Houston News Blog

Photo by wsilver

​People who aren't fans of dogs accidentally strangling themselves with their leashes aren't going to like this story: On Wednesday, a dog at the Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care died after, as previously mentioned, it got caught up in its leash while a staff member cleaned its cage.

Elena Marks of the Mayor's Office, which now oversees BARC, confirmed for Hair Balls today thart "it had been taken out of its cage and secured with a rope or leash while the cage was being cleaned. Apparently, it got the rope or leash wrapped around its neck. The staff person cleaning the kennel performed CPR and vet staff came and attempted to revive the dog, to no avail."

Now, here's what really gets us: This painful, disgusting death occurred on Wednesday. We e-mailed Marks -- who, along with Frank Michel, head of communications for the Mayor's Office, is the main media contact for BARC -- to try to confirm this on Thursday. We didn't hear a peep. This morning, we e-mailed again, at which point Marks told us that she was still gathering information. Then, a few hours later, we were told the scant few facts printed above.
 

​The newest edition of Texas Monthly has a lengthy profile of candidate (for something) Bill White, erstwhile mayor of Houston.

The first few grafs give the flavor:

by S.C. Gwynne Mayor Bill is on the move. Strapped into the passenger seat of an unmarked Lincoln Town Car, cell phone stuck firmly to his ear, he rolls through the vast grid of streets. He issues orders, barks out instructions. In the waning days of August 2005, something terrible has happened, and in some ineffable, fate-ridden way, it has fallen to him to fix it.

That terrible thing is Hurricane Katrina. The storm, which has slammed into the Gulf Coast, has also loosed a flood of evacuees. Of these, 200,000 have landed in Houston. There is no guidebook or FEMA manual that addresses such a massive shelter operation. In Dallas, 30,000 victims have arrived, and Mayor Laura Miller is already complaining that her city is nearing the saturation point. In Houston, 30,000 people will come through the Astrodome alone.

This is Mayor Bill's problem. This is why he is pounding through the city at all hours of the day and night in the wilting, late-summer heat. He is learning, as the rest of America will soon realize, to its horror, that the federal government cannot be counted on for much of anything. Nor, really, can the State of Texas. Nor, really, can anyone else. No one knows what to do.

Except, as it turns out, Mayor Bill. In those first moments of chaos, he makes a large conceptual leap: The evacuees are not going home. Almost no one believes this, because it's unthinkable that a single city could possibly absorb so many people. Mayor Bill believes this. Even better, he has a plan. Well, it is more of an objective, with the details to follow. But it is an extraordinary idea. "The overriding policy goal," he will say later, "was to treat people the way we would want to be treated. We wanted people to be on the path to living with independence and dignity, to finding work and getting their children in school." Permanently. Mayor Bill is old-fashioned: a Sunday school teacher who believes in the mysteries of God and in the quaint notion that people are inherently kind and generous. Each time he welcomes someone into the shelters, he offers a verse from the New Testament: "When I was hungry, you fed me. When I needed shelter, you took me in." The Book of Matthew is the overriding policy goal.

​U.S. Rep. John Culberson has a new cause -- he has become perhaps the world's biggest cheerleader for Michael Savage, the hateful nutjob radio host (Proudly presented here by KPRC!!) who makes Sean Hannity seem like a deep, reasoned thinker.

What's Savage's radio show about? When he's not making jokes about liberal women being raped, he's offering analysis like this about autism:

Now, the illness du jour is autism. You know what autism is? I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, "Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot

Which is apparently music to the ears of John Culberson, because it's been a Culberson-Savage lovefest this week on the show.

​More stumbles for Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in her attempt to take out Governor Rick Perry: After saying for months that she would quit the Senate around now to go all in on the gubernatorial race, she has just announced she won't leave until after the GOP primary.

Why? Bad poll numbers leading her to think she'll lose and therefore might want to keep the DC job? Of course not.

As the Dallas Morning News puts it:

Now, she says, she must stay in Washington to fight against Democratic health care and environmental legislation. "These issues are too important to leave the fight to a newly appointed freshman senator," Hutchison said in a written statement. "A newly appointed senator would be selected in the midst of a political storm. And will need on-the-job training in the midst of a crisis."

