​We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it's time we paid some damn attention to them.

So we'll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning, from the previous day's work. Maybe two comments, even.

This will all be determined by a highly rigorous scientific formula involving wit, clarity and whatever else we feel like at the moment.

We wrote about how some of Houston's federal judges aren't happy with newly restored courthouse paintings, which they say show scenes reminiscent of slavery.

Some readers said the paintings merely showed history, but another questioned their use.

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​We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it's time we paid some damn attention to them.

So we'll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning, from the previous day's work. Maybe two comments, even.

This will all be determined by a highly rigorous scientific formula involving wit, clarity and whatever else we feel like at the moment.

We reported on a Houston federal judge's decision that a company was free to fire a breast-pumping woman because, he said, lactation is not related to pregnancy.

Several readers weighed in.

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Offensive racist imagery, or benign painting well-suited for a courthouse or mid-range motel? You be the judge.

​Six historical paintings at Houston's federal courthouse have raised some hackles with two federal judges, who believe the paintings dredge up offensive imagery of slavery.

The paintings, depicting the Houston Ship Channel in the late 1870s, were completed between 1938 and 1941, and were displayed in the courthouse entryway from the 1970s until they were removed for restoration in 2006. In 2010, they were once again displayed, this time in the jury assembly room.

But U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore took umbrage at the art, especially a 1941 painting by Alexandre Hogue called "The Diana Docking," showing laborers and spectators along Buffalo Bayou. In an e-mail to her fellow judges, she pointed out the presence of a white fellow with a gun, a black fellow with a bundle of logs and no shirt, and a Native American fellow who is made out of wood.

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Going, going, gone.

​It's a day that many thought would never come: The end of Houston's turbulent, farcical red-light camera circus.

City Council voted today to approve a $4.8 million settlement with American Traffic Solutions, the company that has been sore ever since Houstonians voted to remove the hated devices.

The cameras, which have not been operational since August, will start coming down in 60 days.

If you happen to have a ticket from when the cameras were still working and racking up big bucks, you are liable for it, and ATS will continue to get a portion of your cash.

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Not connected to pregnancy.

​U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes is likely about to become the butt of Internet merriment with the news of a recent decision.

He'll also be pissing off breast-feeding moms, and that is one group you do not want to cross, as many companies and entities have discovered to their dismay.

In a suit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Hughes ruled that a company can fire a breast-feeding woman because "lactation is not pregnancy, childbirth or a related medical condition."

Texas companies cannot fire someone for being pregnant, but Hughes wrote of Donnicia Venters: "She gave birth on December 11, 2009. After that day, she was no longer pregnant and her pregnancy-related conditions ended."

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Lakewood could have prevented false accusation, suit says

​We wrote last May about Alvaro Guzman, a Lakewood Church volunteer who was arrested on charges of fondling an eight-year-old autistic boy.

Not only has Guzman been cleared of the charges -- a grand jury refused to indict him -- he is suing Lakewood for putting him through hell, court documents show.

Guzman has sued Lakewood for $10 million for "lost wages, damage to reputation, lost future wages, lost future opportunities, damage to licenses, and [for having] to endure ridicule, anxiety, pain and illness," according to his suit.

He says Lakewood failed to have proper training and procedures in place to prevent the false accusation from going forward, including a lack of security cameras that would have disproved the charges.

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Brown accused of using community money to make it rain with tha hos.

​The chief financial officer for Dr. Michael Brown's various corporations invoked his Fifth Amendment rights during divorce proceedings Tuesday and Wednesday in response to a barrage of questions about whether Brown has been siphoning corporate funds to pay for a boat and home in Miami.

Under questioning from Rachel Brown's attorney, David Brown (no relation), Charles Cave read from a card provided by his own attorney, citing his right to decline to answer whether Brown employees have been delivering $17,000 in cash a day to Michael Brown over the last year.

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Pat Lykos returning fire.

​The grand jury that has been investigating whether the District Attorney's office broke any laws regarding blood-alcohol tests from so-called "BAT" vehicles did not issue any indictments, but it went out with a bang.

Jury foreperson Trisha Pollard distributed a letter, apparently backed by all the panel members, that criticized DA Pat Lykos's office for trying to intimidate them and investigate witnesses. They also slammed a prosecutor for taking the fifth.

"Nothing prepared us for what unfolded," the letter said, saying prosecutors had hung around the hallway outside the grand jury's meeting room and that a person in what seemed like "a government-issued car" photographed them returning from a lunch break.
"The stain upon the {DA's office] will remain regardless of any media statements issued or press conferences performed by anyone."

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Acting through the Harris County Attorney's Office, the State of Texas is suing the Fannin Food Mart and the property's landlord, Jae Kim. The state claims that the property is a public nuisance and neither Fannin Food Mart's registered agent Azeem Ali Noorani nor Kim have done anything to abate the problems despite being admonished to do so.

The store in question is located at 2111 Fannin and is adjacent to the Greyhound station on Main. It is also known as the Tiger Mart, and it once housed a Creole lunch counter and still is home to a doughnut shop.

The state's suit portrays the 24-hour market as a veritable hive of scum and villainy, a place where the crooked Fannin Street of Tom Waits song lives on ("Don't go down to Fannin Street...You'll be lost and never found, you can never turn around, don't go down...to Fannin Street.")

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​In April 2010, Xavier Christopher Foster, a freshman at the historically black Jarvis Christian College in Hawkins, walked into a private apartment for a Kappa Alpha Psi pledge meeting.

Instead of learning more about one of the nation's oldest African-American fraternities, he endured five hours of "near nonstop beatings, verbal and psychological abuse" at the hands of Kappas (a.k.a. Pretty Boys). The weapons of choice ranged from wood paddles to rods.

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