Pushing for independence, decades before it came

Irada Akhoundova remembers when the Soviet military rumbled outside her house. It was late 1991, post-perestroika, pre-independence, and Akhoundova, a principal of one of the schools of the Azerbaijan Republic, heard the four-wheelers and hard-tops tossing gravel outside her house. It was an early morning, and she had to get to the school in Baku, Azerbaijan's capital. She still had to teach in the midst of Moscow's attempts to tamp out the secessionist movement that was rippling across the Soviet Union.

After cajoling a young soldier to give her a ride to the school, Akhoundova promptly corralled the students in the middle of the gymnasium. It was for their safety, she told them. Only a few hours before, the Soviets had raked down a handful of peaceful demonstrators. The military was still patrolling the corners, was still commandeering local armories, was still arresting and cordoning those they found calling for an independent Azerbaijan. And Akhoundova's students, these high school boys who'd taken to the nationalist movements, were eager to contribute.

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Chechnya, burning in 1994

Simon Hanukaev's family has lived along the western shore of the Caspian Sea for generations. Settled near the city of Derbent, a southern city in the Russian republic of Dagestan, Hanukaev's predecessors lived through khanates and tsars, under Bolshevik revolution and Stalinist resettlement. His parents, after Simon was born in the early 1980s, then watched Gorbachev's policies fail, and saw those among autonomous republics south of the Caucaus Mountains declare their independence, and stood while the Chechen neighbors to the direct west attempted, once more, to finally throw off Moscow's chokehold for the first time in 150 years.

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Klineberg released his 32nd Houston survey on Tuesday.

Stephen Klineberg is animated. He's twirling his arms, and he's shuffling his feet, and his voice is jumping and falling and tripping over itself in anticipation of what he'll next say. He's as excited as a Rice University sociology professor could rightly be, sharing his latest findings of the most comprehensive urban research study in the nation.

"Houston is the embodiment of the American perspective," Klineberg tells a group of reporters Tuesday morning, detailing the results of the 32nd Annual Kinder Institute Houston Area Survey. "It's a much more typical US city than San Francisco or New York. ... This is where America will be in about twenty years -- and there's a growing comfort with it."

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A week after confusion first settled around the Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation's forthcoming decision on the Astrodome -- with some alleging an unspecified plan set to befall an unsuspecting populace -- we now have a better idea of what the HCSCC is preparing to provide. Just as officials told Hair Balls on Monday, the HCSCC board produced a resolution on Wednesday that details not a specific plan but a set of dates and promises that will eventually put the Dome's future in the hands of the Harris County Commissioners Court.

As it is, rumors still swirl -- out of USC? -- about a potential future option for the Eighth Wonder. Right now, though, the HCSCC is content with giving themselves nearly two months to cobble together and vet plans both private and public to eventually push forward.

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If everyone has a plan, then no one has a plan

A report came out in last week's Houston Chronicle purporting to detail a "vote on an unspecified plan concerning what to do with the Astrodome." According to John McClain, the board of the Harris County Sports & Convention Corporation was set to approve the plan and shuffle it to the Harris County Commissioners Court. "If county commissioners give their approval," McClain wrote, "the plan could eventually be voted on by the public."

This information was sourced to a "person" close to the situation. It is also incorrect.

See Also:
-- Digging Around the All-But-Abandoned Astrodome
-- Dome of Doom
-- Another Visit Inside the Abandoned Astrodome, and Still No One Knows What to Do with It

"[The Chronicle's report] was just wrong," Kevin Hoffman, HCSCC's deputy executive director, told Hair Balls. "There's a lot of speculation in the community regarding it, but we've been very careful and diligent in trying to get accurate information out."

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For our sixth installment of vintage photos mashed with their present-day locations, we entered the doomed Reliant Astrodome with photos from a 1968 Astrodome tour guide. It highlighted numerous events the dome accommodated It opened in 1965 as the Harris County Domed Stadium. From being the home of the Houston Astros and the Oilers, it was also host to three-ring circuses, boxing matches, rodeos and basketball games. Billy Graham set records with a 1965 visit, and the Dome hosted a political rally featuring President Lyndon B. Johnson.

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Our friend Alex Luster, who was the subject of a cover story in 2011, posted something intriguing to his Facebook page on Monday. According to him, Apple Maps, the app that took the place of Google Maps in the iPhone's OS 6 upgrade and has been much maligned, apparently still believes Six Flags Astroworld exists.

As we all know, Astroworld has been an empty lot for quite a few years now, but Apple Maps claim otherwise and a check of the app (as you can see from the photo) confirms it. Right there in an empty lot -- that is painfully easy to see in satellite views like in the photo -- is a listing for Six Flags Astroworld, that fanciful place of our youth that was torn down to the ground. Gone is the Runaway Rickshaw, the bamboo boat water ride and, of course, the Texas Cyclone. But not for Apple Maps.

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The most well-known prank in Rice history took place on a warm spring morning in 1988. A few years after the idea first crept into their keg-addled minds, a handful of engineering students erected a pair of 24-foot A-frames around the campus's centerpiece, a one-ton statue of William Marsh Rice that houses the ashes of the university's founder.

Willy, as the statue was affectionately known, had faced the university's picturesque Lovett Hall for 58 years. But before the sun rose -- as lookouts paced nearby roofs; as decoys helped dissuade patrolling police that a "senior research project" need not be bothered -- Willy would instead be staring down Fondren Library, rotated 180 degrees from the view he once enjoyed.

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With Houston landing at number seven on the New York Times list of places to visit in 2013 last week, I decided to give you seven things not to look at when you visit on Monday. Today, I go for the opposite approach.

Houston is not exactly a beauty queen. I've heard that there is a formula for potential mates that goes something like looks + brains + sanity = constant. So, if you have a really hot chick who is super smart, she's likely batshit crazy. The goal for long-term relationships is the partner who balances out along the scale. That's Houston. Parts of it are beautiful and others butt ugly. We have some ingenious innovators and plenty of rednecks. We have no zoning laws to keep things organized, but that chaos leads to some really handy conveniences.

The bottom line in Houston is that you can't take a standard city tour and expect to get to the heart of what we are all about. And while guides like Fodor's might give you a good sampling of great places to see and things to do while you're here, we bet they don't crackle with excitement about these gems of the Bayou City.

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Last week, many were surprised -- some even perplexed -- to see our beloved city on the annual New York Times list of places to visit in 2013. Houston was number seven on a list of 46 that included Rio, Amsterdam, Singapore, Hawaii's Big Island, Oslo, Bangkok and Paris. Yes, we were on a "must visit" list with Paris, the one in France, not the one in northeast Texas.

In the story's description, Houston was praised for our theater district and thriving food scene. It's not the first story in the last year that has heaped praise on us, and for good reason. Let's be honest, we're pretty freaking awesome.

But just as you tilt your head a certain way when you take a photo to avoid the appearance of that fourth chin, Houston has some warts we'd rather no one saw.

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