Fighting against health-care reform and the environment: A strong GOP platform, that.

Perry's campaign has just issued a statement to reporters that is only slightly snarky.

​Talk about a ballsy endorsement: local group Christians For Better Government announced today that it definitely thinks you should vote Annise Paker for mayor. Or maybe Gene Locke. Come to think of it, wouldn't it be swell if we could have two mayors??

This is after the non-profit, Pentecostal-Charismatic political organization declined to endorse a candidate before the general election. So why the Houston Chronicle-like double endorsement in a field of two for the December 12 run-off? CFBG's president, the Rev. Willie Wright Jr., explains.

"We felt that Gene Locke and Annise Parker are equally equipped," he says. "We didn't want to send a message by endorsing just Gene Locke that we are anti-gay, anti-abortion -- a lot of churches and pastors want us to be associated as a right-wing group, and we don't want to be identified with that. For the sake of peace and harmony and community, we have decided to endorse both."

​We have become all too lax in keeping up with the National Enquirer; most of the "celebrities" who are getting fat, having affairs or going to rehab in its pages are pretty much unfamiliar to us. (We know there's a dude named Gosselin who's very bad, but we don't know why, nor care.)

Luckily, the estimable local blogger Slampo is more dedicated. And he brings entertaining word that the Enquirer has raised serious questions about the death of Houston's legendary John O'Quinn.

And by "serious," we mean "utterly ridiculous."

"Mystery Shrouds Death of Edwards Contributor," reads the headline. The Enquirer, of course, broke the story of sleazebag John Edwards' affair, and remains hot on the case. To the point that the paper wonders if it isn't awfully convenient that O'Quinn, who was a big contributor to Edwards, died.

​The once-respected Waco Tribune Herald was purchased this summer by a very conservative family whose first move was to put "In God We Trust" on the front page of each edition.

Since then the paper has become very right-wing (even for Waco!!) on its editorial pages. We don't read it enough to know if that's seeped over to the news side, but we did read it today online.

"Opinions in Fort Hood, Killeen mixed on today's Obama visit," read the headline on a story about the presidential visit for the memorial service.

How "mixed" were they? Just judging from the people quoted, not too mixed at all -- everyone hates Obama, pretty much.

Houston is barely coming off the adrenaline rush of the mayoral election, and already it has been set careening into the non-stop thrill ride of the runoff.

You thought Annise Parker and Gene Locke brought the high-octane heat in the first round? You ain't seen nothing yet. (Probably because you weren't paying attention, and who could blame you?)

Parker and Locke now battle it out mano-a-womano without the distractions of far feebler, less electric candidates.

It is on, brosephs. And luckily, it's Wednesday, which means we can put everything in chart form to make things clear.

​Here at Hair Balls, we like to scientifically sift through mountains of poll data, do extensive focus-group interviews, and examine voting trends dating back to the 1960s before making any bold predictions.

This one time, as Michael Corleone would say, we are willing to make an exception.

Our bold prediction: Houston businessman Farouk Shami will not be the next governor of Texas.

Shami, a multi-millionaire who owns a hair-products business, has announced that he's in it to win it and will spend $10 million of his own money to win the Democratic primary for governor in 2010.

We're not saying he won't win the primary; his opponents are lackluster and short of cash, and if there's anything Texas Democrats enjoy doing, it's shooting themselves in the foot on the state level.

​Ah, Peter Brown. You spent more than $3 million of your wife's cash, you put up dazzling ads that showed you jazzercising your way to Houston's future, you led the polls most of the way, as long as "Undecided" wasn't included.

Yet you lost. Badly. Instead of making the runoff, you had to struggle to beat no-name Roy Morales, a Republican running in a Democratic city.

How did this happen?

Five reasons:

1. People don't want to appear stupid when polled. Let's say you're a Houstonian watching Wheel of Fortune and the phone rings. It's some pollster wanting your input on the Houston mayor's race. Your entire knowledge of, and interest in, the Houston mayor's race comes from Peter Brown ads, which seem designed to interrupt your Wheel viewing. Instead of pleading ignorance, you toss out the name of the only candidate you've heard of. That doesn't mean you're going to get up off your Wheel-watching butt and go to the polls, though.

Note to Peter Brown -- if you're going to spend so much money on a campaign, get a microphone that works. His speech to supporters was kinda inaudible on TV, at least on KHOU.

Then again, it wasn't like the guy who's now in third place had anything compelling to say: "I'm not here to say anything definitive...It's not over 'til it's over! But we need a little patience and we're waiting on the surge!! We're waiting on the surge!!"

Keep waiting, councilman. You may need it to stay ahead of Roy Morales.

From our man at Annise Parker HQ:

Fox News (the local kind), you giveth and you taketh away.

First, you go live to Roy Morales HQ, giving the candidate the rare chance to appear on TV (explaining why he's failing miserably). A dedicated coterie of supporters is bunched behind him in the perfect camera angle to make it look like he has a dedicated coterie of supporters, and you go LIVE to your reporter, and....the sound goes out. The world misses the wisdom that no doubt ensued. (Incredibly, the Fox anchor blamed the fact that there was "such an enthusiastic crowd cheering [Morales] on, we're having trouble hearing him." No, she instead should have said "such an enthusiastically crappy piece of audio equipment, we're having trouble hearing him.")

But then, Fox 26, you redeem yourself, entertainment-wise, with your interview of Mayor Bill White. No one else tonight has established so clearly how much Houston just loves Bill White, and what a magnificent fellow he is.

White was in the Fox studios to -- well, say nothing of import, actually.

Who's going to win, Mayor?

"I'm not a handicapper, I just encourage people to read the papers, watch this show, keep informed, get on the Internet and get out and vote," he said, two hours after the polls closed.

Peter Brown, who showed he knows how to spend his wife's money running a mayoral campaign, is showing tonight he can spend it on parties, too.

While the Annise Parker and Gene Locke events are listless and miserly with the freebies, Brown's party at the Heights Theater is crowded, has an open bar and free food, and a DJ playing that there techno music.

"The party is way better than expected and, judging from the television, way more fun than the others," says Kristyn Hogan, a young friend of Brown's son.

No one seems that concerned with the results so far -- the giant TV is playing a movie, or something, Who cares as long as the bar's open and free?

KHOU has the latest results as Parker 28 percent, Locke 27 and Brown 24.

Photo by Mike Giglio

​Things are very quiet at the vote-watch "parties" tonight, as the candidates and their supporters settle in for what's likely to be a long night of seeing who ends up being the odd person out.

This description, of the Annise Parker bash, is pretty much true of the others. Except for the music, possibly.

Parker has decided to do the evening in style, holding her party at the Hilton Americas on the Avenida de Americas and Lamar; fancy trees decked in lights a la South Beach outside, valet parking; classical music on endless loop in the lobby, which also features a waterfall.

But maybe they should have saved some money for the essentials, as there is no band (the music selection is currently on "Just a Little Bit"), a cash bar and -- gasp -- you even gotta pay for the food.

As far as turn out, there's not much to speak of yet; the media/bloggers seem to outnumber the other guests, who are spread out at bar tables drinking wine.

Forced to pay for the pigs-n-blankets? Is this the kind of leadership we want?

Rise up, Luddites!

​What do you do if you want to vote today but have a fervent opposition to using a computer?

You get screwed, that's what.

Rad Rich, who pretty much founded the punk scene in town in many ways, went to vote today. He then concisely described his experience for Hands Up Houston's message board: "I was told I cant vote because I refuse to use the computers so I was denied the right to vote. F U Houston and I have filed a complaint."

Houston is trembling, we're sure.

We haven't heard back from Rad Rich, but we did talk to Hector DeLeon of the Harris County Clerk's office, and he confirmed that if you refuse to use the eSlate machines, you have no other options today.

"There may be some other jurisdictions that offer another method of voting, but only if it would be easy for them because there were not many voters," he says.

Photos by Blake Whitaker

ELECTION FEVER!!!!!! You probably won't catch it.

​
Outside the East End's Settegast Park Community Center this morning, the situation was getting out of hand. Annise Parker and Gene Locke campaign workers were engaged in a shouting matching over one of the myriad issues that have caused bitter rifts between the mayoral candidates and their supporters. A Peter Brown campaigner looked ready to join the fray; a Roy Morales volunteer even glanced up from his Sudoku puzzle to see what the fuss was about.

We wanted to remain impartial, but Hair Balls was forced to become part of the story when one woman pulled out a box cutter, waving it menacingly. We fell back on our Special Forces training and disarmed her -- barely. It took all of our 200 pounds of lean muscle and extensive martial-arts skills to restrain her. The campaigner worker's strength, heightened by adrenaline, was some very physical proof of the incendiary turn this election has taken.

​President Obama and his new administration were going to be so tough on the corporate villains who had such a large role in fostering the recession that has upended the finances of so many.

But as author James Lieber points out in this week's cover story "No Justice," that just hasn't happened.

As it stands now, there's only one federal prosecution related to the credit crash and bailout cycle, and it was begun by the Bush administration's Justice Department in June 2008.

Turns out, most of Obama's crew were in on the ground floor of the factors leading up to the collapse, and did nothing to stop it.

If you're satisfied with what's been done so far to hold someone, anyone accountable, this story might upend your beliefs.

​Sam Houston Race Park has a new way of trying to entice customers to the park: radical, extreme political events wherein the office of the President of the United States will be disparaged and its occupant compared to Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and whatever other figure talk radio comes up with.

The event is similar to the anti-Iraq war protests held during the Bush administration, where Park officials welcomed the thousands upon thousands of Americans to disagree with the current White House occupant, and compare him to Hitler. It's similar to it in the sense that such a thing never happened at Sam Houston Race Park during the Iraq War period.

But what was impossible then is very possible now, so the Park is hosting the North Houston Tea Party Patriots and their "Stand Up America! Vote!" event, which features Mattress Mack and climate-change skeptic Lord Christopher Monckton. Also such subtle political thinkers as radio's Walton & Johnson and Joe Pags.

We asked Race Park spokesperson Gina Rotolo why the facility decided to get in bed with extreme political groups, even those who hide behind flag-waving rhetoric.

​Houston's boring excuse for a mayoral election is now officially ON FIRE!!! It's EN FUEGO!!!!

Why? Because there's some dull sparring between Peter Brown and Gene Locke over who has the best-est bunch of black pastors endorsing them. Locke is claiming that Brown, a multi-millionaire who is largely self-financing his campaign (or at least his wife is), spread some cash around black Houston churches and is therefore winning endorsements he doesn't deserve because he is not black like Locke. ("Black Like Locke" -- There's a campaign motto in there somewhere.)

Doing what Brown is alleged to have done is, of course, preposterous, something that would never happen in any Houston election....that took place in Bizarro World. In terms of campagin issues, much less scandal, this is right up there with a candidate forgetting to pay a $800 tax bill on some property they rent out.

Still, Houston voters, such as they are this year, deserve to get to the bottom of the burning issue of who has the better bunch of black pastors. Since this is Wednesday, we turn to our Midweek Match-Up, where all such questions are studied in chart form.

Photo by Liana Lopez

A packed room hears about 287(g)

​
It only took 15 seconds for the Commissioners Court of Harris County to approve three additional years of participation in 287(g) after hours of public testimony, mostly in opposition, to the program.

The two Houston Garcias, who, by the way, were not included in the Garcia segment of CNN's Latino in America, went toe-to-toe over the county's implementation of a federal program designed to identify and deport undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

"We can back out of the agreement at anytime. And the ICE shows up everyday to pick up people. There's usually not even 24 hours in our facility before they're taken to an ICE facility," said Sheriff Adrian Garcia as he defended his request for approval of the new agreement.

"I know what you all do now under the current agreement but this is if we do the second part of the intergovernmental agreement," commissioner Sylvia Garcia said. "I'm concerned about...these additional responsibilities and...this court should be a part of that process in terms of determining costs."

​Is Obama trying to kill Texans as revenge for not voting for him?

Quite possibly, if you believe a list of swine-flu vaccine information getting e-mailed around. (And yeah, we're calling it swine flu, you H1N1 snobs.)

What's being e-mailed is a list of vaccine doses shipped, broken down by state. California has gotten 836,900 doses; Texas 178,300. Texas has less than Arizona, and who the hell lives in Arizona?

So obviously there's political skullduggery going on, right?

Not really.

Carrie Williams, spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services, says the numbers in the e-mail are misleading.

Photo courtesy White House Flickr group

​Let them bitch all they want in Chicago about getting shut out of federal stimulus funds for "smart-grid" power projects. Here in Houston, we're kicking ass.

The federal gummint, that socialistic, fascist Big Brother, announced today how it is spending $3.4 billion of your grandkid's money, and Houston's two largest power companies were big winners.

CenterPoint is getting $200 million to help with a nearly $640-million project to install 2.2 million smart meters and "more than 550 sensors and automated switches that will help protect against system disturbances like natural disasters."

Reliant gets $20 million towards a $65.5-million project to install smart meters.

The CenterPoint check is tied for being the biggest announced today, with Baltimore also getting $200 million.

Photo by Sam Merten

​Our sister paper the Dallas Observer tagged along recently as Houston mayor Bill White visited a suburban deli and learned what it's like to deal with the generic, content-free answers the big man uses when he doesn't want to reply to what you're asking.

The headline? "Will Senate Hopeful Bill White Consider Jumping Into the Governor's Race if Kay Bailey Hutchison Keeps Her Seat? We're Still Not Sure, and We Asked Him Four Times."

"Houston Mayor Bill White's speech Saturday afternoon in Plano was initially as insipid as the front of the brochures handed out at the door touting his experience as a Sunday school teacher. "I'm here to work for you, and that's about it," White said at the Baker Bros American Deli on West Parker Road," the item began.

Reporter Sam Merten tried to find out what will happen if Kay Bailey Hutchison sees the tea-party writing on the wall and decides not to take on Rick Perry. The eventual answer he got: "You can ask me the same question five times, and I'm going to tell you what I think, which that I think she's going to do what she's said she's going to do, and I'm running for the senate."

The mayor then went on to describe how he will battle dropouts and bring a tone of civililty to Houston and zzzzzzzzzz.

White Fever: Catch It! Somehow!!

Breach of contract suits are ordinarily dry, boilerplate affairs, which is why Hair Balls tips our hat to the colorful complaint filed last Friday by Donald Large against City Council At-Large Candidate Carlos Obando.

Large, who is also chairs Harris County Republican Precinct 411, tells Obando in his suit that he "would have rather been tortured by the Nazis at Auschwitz for days, repeatedly raped, and then be left for dead than work for your campaign another second."

And in case that hypothetical didn't convey the adequate amount of acrimony, Large also stated, "I would have rather watched my mother slowly die from her cancer in a hospice than work for your campaign another second."

Oh, and just in case...."I would rather be evicted from my new home in Nob Hill West and be destitute and begging on the street than work for your campaign another second."

(Personally, Hair Balls would've opened with the eviction and built up to Nazi-rape -- we think it not only would've made for a more powerful legal argument, but just works better as a dramatic narrative arc).

Here's the deal: Large resigned from Obando's campaign September 21 and is demanding $50,000-$100,000; figures that appear to be plucked from the sky.

The contract, included in the court filings, states that Large would be paid $1,000 a month, a $550 partial retainer, a 20 percent fundraising commission, and a bonus-to-be-named-later in the event of Obando's victory. But Large told Hair Balls that part of the money he's seeking is based on the victory bonus. We'll give you a minute to let that one sink in, seeing as the election hasn't been held yet.

