[WB1] Freez-ageddon is now several weeks behind us, and many Houstonians have busily repaired and moved on. We’ve learned a bit more about why the Texas power system failed to deliver needed power to Texans and what we don’t need to do in response – and both Bill King’s and Craig Pirrong’s initial assessments have held up well.
What we have have not learned is why Houston’s water system broke down, necessitating the city’s second boil water order within one year. Yes, we know power delivery failed in much of the area thanks to ERCOT and Centerpoint issues, but we still don’t know: 1) Why power wasn’t prioritized to pump plants that are essential to maintaining a safe, reliable water supply or 2) Why backup power capabilities were either nonexistent or insufficiently responsive to provide power to enough pump stations to maintain system reliability.
The provision of safe water is an important public service. Why in the world aren’t our local media demanding answers?
[WB2] Local reporters have discovered that government does a TERRIBLE job providing housing. They seem to think this long “investigative” reporting is somehow both groundbreaking and shocking. In reality, government does a terrible job in many areas (see WB1 directly above, for example; perhaps it will occur to some enterprising journo to ask some questions about what happened). This really shouldn’t come as a surprise to either true investigative journalists (who know this well) or the more recent crop of activist journalists.
[WB3] Local government also does a terrible job of keeping violent criminals from continuing to commit violent crimes, a problem that has greatly worsened since the Democrats assumed full control of Harris County government and courts.
[WB4] Local journalists report that Texas is being short-changed on COVID vaccines by the federal government. Bill King has been documenting and complaining about this fact frequently, since about mid-January. The two-month lag from local media on a story King basically served up isn’t stellar.
[WB5] We learned from Harris County Commissioners Court this past week that Harris County may be facing a $1.4 billion shortfall in the flood control projects it promised in the 2018 bond proposal versus funding it has actually secured to this point. Recall at the time, voters were assured by prominent political leaders – most notably Ed Emmett – that the bond package needed to be swiftly approved so that matching funds could be locked up (Emmett is trying to rewrite history in claiming otherwise now, but many of us remember what was said – plus there’s the internet). Those assurances were largely reported uncritically – which is to say, there were not really “critics say ‘wait a minute’” pieces or quotes in the coverage at the time. Maybe there should have been?
Notably, then-US Representative John Culberson DID pledge to deliver federal matching funds for the project, which leads to the question local journalists don’t seem yet to have asked (why oh why would that be? ): Why has his replacement, Lizzie Fletcher, apparently failed to deliver those funds?
Unsurprisingly, not-journalist Bob Rehak has posted one of the more interesting articles on the current state of affairs.
[WB6] On Wednesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott removed his statewide mask mandate and reopened businesses (including bars) that his orders had previously closed or limited statewide. These moves produced histrionics from local leaders, especially the one who has squandered her credibility by holding this silly backwards gage RED ALERT STAY HOME thingie in the same position for months upon months upon months.
We freely admit that one year ago, we were very concerned about the novel coronavirus and thought it best to err on the side of caution for at least some amount of time to protect hospitals from being potentially overrun. That turned into greatly overreaching, prolonged governance by edict that affected schools, voting, the economy, and all facets of life – and of course resulted in thousands of deaths despite the historically unprecedented non-pharmacological interventions (NPI). We now have data from states that had both more extensive and less extensive NPIs than Texas, and generally outcomes in states such as Florida (with less extensive NPIs) are as good as or better than states that “did more” (as so many journalists like to frame it). That data and experience really should be part of the decision-making going forward, shouldn’t it?
In Texas, it appears that will be the case, despite the predictable histrionics from local Democratic leaders and journalists (reporters and editorialists alike).
[WB7] Related to this – we don’t do much straight media criticism here these days, because 1) It’s like shooting fish in a barrel; 2) The problem is only getting worse as experienced editors retire and young activist journalists who know little about any trade or subject outside of the Woke Studies that are now part and parcel of undergraduate degrees in “soft” disciplines like journalism take over newsrooms; and 3) What is it really going to accomplish, versus more productive uses of one’s time? But here are three short instances (Thread 1, Thread 2, Thread 3) that have taken place on twitter recently. Many journalists reveal their biases freely on twitter, although those tend to be the ones who don’t respond when questions are raised. Some things never change.
[WB8] The mindset behind this tweet helps explain why we get so many poor political candidates and such poor governance. Bill King has some ideas on improvements we might consider (although it’s not really clear what his proposals will do about our more clueless voters).
[WB9] Harris County has sued TXDOT to stop its planned I-45 expansion. The new Democratic federal administration has also gotten into the act. Without offering any comment on the merits (or demerits) of this project, I’ll just note that Houston and Texas may soon be going the way of so many other parts of the country, which don’t build or accomplish much any more outside of courtroom transcripts and documents, nonstop partisan bickering, and the occasional late, over-cost, boondoggle project.
[WB11] The woman whose 911 calls set off HPD’s Harding Street Massacre pleaded guilty to making false 911 calls this past week. That won’t bring back the couple that was gunned down, unfortunately.
[WB12] Sylvester Turner is an extremely lucky politician, as the federal Democratic stimulus/pork package will be providing bailouts for cities like Houston with big financial problems. Houston’s chronic fiscal deficits and pension problems will be punted to the next mayor, unsolved, it would seem.
[WB13] When an institutional mouthpiece like John McClain fires a shot like this, you know things are pretty dire – but it’s doubtful the Houston Texans are going to heed his warnings. Will fans really bail on the organization? They should, but I have my doubts.
[WB14] The Houston Cougars AND Texas Southern Tigers are both going dancing, however! The Coogs get a #2 seed and the Tigers a #16/first-four seed. Congrats to both!
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