January 2005 - Page 5 of 16

City Council delays vote on $AFEclear changes — again

January 25, 2005 Anne Linehan

City Council has again delayed a vote on Mayor White’s proposed $AFEclear changes and, in fact, six councilors have offered their own plans, according to a KTRH-740 newsbreak. (Kevin Whited foresaw this development.) Once again,

A disappointing Chron eye

January 24, 2005 Kevin Whited

The Chron Eye for the Death Row Killer Guy has gotten off to a very disappointing start in 2005. The newspaper, which was formulaic in its coverage of death row through the end of 2004,

State of the City

January 24, 2005 Anne Linehan

Mayor Bill White will give his State of the City address today at a Greater Houston Partnership luncheon. KHOU-11’s blurb says one of the topics the mayor will likely discuss is the $AFEclear program. UPDATE

Still thinking about the Astrodome

January 24, 2005 Kevin Whited

The Dallas Morning News ran an article by Bruce Nichols on the fate of the Astrodome over the weekend. The article breaks no new ground, but maybe Dallasites are as used to reading “olds” in

Casey's SAFEclear solution: a new tax

January 24, 2005 Kevin Whited

Talk radio and blogs have done a really good job picking apart the SAFEclear program, examining alternatives, and critiquing various proposals to change the program. However, Chronicle columnist Rick Casey, who seems to have missed

An IQ test that fails

January 24, 2005 Anne Linehan

Lucas Wall must have been light on material for his “Move It!”column this week because he wrote what he calls a MetroRail IQ test. It’s a multiple choice test, basically, and he explains his reason

Saavedra proposes big changes for HISD

January 23, 2005 Anne Linehan

HISD superintendent Abe Saavedra has outlined some changes that would focus on whittling away at administrative bureaucracy and cutting back on standardized testing. As with any new proposal, it’s the details that matter: the changes

Planners map Upper Kirby/Montrose traffic improvements

January 23, 2005 Kevin Whited

Anna Marie Kilday has some interesting coverage of recent Upper Kirby/Montrose traffic planning developments. As she notes in the Chronicle‘s “This Week” section, everything from returning West Alabama to four lanes to providing center-median barriers

Agenda trumps fact in recent Chron editorial

January 23, 2005 Kevin Whited

The Chronicle ran such a stunningly erroneous and misleading editorial last Tuesday that it’s taken a while to prepare an adequate, careful critique. The editorial and critique are so convoluted as to require something of

A "forum for new ideas" or a platform for strawman attacks?

January 23, 2005 Kevin Whited

Last Wednesday, the Chronicle‘s cultural blogger Kyrie O’Connor responded to recent comments by Harvard president Larry Summers: It’s just not possible to have to go through this again. It’s not possible that the president of