.

One local editorialist is likely to express more concern for her leftovers.

So, any thoughts from readers on which day of the week the Chronicle posts a chopped version of this story?

UPDATE: The Chron posted the AP version this afternoon (the timestamp on their posting is 1:23 pm as of this update). That renders our little contest among commenters moot, but just to keep reader interest -- how long before the Chron editorial board follows up on the AP story by blasting their favorite bad guy?

UPDATE (03-29-2005): The Chron posted a slightly edited version of the original LA Times story, one day later.

Also, Just One Minute weighs in with It Doesn't Always Matter What The Facts Are.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/27/05 12:13 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (5)

Chief Hurtt: New Chron "good guy"

Today, the Chronicle runs a puff piece by Joe Stinebaker on police chief Harold Hurtt, a local "exorcist with a badge" (but until recently, no uniform).

The article celebrates council's decision to spend $5 million on tasers on the chief's recommendation (the graphical blurb says $4 million has been spent) and to install revenue-generating red-light cameras.

While the crime lab is mentioned in the article, no mention is made of the harsh criticism the chief has received for moving so slowly on the crime lab. Nor is there any mention of the criticism the chief has received for implementing a "productivity policy" that looks suspiciously like a ticket quota system. And the article does not mention one of the biggest problems facing HPD -- a worsening manpower shortage -- or give any indication of how the chief bureaucrat plans to deal with it.

As a puff piece, it fails in one major regard. We expected a big celebration of the chief finally being able to don the HPD uniform, roughly a year after taking the job! But no such celebration is offered by Stinebaker. We'll celebrate it again for him -- and call attention to his new grooming standards as well! These are exciting times at HPD.

Interestingly, the article refers to tasers as tools by which local law enforcement can overcome the chief's perception that HPD has an "excessive force" problem. That's an interesting concern in light of KTRK-13's current story of an off-duty officer (not identified as HPD, but not identified otherwise) using a taser to subdue two women in a dispute at a local bar. One supposes that's preferable to shooting the lady dead, but it seems that Hurtt's "excessive force" concerns might still need a little work.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/27/05 11:40 AM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (3)

Chron: Resurrection should comfort those upset by forced starvation

Just when I thought the Chronicle editorial board could no longer shock me with their offensiveness, here comes today's Easter editorial:

Schiavo's case is a tragedy that has sparked roiling debate and dueling accusations of indifference to life, severely impaired, and political cynicism. Some believe the contention of Schiavo's husband, Michael, that his wife did not wish to be kept alive by artificial means and that her wishes should be honored. Others argue whether withholding water and nutrition is tantamount to killing Schiavo or simply removing the impediment to the dying process that already is under way.

The horror of Schiavo's situation has prompted many people to discuss with family their wishes about end-of-life care and to make living wills.

The participants and observers in this conflict might find some solace, if not resolution, in the story of Jesus Christ's resurrection, which believers say took place more than 2,000 years ago. Easter, celebrated today at churches throughout the world, provides a comforting alternative perspective on when life ends.

It is stunning that on the most important Christian holy day, the editorial board would lecture us to find comfort in Schiavo's impending (forced starvation) death by reflecting on the Resurrection. The editors, of all people! These are the same people who told us last Christmas that Christianity is ruining peace and good will on Earth!

Contrast this idea that Michael Schiavo was "simply removing the impediment to the dying process that already is under way," with the editorial board's horror earlier this week over terrorists being tortured:

Earlier this month, the Pentagon reported that abuse by American troops had caused the deaths of at least four prisoners in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. More recently, Army and Navy officials acknowledged that homicide is suspected or had been confirmed in at least 26 prisoner deaths.

Goss did say during the congressional hearing that techniques employed "at this time" to squeeze information out of suspected terrorists are legally permissible. But that is cold comfort in light of reports that American troops and intelligence officers routinely, in the name of homeland security, cross the line that separates humane from inhumane treatment.

I have to wonder if starvation would now be a permissible technique for squeezing information out of suspected terrorists? If it's humane for Terri Schiavo, certainly it should be humane for terrorists, right?

The barbaric treatment of prisoners, whether in Iraq's notorious AbuGhraib prison or at the detention center for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, undermines the United States' stature in the world.

[snip]

The United States must do more than just politely demur on the subject of torture. If the president abhors torture, he should end the policy of kidnapping suspects and placing them in the custody of barbarous, tyrannical regimes. If the Republican leadership in Congress feels moral outrage at the abuses that have taken place at U.S. military outposts, Congress should investigate and then outlaw the practice.

Unbelievable.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/27/05 07:58 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (6)

26 March 2005

Ask President Bush and God to fix MetroRail's crash problem

Here's quite a column from the Springfield (MO) News-Leader:

And then there's Houston. A year and a half ago, Houston put in the first segment of a projected light rail system, 7.5 miles of it. In the first eight months, they had 40 collisions between trains and cars. Forty.

Sacramento, on a similarly situated line, suffered only four car-train collisions during a like period.

But are people in Houston taking a hard look at their driving habits? No. They're blaming the trains.

"Are you from America?" yelled a Houston driver at a reporter. "I'm from America, 49 years. Here, you're taught as a kid that flashing lights, arms come down --trains coming."

The truth is, Houstonians are terrible drivers. They have an accident rate nearly twice the national average.

"It's the general perception," said the chief executive of Houston's Metro. "People in the street, elected officials. They say, 'What's wrong with Metro? Why is it blaming these motorists?' As if it's a God-given right in Houston to run red lights."

We should ask President Bush. He's been to Houston and he has chats with God often.

The author, Donald Kaul, is the former Washington columnist for the Des Moines Register, according to the byline.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/26/05 10:18 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (10)

Another poll story to dismiss -- if we can even figure it out

The Chronicle has a poorly edited Knight Ridder Tribune News service story about President Bush's latest poll numbers. It's poorly edited because there are two polls mentioned -- Gallup and CBS News -- but no clue as to which results belong to what poll. It's a very strange piece.

Perhaps we should attribute it to Friday night on a holiday weekend. Who knows, but it appears to be a chopped-up piece, and someone at the Chronicle made the decision to run it.

We can go to USA Today and see first hand that the Gallup poll has suspect numbers:

The poll also found an increased number of Democrats. In this survey, 37% said they were Democrats and 32% said they were Republicans. Last week, 32% said they were Democrats and 35% said they were Republicans.

So, last week's poll surveyed 32% Democrats to 35% Republicans and this week the numbers are 37% Democrats to 32% Republicans. You don't think that could have contributed to the president's "drop" in numbers? What does this say about the previous week's numbers? This is why polling has shown time and again to be suspect.

I love this paragraph from the USA Today story:

The new poll found the largest drop for Bush came among men, self-described conservatives and churchgoers.

Well, duh! If one week Gallup is polling more Republicans than the next week and the number of Democrats polled shoots up, it stands to reason the new poll would show a drop in conservative supporters for President Bush.

Here is a Seattle Times story that appears to be a longer version of the Knight Ridder Tribune News service story the Chronicle used, although this story never mentions the CBS News poll. Did someone at the Chronicle just throw that reference in?

RELATED: CBS News poll

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/26/05 09:15 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

Ratcliffe mischaracterizes House republicans on term limits

The Chronicle's R.G. Ratcliffe includes this line in the latest speculation about whether Kay Bailey Hutchison will run for governor of Texas:

Term limits were a popular Republican campaign issue in 1994, serving as a centerpiece of Newt Gingrich's Contract with America. Term limits also were one of the first agenda items dropped by Republicans once they gained control of the U.S. House.

Does anybody check facts at the Chronicle?

Here is the relevant excerpt from the Contract with America:

Thereafter, within the first 100 days of the 104th Congress, we shall bring to the House Floor the following bills, each to be given full and open debate, each to be given a clear and fair vote and each to be immediately available this day for public inspection and scrutiny.

[snip]

10. THE CITIZEN LEGISLATURE ACT: A first-ever vote on term limits to replace career politicians with citizen legislators....

Here is the roll call vote on House Joint Resolution 73, a proposed constitutional amendment to limits terms of Senators and Representatives. The joint resolution actually received a plurality in favor (227 to 204), but failed because a proposed constitutional amendment requires a 2/3 vote in favor to pass.

The resolution did NOT fail because, as Ratcliffe erroneously asserts, Republicans dropped it as an agenda item. Rather, it failed because Republicans were not able to bring enough Democrats on board to secure a 2/3 majority. However, as with other key elements of the Contract with America, Republicans did bring the matter to a roll call vote on the floor of the House, as promised.

Whatever Ratcliffe's intent, the effect of this erroneous characterization in a "news" article is to paint Republicans as hypocrites -- a view certainly consonant with recent Chronicle editorializing, but not consistent with facts.

UPDATE: I should add that this is not information that is hard to find. Google is very useful, but most everything a person would need is in the Wikipedia entry on the Contract with America.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/26/05 09:08 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (4)

25 March 2005

Food and drink roundup (03-25-2005 edition)

Houston's food and drink reviewers get us ready for this Easter weekend.

Robb Walsh turns in a classic Walsh review, visiting Segari's on Shepherd (really!) this week.

Alison Cook visits Sugar Land's Cupcake Cafe, which she thinks would be right at home in Montrose.

Dai Huynh reviews Polonia, "Houston's hub of Polish cuisine."

Finally, Joey Guerra checks out Club Ice & Mantra Lounge.

Happy eating and drinking!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/25/05 11:27 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)

Houston's lobbying team isn't wowing Austin

Kristen Mack has a story today about the efforts of Houston's lobbying team:

With the session half over and the bill-filing deadline long passed, White and his new in-house lobby team are struggling to get the city's priorities passed, legislators say.

"Under this new administration, so far the city has limped a little bit at the beginning of the session, in understanding how Austin works and traversing that system," said Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston.

Rep. Gary Elkins, R-Houston, said he was optimistic early on that the city would keep the delegation informed, but that has not materialized.

"I don't know what their priorities are," Elkins said. "Their lobbying team has not informed us of what the issues are."

It's interesting to contrast this with a column Mack wrote back in January, where she reported that the city had retained the services of a 13-member lobbying team for $520,000 +:

Mayor Bill White's administration says it saved money, since lobbying teams in the past have had as many as 18 members and cost $1 million. The 2003 contract was for $840,000.

Whether it's a bargain, though, will depend upon the team's effectiveness in pushing the mayor's agenda, and that could be trying.

Time will soon tell us how that bargain worked out:

Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, said most city issues have not resonated beyond the committee level yet. "April and May will be bigger months for the city," he said.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/25/05 03:04 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (1)

Houston gets nearly $3 million to ease traffic congestion

Mayor Bill White and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay have secured almost $3 million for "traffic management projects" in Houston:

Nearly $3 million is headed this way for traffic management projects on US 59 and the Katy Freeway. Mayor Bill White and Congressman Tom Delay worked to secure these funds to help ease congestion and ensure increased safety on Houston's busiest highways.

One part of the Freeway Incident Management Program will include cameras on roving helicopters that will quickly respond to traffic scenes. That will help ensure the proper emergency vehicles respond to scenes in as quickly as possible.

[snip]

The US Department of Transportation has announced it will release $1.9 million of the nearly $3 million that will fund the first phase of the project, which targets the I-10 West Katy Freeway from downtown to the Grand Parkway and US 59 from downtown out to Highway 6. The program will also focus on major thoroughfares and access points along these corridors. These targeted areas experience approximately 5,500 freeway incidents annually.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/25/05 01:38 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (6)

Guess what? Metro's proposed rail lines have been approved

Remember the Chronicle's outrage that Rep. Culberson and Rep. DeLay messed up Metro's funding:

The voters have spoken. Houston needs mobility improvements that include an expanded rail transit component as well as one of the nation's better bus systems. The next time Metro and the majority of voters in its service area say "Jump," their representatives in Congress should ask, "How high?"

A funny little thing popped up in Houston's Daily Information Source today:

A U.S. agency notified Congress on Thursday that it will approve the next two segments of Houston's MetroRail system and recommend their eligibility for federal funding.

Just as Rep. Culberson tried to explain to the Chronicle, Metro's funding would be approved as soon as its faulty application was fixed, resubmitted and reviewed. He inserted language in the appropriation bill specifically assuring that would happen.

Here's Lucas Wall's context paragraph, in today's story:

Metro submitted its two projects for federal review in August, hoping to obtain a recommendation by February, when the FTA makes its annual report to Congress. The MetroRail lines were not rated in that report last month, however, and the federal agency said at the time it was still reviewing the application.

He writes very nonchalantly and dispassionately this time, as opposed to his fit of pique a few weeks back:

Language that would have sped up Metro 's light rail expansion got stripped out of a massive appropriations bill in the last Congress, prompting a debate about whether two Houston congressmen are still blocking the city's rail plan.

[snip]

"It's an affront to the citizens of Houston," said Ed Wulfe, chairman of the Main Street Coalition, who has promoted development along the 7 1/2-mile light rail line that opened last year. "Somebody is putting their personal agenda ahead of what the people want."

What's an affront to the citizens of Houston is that we have a newspaper and a transit agency that are so woefully inept and out-of-touch. Metro is supposed to serve the citizens of Houston, but appears much more interested in sacrificing all at the altar of light rail. And the Chronicle -- please. It has done more to cover up Metro's shortcomings than any other media outlet in town. It's disgraceful.

There is some funding information in this story that is interesting. Metro needs $60 million for preliminary engineering costs, and it wants the feds to cover the whole amount. Here we go again!

Congress typically offers only minimal funding assistance for preliminary engineering. Metro estimates that work will cost $60 million and is asking Congress this year to fund all of that.

Houston will be competing with at least 25 other cities that also have projects in preliminary engineering this year. The FTA has recommended Congress appropriate $122 million for all of these projects in the next fiscal year. If Metro only gets an average allocation, it can expect $5 million from Uncle Sam next year.

Wilson said Metro will make its case for the $60 million request, but could sell some bonds to pay for preliminary engineering if needed.

And here are the quotes of the day:

"This puts us on the map," said Metro President & CEO Frank Wilson. "This is an extremely important leap forward for us but it's not the end of the process by any means."

[snip]

Metro Chairman David Wolff said he's pleased the proposed rail segments have passed a rigorous review, showing they meet federal standards.

"It's a great positive step in the direction we want to go," he said. "It's an affirmation of our program and it's good to get that from an impartial federal source."

That's some serious chutzpah. So, let's review: Metro screwed up its original application; Rep. Culberson came to Metro's aid, in at least two very big ways; Metro responded by stabbing Rep. Culberson in the back, with the Chronicle's help; and now that the work Rep. Culberson did to help Metro has paid off, Metro takes credit for getting federal approval.

I think that pretty much sums it up.

RELATED: Laurence Simon is waiting for the Chronicle to apologize to Rep. Culberson. Hahahahaha! That's a good one. I would only add that Metro officials should also apologize to Rep. Culberson, but that's not going to happen either.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/25/05 11:30 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)

Old, outdated equipment to blame for 911 call center failures

The audit of Houston's troubled 911 call center has been completed and recommendations have been made. It appears the technical problems stem from old equipment:

The $53 million Houston Emergency Center, which has experienced 17 computer shutdowns since it started taking calls in September 2003, is more than 99.7 percent reliable, according to independent auditors.

MITRE Corp., hired by the city for $192,000, blamed most of the shutdowns on outdated equipment outside the HEC facility, located at 5320 N. Shepherd. Most of the problems have been fixed and are not are expected to occur again, while several are still being addressed.

[snip]

Dennis Storemski, director of the Mayor's Office of Public Safety and Homeland Security, said that Northrop Grumman, the Los Angeles-based contractor that provided the dispatching software wasn't at fault.

[snip]

The auditors made several recommendations that the city has already implemented, or plans to implement soon. They include:

•Establishing staff positions to manage some technical aspects of the dispatching system;
•Increasing maintenance and testing;
•Replacing old equipment and software;
•And developing better ways to ensure data is not lost.

On a KTRH news break yesterday, I heard a recommendation that the city should also consolidate and upgrade the emergency radio system used by Houston police and fire personnel. KHOU-11 covered the story of Houston's inadequate emergency radio system in February, and at that time Mayor White said this:

"It's not a problem that's going to be solved in one day. It will be over a period of years," said Mayor Bill White.

Maybe now Houston's emergency system infrastructure will become a priority for city officials.

RELATED: Fixing HEC (blogHOUSTON), Can the Houston Emergency Center be fixed? (blogHOUSTON), Public safety priorities (blogHOUSTON)

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/25/05 08:45 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (4)

Smoking ban fever is spreading

Kemah is considering a smoking ban similar to the one Houston recently passed:

Mayor William King will present the ordinance to ban smoking in certain public places to the City Council Thursday.

The proposed ban is very similar to the ordinance recently adopted by the city of Houston.

"I personally would like to see a stronger restriction, but I think the other cities in the area follow Houston's lead on this issue. It is important that the restaurant owners do not have different rules in different jurisdictions and that no one can claim a competitive advantage from differing restrictions," King said in a news release.

That strikes me as a strange bit of reasoning.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/25/05 08:15 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (1)

Buying groceries online in Houston

While some notable dotcoms weren't able to make a go of online grocery shopping, there are still some internet options available to Houston grocery shoppers.

KTRK-13's Michael McGuff posts an interesting report on online grocery shopping here in town.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/25/05 12:01 AM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (1)

24 March 2005

Houston utilities in the news

KHOU-11 ran a couple of interesting stories involving Houston utilities this week.

Wendell Edwards reported yesterday that Reliant Energy would be turning off approximately 100 streetlights in the Mission Bend area over a billing dispute. That area has suffered through numerous home invasions and driveway robberies over the last year.

Also, Jeff McShan reported on a citizen's complaint about water billing practices by the city of Houston:

Public Works spokesperson Wes Johnson confirmed the rollover billing process. Pat Trahan, with the mayor's office, says the Public Works Department will be looking into the billing process, and there's a chance there will be some changes.

Changes or not, the billing process should be better explained.

If you buy water from the city of Houston, it might be worth checking your water meter against your bills from the city.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/24/05 11:55 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

What's a few billion here and there?

Today, the Chronicle posted the following lengthy correction to an editorial that appeared in yesterday's newspaper:

An editorial on Page B10 of Wednesday's City & State section said the state budget approved by the Texas Senate Finance Committee would allocate only $1.8 billion in additional dollars to public education. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said the Senate also intends to approve an additional $300 million to subsidize teachers health insurance and $400 million for textbooks. Also, $3.2 billion in fees and current taxes would be shifted from other agencies to education, and local taxpayers could elect to contribute as much as $1.1 billion to enrich local districts.

The editorial's main contention was that the plan allocated "too little money" to education and healthcare needs.

Perhaps the editorialists should have spent a little more time researching their numbers, and a little less time researching movies starring Walter Matthau.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/24/05 11:39 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)

Better late than never?

On March 21, the Chronicle's Mike Glenn reported that HPD is considering the use of reserve officers.

That same day, we commented that the move was, at best, an inadequate solution to HPD's manpower shortage.

Today, the Chronicle editorial board finally weighed in on this local issue, criticizing the potential use of reserve officers because of concerns over training. The editorial offers no suggestions for Mayor White and Council regarding their priorities (or lack thereof) for funding new HPD hiring.

One supposes incomplete and a little slow on local issues is better than never on the Chronicle editorial page. Perhaps the idealists were distracted by the death of Bobby Short.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/24/05 11:23 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)

Trying to figure out what White and Hurtt are really upset about

Mayor White and Chief Hurtt are upset that a federal drug enforcement program might see some cuts in funding:

Houston Mayor Bill White and Police Chief Harold Hurtt have vowed to fight President Bush's proposal to slash 60 percent of funding for a federal drug-enforcement program that has been more successful in Houston than in many other parts of the country.

The Houston Police Department receives about $3 million a year from the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, and the 16-county Houston region from Beaumont to Corpus Christi receives an additional $7 million a year.

HPD has been receiving $3 million from the HIDTA program. That's a big chunk of change!

I actually had to read the story a couple of times to grasp what is going on here, but the other side of the story (and the reporter, Ron Nissimov, did include both sides of the story) is that Houston will most likely NOT lose HIDTA funding, and there is a possibility that Houston will see an INCREASE in funding, with the proposed changes:

Federal officials have said the Houston area might receive more than $3 million in HIDTA funds because Bush wants to refocus the program on high-trafficking areas.

[snip]

Steve Katsurinis, a native Houstonian who is Walters' chief of staff, said Houston could end up getting more than $3 million even if the cuts are approved because of the proposed change in focus. He said unlike many other HIDTA programs, the Houston program has shown positive results.

That's right -- Houston could get MORE money. So what are Hurtt and White complaining about?

Oversight of the program would be taken away from local groups and given to the U.S. Department of Justice.

There you go: losing local control of HIDTA money is probably what this is all about.

Hurtt claimed that HPD would lose 14 "positions" from the proposed cuts, the sheriff's department would lose 15 positions, and Sam Houston State University would lose 12.

Stan Furce, director of the Houston HIDTA, said the 41 employees Hurtt cited are civilian analysts.

Furce, who is opposed to Bush's proposal, said funds allocated to the Houston HIDTA are typically used to pay overtime for task forces composed of federal and local law enforcement agents, and their vehicles.

Would the Department of Justice say that HIDTA money has to be used differently from how Houston is currently using it? That could be, and it would explain why Hurtt is so vehement in denouncing cuts that probably won't even happen, as far as Houston is concerned.

All we have to do is look at what has happened with Homeland Security funding to see why it can be a good idea to put some controls on federal money. We have seen plenty of stories of Homeland Security money being used by local governments in unique, and some might even say questionable, ways. The federal government has a right to say how federal funding is spent.