​Most of Houston seems blissfully unaware that there's a mayor's race going on. This year is supposed to be one of the the years with a hot election -- the incumbent is term-limited, so it's an open seat likely to lead to six years in office -- but, for reasons we lay out in this week's cover story, the thing is instead a run for the top job in Dullsville.

Still, it's your civic duty to vote, or America will slide into the abyss and all that. The three candidates with any chance of winning are current city councilman Peter Brown, former city attorney Gene Locke and current city controller Annise Parker.

You're going to need some help telling them apart. Luckily, it's Wednesday, when we turn complex questions into easy decisions by judicious use of charts. Check the jump for our analysis of this year's mayoral "race."

​

If you're like us, when you see Tea Partiers displaying imagery associating Obama with Hitler, your benefit-of-the-doubt well goes bone dry.

But when we received an e-mail about a local clothing company that's gotten into the Obamanazi business, it seemed like a good opportunity to explore this sort of rhetoric in the halfway sane context of a phone interview. Brad Hamm of Houston, who runs Truthwearshop.com with his wife as an offshoot of their custom-clothing business, was happy to talk.

Hamm, who says he didn't care much about politics until Obama took office, has had the site up for about 40 days and has done a few thousand in business. His stated goal is to sell 250,000 of each design. Hamm plans to introduce about half a dozen new designs, but right now there are only two currently available, the one above and this charmer:

Photo from KPRC

​
The Obama murals across the street from The Breakfast Klub have welcomed downtown commuters for a year now.

Not everyone likes them, apparently.

Someone took spray-paint to the signs over the weekend, writing "Puppet" over Obama's face and adding to the "Yes We Can" the words "lose our freedom."

"Puppet"? Please don't tell us that's supposed to mean he's a puppet of the Marxist-Socialist International One-World Presidium, or whoever it is running Evil these days.

Photo courtesy The Battalion

​
Some Aggies got upset with our interpretation of President George H.W. Bush's open letter to them saying "Chill out, brosephs, when Obama comes to town."

Now the President is in town, and how are they doing?

You can follow along at The Battalion, the campus paper, which is offering all kinds of live coverage of the event, which is designed to promote volunteerism (and Marxism, we have to assume.)

The paper reports 600 protesters have shown up at Spence Park in College Station, and another 250 on campus.

Their slideshow, which includes the picture above, is here.

Photo by riquard

​In a move to raise revenue for a new adoption center, the City of Houston is ordering veterinarians to provide clients' names and their pets' licensing information. According to a September 28 letter from Administrative and Regulatory Affairs Director Alfred Moran to Houston vets, those who don't comply are subject to a fine of up to $500, plus additional fines for each subsequent day of non-compliance.

Although Moran's letter states that "your compliance with these laws will help lower euthanasia rates for Houston animals," Dr. Jeff Chalkley, president-elect of the Harris County Veterinary Medical Association, said he was told by Moran and other officials that the city needs the revenue for operating the planned Ann Young Adoption Center. Getting more licensing fees from owners who are being policed by vets would be one way to get it.

And the city needs it stat, because some folks have campaigns to run, according to Chalkley.

"Basically, what was told to us by Alfred Moran [was] 'This, BARC, is the last black mark on Mayor White's record, and he wants it fixed before he runs for Senate. And he wants it cleaned up -- and he wants it cleaned up, ASAP. And that's why he's removed it forcibly from under Health and Human Services.' I mean, that was word-for-word, basically."

​President Obama is headed to College Station Friday, at the invitation of former President George H.W. Bush, to speak about community service and whatnot.

Obama, having already spoken at Notre Dame earlier this career, apparently decided to find an even more hostile environment. (Next stop: Bob Jones University! Then Al-Qaeda headquarters and then, The Woodlands.)

Bush obviously is hoping very much for a polite, respectful reception for Obama in Aggieland. He also has a pretty good idea of just how popular the president likely is on campus.

So he's written an open letter to the A&M student body, essentially telling them "Hey, you and me both know this guy is leading us towards Stalinist concentration camps, but for just one day try to forget that he is the Anti-Christ."

He doesn't quite use that language, of course. In fact, you have to read between the lines to find the desperate pleading from the former president: