Houston News Blog

We've just loaded up a batch of photos from Bill Olive's travels around town. Have a look. -- Keith Plocek

The Institute for Business & Home Safety says Houston is dragging behind its Gulf Coast neighbors with regards to improving building codes following Hurricane Katrina.

While some coastal communities have stepped up their building standards, the changes haven’t been adopted by nearby inland communities which also run a high risk for wind damage during storms.

IBHS Chief Engineer and Senior Vice President of Research Tim Reinhold says, “Houston pops up as a prime example of this risky proposition. While the Texas Department of Insurance high-wind standards have been implemented with varying degrees of success in coastal communities, Houston area homes and businesses have been built with little regard for hurricane winds.”

A recent survey of the Houston area by IBHS engineers found dramatic variations in the quality of coastal construction, and “very poor construction in the Houston metropolitan area.”

Well, damn.

— Olivia Flores Alvarez

The University of Houston has joined four other colleges in the nation that are getting paid to keep students from drinking too much. For its alcohol-prevention program, the university gets $124,000 of federal money from the always-fun Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools.

The money is a reward for two years of research by a group from the university's Wellness Department and its prevention program directed at high risk students: greeks, athletes and freshmen. The goal is convincing students that their friends aren't drinking as much as they think.

According to the program's director, Gail Gillan, researchers found that 80 percent of students think that other students consume eight drinks a week, but drink less than two themselves. From those figures, I conclude that the University of Houston is boring, but researchers conclude that it is peer pressure that makes you drink.

It's officially a disaster!

The TV weathercasters always get rapped for over-hyping approaching hurricanes, but Texas Gov. Rick Perry is not shy about jumping the gun.

From Austin, he's already declared the counties of Harris, Bexar, Brazoria, Brazos, Calhoun, Chambers, Fort Bend, Galveston, Grimes, Jackson, Jefferson, Liberty, Matagorda, Montgomery, Orange, Walker and Wharton to be in states of "disaster" because of Hurricane Gustav, which hasn't even hit Cuba yet.

We're still wondering how Bexar County figures into this, since San Antonio is a good ways from any salt water.

Still, we have no quarrel with this because the motto we live by goes like this: "In case of disaster, be prepared."

If you get tanked and drive over Labor Day weekend, you have an increased chance of finding yourself locked up for DWI and missing a bit of blood. (Or more than a bit, if you’re also into one of our favorite pastimes, jail fights. Cops in Houston-area counties will conduct special anti-drunk driving operations this weekend with a powerful weapon at their disposal: Judges just itching to write warrants to get blood samples from those who refuse to submit to a breath test. (We guess for the time being you can ignore the advice of defense attorney Tyler Flood’s “DO NOT BLOW” ads located in the men’s bathrooms at Minute Maid Park, of all places.)

Maybe you’re not familiar with the ins and outs of DWI. You’re in luck – like that badass 7th grader who cut class to smoke cigarettes behind the gym, we’ve got answers to your burning questions. (Ours may not be as useful, and – thanks, lawyers! – we can’t offer to sell you weed that we pinched from our stepdad, but whatever.) Our Labor Day gift to you: three DWI myths debunked.

Deborah Colton Gallery has new digs, y’all. The main gallery is now located at 2445 North Boulevard in the Upper Kirby District, leased from artist Molly Gochman. It’s a cool building with an AstroTurf courtyard in the back. The concave and convex spheres you see on the outside of the building were inspired by the word “welcome” in braille.

Although this will serve as Colton’s main gallery, she still has her space on Summer Street, also home to all those presidential heads by David Adickes, who owns the building, and artist studios.

For a time it looked like the Summer Street building, which used to be a paint factory, had been sold to make way for more condos, which is why Colton leased the space on North Boulevard. But Adickes had the opportunity to get out of the contract, and an offer from an arts group is on now on the table, according to Colton.

A local judge has pled guilty to sexual assault. No, not the local federal judge, the other local judge accused of feeling up underlings' breasts. We sure have a a fun bunch of jurists around here.

Brazoria County Court at Law Judge James Blackstock resigned and entered his guilty plea today.

The price for a feel? $350 each for four sexual assaults.

Hope it was worth it, asshole.

-- Richard Connelly

Another clip from Oliver Stone's W. has surfaced, and while this one doesn't feature a scene from Houston, it does include a priceless take on W hitting on Laura Bush.

Swigging a beer, Bush says "Oh, no" when Laura for some reason makes the assertion that she reads books. (She also oddly throws in, almost immediately, "I smoke.")

Bush then becomes perhaps the first person in history who attempts to get him some by citing Barry Goldwater.

We can't wait for this movie.

-- Richard Connelly

KPRC news has a fresh set of promos out, featuring the usual TV-news trope of reporters and cameramen dashing about to cover the city they know so deep in their bones.

(How come they never show the reporters dashing to Google Maps to look up where the intersection of Chimney Rock and Bissonet is?)

It looks like standard fare, but there is one thing unusual in the ads. Those camera operators? They're not really camera operators.

More than 250 "financial literacy leaders from Texas" will be in Houston in mid-September for something called Money Week.

It's an event featuring experts who will give advice on how to deal with current tough economic conditions.

Among the participants: the FDIC, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, the Small Business Association, Comerica Bank...and Underground Kingz.

UGK? What's the schedule look like: "10 am, Room 314A -- Ridin' Dirty Through A Foreclosure, with UGK."

We asked event spokesperson Hope Montgomery just what financial advice UGK would be offering.

This just in: Airplane food is not just the butt of jokes anymore – it’s also a charitable donation. The Houston Food Bank recently started accepting unused food from Continental Airlines for its Backpack Buddy program which aids kids classified as “chronically hungry.” Houston Food Bank spokeswoman Betsy Ballard says these tykes usually don’t eat regularly on non-school days.

“Monday through Friday they’re going to get school breakfasts and lunches and that’s gonna help them through the day, but over the weekend they’re kind of screwed. They don’t have food in the house in a lot of cases,” Ballard tells Hair Balls. The Backpack Buddy program pairs with area schools to make sure these kids have food to take home for the weekend. Ballard says Continental’s donation helped them expand into more schools.

“We’re harvesting about 3,000 pounds of food every week,” says Ballard. “It’s prepackaged cereal, raisins … muffins. It’s anything that we can take that would follow our usually heath department regulations.”

And hopefully your good-taste regulations, right?

We're right in the middle of Oh God, Oh God, We're All Gonna Die season (as Wash might say) and sure enough there's hurricane Gustav, creeping through the Caribbean and toying with the sphincter control of everyone from Corpus Christi to Destin, FL. Trouble is, Gustav is hardly a name we Houstonians can identify with. It's best know as the moniker of about 50 Swedish kings and Gustav[e] Flaubert, who wrote Madame Bovary, which none of you have ever read. To appeal to today's easily distracted Gulf Coast denizens, we need a hurricane named Drayton. Or Marvin. Or Beyonce.

But what about past storms? Are there any historical tropical systems that can best be associated with the paved swamp we all call home?

Thought you'd never ask.

5. Vince (2005) - In any other year, the formation of an October tropical system out in the cold waters near the Azores might have been deemed newsworthy. But this was 2005, and four Category 5 systems had already made landfall, killing thousands and devastating large portions of the Gulf Coast and the Caribbean, so nobody really cared about poor Vince, even though he made the only recorded landfall by a cyclone on the Iberian Peninsula and in so doing, eased a year-long drought.

Huzzah.

Similarly Named Houstonian - Why, Vince Young of course. Like his tropical namesake, the former Madison High QB made his mark in 2005, leading UT to their first national championship since the Nixon Administration. And also, like the storm, he was overshadowed by Houston and New Orleans. This time, instead of Rita and Katrina it was Mario Williams and Reggie Bush, who were both drafted ahead of Young in 2006.

Whatever. 4th and 5:

I’ve got one word for you people: Dokken.

Yeah, Dokken. I said it, and you heard me. I’m also saying Bret Michaels, Twisted Sister, RATT, L.A. Guns, Alice Cooper, and Skid Row.

It’s Rock the Bayou time, yes indeedy.

As a child of the late 80s, I was into my hair metal like I was into my Bonne Bell and Wet n’ Wild and Aqua Net. My gal pals and I staged dance contests in our basements set to the music of Poison, Guns n’ Roses, and Def Leppard. Although the discerning critic already blooming inside me was a little disturbed by the idea of grown men with prettier hair than me, I couldn’t deny the fact that “Pour Some Sugar on Me” had a rockin’ beat.

The Houston Chronicle has the breaking news that U.S. District Judge Sam Kent of Galveston has been indicted, which is not a good career move for a federal judge.

Being indicted "on charges of abusive sexual contact and aggravated sexual abuse" just doesn't sound good on the ol' resume.

Kent, a hot-tempered judge who ruled the Galveston courthouse like a private fiefdom, has been the focus of a long investigation into charges he had (perhaps drunkenly) manhandled a former case manager.

He becomes the first federal judge ever indicted on federal sex charges, the paper reported.

Kent was reprimanded a year ago by the judicial council of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

For attorneys who've had to grovel before Kent, or endure yet another tongue-lashing, it's got to be a day of schadenfreude. Not to mention it may make one day closer the time when Galveston gets a replacement judge to handle their docket.

-- Richard Connelly

We’re not here to advocate for either side in the never-ending Heights-residents-versus-bars argument, but we are in favor of parking in front of our houses.

Recently the Old Sixth Ward Neighborhood Association filed for residential parking permits on streets – such as Decatur Street and Kane Street– near popular bars and restaurants. This would ensure residents could park in front of their houses instead of fighting for spaces with patrons of Pandora, The Drake, Beaver’s Ice House and other nearby hot spots.

“[At Beaver’s], customers are parking along Decatur in the neighborhood at, you know, dinner time and so when someone comes home from work … the street is completely congested,” OSWNA President Phil Neisel tells Hair Balls. “When the street is taken, you kind of have to drive around and look for a [parking] place somewhere else.”

!n some cases, he adds, homeowners are parking blocks away from their houses.

We know what you’re thinking: Ever hear of a driveway? Neisel says that many of the properties in the area weren’t built with cars in mind.

“Either the lots are too narrow for a driveway or the house is too wide for a driveway or there was a driveway at one time and it’s not being used a driveway anymore,” he says.

Stephanie Hays, the 33-year-old Katy woman who's in jail after offering up three young children for sex, is -- allegedly -- scum, seriously disturbed, or an utter psychopath.

Hays was arrested after cops nabbed a Missouri man who was trying to have sex with kids and was involved in computer chats with Hays.

In the complaint filed with the court, Pasadena ISD police detective Matt Gray said Hays admitted to cops she'd been the person chatting with the Missouri guy and offering up three kids for sex.

We've just loaded up the latest installment of Month in Photos, so now you can see what you missed in August when your day job got in the way of that valuable Internet time. Have a look. You deserve it. -- KP

The Shipley Do-Nut company and its president today received a stern slap as both pleaded guilty in federal court to charges related to employing and housing illegal immigrants.

Lawrence Shipley III, who took the helm of his family’s Houston-based company in 2005, pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of continuing to employ undocumented immigrants. He was sentenced to 6 months of probation and was ordered to pay a $6,000 fine, U.S. Attorney Donald DeGabrielle announced today.

The company, DeGabrielle said, has agreed to plead guilty to a felony conspiracy charge, serve one year of probation and revise its immigration compliance program.

“I would hope that other businesses that are currently employing people here illegally,” DeGabrielle said, “they would look to this and say that we are serious about not only enforcing our efforts at the border … [but] that those who are serving as a magnet to draw people here realize that they are literally risking their liberty as well.”

As we've noted, some Houstonians are worried -- not to say pissed -- that another hurricane may send another round of Louisiana evacuees our way.

So do they have something to worry about? Does the county plan to once again open up the Astrodome to house evacuees?

In a word, no.

And not in many more words, either. Joe Stinebaker, spokesman for Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, is concise when asked by Hair Balls if the Dome might once again open as a demonstration of all the love and care that Houstonians can bestow:

"It will not," he says.

Kelly Martinez, the Spring Branch woman whose sons couldn't get into the school she wanted because they spoke English (see update below), met with the principal of Edgewood Elementary this morning.

Nothing new was offered for her oldest son, but the school will allow Martinez's youngest son to attend its Spanish-language-only pre-kindergarten class. According to Suzanne Mercado, the school's principal, a few parents have opted to place their kids in that class, even if their kids don't speak Spanish.

Otherwise, her youngest son has to attend an off-campus pre-kindergarten center for $500 a month. "I can’t afford to do that," Martinez says. "If I could afford to do that, I would put them in a private school and say, 'To hell with it.'"

A Houston family has a bone to pick with JCPenney. Seems a 5th Ward woman with the mental age of a four-year-old was somehow issued a JCPenney charge card. Family members, including the woman’s legal guardian, have been trying to get the account closed, with no luck.

As they've written the company:

[The woman] is profoundly physically, mentally and emotionally handicapped. She is not capable of making financial or legal decisions … Quite frankly, [she] will agree to anything on the phone, and have no memory of it a few minutes later. This is why the bulk of the charges on her Penny's card are for insurance policies that she has no need for and a "discount travel" plan sold to a mentally retarded woman who never travels more than a few blocks from home by an unscrupulous phone rep.

Penney’s credit reps reportedly insist on talking with the woman, and no one else. Several letters and phone calls to the company haven’t helped.

We got in touch with JCPenney’s customer service and were directed to GE Credit Corporation, the company that handles all of JCPenney’s credit cards. We sent off an e-mail to GE and got a quick response from Retail Consumer Finance Communications representative Dori Abel.

Ms. Abel offered to intervene in the situation and put the family together with customer service representative that would resolve the issue.