There is one more quote in the story that I found interesting:

"Most people are not as concerned about planes running into our buildings as somebody breaking into our houses," said White, citing Bush's emphasis on homeland security and claiming that many home burglaries are drug-related.

Instead of wasting energy fighting a proposal that may give Houston MORE federal money, maybe White could work on some full-time, permanent Houston police officers.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/24/05 04:20 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (8)

23 March 2005

Did Cragg Hines buy into a fake memo?

A couple of days ago, ABC News said it had obtained a memo of GOP talking points on Terri Schiavo. The memo explained the political benefits the Schiavo legislation would have for Republicans. Of course, the media and others were highly critical. Today, Cragg Hines uses the memo as part of an attack on Republicans in an op-ed column:

The political landscape of the last few days is littered with delicious contradictions, as liberal bloggers have relished pointing out.

Most interesting is a talking-points memo from the Senate side of the Capitol that spells it right out in stark electoral terms: "the pro-life base will be excited" and "this is a great political issue, this is a tough issue for Democrats."

It's nice to know that Hines reads blogs. Maybe he should expand his horizons and check out some conservative blogs as well. If he had, he might have learned that the memo's authenticity is in doubt, as shown by the Power Line guys, who have dissected and dismantled it, to the point that ABC News may now be backpedaling:

ABC News, the original source of the story on the alleged "GOP talking points" memo now appears to be backing off the story. Blogger Josh Clayborn has been talking to ABC representatives, both on and off the record, and they are now telling him that they never meant to imply that the "talking points" memo originated with the Republicans--only that it was given to some Republican Senators.

[snip]

ABC's current position, as reported by Josh, makes little sense, as their coverage certainly did say that this was a Republican memo. (ABC's website described the memo as containing "GOP talking points.") But the fact that they are now backing off suggests that in reality, they have no idea where the memo came from.

Doubts are starting to appear in other quarters, as well. Just a little while ago, the memo's authenticity was discussed on MSNBC[...]

But it gets better. Earlier today Power Line noticed Hines' column:

ABC News and the Washington Post have described--but not actually produced--a memorandum relating to the Terri Schiavo case which they have described as "GOP talking points" that were "distributed only to Republican Senators." Many other news outlets have picked up on ABC's and the Post's reporting, such as this Houston Chronicle article, which relies in part on the memo to support a bitter attack on the Republican Party[...]

I wonder if this op-ed has the "elegance, wit and insight" one would expect from an editorial page in its ideal state?

I did email Hines today, asking if he was aware of the controversy surrounding the memo, and if he had seen the actual memo. I have not heard back from him, but if I do, I'll be sure to post an update.

(Power Line's other posts on the suspect memo are here, here, and here.)

UPDATE (03-24-2005): No, I don't have a reply from Hines. But Power Line has an email from an ABC "source."

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/23/05 09:49 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)

A LiveJournal entry in an ideal state?

It's understandable that a New York newspaper might post a note on the passing of Bobby Short on its editorial page.

It's less clear why the interim editorial page editor of the Houston Chronicle felt the need to reminisce about the fine time he and his brother had listening to Short in New York, effectively treating the editorial page with which he's entrusted as his own personal LiveJournal.

No disrespect is intended to Short, but the column just seems out of place (though perhaps less so than Andrea Georgsson's past adventures with leftovers). Perhaps our readers can explain it to me in the comments.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/23/05 08:29 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (7)

Chron hard news: Illegal aliens want to become legal

Today's Chronicle runs a story by Zeke Minaya on protests by immigrants in favor of immigration "reform" that concludes as follows:

For Gladys Chibez, a 54-year-old housecleaner from Houston who was at the rally, change cannot come soon enough.

She crossed illegally into the United States through McAllen in 1989.

"I came here like so many other people," she said, "I came in the dark." During her time in the United States, Chibez was absent for the death of her parents and missed the birth of her grandchildren back in El Salvador, she said. Chibez did not dare return home because of the fear that she would not be allowed to re-enter the United States, she said.

If repatriated in El Salvador, Chibez would have doomed her family to crushing poverty without the dollars from her American wages, she said.

"The United States country is a country of opportunity," she said. "And I live with the hope that one day I will be allowed to become a part of it."

Certainly, Miss Chibez's vision of America as a "country of opportunity" is laudable. However, the fact is that she is in this country illegally. While the Chronicle writer may well sympathize with the woman because she missed the death of her parents and birth of her grandchildren, the fact that she is an illegal alien is not trumped by the touching anecdote.

Immigration reform may well be smart policy, but we wouldn't especially know one way or the other from this story.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/23/05 08:13 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)

The end of the downtown trolleys, Lucas Wall-style

Today, Lucas Wall tackles the subject of Metro cutting downtown trolley service and some "low-performing" bus routes, and the result is (unintentionally) humorous. Just remember, these Metro officials are highly paid professionals who REALLY know what they are doing; and Wall is the Chronicle's resident transportation expert:

Death of the trolleys is not a surprise. The Metropolitan Transit Authority placed them on probation last fall because of poor ridership. It gave the trolleys, and other low-performing bus routes, six months to increase ridership or face the chopping block.

We're glad it's not a surprise to Wall. But maybe it's a surprise to the people who used to depend on it -- you know, back when it had thousands of daily riders, before the trolley service was "improved":

Ridership has steadily dropped since reaching a peak of 10,384 average weekday boardings in August 2001. After getting down to half that number — 5,011 riders per day in May 2004 — Metro reconfigured six trolley routes into three and designed them to tie into the Main Street light rail line. That move resulted in an immediate drop of 2,000 riders per day, according to statistics from the authority.

Metro proposed killing trolley service last fall but agreed to instead reduce the hours of operation and implement a 50-cent fare to help recover some of the operating costs. Once the free service ended, ridership plummeted almost 90 percent. Last month, an average of only 302 people rode the trolleys each weekday.

"Their performance is worse than ever," Wilson said. "The fare had such a negative impact on ridership, the revenue return was insignificant."

THAT is an amazing quote. How much is he paid for expertise like that? You know, it's almost like Metro didn't want the trolleys to succeed:

Wilson said trolley service began in October 1998 to help relieve congestion caused by the Downtown/Midtown Transit Streets Project, Metro's massive effort to rebuild 14 streets in the city center. That project is down to the final two segments, Smith and Travis downtown, and is expected to be completed by fall.

"The reason why the trolleys were there is going away in a matter of months," Wilson said.

"You can look at it as we jumped the gun a couple months. But we just made a business decision on how to allocate our resources."

Metro has to juggle a declining ridership problem, a hefty debt, and save some money to fund expansion of rail lines, all at the same time. No doubt that's where Metro will allocate its resources, at the expense of "low-performing" bus routes, Park and Rides and the downtown trolleys.

(How long will the public stand for Metro's questionable decision-making, and how long will local media continue to (mostly) cover for the unaccountable government entity?)

As for Laurence Simon's forum question:

Are there still going to be trolleys from the rail stops to Minutemaid on game days, or will people have to walk all those blocks and back? What about Toyota Center, too?

Wall's story doesn't address this. But then again, Wall isn't generally known for asking probing questions of Metro officials. His curiosity is definitely lacking!

RELATED: Metro cuts bus routes and downtown trolleys (blogHOUSTON)

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/23/05 09:16 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)

22 March 2005

Chron: Schiavo GOP advocates are hypocritical, cynical, power-hungry

Readers here are probably sick to death of our comments on the Schiavo affair, even though we've tried to keep those comments within the context of local media, political, and medical issues.

Still, it's difficult to refrain from comment when the local newspaper treats the matter in that condescending, partisan, one-sided manner that so frequently drives us to distraction.

Vonage's 911 service and journalistic responsibility

Texas is suing Vonage, the internet-based phone company, saying the company doesn't make clear that its 911 service is a separate offering:

Abbott said information about the type of emergency service Vonage offers is found only in the fine print on the Web site.

But Vonage disputes that:

Vonage spokeswoman Brooke Schulz said customers are informed of the separate activation on two pages on the Internet registration form. She also said that e-mail notifications are sent to customers who fail to activate the emergency service.

At this point, Laurence Simon asks a great question:

Why didn't the Associated Press reporter just roll up their sleeves, sign up for the service, and post a few screen shots? I hear that there's a "Print Screen" key on the keyboard for that kind of thing.

[snip]

Where's the curiosity? Where's the thirst for knowledge? Doesn't the reporter want to know one way or the other which is right? Especially when you consider that SOMEONE COULD DIE if it's done wrong?

He goes on a fine tear, and it's well worth reading.

This apparent lack of curiosity within the ranks of professional journalists today is strange. After all, journalists like to tell us THEY are the professionals. THIS is what they are trained to do.

Of course, what we have seen lately, in some instances, is bloggers filling this role -- getting curious, digging deeper -- and providing more details than professional journalists seem to be interested in providing.

RELATED: Vonage VoIP and personal responsibility (blogHOUSTON)

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/22/05 08:08 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

Metro cuts bus routes and downtown trolleys

Metro has finalized some "service improvements":

Effective Monday, April 4, METRO will discontinue three Local bus routes and the two Downtown Trolley routes due to low performance. These routes were given six months' probation last fall, with the understanding that unless ridership on the routes improved during the probationary period, they would face discontinuation.

The ridership goals on the routes have not been met during the past six months, so the following routes will be discontinued on April 4: 35 Leeland, 41 Gulf Meadows Circulator, 89 South Park Circulator, St. Joseph/Preston Trolley and the Main Street Square Trolley. However, the Fairview portion of the 35 Fairview/Leeland route will be retained at this time.

Two other routes that were on six months' probation - the 54 Aldine-Hollyvale and 64 Lincoln City Circulator - will not be discontinued April 4 as originally proposed. However, the routes will be reconfigured in an effort to improve their operational efficiency while maintaining service to community service centers such as hospitals and clinics.

It appears a little publicity helped save route 64, although it is being reconfigured. I hope someone follows up (hint, KHOU-11) to see if the reconfiguration is unduly burdensome for riders.

Also, cutting back the hours of the downtown trolleys and adding a fare for the first time didn't increase ridership (go figure!), so the trolleys are history.

I wonder how Metro is doing with its Metro Solutions goals?

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/22/05 04:06 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (6)

A Houstonian gives back to his community

I need a feel-good story today. Desperately. KHOU-11 provides one:

Every year Victor Washington's company, Washington & Sons Air Conditioning and Heating, gives away dozens of window units and installs several furnaces, all free of charge.

When Washington knocks at the door, people in this community know help has arrived.

"This is the new furnace we actually installed," Washington explained at the home of someone he helped. "The previous one that we pulled out of here was extremely dangerous."

For the past seven years, Washington has been providing heating and cooling services to people who can't afford to pay for them.

"I bought back when we bought this house, back in '65. They came up and inspected it. They red-tagged it and told me 'don't turn it on anymore', so I didn't turn it on," said homeowner Eartha Rawlins.

"He's a senior citizen on a fixed income. It's just not safe for him going out and buying a space heater," said Washington.

A nearby child development center had both of its window units stolen last summer. Washington didn't wait for them to call -- he called them and offered his services.

"It was right in the middle of the summer so we were very grateful. The kids were grateful," said Angela Garica with the YMCA Preschool Child Development Center.

"You know, it's not all about the money sometimes. You must realize that you must be able to give back to the community," said Washington.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/22/05 03:41 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

21 March 2005

Houston gets world class DMN treatment

The Pegasus crew calls our attention to the weekend travel section of the Dallas Morning News, which featured a story on our own light rail train, a story on Houston museums and their architects, and a very exciting Pocket Guide to Houston by rail (pdf file).

One can just imagine Lee Brown filing a copy of this Dallas Morning News issue on the "World Class" shelf of the Endowed Dumpster.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/21/05 10:40 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)

Is KTRK spinning news ratings?

Various sources have noted the KHOU-11 news team's recent ratings victories.

Recently, a reader asked the Chronicle's Ken Hoffman why KTRK-13 keeps saying it's still tops:

Q: About two weeks ago I read a piece in the Chronicle which said Channel 11 news had swept the No. 1 news slots in virtually all time periods for the first time in at least a decade This morning, while watching Channel 13's local news blurb during Good Morning, America , Channel 13 ran an ad proclaiming itself numero uno in ALL local news time slots. Is this a case of Enron-style accounting, are Channels 11 and 13 using different sets of statistics, or did someone forget to tell Channel 13 they're no longer top dog in town? What gives?

Kurt V. Rich, Houston

A: What gives is called "spin." Every station is No. 1 in some sort of demographic or time slot. For example, Channel 39 News, which has a struggling rating, can still say "We're the fastest growing news in Houston!"

If indeed KTRK is still claiming it's tops in every news slot, that would seem to be some kind of spin.

UPDATE (03-22-2005): Laurence Simon chimes in with "Houston's News Liar."

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/21/05 10:24 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (1)

Feeling our way through the end of life

In what has turned out to be an increasingly popular post in light of recent events, we criticized a recent Houston Chronicle editorial for what seemed like a callously indifferent regard for innocent (albeit impaired) life.

In that editorial, the Chronicle trumpeted a Texas law in which hospitals may decide to terminate care of certain patients without regard to the wishes of relatives:

Texas law is considered among the most progressive in the nation and was designed to keep such cases out of court. It requires a hospital's ethics committee to approve a doctor's recommendations to remove life support if the patient's family or guardian disagrees. If the committee concurs, the hospital must wait 10 days before shutting off support in order to give the family time to seek an alternative institution willing to provide such care. The latest Texas cases occurred when no institution could be found to take over care of the patients.

This is touted by the same newspaper that gives us the Chron Eye for the Death Row Killer Guy as equitable, humane, and -- yes -- progressive.

Today, environmental writer Dina Cappiello weighs in to tell us this Texas law wouldn't "help" in the Terri Schiavo case. That's readily apparent, since the Schiavo case revolves around two parties competing to decide her care (with one working to terminate care) and courts trying to divine her intent without the benefit of a written directive, while the two Texas cases revolve around hospitals making decisions to terminate care against the wishes of family. Indeed, Cappiello later admits the law itself didn't actually help in the case of one Spiro Nikolouzos:

Nikolouzos' brain damage, on the other hand, is so severe he cannot breathe on his own or move, according to Dr. David Pate, St. Luke's chief medical officer. Over his wife's objections, the hospital's ethics committee decided to remove his breathing tube, setting in motion the 10-day period in which his family could move him to another hospital under the 1999 law.

A judge extended that period as the family tried to find another facility.

His wife ultimately did find another facility willing to take him on, but the law strictly interpreted didn't help him -- rather, a compassionate judge who had doubts about terminating the man after ten days granted enough extra time for the man's family to have him treated as they desired.

There's been some back and forth on various blogs as to whether the Schiavo affair merited federal intervention, especially given the existence of this Texas law signed by then-Governor Bush in 1999, and whether some parties are being hypocritical. Readers are welcome check out this blog post, to follow the links, and draw their own conclusions on that.

We've been consistent (since March 8) in our criticism of that original Chronicle editorial for the seeming ease with which the editors advocate state sanction for the termination of innocent life based on the judgment of "experts." When I was an undergraduate in Missouri, the "right to die" issue presented itself forcefully in the case of Nancy Cruzan. It's only 15 years later, and unsurprisingly we're still feeling our way through the legal and ethical issues involved in deciding about the end of life. In my mind, this Texas law does need to be revisited, in order more properly to balance the rights and desires of family members against medical corporations, and as Anne put it previously, to err on the side of innocent life.

UPDATE (03-22-2005): The Chronicle editorial linked above has vanished (despite working last night), and the newspaper does not archive its editorials. Fortunately, the google cache still has it (and my furl archive if that stops working).

UPDATE 2 (03-22-2005): Apparently, editorials are now archived, and are accessible if you have access to the archives. The google cache works as well.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/21/05 10:08 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (11)

Jackson-Lee always finds the press

KTRH-740 news just ran a blurb that included comments from Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (D) that suggested that she supported the Terri Schiavo legislation passed by the House early this morning.

That's all well and good, but Sheila Jackson-Lee did not vote one way or the other on the legislation.

However, Democrat Al Green of Houston did vote in favor of the legislation that was blasted through the House by the Republican leadership. If KTRH wanted to talk to a local Democrat who crossed party lines to support this legislation, perhaps the reporter should have talked to one who actually voted for it.

Then again, Representative Green's press secretary told me they didn't have a statement as to why he voted for the legislation before she hung up on me, so perhaps the same thing happened to the KTRH reporter.

Other local Congressmen who voted in favor of the legislation include Tom DeLay (R), John Culberson (R), and Ted Poe (R). The recorded vote is located here.

UPDATE (03-22-2005): The Chronicle gets around to covering how the Texas delegation voted in today's edition. Sheila Jackson-Lee says she would have supported the measure, and then complains about the scheduling of the vote. Never mind that a woman's feeding tube was removed, and any delay of the vote would have just moved the woman closer to death -- we wouldn't want to inconvenience Sheila Jackson-Lee. The Chron reporter did find out that Al Green was doing his laundry when summoned back to Washington, and even manages to get a quote from him.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/21/05 03:33 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (6)

Florida State dean is new UH provost

UH has chosen a new provost:

After more than a year of searching, UH has found a new provost: Donald J. Foss, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Florida State University.

University President Jay Gogue announced the selection Thursday, and Foss said he is eager to begin working with the UH community.

"I plan to help to move UH into flagship (research) status as quickly as possible," Foss said. "I think what I'll do first is meet with key leaders on campus and get a sense of what their concerns are."

He was one of three candidates a UH System search committee identified after a national search. As provost for UH and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs for the System, Foss will oversee all academic affairs on campus and coordinate academic programs with the provosts of the other three System universities.

Foss said he was drawn to UH because of its commitment to become a flagship research institution.

[snip]

Foss, a native of Minneapolis, Minn., holds a doctorate in experimental psychology with a minor in child development from the University of Minnesota. Before becoming a dean at FSU, he was a professor and chairman of the psychology department at The University of Texas at Austin for 12 years.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/21/05 11:54 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

HPD wants to use unpaid, reserve officers to fill the gaps

Here's an eye-opening story in the Chronicle:

Reserve officers — part-timers who work without pay but have full arrest powers — could return to the ranks at the Houston Police Department under a plan senior department officials are evaluating.

THIS is how HPD is going to address its manpower shortage, with part-time officers who aren't paid but have full powers to arrest?!

Officials want to know if adding reserve officers could help address the department's manpower troubles, including the effects of having large numbers of officers retiring at once.

"We have definitely talked about it," Chief Harold Hurtt said recently. "I had some of my staff research the required training for reserve officers, (but) we have not made a decision."

Thankfully, not everyone thinks it's a good idea:

Any plan that uses reserves would require approval from city leaders and, perhaps more challenging, from the Houston Police Officers' Union.

"We're absolutely against reserves," said Mark Clark, the union's executive director and an HPD officer for more than 20 years. "I don't think anybody inside the department would be in favor of that."

And what would be the benefit of using reserves?

Some agencies see reserve programs as a way to cut expenses. Officials with the Harris County Sheriff's Department said the agency saves about $2 million a year.

"They are a tremendous asset," Sheriff Tommy Thomas said. "They are supplementing our manpower. There's no question about that."

Hurtt didn't know what kind of financial benefits the department could reap if reserves are brought on board. An initial cost for training and providing weapons and equipment for the part-time officers is expected, he added.

I seriously doubt that Hurtt doesn't know what kind of financial benefits HPD would see by using reserves, since the story points out that Phoenix, where Hurtt was chief, has used reserves before. Hurtt also says there is an initial cost to train and equip the part-time officers. Why not use that money to actually work on some permanent, full-time officers?

Houston officials need to stop viewing HPD in terms of revenue. It is not the mission of HPD to be a revenue generator or a revenue saver. We have HPD babysitting SAFEclear, pushing for red light cameras and even speed radar cameras, and now wanting to use reserves to avoid dealing with a shortage of police officers and save some money at the same time. How long would Chief Hurtt like to use reserve officers to fill the gaps? Will HPD EVER deal with its manpower shortage?

KEVIN WHITED ADDS: Let me take a glib stab at Anne's last question -- HPD will deal with the manpower shortage once it becomes so acute that the Mayor and his Council are held accountable by citizens who are irate by skyrocketing crime. We aren't quite to that point just yet, but since Mayor White and the current council seem unwilling to tackle this problem head on (because it involves spending money, and they seem to have other priorities), we will reach that point.

Sadly, it will probably come after this current crew is gone, and after Mayor White has successfully run for his next office. Then, our local newspaper will probably be wondering why he didn't tackle HPD's manpower issues when he was mayor! Citizens and taxpayers, as usual, will have to deal with the problem (just like we are now dealing with various problems left over from Mayor Brown's administration).

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/21/05 10:46 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (2)

Metro has an executive shake-up

A new face has joined Metro's leadership:

David Feeley joined Metro's executive staff March 9. The 62-year-old, who recently returned from working in Iraq and was planning to sail across the Atlantic Ocean before being lured to Houston, brings decades of experience in transit maintenance, operations, labor relations, engineering and expansion planning. He'll oversee Metro's largest department with about 2,900 employees, including bus and rail operators and mechanics.

Feeley is replacing Jeff Arndt, who apparently was asked to move along, oh excuse me, find some new opportunities:

The sudden departure of Arndt took many transit authority employees by surprise when they received a March 8 memo from Wilson stating, "Jeff and I had been discussing required changes at Metro, and he felt it was the right time for him to pursue new opportunities outside of Metro." A second memo went out the same day to Metro executives announcing Feeley had been hired and would start the next day.

"Required changes" sounds intriguing.

And what kind of experience does Feeley bring to his new role?

Most recently, Feeley worked in Iraq and London for DMJM and Harris, a transportation and engineering consulting firm that's part of AECOM Enterprises. Metro President and CEO Frank Wilson served as AECOM president before accepting the job here last year. Wilson and Feeley also worked together in Philadelphia and New York.

Feeley also brings experience from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Boston and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

That sounds impressive. I see MBTA's website lists a Customer Bill of Rights. One of the rights is "Your right to be heard":

We promise to make your issues count. Convenient and prominently located bus, train and station posters will get you the information you need to "Write to the Top." Top level management will respond to your concerns.

That would certainly be an improvement over Laurence Simon's experience with Metro's hotline.

So, what will Feeley being doing first?

His first task is to submit recommendations for operational changes to Wilson within 90 days. Riders can expect more elimination of lightly used bus routes.

"The service we have out there, we want to be first rate and to satisfy demand," Feeley said. "Service that doesn't make any sense shouldn't be there."

What swell news for Acres Home residents. Oddly, cutting bus and trolley service does seem to be Metro's preferred method for increasing ridership and better serving Houston-area residents.

Which makes the headline to Lucas Wall's story humorous: "New Metro official wants to get people to where they want to go." That would be as long as people want to ride the 7.5 miles of MetroRail. If you need a bus, you could be out of luck.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/21/05 09:45 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (3)

20 March 2005

Carnival of the Cats is one year old!

We have covered the Carnival of the Cats before, when the New York Times and Time Magazine reported on it. The Carnival just happens to be organized by local blogger Laurence Simon. Well, today is the Carnival of the Cats' first anniversary, and it's going strong, filled with all kinds of purry, fluffy kitty wonders. (Check out Edloe in her tiara!)

I keep wondering when the Chronicle will do a little something (or a big something) on the Carnival of the Cats, since Houston's Daily Information Source doesn't have to travel far to get the story. Maybe if Laurence were to take some pictures of Edloe on MetroRail, or take Nardo on a tour to meet some death row killer guys -- you know, to show a convicted killer's softer side -- maybe then the Chronicle would write up a nice piece on the Carnival.

But regardless of that, blogHOUSTON sends along congratulations on one year of feline fun.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/20/05 09:16 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (2)

Correcting some errors in Jason Spencer's story

Yesterday I was dismissive of a Jason Spencer story about the lower TAKS test scores at some HISD schools. What Spencer led the reader to believe is that schools with lower scores are the same schools being investigated for TAKS cheating.

Since Spencer doesn't have the best track record of reporting on HISD lately, I wasn't going to take his word as gospel.

And as it turns out, there were some errors in the story. The AP has picked up the Chronicle's story and now it is running in numerous outlets (KTRK, KPRC, KHOU, DMN). HISD spokesman Terry Abbott sent an email to the AP noting a couple of errors with Spencer's story:

KPFT: The sound of fringe-left purity

Many of us who are Americana/Texas country music fans remember well KPFT-90.1's heyday in the late 1990s, when its "Sound of Texas" format made the station a big player on the Texas music scene, even as its fringe-left political programming was still represented prominently.

Several years ago, however, the fringe-left true believers forced out Garland Ganter (whom they thought dulled the station's mission with the music programming), de-emphasized the music programming that had brought mainstream listeners to the station, and swung harder towards fringe political programming.

Now, the Chronicle's Allan Turner reports that KPFT is experiencing declining listenership and donations:

Faced with a "stupendous drop" in listenership and a troubling inability to meet fund-raising goals, Houston's listener-supported KPFT-FM (90.1) — long an iconoclastic voice in a radio market dominated by corporate giants — is planning a series of programming and scheduling changes that could dramatically reshape its offerings.

"There's a possibility we could shake this whole thing up," General Manager Duane Bradley said this week. "I think that right now all programming considerations are on the table. I don't think we have any options that we're not willing to discuss."

Is anyone discussing bringing back Ganter or the music programming that would be even more appealing in the country music radio wasteland that is Houston at the moment? No, anything but that.

Turner quotes a UH professor (and sometime KPFT contributor) on KPFT's programming:

Despite the setbacks, University of Houston communications professor Fred Schiff argued that KPFT fills a vital role in the Houston radio world. No other station, he said, provides similar views on news issues or is so finely attuned to Houston culture. He predicted that the station is "on the cusp of gaining a whole new audience."

The ratings suggest that the station isn't particularly attuned to the interests of a broad group of Houstonians. Indeed, even the current program director suggests the station is most attuned to the interests of aging liberals:

Despite the Pacifica goal to engage young and ethnically diverse listeners, the typical KPFT fan is a 51-year-old, college-educated white male, Bradley said.

"This was a youth-oriented station that every young person in Houston knew about," Bradley said. "Asked about KPFT now, most kids don't know who we are. We have this generation gap. It's very disconcerting. It does not bode well for the future."

In the "Sound of Texas" days, the station did appeal to a broader listenership. But the true believers on the fringe left wanted ideological purity at the expense of attracting listeners with broader interests. They seem to have succeeded.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/20/05 03:27 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (2)

A little balance to the "peace" march

Yesterday, the Chronicle sent two reporters to cover Houston's Iraq war protest, which drew, we are told, 200 protesters. This is my favorite part:

The Houston Area Department of Peace held the "walking meditation" on the grounds of the Rothko Chapel, said organizer Kathy Kidd.

"Our walk was a way to honor all the victims of all wars," Kidd said.

"During a walking meditation, your feet barely touch the ground, in a slow walk that is a time to reflect on peace: peace in your own life and in the world," Kidd said.

There is a nationwide movement to create a federal Department of Peace, which would focus on world disarmament and domestic issues in the United States, Kidd said. The Houston group will participate in a nationwide campaign in May, in which members will bake apple pies for members of Congress in support of the new federal agency.

"Our slogan is, 'We want a piece of the pie,' " Kidd explained.

Okay.

For an alternate point of view, here's an Iraqi blogger who explains how he feels two years after the Iraq war began:

So you ask me, Husayn, was it worth it. What have you gotten? What has Iraq acheived? These are questions I get a lot.

[snip]

Now I answer you, I answer you on behalf of myself, and my countrymen. I dont care what your news tells you, what your television and newspapers say, this is how we feel. Despite all that has happened. Despite all the hurt, the pain, blood, sweat and tears. These two years have given us hope we never had.

Before March 20, 2003, we were in a dungeon. We did not see the light. Saddam Hussain was crushing Iraq's spirit slowly, we longed for his end, but knew we could not challenge him, or his diabolical seed who would no doubt follow him and continue his generation of hell on Earth.

Since then, we now have hope. Hope is not a tangible thing, but it is something, it is more than being blinded by darkness, by being stuck in a mental pit without any future.

Hope has been the greatest product of the last two years. No doubt, many have died, many have died by accident or due to crimes. But their sacrifices are not, and will not be for nothing. I refuse to let it be, and my countrymen stand with me.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/20/05 02:09 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)

Hello? Anyone home at Metro?

Laurence Simon had a little problem trying to call the hotline Metro lists on its signs:

Folks, I've never talked to a live human being on that number. Ever. I've waited for over 30 minutes at times and never gotten anyone. In face, as an experiment, I tried to call from my desk at work and left it on the hold tape for almost and hour and never gotten anyone.

You'd think with Metro's declining ridership problem, it would focus some resources on a customer hotline.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/20/05 12:26 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (4)

19 March 2005

Eckels abandons conservative principles on gas tax

There's an old phrase used by academics who study bureaucratic/organizational politics, "where you sit determines where you stand."

The phrase means that institutional pressures frequently shape the preferences and advocacy of policymakers, sometimes as much as or more than governing philosophy or ideology.

Lately, that phrase might just as well apply to self-described elected conservatives in Texas who talk a good game about limited government yet support expansion of government when it comes to their own pet projects.

The crew at KSEV-700/Lone Star Times/CLOUT has done an admirable job exposing pols who claim to be for limited government and for protecting taxpayers, yet refuse to support property tax appraisal caps because they love to have ever-increasing revenue while still being able to say "I won't raise your tax rates." They've even managed to get some local councils and mayors to reverse previous stands and go on the record in support of appraisal caps.

However, as a further sign that even the seemingly most conservative pols in Texas want tax revenues to grow much too easily, Harris County Judge Robert Eckels this week came out in favor of "indexing" the state's gas tax to inflation (in his case, a "construction index"). He argues that the gas tax hasn't kept pace with inflation, and therefore that road construction funding (and hence construction) has lagged. He further contends that gas tax funds shouldn't be diverted to other purposes.

While we agree with Judge Eckels that the gas tax should only be used to fund transportation, we're a little shocked that a notable conservative would urge passage of a taxing mechanism by which taxpayers are forced to hand over more and more of their money without politicians ever having to take a tough vote. Certainly, it makes life easier for politicians who want more money to spend on pet projects, but politicians who call themselves conservatives (like Eckels) and say they favor limited government should be focused on making it harder for politicians to spend the earnings of taxpayers, not easier.

We can understand that Eckels would like Harris County to receive more funding for road construction. So would we. But we don't support mechanisms that transfer ever increasing amounts of money to the state (whether by property tax appraisal creep or "indexing" of the gas tax) without a vote by our elected officials. Those decisions ought to be hard for elected officials, and the fact it is hard is reflected by the fact that while Eckels laments that the gas tax hasn't kept pace with inflation, he is unwilling to state in his column how much more Texans would be paying for each gallon of gasoline if the scheme he's advocating had been in place since 1991.

As someone who calls himself a conservative, Judge Eckels is wrong to support this mechanism, which isn't conservative at all. If the state really needs to raise more road construction revenues, then let our state leaders make the tough taxing and spending decisions for which they were elected.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/19/05 05:55 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (8)

Metro's "smart card" saga rolls on

I chuckled when I saw this Metro press release yesterday:

METRO recently made buying fare passes even more convenient with the launch of the Online RideStore, where patrons can purchase fare items using a credit card and receive the items via U.S. mail.

Items available for purchase include 30-Day and 365-Day Passes (costs vary based on the fare zone the items are being purchased for) and Stored Value Cards of various amounts.

[snip]

Patrons are reminded that Stored Value Cards still are not valid as proof of payment on METRORail

That pesky Stored Value Card (aka "smart card") sure has been giving Metro fits.

And in today's Chronicle we learn that the saga continues (we'll have to take a leap of faith and assume the story is accurate):

The transit agency sent San Diego-based Cubic Transportation Systems a letter of termination Friday, saying the company had defaulted on its contract obligations to produce a workable smart card fare system.

Cubic responded by asking state District Judge Bill Burke to bar Metro from ending the contract. Burke denied the request.

Instead, the parties agreed to meet March 28 with mediator Alvin Zimmerman, a former family district court judge and return to court April 4.

[snip]

Cubic general counsel Kenn Kopf said the company has "substantially fulfilled" its $8 million contract, which began in November 2002, and would complete it by Aug. 4, if allowed. He said Metro owes Cubic $4 million for the balance of its contract.

[snip]

The smart card system was to be fully operable by November 2003 when MetroRail trains were about to start running. Metro contends Cubic missed deadlines, including Dec. 1, 2004, to produce a working system.

Metro hired Cubic to upgrade the fareboxes on all its buses and integrate them into a system with the ticket vending machines at rail platforms and 250 retail outlets where tickets can be purchased. The goal was to offer riders a plastic card with an embedded computer chip that could store value and debit fares for buses and trains when waved over a sensor.

Wilson said tests of Cubic's system showed that fareboxes misread the cards 5 percent of the time. The system also is slow, not secure from hackers and lacks wireless data transmission, Metro says.

The whole thing would be funny if there wasn't so much taxpayer money involved.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/19/05 01:22 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)

Ho-hum: Chron runs another HISD-is-bad story

You'll have to pardon me for not getting too worked up over this Chronicle headline: Test scores fall sharply at scrutinized schools.

First, the story is by Jason Spencer. Second, it's in the Chronicle. Third, HISD superintendent Abe Saavedra has already offered strong reform ideas to improve HISD schools, and has taken steps to investigate and prevent cheating. Fourth, the Chronicle continues to run stories on a non-controversy, which undoubtedly makes Dr. Saavedra's efforts to bring change to HISD nearly impossible. Fifth, the TAKS test was harder this year.

Plus, we've seen the Chronicle hyperventilate before, only to find out later that the Chronicle wasn't giving us all available information; and when we DID get the rest of the information, it pretty much decimated the Chronicle's point.

When it comes to those entities -- and people -- that haven't attained the Chronicle's "most favored status" (like Metro has), I think the Chronicle has cried wolf too many times to be taken seriously. That's a big loss for Houston-area residents who only have one major newspaper to rely on.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/19/05 09:58 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

18 March 2005

Three HISD elementary schools achieve IB status

Three HISD elementary schools have been named International Baccalaureate (IB) schools:

HISD’s River Oaks, Roberts, and Twain Elementary Schools have been named International Baccalaureate (IB) schools, the first elementary schools in Texas to be granted the prestigious honor.

The HISD elementary schools beat out 3,000 others throughout the country to join the select group of 30 IB elementary schools in the U.S.

The IB program encourages students to inquire, which is important because it moves students beyond the educational norm of force-feeding students information. An inquiry-based program can form the basis of true learning (a classical education), which is generally described as a process of discovering, reasoning and then applying. Students learning how to critically think! What a concept!

The IB organization works with schools worldwide and offers a supplemental curriculum to teach children to become active, compassionate, and lifelong learners.

"The IB Primary Years Program encourages all children to wonder about the world,” said Joyce Dauber, principal of Mark Twain Elementary School. "Its inquiry-based approach teaches them to pursue their questions within the framework of the curriculum. At Mark Twain, we have formed a collaborative learning community that includes all students, teachers, and parents."

This IB authorization makes HISD one of only eight districts in North America to have an IB feeder pattern across grade levels. River Oaks, Roberts, and Twain Elementary Schools "feed" into Lanier and Pershing Middle Schools. Lanier is recognized as an IB school and Pershing is progressing towards IB authorization. Bellaire, Lamar, and Waltrip High Schools also offer IB programs.

The feeder program, with scaffolded grades, will be of tremendous benefit to HISD's students, since students in the IB program can now be taught early on to learn through inquiring. By the time the students get to high school, they should be able to do more and better with the IB curriculum. And generally speaking, IB programs produce high-performing graduates.

I have yet to see anything on this in the local media, which is truly a shame. HISD deserves a big pat-on-the-back for this achievement, and the community deserves to learn more about the IB program and what it can do for students.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/18/05 02:03 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (12)

Breakfast in the classroom restarted in some schools

HISD's breakfast in "breakfast in the classroom" program has been restarted at four schools:

Four Houston schools will resume serving breakfast to students in their classrooms, more than a month after state regulators found evidence that poor meal-counting procedures may have led HISD to overbill the government's free meals program for poor children.

Officials with the Texas Department of Agriculture are trying to determine whether the Houston Independent School District will have to repay any of the millions of federal dollars it receives annually through the state agency. Superintendent Abe Saavedra suspended the breakfast-in-the-classroom program at all 40 participating schools in February because of questions raised during the Agriculture Department's review of HISD's cafeterias, which are managed by Philadelphia-based Aramark.

At the time, Saavedra acknowledged the program lacked adequate counting procedures, and he told school administrators and cafeteria managers they would have to prove they had fixed the problems before they could serve students in classrooms again. So far, four schools — Rhoads, Stevenson, Frost and Field elementaries — have been approved to reinstate the program, and five more are in line.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/18/05 12:07 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

Covering Galveston's Social Security program

It's curious to us media watchers that the Chronicle expends so much energy chasing down "news" about House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R) knowing some people, when there is some real news in its own backyard that it continues to ignore: Galveston's model for how privatized Social Security can work.

I checked the Chronicle's archives (which is often an exercise in frustration) and the most current reference I found was a letter to the editor from last July that mentioned Galveston's Social Security example. Since the Chronicle's search feature is sometimes temperamental, I also searched Google news for any recent stories. There have been stories on Social Security in the Chronicle, but not relating to Galveston. (If the Chronicle HAS run a story run on this that I haven't found, please let me know.)

With that in mind, here are other media outlets who have helpfully picked up the slack:

On Texas' Coast, a Laboratory for Private Accounts (New York Times)

'Galveston plan' seen as model for private retirement accounts (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

Pensions and penury: the Galveston experiment prepares to go national (The Guardian)

And Matt Bramanti at Lone Star Times posted on USA Today's story, A model for Social Security reform: A case study already exists in Galveston County, Texas — and might offer some lessons for lawmakers in Washington.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/18/05 10:45 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (3)

The Toll Road Authority isn't making many friends

The Harris County Toll Road Authority -- of which I am no fan -- is continuing to generate controversy with its toll road plans:

The toll road authority is a massive operation, generating $298 million in tolls last year, but critics say plans to build more roads could destroy their neighborhoods.

The Fort Bend County toll road project will eventually extend to the corner of the 610 Loop in southwest Houston. Residents there are very upset.

"To bring this through our neighborhoods without letting us know, we had no way of knowing this," said resident Christine Levin.

Levin says the toll road construction is going to eat up local communities.

"Westbury, Willow Bend, Willow Meadows, Meyerland, and ultimately West U and Bellaire," said Levin.

But finally, it appears some organized opposition is beginning to gain a voice:

"We feel that a city like Houston should have a say about toll road projects happening within their city limits," said Polly Ledvina with the Citizens’ Transportation Coalition.

Ledvina says the toll road authority has too much eminent domain power, and is making decisions without public input.

"The public needs to know that right now, that Harris County Toll Road Authority can build a toll road without even telling them," said Ledvina. "No public meetings are required."

[snip]

Houston City Councilman Mark Goldberg says the toll road authority won't even deal with the city of Houston.

"It's very scary because they don't even have to coordinate with us," he said. "They've even refused to meet with us for a public meeting, and said basically they don't have to, and they're not going to."

And the best news, in my book at least, is this:

State Representative Martha Wong has filed two bills addressing the toll road authority's jurisdiction. One would mandate public hearings for a proposed toll road conversion.

"The toll road authority needs to give the public more information before they build a toll road. In some instances, the toll roads threaten to go right through neighborhoods," said Wong.

The Toll Road Authority needs to do more than give information -- it needs to be subject to the the same checks and balances as TXDoT; and cities and communities affected by HCTRA projects must be able to have a say in toll road projects. The HCTRA should not have the build-at-will power it currently enjoys.

As readers know, my interest in the HCTRA's ability to build toll roads whenever and wherever, began with the Grand Parkway segment scheduled to run through Spring where I live. State Sen. Jon Lindsay has pushed for the project to be fast-tracked and the HCTRA is now conducting a study to determine if it can take over the Grand Parkway project from TXDoT.

Also, in our forum recently, Connie pointed out that state Rep. Debbie Riddle has introduced a bill to change the makeup of regional mobility authorities. Charles Kuffner also recently commented on Riddle's bill, after I forwarded it to him.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/18/05 08:54 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)

17 March 2005

Food and drink roundup (03-17-2005 edition)

Houston's food and drink writers go for variety this week.

Robb Walsh writes that Thai Sticks is serving "some of the best modern Asia fare in Montrose."

Alison Cook reviews the Sushi King in the Upper Kirby area.

Gracie Ochoa visits Paparruchos Bar Parrilla Mexicana in the Galleria area.

Last but not least, Ken Hoffman checks in with a review of the Baskin Robbins Bold Breezes dessert drink.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/17/05 10:24 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (2)

Vagrant charged with manslaughter

KPRC-2 reports that a vagrant has been charged with manslaughter related to the death of a fireman:

A homeless crack addict who reportedly told authorities he accidentally started a fire in an abandoned house that killed a Houston firefighter was charged Thursday with manslaughter.

Prosecutors decided not to charge 44-year-old Jack Cordua with murder because the Feb. 19 death of Houston Fire Department Capt. Grady Burke was unintentional, said Roy Paul, the department's chief arson investigator.

Cordua had already been charged with possession of cocaine.

Unlike the Chronicle's earlier reporting, KPRC did not add that the man has never been involved in the Cordua family restaurants.

RELATED COVERAGE: KHOU-11, KTRK-13

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/17/05 10:08 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

Grant to fund beer can house rehab

The Associated Press reports that Houston's quirky "beer can house" will be getting some needed rehabilitation:

Beer-lover John Milkovisch attached the cans to his house over a 20-year period as an alternative to more traditional home repair. He also made beer-can fences and garlands to hang from his roof.

The home was becoming a nationally celebrated folk-art site when the Southern Pacific upholsterer died in 1988 at 75. Since then, it has suffered years of decline.

Now, a $125,000 grant from Houston Endowment grant to the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art will help restore the home.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/17/05 10:02 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (1)

More birthday coverage for former Mayor Bob

Shelby Hodge reports on former Mayor Bob Lanier's birthday bash:

How sweet it was for former Mayor Bob Lanier -- surrounded by 500 friends, praised on video by President George W. Bush along with 41 and 42, and saluted personally by Mayor Bill White and two former mayors. Birthdays don't get much better.

Lanier stepped out in a snappy pin-striped suit last week for his 80th birthday fest in the Lanier Ballroom of the Hilton Americas Houston.

Elyse Lanier orchestrated the invitation-only dinner that paid homage to the former mayor for his years of public service. She decorated the ballroom in thousands of roses (his favorite flower) and oversaw the fast-paced program that included the lighthearted video with presidential sound bites and a playful musical review by Sharon Montgomery.

Elyse Lanier is a little bit like former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders -- you just don't realize how much entertainment you've been missing until she pops back into the news from time to time.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/17/05 09:54 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (0)

Fun Chron headlines - cont'd

Some Chron headlines are just too much fun to pass up:

Area GLBT Center plans to have affair

If heterosexuals can have affairs, why not everyone else?

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/17/05 09:32 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)

Ratcliffe: DeLay knows some people

The Chronicle ran an odd story today from Austin bureau reporter R.G. Ratcliffe.

The "news" of Ratcliffe's report -- to the extent I can figure it out -- seems to be that Indian tribes in Louisiana have hired a new law firm known by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R), that the firm's former lobbyists (now under investigation) are known to DeLay, and that TRMPAC (also known to Tom DeLay) is represented by the same firm.

There's no direct assertion of any wrongdoing by DeLay, but Ratcliffe seems determined to work him into the story for some reason.

When I contacted the House Majority Leader's office to ask whether Ratcliffe had contacted them for any comment for this story, a representative said Ratcliffe had not.

After several readings of the story, I'm still a bit unclear as to what Ratcliffe was trying to accomplish with it.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/17/05 09:25 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)

Downtown street closure for St. Patrick's Day celebration

From KHOU-11:

Downtown Houston will transform into an Irish-themed party zone today.

It's all part of the second annual Saint Patrick's Day celebration at the main event.

Beginning at 4 p.m., Main Street will be closed to traffic between Congress and Capitol, creating a pedestrian-friendly zone.

There will be two stages with live entertainment, traditional Celtic dancers and much more.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/17/05 02:04 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)

Shouldn't Metro staff be using public transportation?

The Chronicle has an amazing story this morning. Apparently the (financially strapped) city of Houston gave $100,000 to relocate a group of homeless people from under the Pierce Elevated, AND gave Metro permission to use that space for parking:

Last month, the city and Metro signed an agreement giving the transit agency permission to use two blocks of the space, from Fannin to Travis, for parking. In exchange, the transit agency agreed to install lighting, clean up litter, paint concrete columns and make other improvements to a six-block area between Caroline and Louisiana.

[snip]

Before it could fence off its new parking area, Metro had to find a humane way to remove the homeless encampment that had developed under the Pierce Elevated over the past year.

The Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County Inc. obtained $100,000 from the city and $90,000 from other donors to pay for rooms in motels or other facilities for a month. The coalition's president, Anthony Love, said the homeless people readily accepted the offer when outreach workers approached them Monday morning.

So, what happens after one month if the homeless people aren't rehabilitated?

Another question, apparently, is if this whole arrangement is even legal:

A lawsuit claims the agreement violates a 1968 contract between the city and the Texas Department of Transportation, which owns the property. The contract calls for the land under the freeway to be used for public parking.

Noel Cowart, the president of the condominium association at 2016 Main, said the metered spaces under the Pierce Elevated provide the only convenient parking for visitors or patrons of the building's retailers.

Metro's deal with the city is a "power grab" necessitated by the agency's failure to plan for adequate parking when it built its new headquarters building, Cowart said.

That would be Metro's new Lee P. Brown Administration building.

If it's true that the land under the Pierce is TXDoT property, then it appears Houston has developed quite a fondness for parceling out TXDoT land.

And then there's this:

Metro spokesman Ken Connaughton said the agency intends to use the Pierce Elevated space primarily for its fleet vehicles and senior staff. Most employees park in pay lots near the building, he said.

Senior staff will get spaces under the Pierce Elevated, but other employees must pay in other parking lots!

Which leads to a BIG question: why, oh why, aren't Metro's senior employees taking Metro transportation to work? Shouldn't they be setting an example? The fact that Metro's own senior staff (and other employees) don't use the buses, trolleys or light rail, pretty much says it all.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/17/05 11:34 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (7)

Wayne is out of the building... for now

The Wayne Dolcefino rumor that we linked yesterday has now been confirmed by mainstream media, in the form of a Chronicle article by Bruce Westbrook:

KTRK Channel 13 undercover reporter Wayne Dolcefino has gone under cover in a new way: He's not showing up for work.

Dolcefino and station management at Channel 13 are fighting over a story he was preparing on the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Dolcefino said the story "was killed" by the station, and said of his absence, "I'm currently reviewing my options."

Station management was unavailable for comment Wednesday.

That story moved from internet rumor mill to vetted mainstream media story in about 12 hours (since it's carrying a 6:35 pm time stamp on the Chron site).

Thanks to Laurence Simon for catching it.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/17/05 08:28 AM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (2)

16 March 2005

HPD Chief says crime lab to be accredited soon

Police Chief Harold Hurtt said today that he anticipates Houston's crime lab will be accredited within 90 days, according to AP coverage posted by KTRK-13:

"I don't think there will probably be another crime lab in the country that has gone through so many audits and changes and improvements as the Houston crime lab has been through," Hurtt said. "And hopefully these efforts will again put us in a position where people will come through Houston and say, 'How did you do it?' Because we are not the only crime lab in the country that is experiencing problems."

State Rep. Kevin Bailey, D-Houston, remained skeptical. He said the state needs to oversee troubled crime labs in Houston and Fort Worth.

"I'm sure that they expect to be accredited within 90 days, but I'm not sure if I expect it," he said of the Houston lab. "After two years of watching them fumble the ball everywhere they go, nothing would surprise me at this point. I don't have a lot of confidence in their operation."

The Houston lab wants to become accredited in biology, exclusive of DNA; toxicology; controlled substances; firearms; and document examination.

As a complete aside, Chief Hurtt looked very dapper in his new HPD uniform during the press conference excerpts shown on television earlier.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/16/05 08:13 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)

Mayor: demolish abandoned buildings faster

Mayor White is anxious to pick up the pace on demolishing abandoned buildings, according to the Houston Business Journal:

Mayor Bill White said Wednesday he wants to ramp up the city's efforts in demolishing abandoned buildings to 100 buildings per month.

The city demolished a total of 700 buildings in 2004, a number White says is unacceptably low. So far in 2005, the city has demolished 225 buildings, 500 behind its goal for the fiscal year that ends in July.

"There is a new sense of urgency and priority concerning the demolition of abandoned buildings," White told Houston City Councilmembers during a special hearing March 16 on the city's future demolition strategy.

[snip]

There are about 2,000 buildings in the city that are beyond repair, according to Houston Police Department Assistant Chief Brian Lumpkin.

HPD is currently building a database of all buildings identified for demolition. That project is expected to be completed in June, according to Lumpkin.

There is no talk in this article of tax-delinquent properties, so I assume these are strictly abandoned buildings, that are beyond repair. I do hope someone in local media is keeping an eye on what is being demolished, since the mayor has also made it clear (in his State of the City address) that he's going after tax-delinquent properties, in order to facilitate more affordable housing. A watchdog media helps keep people -- and governments -- honest, you know.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/16/05 07:34 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (2)

Continuing Astrodome speculation

Apparently every month or so, we are going to get the latest Astrodome rumblings. Today the Chronicle has a story:

Astrodome Redevelopment Co. is continuing to look at whether it makes good business sense to spend hundreds of millions to turn the building into a mammoth, luxury convention hotel.

The company, selected by the county to propose a plan for the Dome, is waxing positive about the hotel but will not issue a report on whether it can obtain financing until summer, county officials said Tuesday.

"They are working vigorously to nail down the final piece of the feasibility study," said Willie Loston, director of the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp., which oversees the Reliant Park complex.

Astrodome Redevelopment is considering leaving the shell of the building intact and essentially gutting the inside. Seats might be replaced with about 1,000 hotel rooms, convention-type meeting rooms, restaurants and possibly retail stores, a cineplex and other entertainment sites.

Because, of course, Houston really needs more hotel rooms. Also, I'd like to learn who the developers are in Astrodome Redevelopment:

Astrodome Redevelopment officials did not return calls.

The story assures us that property taxes won't be used:

Astrodome Redevelopment is looking to convert the building solely with money from private investors, Loston said. No property tax funds would be used, Surface said.

But there are always other ways to get tax money.

Razing the Astrodome also would be expensive, probably costing $10 million to $30 million, Loston said.

The county spends about $1.5 million annually to host a few events there. If it were mothballed, the county still would spend $500,000 annually on minimal operations.

The county owes about $50 million on bonds issued to pay for Astrodome renovations in the 1980s.

We can continue to shake our heads.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/16/05 01:37 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (4)

Plenty of road debris equals plenty of Debris Games

Chris Baker's Debris Game highlights a big problem on Houston freeways, and as this Chronicle story details, Montgomery County is battling the problem, too:

Deputy Bruce Gilchrist, who oversees the Precinct 3 motorist assistance program, said clearing debris off area highways is a large part of his duties, which also include aiding stranded motorists.

Everything from cardboard boxes, shredded tractor-trailer tires and steel pieces of bridge guardrail are some of the more common types of debris littering the highways, Gilchrist said.

"Debris most often causes people to have flat tires or mess up the body of their car, but they can also swerve and have an accident," he said.

Gilchrist has also seen TV sets, couches and ladders strewn across stretches of highway. Most road debris falls from the beds of pickup trucks, trailers and the backs of flatbed tractor-trailers.

"The stuff I've picked up off the roadway could fill a warehouse," Gilchrist said.

Authorities said booming populations are creating more traffic, especially along Interstate 45, which creates more road debris than ever before.

Safety-wise, debris is a serious problem, as the Resource Box alongside the story makes clear:

CRASH STATISTICS
In 2001, the latest year statistics were available from the Texas Department of Public Safety, there were:

� Statewide: 748 accidents resulting in two deaths caused by road debris.

� In Montgomery County: 14 accidents and one death caused by road debris.

Source: Texas Department of Public Safety

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/16/05 12:05 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (4)

Continental's money woes

Continental is warning of a "deteriorating financial condition":

Continental Airlines issued a warning Tuesday it would have to lay off significant numbers of workers, downsize its fleet and dramatically cut wages and benefits if employee unions don't agree to concessions by month's end.

The airline says it needs $500 million in employee cutbacks. Last month, it reached tentative deals with unions leaders for about $330 million in reductions, but those still need approval from rank-and-file members. The rest is coming from nonunion employees.

Houston-based Continental said Tuesday, however, that if the union approvals didn't happen by March 30, it would need to increase the $500 million in proposed cuts to $800 million — a 60 percent increase.

The airline said its "deteriorating financial condition" would require the increased cutbacks.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/16/05 11:32 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (4)

Is Wayne Dolcefino out at KTRK?

Laurence Simon calls attention to a hot rumor on the message boards at TV Spy:

Do not ever question the journalistic integrity of KTRK's Undercover Reporter Wayne Dolcefino. For the past three months he and his team have been looking into the records of HLSR (Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo) Kind of a big to-do in Houston...YYYYEEEE-HHHAAAWWWW. A non-profit...yeah right! organization. That in itself is a joke. After alot of hemn' and hahn' in-place with some strategic lawyerin' by HLSR, KTRK, Houston's News Wimps, have killed the story. In protest, Wayne Dolcefino pack his bags and walked. Nice goin' Henry...to afraid to go after the BIG STORY? No wonder you guys tanked in the last book.

We've been hearing a few rumors about Dolcefino and the rodeo, and it looks like they're now out in the public sphere, or at least the blogosphere. It is worth stressing that it's all rumor at this point, however.

Laurence, who always seems to know what's what in Houston television news, has further thoughts about KTRK-13 in light of the rumor and recent ratings.

UPDATE: The Lone Star Times says Dolcefino told them he has not quit, nor has he been fired. No word on when his story might air, if ever.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/16/05 08:37 AM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (8)

15 March 2005

Chronicle checks in on George Rodriguez

Today's Chronicle carried an article on the case of George Rodriguez that, given past experience, set off warning bells.

Here's an excerpt:

"I'm still not free," Rodriguez says, squinting in the sun. "The DA considers that I'm not a free man. I'm still like a prisoner to him. I know I'm innocent — I just want to be free."

The 44-year-old was released from prison in October after retested evidence showed his 1987 conviction for kidnapping and rape may have been based on mistakes by the Houston Police Department's crime lab analysts. He was the second local man since March 2003 to be released from a Texas prison because of faulty work by the HPD crime lab.

Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal is not convinced Rodriguez is innocent. Rodriguez was released, he says, because the jury "got improper evidence."

"There is still a victim that says he did it," Rosenthal said.

Both sides agreed to set aside the conviction because of the flawed testimony about blood-typing evidence, but the state requested that the Court of Criminal Appeals grant a retrial.

That's the extent of the quote from Rosenthal. The rest of the lengthy story is focused on Rodriguez's everyday life, and paints Rodriguez as a victim of sorts. The story does not point out any new developments in the case.

I contacted Chuck Rosenthal to follow up on the story, and he pointed out that the Court of Criminal Appeals is still considering the case, and they hold the power over the outcome for the moment, not his office. He conceded that HPD did make a mistake with a certain type of blood test that was inappropriate, but pointed out that the rape victim still maintains that it was Rodriquez who raped her. A new trial may well hinge on whether she wants to pursue the matter again, after so many years.

One gets the sense from this article that a truly innocent man is being persecuted by a mean district attorney, which just isn't quite the case. Rosenthal has been emphatic that while he doesn't want an innocent man behind bars, he also doesn't want a guilty man roaming the streets. On several occasions when I've contacted him, he's gone into some detail on the matter. Readers can draw their own conclusions as to why his position gets such scant treatment in this particular Chronicle story.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/15/05 11:35 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)

Tilman Fertitta talks gambling in Texas

blogHOUSTON favorite Bruce Nichols of the Dallas Morning News posts a good story on Houston restaurateur Tilman Fertitta, who seems to have been thinking quite a bit about gambling in Texas:

If casino gambling comes to the Lone Star State, a Texan – restaurateur Tilman Fertitta – is an odds-on favorite to build the first one, though he's keeping his cards close to the vest for now.

Landry's Restaurants owner Tilman Fertitta says he doesn't care whether casinos come to Texas. But he recently agreed to buy the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas.

"I don't really care if they pass it in Texas or not," Mr. Fertitta said in an interview.

But as the conversation continued, it became clear that he's thought about it a great deal.

Unsurprisingly, many of Ferttita's recommendations seem self-serving.

The end of the story has this fun tidbit:

"In my dealings with him, he's always been professional, but he's passionate and he is aggressive," said Houston City Controller Annise Parker, who as a City Council member opposed some of Mr. Fertitta's plans in downtown Houston.

"He's thoroughly trounced me every time I've butted heads with him," Ms. Parker said.

City Council generally rolls over for Fertitta, which is why his Aquarium restaurant/zoo now sits on property that once contained a firehouse that the city conveniently relocated during Parker's time on council. The city's only newspaper isn't exactly a Fertitta critic either.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/15/05 10:43 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (1)

DeLay criticizes Washington Post over recent coverage

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R) came out swinging today, in a press conference devoted to smashing recent allegations and insinuations contained in a Washington Post column (picked up by the Chronicle here), and referenced in subsequent Post and Chronicle columns that then reported unsourced gossip about the allegations.

Chris Elam has posted notable excerpts from the transcript of the briefing, as well as links to coverage of the press conference.

DeLay also criticized a Thursday Washington Post story about travel sponsored by the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council that focused on DeLay even though a number of other members of Congress and/or staffers also saw travel sponsored by the group (including a staffer of Nancy Pelosi, a Democratic leader) and seemed unaware of any controversy over it. National Review Online posted more on that topic today.

The House Majority Leader may well have his faults, but the national and local mainstream media need to treat these latest "scandals" with more responsibility than we've seen in recent days.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/15/05 10:10 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (0)

Thanks, blogHOUSTON readers

From time to time, bloggers and other alternative media point out that newspaper editors and publishers don't always seem to have the highest regard for some of their most valuable readers.

Until today, though, I don't think I'd ever seen a case of a blogger calling out his own readers for not properly appreciating his blog.

Yet here it is, from the managing editor of the Lone Star Times:

But we’ve learned over time that some readers are just going to be so profoundly dense that unless beaten over the head, they won’t comprehend they are reading a satire. And then other folks are going to rage because they’ve been "forced" to spend a few seconds scanning an article that didn’t happen to amuse them.

Tough. The article stays, Matt will not relent, and if you don’t stop whining I’m going to tell him to no longer include the "satire warning labels" and you will be condemned to a life of despair and confusion produced by the terrible information being brought to you by LST.

Now go to work. And you might want to check behind you– you appear to have something stuck back there.

It seems more than a little mean to refer to a segment of your readership as "profoundly dense," let alone the reference to the posterior. Strange, but I don't recall Dan Patrick ever using that kind of language when urging those same readers and KSEV-700 listeners to go hit the Lone Star Times tip jar.

In any case, that little outburst over there did generate some internal discussion here at blogHOUSTON, and the consensus here was that we very much appreciate our own readers and commenters. We don't expect you to agree with everything we say (and would, frankly, be shocked if you did), but we do appreciate those who regularly check our perspective and leave your own thoughts. Thanks!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/15/05 09:15 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (23)

Red light camera money to go to school districts?

This Chronicle story about SAFEclear and red light cameras being topics of discussion in Austin today, has this interesting bit:

Although sentiment in the Legislature has run strongly against red-light cameras for several years, Houston Chronicle interviews last week indicated that the Senate is less enthusiastic than the House about banning camera enforcement, and the Senate fate of Elkins' bill is uncertain.

Knowing that, Elkins submitted an amendment to the tax bill Monday that would only allow cities using red-light cameras to keep $1 of paid citations.

The rest of the money would go to the state comptroller and then be redistributed to the school district where the violation occurred. Elkins won easy approval through a voice vote.

Well! That certainly would put a crimp in Mayor White's plan. But since the cameras are all about safety, surely he won't object.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/15/05 12:07 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (8)

Chron publisher wins leadership award

Except that it's for community leadership:

Jack Sweeney, publisher and president of the Houston Chronicle, received the Texas Daily Newspaper Association's Mayborn Award for Community Leadership.

The award recognizes a newspaper executive whose contributions to his community have affected the news industry at large. Among other things, Sweeney has worked for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the Houston Symphony, the United Way and the Better Business Bureau.

Maybe Sweeney could take those nice leadership skills and work on his newspaper next?

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/15/05 08:12 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (5)

14 March 2005

Chron discovers ongoing pension plan problems

The Chronicle's Dan Feldstein begins his recent article on the continuing precarious state of municipal pension finances in a peculiar manner:

City officials told the truth last year when they said new agreements lowering worker pensions would improve city finances and offer better job security for city employees.

But the whole truth, not just the happiest part, can be found in a new city bond prospectus — a 198-page document that must be candid under penalty of law.

An overview of city finances used by bond investors, it says that city retirement benefits might have to be cut again in the future and that taxpayer contributions to the pension funds will continue to rise.

This weblog hasn't been around all that long, but we've criticized Mayor White's funny pension numbers before, and we've called attention to an astute Houston Business Journal article that pointed out much of the reduction in the massive unfunded liability in the resolution touted by Mayor White (and repeated in the city's only newspaper) was a result of transferring the "asset" of the Hilton Americas hotel to the pension plan.

Just a few days ago, Chronicle editor Jeff Cohen spoke of journalists who "act as independent watchdogs of government."

Unfortunately, the Chronicle has thus far seemed inclined to repeat Mayor White's spin on the pension plans instead of engaging in more critical "watchdog" coverage -- so to many Chronicle readers, Feldstein's articles probably come as a surprise.

Of course, the Chronicle's lack of critical coverage when the Brown Administration was helping create these problems in the first place wasn't exactly "watchdog" journalism in an ideal state either.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/14/05 10:17 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (3)

Chron and WaPo manufacture DeLay news

So, the Washington Post beats the D.C. bureau of the Houston Chronicle to campaign finance news about a Houston-area Congressman.

What to do if you're the Chronicle?

Simple -- just follow the lead of Post columnist Mike Allen and engage in unsourced gossip about said Congressman.

Chris Elam calls out both newspapers for the shenanigans.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/14/05 08:48 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)

Residents protest a looming bus route cancellation

Some residents who depend on bus 64 are not happy that the route is on the chopping block:

The people who ride Route 64 said it's a necessity. So as word gets around that the route may be cut, riders in the Acres Home community have plenty to say.

"I ride seven days a week," a troubled rider said.

"We are tax paying citizens out here and we need 64," said Miller X, bus rider.

Shirley Scott has depended on the public bus system most of her life. She uses the 64 for weekly doctor visits. "Be big trouble. I'd be in big trouble if I lose the 64 because I have a hard time getting to the hospital as it is," she said.

Metro said the route is on the chopping block because ridership is low. In October there were 762 daily riders, but Metro said 815 are needed to make the route affordable.

Do Metro officials know how foolish they look? The route is 53 riders short per day and Metro is ready to end it. That's from the transit authority that gave us "Metro Solutions," which promised (among other things) 50% more bus service. Yet, we continue to hear of bus routes being eliminated because the per rider-subsidy is too high.

(What's the per rider-subsidy for the light rail? Why doesn't Metro end the honor system for the train and actually concentrate on fare collecting? Why must we continue to subsidize train riders, but not bus riders who truly NEED the transportation?)

"We need the service," said Beatrice Kyes, bus rider. "But they say it's not enough people riding here. I can see it's not a whole lot of people riding it, but we still need the service."

The 64 is one of Metro's lifeline routes, which means it passes by important facilities like schools and clinics.

"It is definitely a lifeline. You know, this is the life of our community," said a concerned citizen.

Metro said a final decision has not been made yet, but it will come soon. They said right now they are trying to come up with alternatives. Route 64, Metro said, is one of seven routes across the city that could be cut.

Metro officials haven't listened in the past when bus riders protested a route that was being cancelled, and the 7.5 miles of downtown light rail aren't going to help the people who depend on the 64.

Nice going, Metro.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/14/05 08:31 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (1)

Dreaming of Joe's BBQ in the White House

KHOU-11 has the story of a local BBQ chef/owner who is in the running to become the new White House chef:

Joe Saladino of Joe's Bar-B-Q says he could bowl the Bush's over with his beef brisket.

He guarantees it will melt in their mouths after slow-cooking each one in special ovens for 24 hours.

"I've been doing this about 30 years," said Saladino. "We've fed everybody from astronauts to baseball players."

[snip]

Saladino is among several chefs around the country being considered for the White House job.

"Got my resume together -- I've never had a resume," said Saladino. "Probably only worked for one other person in my whole life."

It could take weeks to find out if Saladino made the cut, but he's already thinking about cooking his first dinner for the first family.

"Barbecue beef brisket, homemade potato salad, sausage and pork ribs, homemade blueberry cobbler with Blue Bell ice cream," Saladino said.

Oh man! That sounds so good.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/14/05 04:59 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (11)

Lucas Wall makes the mayor's case for a parking authority

Last week, Lucas Wall gave us a cliffhanger ending in his Move It! column about downtown Houston parking woes:

The mayor's office has been plotting reform of Parking Management. Next week we'll review the plans to revamp how the city handles street parking.

KHOU-11 gave us a heads up more than two weeks ago, that Mayor White was yearning for a parking authority to take over management of downtown parking, and today Wall gives us more details:

White has appointed Councilwoman Carol Alvarado, whose district includes downtown, to chair a task force on parking reform. He's asked Alvarado to determine if the city should make Parking Management its own executive department with a citizen oversight commission or create an independent parking authority with an appointed board of directors. Such authorities are common in other major U.S. cities.

Last week, I wrote about how parking authorities tend to operate -- like unaccountable government entities. Just what we need more of!

Several questions come to mind after reading Wall's column. First and foremost, isn't there anything more pressing for Mayor White to be focusing on right now? Like maybe HPD's manpower shortage, or HPD's crime lab that still needs a special investigator/master (not to mention accreditation!), or the municipal employees pension fund mess that isn't quite as cleaned up we've been told, or reclaiming $40 million worth of loans owed to the city? The list could go on and on.

The second question relates to this:

Earlier this month, White appointed Richard Lewis, information technology director, as acting director of Municipal Courts, which includes the Parking Management Division. The mayor has hired a new parking director from out of state, who he wouldn't name but said is scheduled to start next month.

It's very odd to see that bolded part when, in an editorial today, the Chronicle complains about government secrecy:

Today marks the start of Sunshine Week, an effort by the newspaper industry and other news media to promote the value of open government and to enlist public support for it. This year the observance coincides with increased reluctance at all levels of government to reveal information to the public that owns it.

Why did Wall let the mayor get away with not naming the parking director who has already been hired? Is open government a pick-and-choose proposition at the Chronicle?

Third, he mentions that one of Councilwoman Alvarado's choices is a Parking Management department with a citizen oversight commission. Would that citizen oversight commission be elected or appointed? If appointed, who does the appointing; and will they be average citizens, or well-connected, prominent Houstonians? You get my drift, I am sure.

My fourth question involves this:

Alvarado is meeting with constituents. White wants the new parking governance structure in place by year's end.

Is Councilwoman Alvarado meeting with anyone besides her constituents? It would probably be a good idea to meet with people who actually drive into downtown too, not just those who live downtown. Wall quotes at least one person who said she won't be patronizing downtown establishments if parking and parking enforcement are so citizen-unfriendly. Implementing an authoritarian parking entity would probably not be helpful to downtown tourism.

And last, Wall suggests the city drop Saturday parking meter enforcement. Gee, thanks! Where was he last year when this idea sailed through Council?

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/14/05 11:14 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (4)

13 March 2005

It's not a coincidence because?

KHOU-11's Doug Miller reported last week that another building in a historic neighborhood has been lost to a fire.

His report included the following:

Thursday's blaze broke out in the 1200 block of Elysian near Lyons. Many residents suspect there's more to it than coincidence.

Strangely, the story does not go on to mention any specific reasons the residents give for their suspicions that it's more than coincidence.

Perhaps the omission was intentional, and the reporter simply didn't want to hurt the feelings of any crack addict homeless arsonist types who NEVER worked at the Cordua family restaurants.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/13/05 10:50 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

Cohen hails successful libel defense

The Chronicle is hailing a Texas Supreme Court decision dismissing a libel suit brought against the newspaper by former Smith County District Attorney Jack Skeen.

The court found that Skeen had not demonstrated that Chronicle reporter Evan Moore acted with actual malice.

The decision seems appropriate, so far as it goes. Although the reporting in question clearly pushed a point of view and it clearly focused on a handful of instances with no clear indication of the much larger universe of cases from which the handful were drawn (rendering it less than forthcoming and perhaps even misleading), that in itself is not evidence of actual malice.

Chronicle editor Jeff Cohen had this reaction:

"Evan Moore's story was quintessential enterprise reporting — thorough and balanced," said Jeff Cohen, editor of the Chronicle. "We applaud the court's quick and decisive decision as a victory for the First Amendment and for the people of Texas, who ultimately want journalists to act as independent watchdogs of government."

That says something about Jeff Cohen and his approach to journalism, but it really doesn't say much about this case. The Texas Supreme Court didn't endorse the reporting as thorough or balanced, but simply ruled (properly in my view) on the question of malice. Indeed, reporter Moore admitted that he conducted no statistical analysis that would confirm the article's implication that ten cases were representative of a system of not-so-blind justice in Smith County. He wrote the story he wanted to write, and he did the necessary legwork to support what he wrote apparently.

The court made no judgment about the quality of the journalism beyond the question of malice. As frequent critics of the Chronicle, we can sympathize with public figures who might have reason to be frustrated with the poor quality of the journalism practiced by Houston's only newspaper. But poor quality is not the same as actual malice, which must be demonstrated. Our First Amendment jurisprudence necessarily sets that bar high, and properly so. Instead of lowering that bar, we much prefer competition (in the form of talk radio, blogs, maybe even a Houston Examiner) as the solution.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/13/05 10:35 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

Move Casey to the editorial page

We haven't had much to say about Chron columnist Rick Casey lately because his columns usually speak well enough on their own (that's not meant as a compliment).

From time to time, though, it's useful to point out the sort of nasty spin that Casey regularly puts in his columns, a spin that is frequently consistent with Chron editorial board positions.

Chron still covering school privatization (non)controversy

Kristen Mack is the latest Chronicle reporter to write on the HISD-is-privatizing-high schools, made-for-newspaper brouhaha. Today's story covers a protest at Sam Houston High School:

HISD Superintendent Abe Saavedra faced another crowd of angry parents and students at Sam Houston High School Saturday, as they denounced his proposal to possibly outsource school management.

[snip]

Last month, Saavedra proposed bringing in new management teams for three of lowest-performing high schools in the Houston Independent School District: Yates, Kashmere and Sam Houston.

But since making that proposal public on Feb. 15, he's faced the ire of parents and students who blame the problems at the schools on ongoing neglect from HISD.

Well, that "ire" was certainly helped by a particular newspaper story's headline, subheadline, first three paragraphs and informative box -- all on the top of the front page. And wouldn't you think that if "ongoing neglect from HISD" is the problem, that parents and students would welcome a proposal to reform the status quo? It seems counterintuitive to complain about current problems, while at the same time refusing to be open to solutions.

On Saturday, Sam Houston parents and students said they were taken by surprise by Saavedra's proposal, which includes accepting school reform plans by both HISD employees and outside companies or educators.

[snip]

Liliana Palma, a senior at Sam Houston, said her "whole world just crashed" when she first heard Saavedra's proposals.

Those paragraphs are gems. So, let's take a moment to imagine a completely fictitious conversation:

Assignment Editor at some newspaper somewhere: Hey you, Joe Reporter. A bunch of parents and students are upset that some high school might be privatized or even closed, and they are going to hold a protest. Get right on it.

Joe Reporter: But, uh, are you sure? I thought we goofed up that story. Wouldn't it be...well...awkward to go cover it? You know, when we, um, maybe...helped create the problem to begin with?

Assignment Editor: Heck no! We ran a sorta, kinda, half-hearted clarification on page two, in a teensy weensy box the next day. It's out of our hands what people think. Now get yerself over there, pronto! And be sure to bring back lots of ire. Oh, and see if you can find someone whose world has crashed. That'd be good stuff.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/13/05 06:03 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (3)

New DeLay allegations, but not from the local newspaper

Laurence Simon calls attention to this article on the latest campaign finance allegations against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R), which found their way into the New York Times from the Washington Post via Reuters.

Laurence points out that, once again, the Chronicle was simply beaten by national competition on a story of local interest. The Washington Post article did post to the Chronicle online edition yesterday.

I'm less inclined than Laurence to think this spells the end of DeLay, because I suspect this latest allegation won't go very far and because the Democrats seem unlikely to take DeLay's solidly Republican district by appealing to the political preferences of readers of the Daily Kos weblog. And in calling out a "right wing blogger smear campaign" against the Daily Kos and expressing solidarity with Governor Dean, Democrat Richard Morrison isn't exactly appealing to the mainstream in DeLay's district. I can't help but think that the DeLay campaign team is looking forward to the rematch that Morrison is promising. They probably are looking less forward to the possibility of more ethics trouble, though.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/13/05 03:40 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (10)

Chronicle says "fatwa" speaks for all religions

The Chronicle editorial board writes a very bizarre thing in an editorial about the one year anniversary of the al Qaeda bombing in Madrid. The editorial also mentions the "fatwa" issued by Spain's Islamic Commission against Osama bin Laden:

Commission Secretary General Mansur Escudero declared that any group that invokes Islam to justify terrorist attacks places itself outside Islam. Such declarations speak for the vast majority of Muslims, of course, not to mention adherents of all other great religions, and for that reason it is essential for such declarations to be made and heard.

(Emphasis added)

When the editorial board says that "such declarations speak for the vast majority of Muslims," what does that mean? A declaration against bin Laden highlights the problem -- Muslim extremists. The problem is not with the vast majority of Muslims.

And what "other great religions" do the editors think need to piggyback on the Islamic Commission's fatwa denouncing bin Laden? Judaism? Christianity? Buddhism? Hinduism?

Spain's Islamic Commission said something else that isn't included in the editorial:

The Commission has also drawn up a document designed to 'thank the Spanish people and the government for their attitude towards Muslims' since last March 11, in particular for not taking 'disproportionate' measures similar to those which the Sept 11 attacks sparked in the US.

Yes, the members of the Islamic Commission applaud Spain's pulling out of Iraq, essentially caving to terrorism, after the Madrid bombing. They certainly don't applaud the liberation of 50 million people from tyrannical oppression. THAT is a "disproportionate" measure in response to 9/11.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/13/05 01:20 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)

12 March 2005

Happy Birthday, Mayor Bob

Kristen Mack gets a jump start on former mayor Bob Lanier's Chronicle obituary with her municipal politics column that ran on Friday.

I say that because the celebration of all things Mayor Bob is not especially what I'd expect to read in a weekly municipal politics column.

This part of the Mack's birthday celebration is amusing:

White said Lanier is sensitive not to meddle or intrude, because he once sat in the mayor's chair. White also is quick to rebut any exaggeration of Lanier's influence.

"There is no shadow government in Houston," White said. "He doesn't call any shots or pull any strings. But people rely on his brain power. He's honest, smart and gets things done. He's a problem-solver."

Yes, he does get things done, and that's why people turn to him.

But we don't really get that sort of reporting any more, now that Tim Fleck has disappeared from the local journalism scene.

Instead, we get Happy Birthday columns.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/12/05 02:52 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

11 March 2005

HISD releases TAKS results

HISD has released TAKS results for third and fifth graders, and the news is mixed:

HISD third-grade students performed well on the TAKS reading test this year, with 83 percent passing the English version of the test and 79 percent of Spanish-speaking students passing—even though the State of Texas made the test harder to pass this year.

But the news is not nearly as good at the fifth-grade level, where 62 percent of HISD students passed the English version of the TAKS and 68 percent the Spanish version.

“The passing standard was higher this year, but still about 8 out of 10 third-graders passed the test. That’s good news. But the fifth-grade scores are more disappointing, and clearly we have a lot of work to do at that level,” new HISD Superintendent of Schools Abelardo Saavedra said.

First, congratulations to HISD and students for the third-grade results. Those are some nice scores, on a harder test.

As for the fifth-grade results, we have already seen that Dr. Saavedra is very focused on improving education in HISD. This year's results are undoubtedly a disappointment, but I'll be interested to see if, under his leadership, those scores rise over the next several years. I imagine they will, if he is allowed to do his job and isn't hindered by the naysayers.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/11/05 08:52 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

Chronicle finds a connection between Mel Gibson and Hitler

So, why is the Chronicle in a troubling and declining circulation trend? Why does the paper make a Top 10 list of newspapers that rely on "freebies"? Stories like today's on the recut Passion of the Christ are most likely a factor.

It's a head-shaking "news" story, filled with assumptions, distortions, editorializing and anti-Christian bias. If the reporter, Jeannie Kever, has even a rudimentary understanding of Christianity or Christians, it doesn't come through in the story.

I'll single out two passages. First:

Sister Mary C. Boys, a professor at Columbia University's Union Theological Seminary, was one of four Catholic scholars asked by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to review an early version of the script. Publicity over their fears of an anti-Semitic backlash inadvertently helped promote the movie.

Even now, Boys worries "that we're going to have a whole generation of people who will grow up thinking this is how it went down, and that's how Jews are."

News reports suggest there has been an increase in anti-Semitism, both locally and worldwide, over the past year, although Martin Cominsky, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, says there is no proof the movie was behind it.

Those are three incredible paragraphs. According to Kever, the Passion stirred "fears of an anti-Semitic backlash" that the ADL admits it can't prove. So WHY report it? Rumors. Possibilities. Potentials. Is the "professional" media supposed to report facts or fan rumors? Is this an example of an "ideal state"?

But it gets so much worse:

Historically, passion plays have sparked violence against Jews, most spectacularly when Hitler invoked the passion play enacted by the Bavarian village of Oberammergau after attending a 1934 performance.

Hitler. The Chronicle reporter has to add a comparison to Hitler.

In case there is a really good explanation for that comparison, I emailed the reporter and the Chronicle's reader representative. So far, I haven't heard back from either of them, but if I do, I'll be sure to add an update.

RELATED: Oh no, here come the pogroms again (Orrin Judd)

UPDATE: Jeannie Kever responds to my email:

The paragraph was not a comparison between Hitler and Mel Gibson; it was an explanation of why Jews have historically worried about the fallout from Passion Plays.
Jeannie

I'm not sure why Kever felt the need to explain "why Jews have historically worried" about Passion Plays, with Hitler as the example. This movie is a rerelease. Since Christian anti-Semitism didn't materialize when the Passion was first released, why bring it up? Are Christians who have seen the Passion the biggest threat Jews face today? Hardly. Evangelical Christians are among the biggest supporters of the Jewish people and Israel.

UPDATE 2: Owen Courreges comments.

KEVIN WHITED ADDS: I was so stunned to see that article that I forwarded it to my friend Orrin Judd, who frequently is my muse. Certainly, Kever's writing is set up to insinuate that Gibson's movie is behind an increase of anti-Semitism in the world and locally, even if she produces a quote that says there is no evidence for any such thing. As for the increase of anti-Semitism globally, that is a fact, but some of the most disturbing incidents seem to be coming in post-Christian, secular (but increasingly Islamic) Europe. Locally, the source of the anti-Semitic incidents reported at the end of last year is undetermined, but nobody has thus far suggested it was a clan of Christians motivated by Mel Gibson's movie. Kever's insinuation is reckless. Whether it was intentional or not is not relevant. It made it into print past an editor (one presumes) with her name on it, and it reads as it reads.

As far as the reference to Hitler, I think I would simply refer Kever to Orrin's observation -- it's not as if Hitler was a devout Christian who was inspired to exterminate Jews after watching the Passion. Indeed, historically we have referred to Hitler accurately as the anti-Christ.

And I'm still puzzled by this statement at the beginning:

Last year's success of The Passion of the Christ foretold the red state-blue state electoral vote divide as the nation's culture wars played out at the box office.

Kever provides no evidence for this assertion, which seems silly on its face. Christians are prevalent throughout the nation, and boosted gate receipts for this movie, yes. But Christians don't exclusively vote for one party, or exclusively live in states that went for Bush. It's this sort of amateur editorializing in news coverage that the Chronicle needs to find some way to eliminate. Not only is it erroneous, but it just doesn't belong on the news pages.

Professional journalists frequently criticize bloggers for making "assumptions." I would bark back at professional journalists that some of their number need to check their own assumptions, and need to write much more carefully.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/11/05 11:31 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (11)

The mystery of the mustache, solved

A downtown statue has a new look, and the statue's artist isn't pleased:

David Adickes showed up Thursday at downtown's Lyric Center with Groucho Marx eyeglasses and a fake nose. But though the Houston sculptor's face was clownish, his mood was anything but jovial. High above him, an ebony slash crossed the face of his ivory-toned concrete statue of a cellist, The Virtuoso.

Someone had painted the musician's mustache black.

"My first thought was that somehow a graffiti dude had scaled the body 30 feet and sprayed the mustache," Adickes said. But he soon learned the paint job had been ordered by the office tower's managers.

"They don't have the right to abuse, debase or radically change the concept," Adickes fumed Thursday. "They can't leave it like that. It's hideous. It's Groucho Marx. ... You can't paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa."

[snip]

The cellist's mustache was blackened several weeks ago as workers employed by U.S. Property Management repainted the artwork, which sits on the plaza of the office tower at 440 Louisiana, as part of routine maintenance. Adickes said he learned of the alteration from friends.

Jason Davis, president of U.S. Property Management, said he made the decision to paint the mustache black but offered no further comment. He did not indicate if the mustache will again be painted white.

El Capitan of Baboon Pirates came across this mustache-mystery last week. It doesn't seem right to mess with the sculpture that way, but we'll have to see if the property management company will reverse course.

It is a cool-looking statue, though, with or without the mustache.

KEVIN WHITED ADDS: I hear echoes of Howard Roark in Adickes' complaints, to which I'm completely sympathetic of course.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/11/05 08:26 AM | Houston Arts/Culture | Technorati | Comments (3)

Rangers complete evidence audit

Last night, KPRC-2 reported that an initial audit by the Texas Rangers and HPD of some 280 boxes of "forgotten and misplaced evidence" had been completed.

According to the KPRC report, which included a reaction from Harris County DA Chuck Rosenthal, there were no big surprises in the evidence:

HPD asked the Texas Rangers to monitor the lab and help classify 280 boxes of previously lost evidence found in a police property room in August. Some of that evidence dated back to 1979.

The audit was completed on Feb. 28. It showed all of the evidence was available to defendants at the time of their trial.

The audit also showed that 82 percent of the evidence was properly catalogued. Most of the mistakes with the remaining 18 percent involved labeling errors, officials said.

Steve McVicker's coverage that appeared in today's Chronicle did not include any reaction from Rosenthal.

It is worth noting that before the Rangers stepped in to move this process along, Mayor White and Chief Hurtt had drawn criticism from several quarters, including the same Chronicle editorial board that usually serves as a PR firm of sorts for policies favored by White/Hurtt, for dragging their feet on crime lab issues. Hurtt in particular was blasted then by state legislators for stating that he was hoping to get cracking in earnest on the problem in April!

Of course, the chief has had other priorities, such as Tasers, red-light cameras, and his own uniform issues, so perhaps we should just be thankful that the Rangers were able to bail out White and Hurtt on this one.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/11/05 08:19 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

10 March 2005

Food and drink roundup (03-10-2005 edition)

There's no restaurant review from Alison Cook this week, but it's an otherwise informative week from Houston's food and drink reviewers.

Robb Walsh finally abandons the French obsession with a review of Himalaya Restaurant, and a feature on chef-inspired cocktail drinks.

Dai Huynh returns with her restaurant news after an absense of a few weeks.

Ken Hoffman checks out the version of Hooters chicken wings now available in the freezer section of some grocers.

And Gracie Ochoa visits the Mezzanine Lounge.

Happy eating and drinking this weekend!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/10/05 11:17 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)

Uneven coverage of Bush international/legal moves

Yesterday, the Chronicle's D.C. bureau reported on President Bush's executive order that certain Mexican nationals on death row have their cases reviewed to see if they were harmed by failure to notify them of a "right" to contact consular officials (a "right" asserted by an international tribunal), and the newspaper ran another, longer story. Four Chronicle reporters contributed to the two stories.

The other shoe soon dropped, as the Bush Administration announced that it had withdrawn from the optional protocol related to the disputed international tribunal. Chronicle reporters must have been occupied, as the newspaper went with a reprint from the New York Times. Actually, let me correct that. The Chronicle chopped the New York Times version roughly in half. Maybe they needed the space they saved for one of those informative boxes they've added to try to make the newspaper more attractive to idiots (I don't have a print version in front of me, so I can't really say -- readers are free to offer their guesses in the comments).

At least the editorial board had the good sense to leave this topic alone. The last time they tackled it, they conjured a nonexistent treaty out of thin air to try to make a point -- and make a point they did.

UPDATE (03-11-2005): I spoke too soon, as there's a house editorial on this subject today. At least they got the name of the treaty right this time, even if the accusation that the Administration's stated reason for pulling out of the protocol is akin to a "Martha Stewart defense." If the terms of a treaty -- or in this case an optional protocol -- are interpreted contrary to a signatory's understanding, of course withdrawing from said treaty (or protocol in this case) is and should be an option of American foreign policy! That has nothing to do with Martha Stewart. The Chronicle's anti-death-penalty obsession sometimes can lead to strange conclusions. But as I said, at least they got the name of the treaty right this time. Baby steps.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/10/05 10:48 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)

Chron: UT women are ugly?

Two days ago, we noted a headline and a synopsis that didn't seem to match in the Chron online edition.

Today, there's another problem with a headline in the online sports section. I've grabbed a partial screencap of it:

UT women are ugly?

Please note the very last hyperlinked headline.

Now, I'll openly admit that I'm not exactly a UT sports fan. But I would never call UT women ugly, even by mistake.

Maybe the Chronicle's new motto should be "Houston's leading entertainment source," because that one was good for a chuckle.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/10/05 09:51 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

Study says Chronicle's circulation trend isn't great

Editor & Publisher has a story about a Prudential Equity Group study on newspaper circulation that found that circulation is declining:

The Prudential Equity Group issued a biting 72-page report this morning on the state of circulation and found that both quality and quantity continue to decline.

Among other findings, the report said that "other paid" circulation was up 34% in the last reporting period, which it labled "troubling."

[snip]

The Prudential report found that total average daily circulation across the 50 papers was down 0.7%. [...] Though the overall drop seems slight, the firm looked at other aspects of circulation, mainly full-paid home delivery and full-paid single-copy sales, and found the declines to be more dramatic, at 2.5% and 6.8% respectively.

The Chronicle was rated and it didn't fare so well:

The report found the Boston Globe and the Denver Post racked up the most (negative) points with a CQ score of 7. The Houston Chronicle and Denver's Rocky Mountain News followed with 6.

At the other end of the quality scale, scoring an explemary 1 point, were: USA Today, The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif., the Contra Costa Times in Richmond, Calif., the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal, and The Knoxville (Tenn.) News-Sentinel.

The Chronicle has previously received recognition for circulation "freebies."

And how was the study constructed?

The report ranks the papers from worst to best based on quality circulation, defined as "consumers seeking and paying for the paper." Low-quality circulation is defined as "copies not paid for by the individual recipient ... the reader is most likely less engaged in the newspaper."

The firm used 10 criteria to create a "circulation quality screener" to measure and score the papers. Some of the criteria include: Decline in total average paid circulation; decline of 5% or greater in full-paid home delivery; full-paid single copies have declined 10% or more; discounted copies represent 5% or more of total circulation and have increased 5% or more; other-paid circulation represents more than 10% of total circulation; and 10 or more days were omitted from daily circulation averages.

A paper received a point for every one of the ten criteria it qualified for. The more points, the more troubling the circulation trend, in Prudential's view.

Some of us would say that in the Chronicle's case, a troubling circulation trend is not terribly surprising.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/10/05 05:16 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)

Did they use Elmer's glue?

KPRC-2 has a story about counterfeit money being used in the Houston area, and apparently it has an identifiable characteristic:

Rodgers said the funny money is unique because it is printed on two different pieces of paper and glued together.

Two pieces of paper glued together?!

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/10/05 04:18 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)

Metro's disappearing "Startling Facts"

Metro's "Startling Facts" press release, which entertained me over the weekend, has mysteriously disappeared from Metro's site. But Metro is no match for the power of Google, so here's the cached press release.

I don't understand why it isn't there anymore, unless someone decided it wasn't a good idea to give out the 2004 ridership number, which showed a decline from 2003, in a press release designed to tout Metro. We'll have to wait and see if the promised "Startling Facts" brochure materializes.

(I searched Metro's site pretty thoroughly. If the press release has been moved to another section, please feel free to point it out to me.)

UPDATE (03-28-2005): The Google cached press release is no longer available. The "Startling Facts" have just disappeared!

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/10/05 10:58 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)

Time Mag glowingly covers MetroRail

One of our commenters points out that Time Magazine has a little something on MetroRail:

A rare and exotic species has found its way to Houston of late. Known in other cities as pedestrians, the carless creatures are suddenly appearing along a vibrant 7 1/2-mile stretch of the city, thanks in large part to Houston's new light-rail system. Any new visitor to the city would do well to see them in action--and join them for a ride on the new rails and a stroll around town.

Any new visitor would also do well to avoid being hit by one of the new light rail trains along a 7 1/2-mile stretch of the city.

Where to begin? Pick your spot. Reliant Park, a popular convention site, is on the Metrorail route, close to Reliant Stadium (home of the Houston Texans and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo). So are the hotels and high-rises of Houston's downtown business district. Near the northern end of the rails lie the Toyota Center, where Yao Ming's Rockets hold court, and Minute Maid Park (known locally as the Juice Box), where Roger Clemens pitches.

The Metrorail also goes deep into the heart of Houston's museum district. The Museum of Fine Arts and the Contemporary Arts Museum are on Bissonnet Street, adjacent to the rail. Also nearby: the Menil Collection--one of the country's most distinguished troves of 20th century art, in a serene, minimalist setting--and the Rothko Chapel, designed by artist Mark Rothko and home to 14 specially commissioned works in undulating shades of black, gray and violet.

And don't forget the food. Bank Jean Georges at the Hotel Icon, a lavishly restored former bank, sits less than two blocks from Preston Station on the Metrorail. Part of the culinary empire of chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, the restaurant is a temple to gorgeous, delicious food. Golden, ruby red and candy-striped beets brighten a simple salad; Texas blue crabs star in a sublime crab cake. For a more casual, festive evening, try Bossa, near the Main Street Square stop, which offers zesty pan-Latin fare and has a hopping bar scene. Afterward, stride down the block and across the street to Sambuca Jazz Cafe on Texas Street, where you can hear live jazz and sample a California-heavy wine list.

While the Metrorail may pose little threat to Houston's status as a concrete paradise, it is a great alternative to downtown's scarce and expensive parking. A one-day Metrorail pass is just $2 (if anyone bothers to check your ticket), and several stations have their own parking lots. Of course, taking a walk in Houston means leaving the air conditioning behind. You've been warned.

Woops! The Metro press release appears to have gone a bit off the rails there by pointing out that MetroRail isn't too concerned with checking fares. That's because Metro is more interested in body counts than fare counts.

And that last little jab at Houston heat is really annoying. Yes, Houston summers are on the warm and muggy side, but they're not any worse than Washington, D.C., Florida, or Phoenix summers. Yeah, I know, Phoenix is a dry heat. Trust me, when it's 115 degrees outside, low humidity means nothing. And Houston often has wonderful weather the other three seasons, unlike many parts of the country.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/10/05 10:37 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (3)

We're Number Ten!

The Houston Business Journal calls attention to a Popular Science study that ranked Houston tenth as a metropolis for technology, ahead of all other cities in Texas.

The methodology and ranking of cities typically thought of as tech cities seem a little unusual, but I guess we'll take the positive publicity regardless.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/10/05 07:45 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)

09 March 2005

Chronicle celebrates "local" hero

On the day of Dan Rather's final broadcast, the Chronicle was practically gushing over their local hero.

Mike McDaniel, who has been chirping less than critically about Rather for a while, was boosting a documentary on Rather in today's newspaper.

Mickey Herskowitz, who co-authored a couple of books with Rather, can barely keep his composure in this puff piece.

The funniest part of it all, though, is that as Houston's only newspaper was busy celebrating the "local" hero today, Rather himself was apparently so tuned in to Houston that he didn't think Houston's smoking ban had any relevance to a story on a new report linking breast cancer to secondhand smoke.

Even though the Chronicle chose to treat Rather as retiring hero, the internet fortunately offers many more perspectives than Houston's only newspaper. If that continues to be the case, Houston's only newspaper will probably continue to see its influence decline.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/09/05 09:40 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)

Total smoking ban voted down (Updated)

According to this Chronicle story, Council has voted down the tougher smoking ban and is now contemplating the mayor's proposed version:

Houston City Council today rejected a proposal to ban all smoking in restaurants, and took up Mayor Bill White's compromise proposal to ban lighting up in restaurants but not restaurant bars.

The 10-3 vote, with two members absent, was on a proposal by Council Members Shelley Sekula-Gibbs and Gordon Quan, who offered it as a compromise on their earlier measure to ban smoking in all restaurants and free-standing bars.

The story also has a bit more on the impact a total ban might have had on the city's convention business:

Jordy Tollett, president and CEO of the Greater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau, said the city would lose the annual convention of the Retail Tobacco Dealers of America in July 2007 if the council passed a total ban. The convention would pump as much as $10 million into the local economy and fill as many as 12,000 hotel rooms, he said.

"We're not a No. 1 tourist destination," he told the council's Neighborhoods, Housing and Redevelopment Committee earlier this week. "We're fighting for every convention we can ... A total ban is going to cause us hardships. It's economics for me."

Tollett said the city also could lose other prominent conventions under such a ban because convention organizers sometimes want the option of providing separate smoking areas for those who attend.

[snip]

Tollett said a complete smoking ban likely would dissuade a small percentage of conventions from coming to Houston. But he said this could still hurt the city's hopes to double its convention business in the wake of renovations to the George R. Brown Convention Center and the opening of the city-owned Hilton Americas-Houston convention center hotel.

Sekula-Gibbs told Tollett that a complete smoking ban would bring four conventions to the city for every one that would be lost. Tollett disagreed, saying he would support a total ban if that were true.

UPDATE: Council has now approved Mayor White's plan that bans smoking in dining areas of restaurants, but allows it in bars.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/09/05 11:49 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (8)

Promote smokefree restaurants instead of creating new regulations

Today, supposedly, City Council will vote on a smoking ban, unless there is another tabling of the measure.

The Chronicle editorial board has come out in favor of -- you'll be so surprised -- a tougher ban than what Mayor White has proposed.

The Greater Houston Restaurant Association argues that no government-recognized study shows secondhand smoke in restaurants is unhealthy. But there are plenty of studies showing secondhand smoke is hazardous almost anywhere it is encountered. Restaurants do not inhabit a separate, pathology-free universe, nor do they operate outside the laws of physics.

[snip]

The object of regulating air quality is not to accept and set in stone Americans' high cancer rates. Studies showing that restaurant patrons and workers get cancer at the same high rate as other people are no excuse to tolerate unhealthy air, whether outside or in enclosed spaces where Houstonians spend much of their time.

Studies, studies, studies. Certainly we have learned by now that if someone has an agenda, someone can also find a study to promote that agenda. Yes, there are studies that say secondhand smoke is harmful. There are also studies that say it isn't. And there are people who have disproved the studies.

But I especially like the editors' reasoning in the bolded sentence: even if studies don't show a higher rate of cancer for restaurant workers and customers, there is still no excuse to have unhealthy air, so sayeth the Editors from On High.

How come the editors never once suggested that Houstonians who don't want to be exposed to secondhand smoke visit the website of the Harris County Health Department, where there is an extensive listing of all smokefree dining places in the Houston area?

Isn't that a less heavy-handed approach -- promoting smokefree establishments -- as opposed to forcing every restaurant and bar to bow to the wishes of some (30) anti-smoking advocates? I bet if you put it to a vote of the citizenry, a smoking ban would be tough to pass.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/09/05 08:24 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (4)

08 March 2005

Chron editorial board values some life

Earlier, Anne Linehan called attention to the Chronicle editorial urging the killing of people who become so inconvenient they can't feed themselves.

However, we do have to concede that there was indeed balance on the editorial page and even among the house editorials today.

That pro-death editorial was matched with a pro-life editorial of sorts:

Last week's tragic killing of an Italian intelligence officer and the wounding of the captive journalist he had freed was but the latest in a series of fatal encounters between U.S. troops and vehicles carrying innocent passengers, including Iraqi civilians and security personnel. The suggestion by freed Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena that her shooting might have been deliberate is absurd. Lack of communication and the fog of war are almost certainly the culprits. But the U.S. forces at an impromptu checkpoint fired in error.

The latest bloodshed provides a dispiriting reminder that two years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the main artery between downtown Baghdad and the airport remains unsecured and one of the most dangerous places in the world. However, following the success of the Iraqi elections, and with the resultant air of imminent self-government, the terrorists seem to be losing the all-important battle for hearts and minds. To make sure the insurgents continue to lose the sympathy of the Iraqi people, U.S. forces must use extreme caution in engaging unidentified moving targets.

According to this report in Newsday, the troops in queston claim they did not fire in error, but fired in complete accord with established rules of engagement, and shot to disable the vehicle by targeting the engine block. The Chron editorial effectively asserts they are lying.

The broader point of the Chron editorialists seems to be that innocent journalists must be spared at almost any cost, even if the vehicle of a given journalist speeds recklessly to a checkpoint in a country that still suffers from car and other bombs intended to kill U.S. soldiers.

It's revealing what life the Chron editorial board values (potential terrorists, death row killer guys) and what life it does not (U.S. soldiers, impaired people who cannot feed themselves, babies in the womb).

RELATED: Italy didn't plan safe escape for hostage (Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times), Run a well-marked checkpoint with armed troops, get shot (Laurence Simon).

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/08/05 11:37 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)

Latest news/talk radio ratings trickle out

We've already mentioned the latest local television ratings that saw KHOU-11 news surge ahead of the competition.

We've not yet seen complete ratings for local news/talk radio, but we have gathered a snippet or two.

A trusted source tells blogHOUSTON that for the 25-54 demographic in the January ratings period, 3pm-7pm weekdays, the major talk stations pulled the following ratings: KTRH-740 (3.8), KPRC-950 (2.8), KSEV-700 (0.9).

We haven't been able to obtain raw data, but if we're able to do so, we'll do something similar to our last detailed post on local radio ratings.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/08/05 06:01 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (0)

Shall we believe the synopsis or the headline?

Sometimes, it seems as if the Chronicle's left hand doesn't work very well with the right hand.

Today's story on Rick Perry's transportation plan provides an example.

The headline on today's online metro/state page: Bumpy road ahead for Perry's transportation plan

The synopsis just below the headline on that page:

The Trans-Texas Corridor, Gov. Rick Perry's grandiose vision of future transportation, is expected to take the fast lane toward reality this month.

Bumpy road or fast lane? Who knows? Maybe the fast lane ends in a bumpy road. Or perhaps the bumpy road leads to the fast lane. Just for the sake of posterity, we've preserved the fun here, since things like this are sometimes stealthily corrected.

Regardless, whoever put up such a punny synopsis in the first place should have keyboard privileges taken away for at least a week.

More substantively, Charles Kuffner isn't pleased with the article.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/08/05 05:43 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

Chronicle: Let murderers live, but allow innocents to die

It's a highly inconsistent editorial board that would celebrate the end of death sentences for convicted murderers, but complain that innocents who have no voice are not being put to death faster.

And yet, that is the Chronicle editorial board for you.

Last week the editors threw a journalistic party (four editorials at last count!) because the Supreme Court decided teenage convicted murderers cannot be sentenced to death.

Today the Chronicle editors decry keeping people on life support. You know, innocent people whose big crime is that they can't speak up for themselves. The case of Terri Schiavo is used in the editorial and the editors apparently feel that her life isn't worth saving because they did not specifically say she should be allowed to live.

The editors do, however, pass on one big falsehood:

Schiavo remains on life support as the legal maneuvering continues.

No, she is not on life support. She breathes on her own. She does need a feeding tube for meal times, but that's because her husband, who is trying so hard to kill her, won't allow her the rehabilitative care she needs so she could be taught to feed herself. Rehabilitative experts have testified before the judge in charge of the case, that Schiavo most likely could be taught to feed herself, but again, her husband won't allow it.

(By the way, would the Chronicle editors advocate the starving to death of death row inmates as punishment? Because that's what will happen to Schiavo if her husband gets his way -- a slow, painful death, over the course of a couple of weeks. We have laws against people doing that to animals, but it's okay for Schiavo, apparently.)

Have the editors done any research on Terri Schiavo? Have the editors seen the video of her interacting with her parents? She is not on life support and she does not appear to be in a vegetative state, as many like to claim.

Yet the editors cannot bring themselves to urge that the judge turn over Schiavo's guardianship to her parents. Why? Why not advocate for her to live? Why not err on the side of life? The editors have no problem advocating for the lives of convicted murderers, even going so far as to do complete puff piece makeovers of death row inmates.

We also know the editors are big proponents of abortion so this sentence is unsurprising:

All too often, the painful decision of life and death in such cases is landing on a court docket, where judges are faced with another right to life issue that shows signs of becoming politicized along the fault lines of abortion.

The protection of innocent life is as much a political/legal question as a moral one. Why should only supporters of abortion -- the killing of innocent babies -- have their way in our political and legal system?

Here are the last two paragraphs of the editorial:

Also, billing the state for the medical costs of maintaining life support for patients involved in litigation might provide an incentive for judges to swiftly rule instead of dragging their feet.

Physicians and medical institutions should have their judgments on life support cases double-checked by impartial sources as part of the process of convincing a terminally ill person's support group that everything possible has been done to save them. If relatives prove incapable of making a rational decision, then courts must be willing to enforce the law, no matter how personally disagreeable the judge might find that duty.

All Terri Schiavo's family wants is the right to help her live. They are not asking for the state to pay for her to live. They are asking the state to ALLOW her to live, so that THEY might take care of her. It's an act of love and an act of life, not an act of state welfare. The Chronicle editors may simply be so used to pushing state welfare that they can't tell the difference.

And I would like to know how the editors define "rational decision." If the Chronicle editors are deciding what is and isn't rational, we should all be very, very fearful.

KEVIN WHITED ADDS: To follow that last point -- you bet! Isn't it wild that the crowd that supports abortion and opposes common-sense laws like parental notification on the grounds that NOTHING should come between a doctor and a patient now insists that the political system needs to create some method for "impartial sources" to intrude in the relationship between loved ones, a physician, and a patient unable to make decisions, to the point of mandating when it's okay to give state sanction to a death sentence that a family is otherwise unwilling to make?

What a ghastly worldview that treats an innocent but impaired human being as being so inconvenient as to merit worse treatment than one's leftovers!

Since the editorialists like to lecture us mere bloggers on ideal states, let me bark back a little about this atrocious sentence:

Physicians and medical institutions should have their judgments on life support cases double-checked by impartial sources as part of the process of convincing a terminally ill person's support group that everything possible has been done to save them.

The "them" doesn't actually have a clear antecedent, but the intended antecedent seems to be terminally ill person. That's singular, so the "them" should actually be "he" or "she" or "he or she." Those who would lecture about editorial idealism should demonstrate better mastery of grammar.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/08/05 03:58 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (29)

Landry's had a roaring fourth quarter

Tilman Fertitta should be happy with fourth quarter results for Landry's Restaurants:

Casual dining and seafood restaurant chain Landry's Restaurants Inc. said Tuesday that fourth-quarter profits rose to $12.3 million, or 47 cents per share, compared with $1.5 million, or 5 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Wall Street expected the Houston company to earn a mean estimate of 22 cents per share, according to six analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call. Landry's (NYSE: LNY) added that its quarterly earnings got a boost from record revenues and higher restaurant-level margins. The results also included an income tax gain of $18.5 million.

Quarterly sales rang up at $259.8 million, up from $254.1 million in the same quarter of 2003.

For full-year 2004, the company turned a profit of $66.5 million, or $2.39 per share, on sales of $1.2 billion, up from a 2003 profit of $44.9 million, or $1.59 per share, on sales of $1.1 billion.

Does this mean more white tigers for the Aquarium? Or how about the "primate lounge, complete with captive bred orangutans or endangered mountain gorillas," that the Chronicle suggested a while back?

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/08/05 03:33 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)

KHOU press release details news ratings win

Further to the earlier post on the recent ratings performance by KHOU-11's news broadcasts, KHOU's Wendy Burkeen just emailed me the following press release, which includes ratings data as well.

Click on the Read More link for the press release.

[Read More]

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/08/05 12:09 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (1)

07 March 2005

KHOU news ratings success

Another ratings period has ended, and Laurence Simon notes that KHOU-11 news has apparently passed longtime leader KTRK-13 in most time slots (here and here).

At the moment, Belo's website has no indication of KHOU's apparent success this ratings period, and my email to KHOU this morning has gone unanswered.

UPDATE (03-08-2005): The Chronicle's Mike McDaniel finally reports on KHOU's success. Laurence adds his thoughts here.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/07/05 09:56 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (2)

Harsher smoking ban jeopardizes convention business

KPRC-2 is reporting that if City Council passes a harsher smoking ban than what Mayor White has proposed, the city could lose some big business:

Sources told Local 2 Monday that if the ban passes, the city could lose convention center business.

Officials with Alcoholics Anonymous, the National Retailer Federation, the National Convenience Store Operators and the National Tobacco Retailers Association threatened to pull their conventions out of Houston.

"I want to be careful that we don't hurt ourselves economically," said Jordy Tollet, with the Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau.

He gave council members copies of a letter from the National Tobacco Retailers Association, which has scheduled a 2007 convention in Houston.

"There's 15,000 hotel room nights for tobacco dealers, so roughly, that's somewhere between $15 and $20 million that would be lost on our community," Tollet said.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/07/05 07:08 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (8)

Chicago likes SAFEclear

This Chicago Tribune article says that Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is looking to Houston's SAFEclear program as a model for how to address Chicago's traffic woes:

Daley wants to implement quick-response towing operations--deploying them even faster than the Minuteman trucks operated on expressways by the Illinois Department of Transportation--on Chicago streets, starting downtown.

"We are attacking the root cause [of congestion] by removing wrecked and stalled vehicles a lot faster than we did in the past," said Houston Mayor Bill White, who was elected on a promise to make easing traffic congestion his No. 1 priority. "It's like giving a raise to everybody, because they have more leisure time, because the traffic is flowing faster."

Each minute a disabled vehicle is on the highway results in four minutes of worsening traffic backups, White said. Despite a booming automobile-centered population, commuting times have been reduced as much as 20 percent in Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city, officials said.

I still think the root cause of congestion is a high number of vehicles on the freeways at the same time. I don't think the root cause is stalled vehicles on the shoulder.

It's interesting that the mayor has some stats to give to the Chicago Tribune. I have been wracking my brain and can't remember the city releasing a study that backs up his claims that a disabled vehicle equals four minutes of traffic backup, and that commuting times have been reduced by 20 percent.

Maybe the study is forthcoming. Any day now.

There is more in the article about SAFEclear, mostly positive, but it does mention the sad story of the elderly man who was killed when he ran across the freeway, while a SAFEclear wrecker was hooking up his van for a forced tow.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/07/05 12:19 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (4)

AP story neglects Banjo Jones

Over the weekend, the Chronicle posted an AP article on blog-related firings to its website.

The article makes no mention of our friend Banjo Jones, whose fine blog got him fired by the Chronicle early in editor Jeff Cohen's tenure at the newspaper.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/07/05 09:45 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)

Is the Chronicle going to push for a Houston Parking Authority?

Here are the first paragraph and the last paragraph from today's Move It! column. See if red flags start flying for you:

Last week's debacle with commercial vehicle loading zones has reinforced my view that downtown parking illustrates all that's wrong with municipal government.

[snip]

The mayor's office has been plotting reform of Parking Management. Next week we'll review the plans to revamp how the city handles street parking.

Uh oh. Has Lucas Wall been chatting with Mayor White? Let me guess what parking reform means: a Houston Parking Authority.

We already have unaccountable government authorities to deal with, such as METRO, the Harris County Toll Road Authority, and the Houston Sports Authority. METRO is currently dealing with its first ever debt, the Houston Sports Authority had to issue new bonds to deal with a revenue shortfall, and the Toll Road Authority, which apparently has no debt or revenue shortage issues, does have a surprising ability to build roads at will, regardless of community input.

Now let's take a look at parking authorities in other cities and how they are structured. Miami has one:

06 March 2005

News and opinion all the same to Robison

Last week, Chronicle bureau chief Clay Robison penned his usual left-leaning weekend editorial, a strange practice for someone who is supposed to oversee objective news coverage from an entire bureau the rest of the week.

It included a line that explains quite a bit about Robison's worldview, even though I'm ripping it out of context (in this case, his celebration of the Robin Hood school finance "system") and truncating it:

But the Legislature needs to do more....

That's Robison's honest view, not just on school finance, but on any number of issues. And to "do more," government usually needs more money.

Chronicle: Employees were FIRED! No, wait...take that back

Yesterday, the Chronicle ran a story headlined, "Fired workers blast Aramark."

Today on page A2, in a little box, midpage, is this correction:

Four Houston Independent School District cafeteria managers have received letters from their supervisors notifying them that they are being recommended for termination, but HISD has not made a final determination regarding their employment status. A story on Page B1 of Saturday's City & State section reported that the letters said the workers "will be fired," and the headline asserted the workers already had been fired.

If you go to the online story now, the headline reads, "HISD cafeteria workers blast Aramark."

This is developing into quite a pattern -- the Chronicle blasts HISD and then we find some information or facts the reporter didn't include. Sometimes we get a correction or clarification, and sometimes we don't. At least this time we got a fairly straightforward correction. HISD spokesman Terry Abbott forwarded us the statement he gave to the Chronicle, prior to Saturday's story:

HISD has NOT moved to terminate these employees.

These allegations have never been made to HISD. However, now that they have been made to the Chronicle, we will review the allegations even though they have not been made to HISD.

However, ARAMARK strongly denies that anything inappropriate was done in this process. ARAMARK describes the process as simple verification of data.

It is not unusual at all -- in fact it is expected in every organization -- that efforts will be made to insure that data is complete.

Abbott's first point was that HISD has not fired the employees. The Chronicle's first word in the headline was, "Fired." Wow.

And Jason Spencer writes this:

On Friday, the women decided to come forward after receiving letters from their supervisors notifying them that they will be fired.

As we can see from Abbott's statement, HISD officials were not aware of what happened and found out about it from the Chronicle. Spencer doesn't make that clear in the story; he just writes "the women decided to come forward." Here is what Abbott told blogHOUSTON:

These workers are on paid leave while HISD reviews this matter. The letters the story references are letters from supervisors, not HISD administrators who make final recommendations on termination of employees. Any move to terminate these employees would come from the general manager of operations, and no such move has been made.

The suspicious side of me wonders why the four employees went to the local newspaper before they took their concerns to HISD officials.

My intent here is not to defend Aramark or HISD. I have serious concerns about the government coughing up $69 million for breakfast, lunch and after-school snacks, as I've said before. I think it's important, though, to point out another example of poor Chronicle journalism.

I really don't know what to make of the Chronicle's apparent predisposition to judge HISD guilty in spite of the facts. That doesn't strike me as an ideal state for professional journalists.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/06/05 04:59 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

Beldar: Rather-worship poses as news

Today's Chronicle features a puff piece by Mike McDaniel on CBS's Dan Rather today.

Local blogger William Dyer is not impressed:

Even for a puff-piece, even for an op-ed, this string of distortions would be beyond the pale, but Mr. McDaniel's article is published as "news." Rather's defiant self-defenses outnumber his "apologies" by a huge margin, and he's been anything but "tight-lipped." The panel report inexcusably stopped short of saying that the documents had been conclusively proved fraudulent; Rather turns that on its head to say that they weren't "conclusively authenticated," and Mr. McDaniel signs on to that distortion without comment.

Dyer's just getting warmed up.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/06/05 04:35 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (3)

More than money is needed to fix three HISD schools

It is a given, in liberal/media circles, that public education ills could be fixed if the American public would quit being so stingy and give more money to schools. So we can only imagine the Chronicle's stunned disbelief when it discovered that HISD's three lowest-performing high schools spend more money per pupil than HISD's highest-performing high schools.

That can't be right! Why, that messes up the whole equation. Of course, one need look only as far as our nation's capital to figure out that all the money in the world won't fix a broken education system.

Successful education happens when several factors all come together: strong teachers, strong curriculum, strong support staff, strong classroom discipline, and strong and involved families.

Frankly, in today's world, school district administrators have surprisingly little flexibility to address and fix problems in schools, thanks to community activists, teachers unions, politicians and...the media.

Need an example? (Of course you don't, but I'm giving one anyway.)

The rumor that HISD might be considering shutting down Yates helped generate a turnout of about 200 people at a recent school meeting about the future of the tradition-rich campus. Some quietly joked at the gathering that the best way to spark community involvement at Yates is to suggest it is closing.

Within days of Saavedra's announcement of his intention to overhaul the schools' leadership, Yates alumni and parents launched a Web site called www.savejackyates.com.

Hmmmm. How DID that rumor get started, about Yates possibly being closed? Oh yeah, that's right -- it was a lethal combination of the media, community activists, a teachers union and some politicians.

The question is, will the Chronicle and community leaders now allow Dr. Saavedra and HISD to fix those three schools, instead of throwing around baseless charges?

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/06/05 08:58 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

05 March 2005

More Metro "Startling Facts"

For a little Saturday humor, check out this Metro press release:

WARNING: You Could Be Startled by These Facts
March 3, 2005

The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County has come a long way since its founding in 1979. Not only does METRO provide bus, light rail and shuttle services, but it contributes to the Houston community's economic strength, street revitalization and environmental health. A brochure of "Startling Facts," to be published this spring, outlines the many ways METRO benefits the Greater Houston Area and its residents. Here are a few:

* METRO's service area covers 1,285 square miles, reaching most of Harris County and more than 3.5 million residents;
* System-wide boardings were 91.9 million in fiscal year 2004. This translates into 500 million passenger miles;
* METRO has a system-wide seating capacity of 66,000;
* METRO moves about 320,000 people each workday;
* METRO has approximately 10,734 active bus stops. Of those, 2,453 have shelters, trash bins and/or seats;
* METRO has more than 1,500 buses in its active fleet, including 118 METROLift vehicles;
* METRO's Fluids Analysis Program saves the Authority up to $500,000 annually in fewer oil and transmission fluid changes;
* During FY2004, METRO bus, rail and METROLift operators drove a total of 57 million miles;
* Highest single-day METRORail ridership was 42,448 on Sept. 2, 2004;
* Houston's METRORail has more riders per mile than similar rail systems;
* METRORail has the best on-time performance record versus similar rail systems; for example, in September 2004, METRORail was on schedule 99.3 percent of the time;
* By riding METRO's services, commuters reduce the equivalent of 70 percent of their vehicle's air emissions;
* METRO's free ride-matching database has made nearly 7,300 vanpool and carpool matches since its debut in February 2004;
* In the last two years, METRO garnered about $160 million in federal funds for transit projects, creating thousands of jobs for area residents;
* METRO's HOV network is so efficient that it would take as many as 24 freeway lanes to accommodate the same number of rush-hour passengers.

Startling? Nah, it reads like a Lucas Wall "Move It!" column.

But this isn't a complete list of Metro's "Startling Facts," so I thought I would help out by providing some facts that were mysteriously left off the list:

* METRORail has had 79 crashes (a world class record!), into cars, wheelchairs and pedestrians;

*METRORail can be stopped by falling trees, power line snafus, water on the tracks and major events;

*METRO has a declining ridership problem;

*METRO likes to discontinue bus routes (called "service improvements"), in spite of citizens begging for the routes to remain;

*METRO likes to close Park and Rides;

*METRO has pulled security guards from Park and Rides;

*METRO has cut back on downtown trolley service and wonders why ridership has fallen off;

*METRO is $93 million in debt;

*METROrail runs on an honor system with random fare checks;

*METRO can't get a working "smart card" system;

*METRO has the power of eminent domain

That's better! Feel free to add more in the forum.

UPDATE (03-06-2005) Tom Bazan emails that using Metro's figures, 2004 ridership has again dropped from 2003's numbers. Metro says, "System-wide boardings were 91.9 million in fiscal year 2004." Bazan forwards this Metro financial report that shows in 2003 (second to last page in the document) boardings were 93.7 million, for a decline of two percent. We know Metro has been working hard to feed bodies into the light rail, but it's obviously not working. Which would explain why Metro is spending $250,000 to study its declining ridership problem.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/05/05 06:49 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (4)

Does the Chron have an anti-HISD stance?

This Chronicle story is completely befuddling:

Students in the Spring Branch school district performed better on the state-mandated Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills tests last year than the previous year, even though the passing standards were higher.

Superintendent Duncan Klussmann said the district is delighted with the results and thanked campus leaders, teachers and students for their efforts.

04 March 2005

SAFEclear tow truck drivers accused of double billing

KHOU-11 reports that HPD is investigating several SAFEclear wrecker drivers for "double-dipping":

HPD suspended three National Collision tow truck drivers indefinitely this week.

Investigators said they towed a vehicle just off the interstate for free, then negotiated a price to move it from there.

The wrecker drivers, HPD says, wanted to charge both the city and the vehicle's owner -- something the contract prohibits.

"You're going to have, out of the 200-plus drivers, some who feel like they can be under the radar and slip something in," said Bender.

11 News has learned HPD has suspended the licenses of five SafeClear drivers from three different companies. The owner of National Collision said, as far as his company is concerned, this is only a misunderstanding in a program that has had a lot of changes lately.

"I think it needs to be cleared out how this system is going to work," said Sam Said with National Collision. "If a customer is taken to a place and he wanted to be moved again, we want to know if it's going to be one tow or two tows. That's the biggest issue."

The city insists the contract is clear and that officers will continue to pull wreckers off the road if they overcharge stranded motorists for doing the same.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/04/05 07:30 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)

Fitch downgrades Houston bond rating

Mayor White must be very pleased that Fitch released its latest Houston bond ratings this afternoon, when they are unlikely to receive much scrutiny or attention. It's certainly not good news for the mayor who touted his financial and business acumen in the last election:

Fitch Ratings has assigned an 'AA-' rating to the Houston, Texas $57.83 million taxable general obligation (GO) pension bonds, series 2005. Additionally, Fitch downgrades to 'AA-' from 'AA' the rating on the city's $1.7 billion in GO bonds and $33.5 million in certificates of obligation outstanding. The new issue is scheduled for a negotiated sale through a syndicate managed by Lehman Brothers the week of March 7. The Rating Outlook is Stable.

The bonds are general obligations of the city, secured and payable from a limited ad valorem tax levied on taxable property within the city. Proceeds from the bonds will fund a portion of the city's annual contribution to the municipal employees pension system and will refund a $22.9 million pension obligation note.

The rating downgrade is based upon large unfunded pension liabilities that are expected to increase over the near term, and upon a revenue limitation recently approved by voters that may exacerbate pension funding problems and also challenge the city's ability to adequately fund programs serving a growing population and service area. As a result, the city's credit profile has been sufficiently altered to warrant the rating change. The Stable Outlook recognizes recent significant efforts by the city to address the pension problem from both the asset and liability side. Positive rating considerations contributing to the high-grade rating include a resilient, broad economy, a moderate direct debt burden, and adequate general fund reserves.

As blogHOUSTON has noted -- while Mayor White and his council have been preoccupied debating a citywide smoking ban -- the city's municipal employees pension plan still suffers from a massive underfunded liability, to the tune of $850 million. Also, although most local press celebrated Mayor White's efforts in trimming the unfunded liability, it is worth pointing out that much of the "trimming" was a result of transferring the "asset" of the Hilton Americas Hotel to the fund -- and that given the recent performance of downtown hotels, that may well be more of a liability than an asset down the road.

There is some good news in the Fitch report:

Evidence of a rebounding local economy is provided by sales tax revenue collections, which registered a nearly 8% increase in fiscal 2004 after declining in fiscal 2003. Current projections anticipate a further 7% increase for fiscal 2005.

With those healthy increases in sales tax revenues, perhaps Jared Woodfill can encourage some members of council to be more resistant to the mayor's plans to create new revenue streams at every turn and be more critical of how the city is spending existing revenues.

RELATED: Houston bond rating downgraded (Joe Stinebaker, Chronicle).

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/04/05 05:03 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)

KBME-790 not interested in Pallilo partner

The Chronicle's David Barron reports that sports talkers Rich Lord and Marc Vandemeer (also the voice of the Texans) have signed new deals with KILT-610.

Barron seems surprised that Clear Channel and KBME-790 did not make a play for Lord, to team him up again with former KILT partner Charlie Pallilo.

blogHOUSTON, on the other hand, is not surprised at all. Pallilo is arguably the most articulate, knowledgeable local sports talker in town. Pairing him with someone like Lord only negates that advantage by diluting the talent.

As Clear Channel programming guru Ken Charles told Barron,

"I've never understood why sports stations feel that afternoon shows need partners," Charles said. "Thousands of talk-show hosts all over the country go it alone in afternoon drive, if they're good enough to do it.

"I think Charlie is great by himself. It's brought out a new dimension. He doesn't need a partner."

We agree.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/04/05 04:23 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (0)

Weekend freeway changes and closures

If you drive Spur 527, remember that beginning tonight some changes will occur:

Crews will close the outbound spur starting at nine Friday night. It will re-open early Sunday morning.

Once the weekend work is finished there will be some changes, so be prepared.

Outbound traffic will have been re-routed onto the new inbound lanes.

While the old outbound part gets knocked down, the ramps at Richmond and Milam will be closed.

Also, a portion of the Katy Freeway will be closed this weekend:

All westbound lanes of the Katy Freeway will be closed at the North Freeway from 9pm Friday until 5am Monday.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/04/05 11:44 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)

KTRK prior-restraint victory comes too late

Earlier this week, the Chronicle's Roma Khanna reported that State District Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod blocked KTRK-13 from airing information on Benny Hinn that it had obtained, ruling that the information was protected because of attorney-client privilege.

Today, Khanna reports that State District Judge Kent Sullivan has ruled that KTRK can air the information. Unfortunately, the original legal maneuver accomplished its purpose, as KTRK's Ted Oberg testified in court that the station does not have plans to air the information at this time. Now that Hinn's traveling act has left town, the story isn't timely or salient.

We hope this city's new defenders of the First Amendment join us in condemning this local abuse of prior restraint engineered by Benny Hinn's legal team.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/04/05 10:14 AM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (9)

Houston's own Jonathan Womack

The Chronicle has a great story on a local man who is a champion hot rod racer:

Twenty years of family grit and determination comes down to just 9.9 seconds when Jonathan Womack races his Chevrolet Corvette.

Jonathan, 24, is the driver of the Womack Family Racing team of Acres Homes, and the 2004 National Hot Rod Association's Super Gas national championship and second-place winner in the South Central Division 4.

"Racing is the greatest thing in the world. As far back as I can remember, all I ever wanted to do was get into a race car — and go," said Jonathan, 24.

The 1999 graduate of Klein Forest High School grew up hearing the roar of engines and the smell of fuel while watching his father, Warren Womack, work on cars.

And Womack's parents sound terrific:

Jonathan learned the word "wrench" about the same time he'd begun to walk, so it didn't come as a surprise to Warren when he wanted to forego college in favor of becoming a professional race-car driver.

But there was a catch.

"There was a rule in the Womack house," Warren said. "You have to go to college or into a trade."

Warren and Madelyn agreed to help their youngest son achieve his racing goal, each taking a part of the family business, while Jonathan went to Modern Barber College for 18 months to learn a skill that could provide an income unrelated to racing.

Jonathan now is a barber in a shop near the Astrodome in southwest Houston, and his regular customers have learned to schedule appointments between Jonathan's major races.

[snip]

In addition to Jonathan's national win at Pomona, Calif., in November — which earned him the title of champion in the Super Gas class until next year — he nailed a "driver of the year" title in 2004 and was a semifinalist in the Sportsnationals in Belle Rose, La.

What a great story.

I have two quibbles, though. First is the story was stuck in the "This Week" section -- it would have made a great "star" section article and could have easily replaced today's Martha Stewart-as-folk hero snoozer; and second, the family's website is in the story (www.womackfamilyracing.com), but it's not a hotlink.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/04/05 10:06 AM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (0)

Montrose housing market

Montrose has a booming single-family home market, but it also has a glut of townhomes and condominiums:

Single-family homes are selling at a faster rate than they were a year ago, said Lee Hudman, a Keller Williams Realtor who has worked inside the Loop for 20 years.

"The average number of homes is up and the average time it takes to sell them is down," Hudman said. "Interest rates are still low, so right now things are moving quickly.

[snip]

The number of townhomes, condos and patio homes built in the city is expected to rise in 2005, according to GHBA projections, although analysts warned that the market for those units is becoming oversaturated.

Hudman said part of the problem with townhomes are the nomadic nature of people who often buy them, as well as the need for builders to get the most out of their investment, considering the high price of property in the area.

"A lot of times what you get is urban professionals buying them, than they get transferred and they leave, and suddenly you've got a resale town home that doesn't garner as much interest," he said.

"New construction is mostly two- to three-story townhomes due to the high value of the lots," Derr said.

Another factor probably would be children. Once a couple has children, a yard is very desirable.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/04/05 08:33 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (7)

03 March 2005

Food and drink roundup (03-03-2005 edition)

Sadly, a recent obsession with French cuisine intensifies this week.

Robb Walsh's ongoing commentary on food and politics French continues with La Tour d'Argent as this week's vehicle.

Alison Cook at least pens an interesting review of the Derek Hotel's Bistro Moderne (commented on by Walsh last week), sticking to foodie-style comments. Imagine that from a food critic!

Cook also has a column on Houston's deluxe steakhouses that ran in the food rather than the dining section last week.

Ken Hoffman tries out KFC's Crispy Snacker sandwich.

And Joey Guerra checks out the 19th Hole Grill and Bar in the Woodlands.

That's all for this week. Happy eating and drinking!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/03/05 11:17 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)

The WaPo visits Tom DeLay country

Tom Kirkendall calls attention to this Washington Post column, in which reporter Mike Allen was dispatched to Sugar Land to check in on House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R) and relations with the locals.

KSEV-700 morning host Edd Hendee makes an appearance in this story:

Edd Hendee, who owns the Taste of Texas restaurant in Houston, teaches a Bible study class that DeLay attends at a local Baptist church, and said the other members love to tease the big shot. "Like they'll have the top 10 reasons not to be late to class: 'You don't want to walk in with Congressman DeLay and have his two thugs frisk you outside,' " Hendee said. "It's a hoot. He'll shoot back something like, 'I can arrange a private frisking for you.' "

It sounds like something less than a hoot, but we'll take Hendee's word on it.

Here are a couple of paragraphs unlikely to make it into a Chronicle "Another Voice" column:

Houston Mayor Bill White, former chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, said DeLay was "ruthless" on redistricting but has been cooperative in getting money for the area and has moved to make amends with corporate leaders he alienated with his opposition to funding for light rail instead of buses.

Indeed, DeLay is greeted as a sugar daddy almost everywhere he goes here. During a symposium DeLay attended last week at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston, he was repeatedly saluted in the speeches and PowerPoint presentations for the federal funds he had helped arrange for the school's Center for Biosecurity and Public Health Preparedness, which bills itself as "improving our nation's health security."

Whether one likes our local conservative leaders or not, it's probably more effective to try to work with those in control of the purse strings than to antagonize them.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/03/05 10:26 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (1)

Chron Eye For the Former Juvenile Death Row Killer Guys

With a recent lull in death-penalty executions in Texas, the Chronicle hasn't had a chance to run a new Chron Eye for the Death Row Killer Guy in a while.

One day after three separate editorials celebrating the Supreme Court's juvenile death-penalty decision, however, the newspaper managed to come up with the rather predictable Chron Eye for the Former Juvenile Death Row Killer Guys.

They called it something else, of course, but we like our title better.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/03/05 10:03 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)

Baseball as America to visit Museum of Fine Arts

Ken Hoffman reports that the Baseball as America exhibition will be visiting the Museum of Fine Arts.

Exhibition dates are May 21 through August 14. More information can be found on the Baseball as America site.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/03/05 09:44 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (3)

Some HISD truthtelling on the Chron's opinion pages

HISD has taken some real hits lately -- some deserved and some not. Some of the undeserved hits have been courtesy of some less-than-stellar reporting from the Chronicle. Today, the Chronicle runs a terrific op-ed by James Calaway, president of the Center for Houston's Future, praising HISD Superintendent Abe Saavedra for his call to change the way HISD does business:

Throughout Saavedra's [State of the Schools} speech, the concept of change was a prominent theme, and that is truly encouraging. HISD needs to look at persistent problems with new eyes to determine if the traditional methods are the right methods. Nowhere is that more evident than in the superintendent's bold proposal to redesign three consistently low-performing high schools by allowing education reformers — including the schools' own employees or administrators — to submit plans to change the management and operations of these schools in collaboration with the district.

[snip]

Saavedra has not recommended closing these high schools; far from it. He has instead called for creative plans to improve them, and he has not restricted his call for proposals merely to existing administrations. While recognizing the depth of talent within the employment ranks of the HISD, however, Saavedra also implicitly recognized the enormous contribution of a galaxy of educational intervention organizations that have been a part of our school system for years.

Some have criticized Saavedra's proposal as handing over schools to outsiders. However, strong collaborations with dozens, if not hundreds, of educational intervention organizations already exist throughout HISD, working with the district to improve teaching and learning. Some of these organizations may wish to submit a proposal or to be a part of a proposal. They are — like all of us — a part of HISD's family of stakeholders. It's not about us and them, or inside and outside. We all help make the district stronger. Public schools are by their nature collaborations with the community, with the purpose of ensuring that children learn.

Saavedra's proposal represents a big change. Change can be difficult. But without systemic change the future of these young people, and those to follow, are at risk. Our society and our future depend on better outcomes for these children and all the children served by our public schools.

The uproar after Dr. Saavedra's speech was so unfortunate. First, the outrage was based on a falsity, since the speech was reported incorrectly. Second, any outrage should be directed at failing schools, not at a plan to reform those schools. Calaway is exactly right when he says that as a society we all suffer when children are not given the best education possible.

Also today, the very last letter to the editor is critical of the Chronicle's coverage of HISD attaining the "adequate yearly progress" grade:

Unfair to HISD
As a science laboratory teacher in Houston Independent School District, I am not only proud to teach in this fine school district, but I am also a product of the district.

As a proud native Houstonian, I would like for the Chronicle to cease its tabloid approach to journalism. While we appreciate the newspapers the Chronicle delivers to our students every day and its coverage of our special events, lately it has been unfair. Ninety-one percent of HISD schools made adequate yearly progress, and the Chronicle focused on the 9 percent that didn't. My advice is to do some soul-searching. Some of your reporters seem better suited for the National Enquirer.

TRACY JANE TAYLOR GELBAUGH
Houston

The Chronicle deserves to be criticized for the way it reported the story.

KEVIN WHITED ADDS: I just went through every editorial page since that story, and that's the first letter that's critical of their coverage that the newspaper has printed. It's hard to imagine they haven't received any others, or any until now.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/03/05 08:53 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)

City Council approves expanded MAP

The Chronicle has some details on City Council's approval of an expanded MAP to make SAFEclear more citizen-friendly:

The agreement with the Metropolitan Transit Authority to put another $1.1 million toward MAP seals a deal Mayor Bill White struck with a state legislator to save his controversial Safe Clear towing policy from being quashed in Austin.

MAP expansion includes doubling the number of officers on the freeways during peak hours to help stranded drivers. The funds, which come out of Metro's "general mobility" accounts, will also help pay for $50 courtesy tows given to motorists up to a mile of the next exit.

[snip]

Details of the funding arrangement remained fuzzy Wednesday. According to a transit authority document, Houston will use about $440,000 of its dedicated Metro mobility funds to integrate MAP and Safe Clear, with Metro funding the balance from a regionwide account. White, however, said none of the funding is coming from the city's mobility allocation.

Here's hoping someone can get a hold of the fuzzy details. I would like to see what juggling is going on to make this work. But that's not the only thing that gives me pause:

Whoever arrives first will take charge of clearing the incident. MAP officers may supervise and assist with minor fixes that can be done rapidly and safely. Tow truck operators first on the scene will continue to be responsible for immediately removing the car as required by their contract with the city.

The overly suspicious part of me wonders if wrecker drivers will be more aggressive to get to stalled cars first. I would like to see a provision that a motorist has a choice of either a MAP truck providing assistance, or a SAFEclear wrecker providing an immediate tow. We already know that if a MAP driver can't help, he will call for a wrecker.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/03/05 11:53 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)

Surely this will garner an Emmy

KPRC-2 is sure tackling the important issues. A couple of weeks ago the station decided it was necessary to test the claims of the Hanky Panky thong panty, which describes itself as the "most comfortable panty ever made."

Now KPRC has tackled the critical issue of strippers and the "3-foot rule." KPRC sent undercover cameras to watch strippers...oh, I mean catch strippers breaking the law.

Houston Mayor Bill White said this is a never-ending battle.

"There's too many strip clubs. There's too much abuses that occur within them," he said. "I'm not for taking police off investigations or responding to calls for service, reducing our response time in order to shut down every strip joint and comply with the law. I think the law should be enforced."

Local 2 showed the undercover tape to Lt. Robert Manzo of the Houston Police Department. He said his department investigates complaints, but the people closest to the action rarely call.

"Obviously, you wouldn't expect the customer to call about the dancer violating the 3-foot rule. And that's another reason for us not to get hardly any complaints," Manzo said.

Maybe it's sweeps time.

UPDATE: Banjo Jones says Houston is the new Amsterdam.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/03/05 08:36 AM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (11)

02 March 2005

HPD crime lab fails to gain accreditation

The Chronicle's Steve McVicker reports that the Houston Police Department has failed in its latest attempt to gain accreditation for the crime lab:

A national panel rejected the Houston Police Department's effort to have its troubled crime laboratory accredited by the end of February.

In a meeting Saturday in New Orleans, the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors told HPD lab director Irma Rios that auditors had found problems with the evidence chain-of-custody record-keeping.

[snip]

On Feb. 16, Police Chief Harold Hurtt told state lawmakers investigating the crime lab that he hoped to have it accredited by the end of February.

On Tuesday, state Reps. Kevin Bailey, D-Houston, and Robert Talton, R-Pasadena, filed a bill that would establish regional DNA crime labs that would be overseen by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

[snip]

"It's two years later and they still can't get accredited," the state lawmaker said. "You don't see any real evidence that they're making a whole lot of progress."

In all fairness, Mayor White and Chief Hurtt have been very busy with other priorities, such as Tasers, red-light cameras, SAFEclear, and the like.

We're sure, though, that the sky is the limit now that Chief Hurtt is in uniform.

Laurence Simon has further thoughts on this news.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/02/05 07:26 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)

Anti-death-penalty Chron celebrates decision

The anti-death-penalty Chronicle must have been an ecstatic place yesterday, judging from today's output from the newspaper's staff columnists.

Rick Casey dialed up an anti-death-penalty activist (sadly, not editor Jeff Cohen's wife) so his column could celebrate the decision without Casey actually having to write much himself:

Dow says support for the death penalty itself is a mile wide and a half-inch deep.

"That's hard to see in Harris County, but even in Texas many district attorneys now seek the death penalty much less often than they could," he said.

And two years ago, a poll of Texans found that 41 percent thought executions should be halted while a number of issues were studied.

Sixty-nine percent said they believed innocent people had been executed. Still, 76 percent said they supported the death penalty.

Dow says, however, that the expressions of concern show a dwindling depth of conviction for the death penalty. If that's true in Texas, it's more true in other states.

The likely scenario, says Dow, is that most of the other states will quit executing criminals. Then the Supreme Court will stop Texas from doing it.

Just a few weeks ago, Casey was lecturing conservatives for (he contended) not being in favor of local control, intimating they were behind John Whitmire's opposition to SAFEclear. Now, with seemingly no memory of his earlier complaint about local control, he's using David Dow's voice to urge the Supreme Court to dictate how Texas will punish criminals. That's what sophists do in pursuit of bigger goals. And at the Chron, taking on the death penalty is certainly a big goal.

Then there's Cragg Hines:

Little by little, since it reinstated the death penalty in 1976, the Supreme Court has whittled back the administration and application of capital punishment.

To the Scalias of the world, the idea of "evolving" standards or, even worse to them, an "evolving" interpretation of the Constitution, is some sort of perversion (unless, of course, it gets them to their political ends).

But as Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in a concurring opinion joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, if the meaning of the Eighth Amendment "had been frozen when it was originally drafted, it would impose no impediment on the execution of 7-year-old children."

I'd hesitate to see that proposition brought to a vote in the Texas Legislature as currently constituted.

We know, Cragg. That makes you and Rick Casey. When you can't achieve your political ends via the democratic process, five justices will do. And your political ends haven't been much in favor in Texas for some time.

And then there's the Chron editorial board:

The court majority also drew on the fact that since only 19 states allow the execution of juveniles, the practice is in the minority and imposition of such sentences constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment." Likewise, most nations find the state-sanctioned killing of defendants for crimes committed as juveniles beyond the bounds of civilized behavior. Justice Kennedy acknowledged "the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty, resting in large part on the understanding that the instability and emotional imbalance of young people may often be a factor in the crime."

Who cares what Texans think, so long as five justices can turn to international opinion, right?

As we frequently concede, the Chronicle is entitled to whatever editorial position it would like, however out of tune with its readership. However, the editors shouldn't expect critical readers to believe this assertion:

The truth is that The Chronicle's editorial policy is neither liberal nor conservative, but based upon principles and pragmatism that transcend, or, less grandly, avoid partisan ideology.

Casey, Hines, and the editorial board all weigh in celebrating an anti-death-penalty decision, thereby transcending, or, less grandly, avoiding partisan ideology. Sure guys, keep on telling yourselves that if it makes you feel better. But don't expect us to concede it's "the truth."

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/02/05 06:02 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (6)

Hobby Airport gets wi-fi

Hobby Airport now has wi-fi:

Hobby travelers can use the new high-speed wireless service throughout the airport, including gate areas, restaurants, ticketing and baggage claim at speeds up to 100 times faster than standard dialup.

[snip]

Customers will need a Wi-Fi card or mobile device embedded with Wi-Fi technology in order to take advantage of the service. Users are greeted by the Houston Hobby portal page that provides a host of free information, including real-time flight information.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/02/05 03:06 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (12)

Metro's top secret ridership numbers

KHOU-11 gives us a little story on how Metro is keeping track of Rodeo fans:

This year, a new computer system keeps track of who is coming from which lot.

"We can look and say 'We brought 6,000 people from that lot and only 3,000 of them have returned, so we know we need this many more buses', so it allows us to put our allocations in place to make it smooth for everyone, " said Leroy Shaefer, Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

Metro's light rail is also helping get people to and from the show. Last year, 100,000 rode the rails in, and that's not just a number. It's very official business.

"I'm a Metro traffic checker," said Mary Young as she clicked her counter. When asked how many people had just gotten off the last train, "We are told that we can't give out that information," she said.

We'll find out what Metro says Rodeo ridership was when Metro lets the Chronicle report on it.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/02/05 01:20 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (3)

Houston is on the political fad forefront

Politicians are fad followers, according to the Reason blog, Out of Control. Let's look at the list and see if we can recognize any of the trends:

If you’re an elected official and you want to be “with it,” there is of course the issue of big box retailers. Here you have two choices: ban them or clear the way for them by using eminent domain. In other words, don't just stand on the sidelines like a dope.

You have to show your love for hybrids by offering them special perks, you have to show that you’re hip to the technology scene by wi-fiing your town. Speaking of hip, you should offer tax breaks to performance artists or do anything possible to attract the “creative class” to your city or state.

Of course, you have to ban smoking, but that never goes out of style. You should get yourself a light rail system, a sports stadium, convention center, and possibly even a convention center hotel. How else are you going to make your home town “world class”?

And of course you have to push for anti-outsourcing laws like this one[...]

[snip]

And don’t let anyone tell you that the purpose of government is to protect rights. The purpose of government is to raise as much revenue as possible by any means necessary.

We started off a bit slow there, since Houston doesn't appear to be against big box retailers, but there is talk of eminent domain. We don't really appear to pick up steam 'til we get to the smoking ban, which is a hot topic right now for a few councilmembers, the mayor and 30 demonstrators.

And before you know it, we are on the cutting edge of political fads: we've got light rail, sports stadiums, an expanded convention center and even a convention center hotel! We must be "world class"! Woo hoo!

I haven't heard talk of outsourcing laws, but we do get points for a strong close, because we have a mayor who has dedicated himself to raising as much revenue as possible by (almost) any means necessary.

Isn't it great to be a fad-following city?

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/02/05 07:20 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (10)

Truck zone ordinance is in effect: ka-ching!

KHOU-11 reminds us that the city's new truck zone ordinance went into effect Tuesday:

"There's a truck here, no permit, nothing. This is a commercial zone. He got a $300 ticket," says Wilford Martinez with the Houston Municipal Courts.

That's right $250 or $300 are the new fines for illegally parking in Houston's new commercial zones.

Now, after weeks of warning, the city government has gone on the prowl for truck zone scofflaws.

"What we were finding was that a lot of individuals were parking in truck zones," says Barbara Sudhoff of Houston Municipal Courts, "and then the commercial vehicles had no place to park."

These new, red-topped parking meters indicate that a parking space is actually a loading zone. They're expensive: $5 an hour. And not just anybody can park here. These meters are for commercial vehicles only.

So to park there, you need to drive either a vehicle with a business logo or a vehicle with one of the new permits that cost anywhere from $5 to $1,200.

[snip]

Skeptical delivery truck drivers think this isn't about parking, they think it's about money.

"Money for the city. I mean, why else? Why would we have to pay to park in a truck zone when all the time before we never did have to pay to park in a truck zone?" says Baker.

Whatever the reason, there's no more free parking in downtown's truck zones.

There's no more free anything in Houston, it seems.

UPDATE: It appears that the city wasn't quite ready for the new truck zone ordinance:

Enforcement of downtown's new commercial vehicle loading rules began Tuesday after a couple months of delays, but a Chronicle survey found incorrect signs, missing meters and other confusion across numerous blocks.

[snip]

A reporter surveyed loading zones on several blocks Tuesday. Among the findings:

--Old "truck zone'' signs remain at Milam and Walker and other locations. These signs were supposed to have been removed and replaced with new ``commercial loading zone'' signs that indicate a permit or meter payment is required.

--On McKinney between Travis and Main, there are conflicting signs. One indicates a loading zone but another states two-hour general parking is allowed. There is only one red meter to cover four or more spaces (most meters handle two spaces only).

--The wrong hours are posted on signs on Capitol between Fannin and San Jacinto, and at other locations. Those signs state the zones are in effect from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Saturday. However, the rules are really in place only from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

City officials pledged to fix the numerous errors.

"If some of the old signs need to be changed, we will certainly do that,'' said Frank Michel, spokesman for Mayor Bill White. "If there are some that are incorrectly labeled, then we have to get them corrected.''

Barbara Sudhoff, Municipal Courts clerk, said that if a person is erroneously ticketed because the signage at a site was in conflict with the ordinance, the citation would be dismissed.

I'm sure the burden of proof will be on the truck driver.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/02/05 05:22 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (3)

01 March 2005

Continental reaches tentative labor deal

The Chronicle's Bill Hensel Jr. reports that Continental Airlines has secured agreement on wage and benefit reductions that management claimed were necessary to the short- and long-term fiscal health of the Houston-based carrier:

Continental Airlines on Monday reached its target of half a billion dollars in worker concessions, a goal the carrier said it had to reach to stay afloat in today's tough industry environment.

The Houston-based carrier announced tentative wage and benefit reductions worth about $330 million that would be part of new contracts for thousands of unionized employees, including pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and dispatchers.

Continental previously detailed $169 million in reductions to nonunion employees' salary and benefits.

In November, Continental said it needed worker concessions worth $500 million. Since then, it has sounded dire warnings. In January, Continental said if it didn't hit the concessions target, it could run out of cash.

Monday, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Larry Kellner acknowledged that reducing pay and benefits is painful but stressed that the cutbacks "will put in place the tools we need to be successful and grow our company, securing the careers and retirement of all Continental employees."

Union members will have to approve the agreement.

Former CEO Gordon Bethune, widely credited for turning around Continental Airlines, enjoyed good labor relations during his tenure, no doubt explaining part of the successful turnaround he led. In winning the labor deal management sought, handpicked successor Larry Kellner appears to have successfully navigated some early turbulence in his own tenure.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/01/05 06:45 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

Woodfill argues for conservative principles in city government

Today's Chronicle runs an op-ed from Harris County Republican Chair Jared Woodfill, whose contentions regarding councilmembers generally regarded as Republicans were reported and then criticized by the newspaper.

Woodfill answers the critical editorial as follows:

The reality is, this is not about partisan politics, it's about conservative principles.

The Editorial Board is correct when it states, "There is no Republican sewer line, no Democratic pothole." However, there are conservative and liberal solutions to the city's problems, and these solutions involve the size and role of government and personal responsibility.

As noted previously, we'll be looking forward to hearing some of those conservative solutions earlier in municipal policy discussions.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/01/05 06:09 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)

City Council hears from public on smoking ban

Today and tomorrow are public comment days regarding Mayor White's proposed smoking ban:

Houstonians can voice their opinions to city council Tuesday and Wednesday about a proposed smoking ban that has sparked a heated debate in the Bayou City.

Houston City Council members will spend the two days discussing the controversial ordinance, which would outlaw smoking in most Houston restaurants.

The proposal, if passed, would mean smokers could no longer smoke inside the dining area of a restaurant. Currently, smokers can light up in designated smoking areas.

I heard on a KTRH-740 newsbreak that Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs is planning on tagging the smoking ban because she wants a tougher one. That would be in line with what we heard previously about some councilmembers looking for a stricter ban.

I am guessing here, but since there was an anti-smoking demonstration downtown today, I would think Council heard plenty of support for the ban. Houston Communities for Safe Indoor Air is listed in news reports as the sponsor of today's demonstration; a Google search doesn't turn up a website for the group, but this site lists someone from MD Anderson as a contact.

UPDATE: A blurb on the front page of KTRK-13's website says this:

Protesters take to the streets with their message about a proposed Houston smoking ban. But is it tough enough?

Is it tough enough? Gee, which side do you think KTRK is on? I will give KTRK credit though, because its story tells us that, "dozens of demonstrators gathered outside city hall." Ooooo, dozens.

UPDATE (03-02-2005): A reader emails that Houston Communities for Safe Indoor Air does indeed have a website. Thanks for the information.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/01/05 04:54 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)

Hollywood in Houston

The Houston Architecture Info Forum has a fun discussion going about movies that have been filmed in Houston.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/01/05 03:46 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (4)

Metro is cleaning house

Metro appears to have moved into its new Lee P. Brown Administration Building, and is ready to auction off unneeded office furniture and equipment from the old Metro headquarters:

METRO's Property Services Division will conduct two separate online auctions in March using the E-Surplus Auction web site (www.esurplusauction.com).

Through March 9, surplus inventory items from METRO's former headquarters, 1201 Louisiana, will be available on the site.

[snip]

For the first auction, the general public will have an opportunity to purchase various items, such as furnishings (desk chairs, tables, desks, bookcases) and other miscellaneous equipment [...]

And according to Metro's press release, there will be a second auction:

Beginning March 22, surplus inventory and vehicles, including buses, support vehicles, computer equipment, office furnishings and other miscellaneous equipment, will be featured.

[snip]

Bid prices may start as low as $750 for support vehicles; $500 for buses; $100 for lots of CPUs and lots of monitors; $75 for printers; $40 for CPU/monitor combos; and $10 for office furnishings; and $1 for miscellaneous items.

Anyone need a bus?

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/01/05 11:40 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (6)

Chronically clueless: editors take an unfair shot at HISD

It's very disappointing -- but all too predictable, unfortunately -- that the Chronicle's editors don't get it, regarding TEA head Shirley Neeley's decision to ignore one requirement of the No Child Left Behind act.

Here's an analogy: during the Dan Rather faked memos mess, the editors told us that all media should not be tainted with Dan Rather's "sins":

Conservative critics of the mainstream news media will attempt to tar the daily press, as well as ABC and NBC, with CBS's sins. The network's unprofessional behavior draws attention to the three broadcast networks' loss of audience and prestige, but CBS blundered on its own.

Along that same line, Neeley has decided not to tar all Texas schools with artificial failures because of an unreasonable NCLB regulation, as one of the Chronicle's own letters to the editor points out today (do the editors read the letters?):

The No Child Left Behind Act, though well-intentioned, is a severely flawed and punitive piece of legislation that effectively smothers schools already on life support. Its greatest flaw is that it assumes that all schools are exactly the same when they aren't.

Statistically, poorer schools tend to have greater numbers of special-needs students.

My middle school is considered a poor school, and our special-education population is more than 25 percent.

According to NCLB, 99 percent of those students must take on-level tests or be counted as automatic failures.

We are judged on the same scale as more affluent schools with much smaller special-education populations.

What NCLB has done is put poor schools in a no-win situation.

If we look out for our students' best interests, federal funding is jeopardized. If we comply with the mandates of NCLB, we compromise our commitment to special-education students. But regardless of noble intentions and herculean effort, we cannot arbitrarily qualify special-needs students to take on-level tests just to make some bureaucrats in Washington happy.

The feds have said that no more that one percent of a school's students can take the alternative skills test developed for special education students. It's an unfairly low number. Poorer schools DO tend to have larger special education student populations. Therefore the entire rating of a school district is labeled as failing or needing improvement, only because more than one percent of special education students took the alternate test and must be considered automatic failures, even if they passed the test.

It's ludicrous. And frankly, it's bewildering that the editors appear not to understand it. I am often critical of public education, and yet I understand what's going on here. It goes back to what I said previously: the Chronicle needs to find an education expert so it can speak intelligently on issues relating to public education.

As Callie Markantonis asked the other day, how many passes will the editors grant the sacred cow known as Metro, while the editors seem to willfully misstate and misunderstand what's going on at HISD?

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/01/05 08:05 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (3)

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