Houston, TX

Found a new local blog this morning that looks interesting: Professors R Squared. They claim to be the only openly Republican political science professors in Houston, maybe even Texas. Sounds like they would get along nicely with Benjamin Shapiro, who someone suggested to James Campbell that the Chronicle hire since Cragg Hines is retiring.

Benjamin Shapiro’s columns, though, are extremely ridiculous. The Chron is looking for a local conservative, which doesn’t bug me too much but also doesn’t exactly replace Cragg Hines, but Shapiro is absurd. Can you imagine the Chron running a column titled “The Radical Evil Of The Palestinian Arab Population”? Because that’s what last week’s Ben Shapiro column was called. This week’s was slightly tamer, focusing on “The Big Lie About The Great Depression.”

The reason that this blog reminded me of Ben Shapiro was that he wrote a book challenging the liberal bias in professors at colleges and universities. He also wrote a book about “the porn generation,” but that’s another post altogether. His relevant book is called Brainwashed. In this book, Shapiro proves that colleges are really “dungeons of the mind that indoctrinate students to become socialists, atheists, race-baiters, and narcissists.” Mmhmm. I intend to read it myself and find out.

So I think we can probably count him out as far as the Chronicle goes. Maybe one of the professors would like to apply for the job?

politics, education, conservatives, blogs, benjamin shapiro, houston chronicle

There are a couple interesting news stories right now, but I wanted to do something a little different today. I thought about an event post, but instead of that, I’ll point you to a couple of the best online resources for arts and events in Houston.

• Spacetaker: Spacetaker is great for gallery openings, plays, and a lot of free festivals and classes. It’s not quite as comprehensive as some might like, but their mission statement is heartwarming and they’re good at what they do.
• Artshound:A much less exclusive list of events in several categories, including theatre, music, dance, and art. They cover lots of other stuff that doesn’t nicely fall into those categories too.
• JazzHouston: Specific to jazz music, obviously, but I like jazz and it is a very thorough list of regular and special performances all over town.
• Handstamp: A chron.com blog about Houston’s music scene. I’m not too familiar with it, but the other Houston music scene blogs I’ve read have been pretty deficient, so I’d give this one a try.
• Chron.com/entertainment: An aggregate of all different kinds of things going on in all different kinds of places. You can come up with hundreds of things to do all over the city in one night.

houston, art, events, entertainment

Avid Chron readers might remember a story a while back about free airport parking for elected officials. There was a big debate over whether or not it’s a fair practice in the first place and whether or not some elected officials abuse the privilege. In that same vein, I learned today via TTC News that 5,500 free EZ Tags have been issued to elected officials, county and state employees, firefighters and police officers.

The tags are only supposed to be used for business, but how can that be enforced? The system has been in place for 15 years and has never gone under review to make sure the free tags are really only used for job-related trips. None of the free tag users are ever required to account for their trips or turn in any kind of paperwork to prove they only use their tags for work trips. The policy was finally placed under review last month, so I’ll be on the edge of my driver’s seat until we find out what’s going to happen.

In June of 2006, the tags cost $82,557.80. That’s only an average of about $15 per tag, which doesn’t sound too outrageous, but an average really doesn’t demonstrate any abuse of the system. How do drivers feel about this? One that was interviewed called it “unacceptable” with no explanation for his feelings. This driver isn’t quite so outraged, but I don’t like the idea of John Culberson driving to a fat sandwich shop on the Beltway on my dime - if, in fact, the taxpayers do pay for this. It’s unclear from what I’ve read where the money for this service comes from. I’ll try to investigate it and report back later on.

houston, transportation, politics

Margie from WatchingBSG tagged me to write 7 interesting facts about myself. I’m not much for talking about myself or for being interesting, so instead, here are 7 interesting facts about Houston and its people and places, off the top of my head:

1) Houston has more restaurants per capita than any other city in the world.

2) Houston is the largest unzoned city in America, making for some urban sprawl and some interesting neighborhoods.

3) Houston has more theatre seats in a concentrated district than any American city, other than New York.

4) Houston has been ranked as America’s Fattest City and one of America’s skinniest cities as well.

5) The University of Houston is the most ethnically diverse research institution in the country.

6) Houston has one of the largest thriving Chinatowns in the country - another testament to our diversity.

7) And finally… Houston’s Mayor White is a recent recipient of the JFK Profile in Courage award for his work to aid Katrina and Rita evacuees. This is the highest honor an American public servant can receive.

bill white, trivia, houston, statistics

I was all set to write up a post about Houston’s GLBT culture in honor of Pride this weekend when I ran across this. Is Houston really America’s most heterosexual city and what does that even mean?

It means we’re sexy.

It doesn’t mean anti-gay. I’ve taken a sort of man-on-the-street, or man-on-the-internet, as it were, approach to my research, so I’ve been reading forum posts and blogs and comments about Houston and its gay community. I doubt anyone’s surprised that the consensus was that Houston is very gay-friendly - and everyone loves Montrose. Montrose is not the only interesting part of the city by any means, but that’s what a lot of people and travel guides think. A lot of people seem to prefer being gay in Houston to being gay in Austin because Houston has more of a gay “scene.” The idea is that the mood in Austin is so tolerant that there’s no need for “gayborhoods,” as they’re referred to, because gay people live all over the place. But it’s not as if there are “gay-only” areas of Houston, or as if gay people don’t live all over the place here. My next-door neighbors here in southwest Houston are two gay men. I think what’s really the case is that Houston is a more mature city than Austin, that over-sized small town, and for whatever reason, Austin just hasn’t developed anything like Montrose or any such express celebration of gay culture.

One last note on Texas cities and gay culture that’s too interesting to pass up: is Dallas emerging as the gay capital of Texas?

For more gay Houston information, Out in Houston and Pride Houston are two fabulous resources. Pride Houston is your source for information on the yearly parade and festival which happens tomorrow.

austin, dallas, gay, lesbian, pride

If you’re part of the vast majority of Houstonians, then shame on you for not voting in last weekend’s City Council runoff election. With less than 3% of registered voters casting ballots, we managed to elect a fine new city councilwoman. And now that one Noriega is safe in an elected position for now, many Texans have turned their attention to her husband, State Rep. Rick Noriega and 2008’s Senate race.

John Cornyn is not the most popular senator - in Texas or in Washington. It’s a rare congressman who gets the honor of having a site like Stop Cornyn show up the year before an election. But the anti-Cornyn sentiment has channeled itself into a positive outlet as well: Draft Rick Noriega. Whether or not Noriega, a fourth-generation Houstonian (impressive!), ends up running, Houston has definitely changed the face of this race already. Burnt Orange Report ran a post on this topic on Monday. Will it be Rick Noriega? What about “influential and ambitious” Bill White?

I’m a fan of both Houston politicians, but I think there’s something to be said against Mayor White opposing John Cornyn next year. Bill White is famous (or infamous) for his business-like management style and his strong executive power. He was Deputy Secretary of Energy under Clinton, Chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, and now Mayor of Houston; a legislative position doesn’t exactly suit him, especially when a lot of his interactions with legislatures have been contentious. Also, a 2008 campaign would mean Bill White leaving Houston earlier than he has to, and after all he’s done here and all he has left to do, I’d hate to see that happen. If we want to talk about the 2010 governor race, that’s a whole different story and a whole different post.

PS: The answer to yesterday’s trivia question was the Astrodome.

Rick Noriega, John Cornyn, Election 2008, Bill White

Houston is a nifty little town, but I wouldn’t say I’m exactly here to prove that to you. Houston’s inferiority complex has lasted long enough, and I don’t think I’m the only one sick of the we-have-theatres-just-like-new-york-and-la mentality. I want to generally operate under the assumption that Houston is a desirable place - which is not to say that we can’t criticize or improve upon it. But hating on Houston is so passe. There’s a lot going on in Houston, but I don’t want to list a lot of events all the time. I’ve been toying with ideas for features, but I definitely want to touch on Houston’s politics, history, celebrities, weather, sports, arts, music, media, and anything else I can think of. If there’s something you want to see here, let me know and I’ll try to accommodate.

As for myself, my name is Alexandria (or Alex) and I’m a full-time student at the University of Houston. I’ve lived in Houston for my entire life and I love it - practically blindly. It’s a big deal for me to say anything remotely negative about my beloved city, even, yes, it’s humid. I’m majoring in political science and I follow local politics pretty closely. My personal blog can be found here. Besides Houston, blogging, and politics, I enjoy watching baseball, reading, the occasional MTV dating show, and Latin.

So here’s a Houston trivia question to kick things off. About what Houston landmark did Bob Hope say, “This is one heck of a place just to be in and watch whatever is going on. If they had a maternity ward and a cemetery you’d never have to leave!”?

houston, bob hope

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451 Press, Houston, Writers Needed