So what’s GE’s policy about issuing credit cards to the mentally challenged?

Houston may be a sweltering furnace most of the year battling some of the worst pollution in the country, but according to recent employment numbers, it’s a great place to live.

Yesterday, the United States Department of Labor released stats showing that the Houston area is second only to Dallas in job growth over the past year. According to the report, which looked at data from 310 metropolitan areas, Dallas clocked in with 68,000 new jobs and Houston added 57,100. By contrast, Los Angeles lost 45,000 jobs.

The reason for Houston’s job growth is a combination of factors, including that the city has for the most part avoided the kind of housing-price crisis facing the rest of the country, Ali Anari, research economist with the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M, tells Hair Balls.

Houston's racism is already on display with an avalanche of comments on the Houston Chronicle web site hoping desperately the city won't have to welcome any more hurricane refugees.

Next up -- Hollywood takes a whack.

Opening this fall is a movie called Towelhead, based on what we're told is a best-selling book. Directed by Six Feet Under's Alan Ball and starring Toni Collette and Aaron Eckhart, the story follows a 13-year-old Lebanese girl who moves to Houston and -- well, and encounters what Hollywood thinks are typical Houstonians.

(See the couple in the opening seconds of the trailer.)

Good Lord. Hilary Duff -- the little angel from Houston who audiences adored in Lizzie McGuire -- is setting a terrific example for kids.

Mostly it's her parents. They're in a Harris County court, in the midst of the type of bitter divorce that tends to occur when you have a kid who's a Hollywood money-printing machine.

Hilary's father was sentenced to 10 days in jail for contempt of court. He and Hilary's mother are fighting over -- believe it or not -- whether or not they should spend $25,000 on Hilary's birthday celebration.

(Pause here to hurl.)

Last week, when exploring the City of Houston’s free downtown wifi system, we ran into the most dreaded of Internet obstacles: the porn filter.

After we recounted the harrowing experience, an anonymous commenter (is there any better kind?) suggested that we investigate just who makes the call as to what Web sites are acceptable viewing for the general public.

Staying true to our vow to always indulge random suggestions from anonymous individuals, we made a few calls and wound up talking to Janis Benton, head of the city’s IT department, and what she told us will shock you.

Kelly Martinez can't find an elementary school in the Spring Branch Independent School District for her two sons – ages 6 and 4 – because they don't speak Spanish.

Edgewood Elementary, Martinez's zoned school, is 95 percent Hispanic, and last week a school official told her that the school didn't offer "mainstream" classes but classes with a goal of teaching "as much English as possible," according to Martinez. Her youngest son didn't qualify for the pre-kindergarten class because he doesn’t speak Spanish.

"[The school's principal] was positive there would be English instruction, and the only difference would be that the other children have brown skin," Martinez says. "That's not an issue, I have brown skin, but the language is still an issue." (Update: Martinez notes in the comments that it was a school official who said this, not the prinicipal.)

Houston is not exactly accustomed to getting rave reviews in the national press, so city and county officials rode Katrina for all it was worth.

Houston opened its arms to evacuees, Houston showed its welcoming heart, Houston demonstrated what taking care of neighbors is all about, etc., etc., etc.

But, with another hurricane targeting New Orleans, the message from Houstonians -- at least those nuts who comment on the Houston Chronicle website -- is clear: Stay the fuck away, Louisianans.

Charlie Wilson, the hard-partying Congressman who fomented an Afghan war and a disappointing Tom Hanks movie, is in the crosshairs again.

A group in Lufkin wants to endow a chair in South Asian studies at the University of Texas; UT profs who know something about that region have sent a letter decrying the honoring of someone whom they believe did more harm than good over there.

Tuesday, The Washingtonian came out with its annual Best and Worst of Congress issue.

The magazine polls 1,700 “administrative assistants, press secretaries, legislative directors, and chiefs of committee staffs to get their take on the best and worst members of Congress. Who’s smart? Who’s not? And who looks good in a swimsuit?”

After the jump, results of local and statewide interest:

Victoria Osteen vs. Sharon Brown, we hardly knew ye.

Ye (or you) gave us plenty of laughs and grins as we watched two nutty gals get all crossways with each other before becoming BFFs. Or, in Victoria's case, someone whom she tried to pray for once in a while.

The Osteens are back to doing what they do best -- they'll be appearing in Dallas' NBA arena soon at fifteen bucks a ticket -- but we couldn't let the trial of the century go by without one last look.

"The Passion Of The Victoria" -- or, as it's headlined online for search-engine reasons, "The Passion Of Victoria Osteen" -- is here.

Maybe Lakewood Church can sell t-shirts with that cover image on it.

The biggest surprise of all in putting together the story: