Sometimes you don't know what you think you know

Case in point: Chron.commenter "Sterling Minor" on David Barron's AT&T vs. CSN Houston story today

I think you are an unusual sports watcher. This town is brimming with people who have an interest in SEC and UT sports. Next year, I predict many more people will want to see the Rockets than answered they did this year, but that is an educated guess only. Dynamo? You betcha for me, but the large racist and anti-immigrant crowd in the viewership area could be expected by a betting man to boycott a station showing soccer.

Emphasis added by me.

"Knowing" that everyone who won't watch the Dynamo are racist and anti-immigrant is a piece of common-knowledge information held by a certain set that, when examined, falls flat. Americans don't like soccer because it's perceived to be too slow and there's not enough scoring.  Last I checked, a lack of goals isn't racist, it's boring to some.  It, the perceived slow pace, is the same reason many don't watch baseball any more, or why tennis has fallen so far back in the ratings.  Of the major "slow" sports, only golf has, mysteriously, held on.

Many, not all, of the soccer enthusiasts that I know simply don't watch MLS because it represents soccer in the minor leagues.  I far more enjoy watching matches from Barclay's Premier League or La Liga or Serie A than anything MLS has to offer.

When most people watch pro sports they like to see the game being played at the highest level.  That's why the WNBA hasn't taken off.  Rather than sexism (along with racism the other -ism thrown around when people don't like your sport of choice) it's the fact that the Yates boys basketball team would best their best team by 40.

I don't watch the Dynamo because MLS' brand of soccer bores me.  It's slow, basic and not really all that entertaining of a brand.  Yes, some people say you should watch because it's the key to the future of International soccer in the US.  To that I say, go Scotland.

As a final note: ESPN shows soccer, you don't see a large contingent of "racist and anti-immigrant" Houstonians boycotting that channel do you?  Point, set, match.

Breathless overselling of what might be a good idea. (Yup, it's ChronBlog)

"Two hot, new bars set to open downtown" shouted the headline on Chron.com last Friday as their entertainment portal, 29-95 (now less vulgar, still pretty uninteresting however), published a glorified press release from the folks that brought you Anvil Bar & Refuge (and their high prices and brilliant scheme to ensure obscure liqueurs don't go to waste) announcing the opening of two new concepts downtown.

The headline for the story itself however was a little more muted.

Clumsy Butcher to open new wine/beer bar on Main St. Alison Cook, 29-95 a Chron.com blog

Ironically, this new wave of bars and party spots opening downtown is reminiscent of the wave of openings that occurred right before Houston's, now infamous, SuperBowl event.  Of course, soon after Janet Jackson revealed herself to the world.........*crickets*

But, this being Houston and Houston being ever the optimist about downtown drinking and revelry here we go again. Maybe it means something that a majority of the new space opening has a connection to Bobby Heugel and maybe it doesn't.  Right now he and Brian Caswell seem to be the two owners who, with the obvious exception of Stella Sola, have the magic touch when it comes to making recycled concepts stick.

I think part of this is because both operators have learned to expand their demographic appeal beyond Houston's FoodBorg.  The problem with catering to the collective is that the collective soon grows bored with your establishment and, having run out decent folks who just want to grab a cocktail without being regaled with the history of the British rum industry by some know-it-all food blogger who might (or might not) moonlight occasionally in one of the city's print outlets,(or, they might have a job at said publication blogging about food, who knows?) decides to move on to the newest and greatest bauble in order to ensure the great unwashed stay away from there as well.  The notable exception to this is the aforementioned Anvil, which seems to remain a favorite of the Borg while continuing to draw from the general population. I attribute this to the fact that no one has been able to approach Anvil's concept with anything resembling the success of Heugel. Sure there are other high-concept cocktail places in Houston, but none pull it off as well.

Now you might think that I find all of these bars and restaurants opening to be silly. That I might think they're whistling past the graveyard trying to reinvigorate a downtown area that's notoriously barren after office hours.

You'd be wrong. I think having a block of bars/restaurants on Main St. is a great idea and I wish the proprietors of the new establishments much luck in their happy hour catering to the downtown business-person.  If they can also perform the function of containing the FoodBorg to downtown during nights and week-ends all the better as this would mean being able to enjoy a beer at Christian's Tailgate without some foodie telling you the origin of the hops and that they know the brewmeister personally.

All that said, "Hot, new bars"?  Before they even open?

C'mon ChronBlog, you can do better than that.

Bad Newspaper sends mixed signals. Is anyone really surprised?

I'm starting to wonder if Chronblog has any self-awareness at all.  If they do, then the juxtaposition of material they churn out on a daily basis must pain some of the staff. So how miserable must life be for some of the Chron's womynist warriors whose duty, they feel, is to remind us constantly of the ever repressive conservative reproductive organ?

Whether it's being told that Anne Hathaway hating is waaaay worse than Bradley Cooper hating (which reveals that the author has no memory of the Ben Affleck hating that's gone on [by myself even] through the years), or being told by the same author of the terrible week recently experienced by women. (some of which was self-inflicted FWIW, by the CEO of Yahoo!) or being subjected to one author's shock! that the recently enacted state laws on abortion are working as designed or even articles about Cardinals behaving badly, the editorial drumbeat of the woman-hating conservative/religious male is constant and at full volume.

Of course, they do run into the problem of this:

THAT's treating women with respect

What you see above is a snapshot of an image on the front page of  Chron.com that accompanied their coverage that Mexico was a bad place to Spring Break.  Given that Ms. O'Connor and Ms. Ortega are driving forces behind the Lifestyle coverage at ChronBlog you can pardon me for not thinking that their missives are anything more than alligator tears.

This is a shop that glorifies "pimp & ho" balls during major sporting events in Houston, regularly presents photos of scantily-clad, stick-thin, women in the name of fashion, and which has done more to debase the image of young women and promote the unhealthy ideal of the stick-thin model than almost any other media outlet in Houston. (I'm looking at you, CultureMap) And while Ms. O'Connor claims to be on the side of the working mom, let us not forget that former Chron food-writer Dai Huynh was given her walking papers the day before she was scheduled to come back from maternity leave under Ms. O'Connor's watch.  Her replacement?  One of Kyrie's North Eastern brethren Greg Morago.

Look, I'm not 'taking a stand' here against whatever view on abortion you may have. Nor am I trying to say that we should all live in a hermetically sealed bubble under the Puritan view of sexual abstinence.  People go to parties and then have sex, they have been since humankind first figured out this was a fun way to pass an evening.  But, if you're going to choose to stand on the moral high-horse about it all then it might be a good idea to ensure that you're not one of the leading outlets for the objectification of women in the chase for page hits don't ya think?

It's telling what's hidden behind the pay wall.

Literally tens of Houstonians had strong reactions to Chron.com's announcement of a new behind-a-pay wall site: HoustonChronicle.com.

On the surface, Houston's former newspaper of record slapped on a brave-faced smile, patted themselves on the back for what might as well have been eleventy Billion page views and then proceeded to transfer much of what was already available in the print edition, or the iPad app onto the web, shook hands and, apparently, went off to the latest Houston Media Round-table for a round of shots and pie.

Now, I like pie (especially of the pecan variety) and I'm understanding of the desire for a shot or two, despite my current drinking constitution typically preferring to keep them at arm's length, so I can understand why one would think it's time to say "job well done" and just sit back and watch the revenue come in.

But will it?

First off, there's no value-add to HoustonChronicle.com for a print subscriber who also has an iPad so there's very likely to be much revenue realized from that crowd.  Then there's the problem that their free site, Chron.com is still the place for breaking news and the City & County government's, often hilarious responses to it.  Also on the "free" site are the Chron's (now infamous) often horrible photo galleries which, as near as I can tell, serve only to allow young hipster staffers in cool eye-wear to let us in on what is fascinating them at the present time. The brain-trust at the Chronicle have also decided to keep the entertainment sections, mostly, on the free site meaning that interested readers will now be able to keep up with the goings on at burlesque parties and Eric Berger's fascination at playing Jr. Weatherman and Ecomentalist true believer.  Therefore, I have no doubt that the free portion of the Chronicle empire is sure to maintain their hold as the page-hit news capitol of Houston.

What concerns me, however, is what they've decided to place behind the pay wall.

First, The Apple Dumpling Gang and while it's true the Gang has been slightly less hideous since writing duties ceased to be the sole proprietorship of one Lisa Gray (oh but the Exclamation points!!!!) they're still prone to letting slip a logically tortured doozy from time to time and most of the people who might be reading these are doing so while sitting in their recliners, reading the dead-tree edition and complaining that Matlock can't be found on TV any longer.

Looking around the site at the other stories hidden behind the curtain there doesn't seem to be much that, as a dead-tree subscriber myself, (Wed-Sun) I can't find by turning a page or turning on my iPad.  In short, there's little financial incentive for people to pay additional money to buy reporting that's already freely available in the first place.  Think about this: The I-35 expansion story just above came from wire reports.

Even worse, despite the fact that I pay for the darn thing it's rarely read except for on Sunday when I spend 10 minutes going through the stories and then my wife spends around 30 minutes cutting out the coupons.  Worse still, the "News Plus" section that runs on Sunday is nothing more than post-dated stories that first ran in other publications such as the New York Times (ostensibly still operating under the Constitution) and the Washington Post. (amazingly, still in print)

Look, I get that it's not good to hide a story of a chemical release behind a pay wall. After all, it does little good to be a news outlet when you charge people to learn that they need to take their children inside before they puff up like a helium balloon and start floating in the jet stream to Mobile, but certainly you can find something of worth to place behind the wall that's not already found in other locations, usually for free?

One can only imagine, based on this business model, what the Chron's coverage of the 83rd Texas Legislature is going to resemble.  You'll have free photo galleries of the latest burlesque parties for staffers, Eric Berger's prayers to Gaea that something be done on climate control appear for free, while Peggy Fikac's sage advice that Republicans are trying to rent space inside the lady parts of Texas women in order to set up a Winter home, politics from a child's view (Falkenberg) and logical fallacies for dummies (The Gang) are safely snug behind a pay wall where no one can see.

On second though, when viewed that way, carry on Chronicle.  Good job.

(Still More) ChronBlog adventures in group identification.

Good News for Car Companies: Americans willing to Pay More for Fuel Efficient Cars. Virginia Pommerening, ChronBlog

A study conducted by the Consumer Federation of America finds that American consumers prefer more fuel efficient cars and are willing to pay a higher sticker price for those automobiles.
For years the auto industry was not concerned with fuel efficient cars.  Consistent gas prices led to stagnation in fuel efficiency, and the extreme fluctuations in gas prices over the last decade have changed the focus of both the producers and consumers.
According to the report, titled “A Key Step to Ending America’s Oil Addiction: Policymakers, Consumers and Automakers are Shifting New Vehicles to Higher Fuel Economy,”fuel efficiency is an “economy improvement” in the car.

Not mentioned in this article are the political leanings of the CFA. Considering this is a group who counts among its members Ralph Nadar and Texas Watch (one of the most progressive advocacy groups within the State) WHO is behind the study is, in this case, very important.

But the Penn State student writing for ChronBlog doesn't see it that way, and doesn't feel the need to inform readers of the group's ideological slant.  One would imagine that a report of this type were proffered up by the conservative Heritage Foundation Ms. Pommerening would find this of some import to the main story.

Three boos here:

1. To Ms. Pommerening and/or the Penn State School of Journalism.  For either not teaching the importance of correct identification or not learning said lesson.  I'm not sure which is the case, but it obviously hasn't stuck.

2. To ChronBlog's editors, for not catching this and letting this press release described as a news story run in the first place.

3. To ChronBlog, for allowing an important energy piece to be handled by an obviously not ready for prime time Summer intern with little or no supervision.

One last thing:  What this doesn't mean is that there is something inherently BAD about fuel efficient cars.  I LIKE my cars to be fuel efficient and am willing to pay a little bit more for a car that gets better gas mileage, but that doesn't mean that I want the government to make the choice for the free market, or that I'm somehow "addicted" to oil.  Those are all political statements and the political leanings of the group making them should have been identified.

Shorter Apple Dumpling Gang

Ted Cruz needs to turn down the heat. The Apple Dumpling Gang, Chron.com

Talk radio host and Texas state Sen. Dan Patrick is many things, but subtle is not one of them. So when he says that a fellow Republican is too confrontational, we'll take him at his word.

In other words: We didn't hear the interview in question so feel free to ignore everything else below this.


Shutter the Ed Board, and redeploy the resources to local news coverage.

ChronBlog Class Warfare

Bringing it hard today.....

Most of you will never "see" my house either.

How dare they sell this house?

If only we all could enjoy Chesapeake's 1% tax rate. - This is the actual lead-in headline on the home page.

Tax break for Landry's - owned by Billionaire Tillman Fertita - on agenda. - Whether or not you're for these types of tax abatements (I'm not) whether or not the company in question is owned by a Billionaire is irrellevent.

In all of these stories the question isn't whether or not the subjects are wealthy, it's whether or not we're dealing with good public policy.  As someone who's against drilling subsidies and tax abatements I think they're bad public policy, but that holds the same for "green initiatives" or tax abatements "for the community" as well.  Bad tax policy is bad tax policy.

The home headline is just ridiculous.

There are, and always have been, rich and poor people on this planet, even in Socialist and Communist countries there was a wealthy class that lived off the backs of the poor.  The Politburo had Dachas while the proletariat had bread lines.  Income disparity is very real, and not really all that bad of a thing.  Oddly enough, in progressive states, such as California, the income disparity is greater, on average, than the rest of the nation.  My guess is that this is partially driven by the lack of wealthy businesspeople willing to invest in jobs that are sure to be taxed out of profitability.

I understand that ChronBlog, for all of its ballyhooing about the death of newspapers and their comparative worth to a community, is a bad newspaper whose current editorial slant is doing more harm than good to Houston and her repuation, but that doesn't mean that this type of shoddy, attention-grabbing, schlock should go unchallenged.  Certainly not when they bemoan a low tax rate while supporting (on the editorial side) almost every tax increase that's come down the pipe.  At least be intellectually honest and suggest that Chesapeake's tax rate should be dramitically increased.  That's the argument ChronBlog is making, not that the populace should be taxed less.  It's not that the poor are being put upon, but that the "rich" are not being burdened enough.....

Except newspapers of course, these for-profit enterprises should be given special treatment, as if their contribution to society somehow outweighs that of the oil and gas industry.

In the place of substantial coverage.....

....on the SCOTUS ACA decision, ChronBlog decides to provide its readers with.....

an explenation of how angry Micheal Berry is...

a note letting us know that Obama really GOT texas this time....

and...a poor photoshop job illustrating a journalism meme.

It's a miracle that readership and subscription numbers are declining isn't it?

(Still more) Adventures in BAD Journalism

This time courtesy of ChronBlog....

Things to do in Houston before you die. Francisca Ortega, Chron.com

Inspired by Steve Carell’s new film, “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World,” in which he plays a bumbling insurance agent confronting the apocalypse, the staff at the Houston Chronicle spent some time thinking about the things we’d like to do before the end of the world. You can see what we came up with in the gallery above.

What they "came up with" was a list of impossible, illegal, and downright dangerous activities that will probably mean you spend your last few nights on this pebble in a jail cell, in prison, or worse.

To top it all off, this makes Houston seem so uninteresting that the #1 comment left by people is along the lines of:

"This makes me want to leave".

Shameful.

A good newspaper is an asset to the community, what does it make a newspaper when it's a laughingstock and embarrassment?

An Embarrassment

Why ChronBlog continues to run insipid articles such as Houston vs. Dallas is beyond me.  The only thing I can figure is that our (former) newspaper of record is projecting their own decaying husk of relevancy by trying to gin up fake arguments with our neighbor to the North.

Worrying about what Village Voice Dallas has to say about the matter is childish. (As a matter of fact, the entire thing is childish.)

If ChronBlog can't find better filler for it's news content than this, then maybe some consideration should be given to the New Orleans Times-Picayune business model?

It'd save us the embarrassment of having to explain this dreck.


One thing is certain, Dallas has the better newspaper and it's not close.

I mean come on. #shuttertheedboard

Who should fill Hutchison's boots? The Apple Dumpling Gang, ChronBlog

Given a magic wand, we'd order up a replacement who would blend the skills of Hutchison with those of Lloyd Bentsen - with just a pinch of the calculated orneriness of Lyndon Johnson.

In other words, you'd order up a Democratic Senator to win the Republican nomination.

Really gang?

The killer now is that, after this paean to past Democratic Senators, they go and endorse David Dewhurst because he's....well...closest to what they think Republicans should be (i.e. Democrat lite)

Our dream resume would read: collegial, well-versed on issues foreign and domestic, a tough bargainer who keeps his word; above all, skilled in the traditional Senate ways of civil give and take, and in tune with the needs and views of the millions who make up the Texas mainstream. That's asking a lot.......(snip)  our endorsement goes to Lt. Gov. Dewhurst, with a nod of acknowledgment to Leppert's well-conceived candidacy.

OK then.  The problem the Gang, and other editorial boards, are going to have, is that Dewhurst is the likely winner, and he's shunned them (a la Rick Perry) from the beginning of this campaign.  I believe that we're going to see more and more of this, especially from Republican candidates, as editorial board endorsements mean less and less.

You know the gang wanted to endorse Leppert, but he's got as much chance of winning the primary as Obama does of carrying Texas in the general.  i.e. none.  The problem these editorial boards are currently facing is that they share little in common (other than perhaps a geographical similarity) with their few remaining readers.

The Gang is reduced to two general types of comments:

1. Readers commenting on what a bunch of liberals run the place.

2. Matt Bramanti coming in and continuously pointing out their copious factual and content errors.  It's the Lord's work, but Bramanti is tireless and has an eagle eye for finding them.

It's long past time to shutter the ed board and re-deploy the resources to local reporting.  If there's one area where the Chron could take the lead Nationally, this would be it, and it'd have the biggest (positive) impact on Houston news.

It's amazing what passes for energy reporting today

These are direct quotes from FuelFix, Chron.com's "energy blog" that provides a majority of Oil & Gas industry coverage for an organization that fancies itself the newspaper of record in the energy capital of America.


A Beauty Queen, Scots in Kilts, OTC Virgins. Joy Sewing, Fuel Fix at Chron.com:

One of the first big parties of OTC was Monday night’s UK Energy Excellence reception at the Hilton Post Oak. OTC vets know the Brits like a good party, and OTC virgins (or newbies) are just happy to be invited.

OTC Virgins? This is what happens when someone in the editorial chain-of-command decides that it would be a good idea to treat a major O&G industry conference as a soceity event.

Julia Stewart, 25 said she holds the title of Miss North Scotland. She’s also a business development manager for Chronos Oil and Gas. This is her first visit to the United States and she’s taking it all in. On Saturday, she took a taxi to NASA and the Galleria. “I went to Victoria’s Secret and got a bikini, perfume and lip gloss. My boss bought them for me,”

Oh did he?

. If there was anyone who looked like a British model, it was Christopher Dunn, 25, of the British Consulate-General Houston. His hair impeccably coiffed, so were his brows. Blue suit, argyle socks

It's not bad enough that Chronblog is consistently scooped by out of town news outlets on local stories (see: Enron and the UA/Continental merger for examples) but, when they are there, this is the quality of business journalism that readers are told to expect?

How funny we must look.

Were this in the features Star section it would be OK, but this is planted firmly in the section that's ostensibly reserved for legitimate oil and gas industry news. Obviously no-one at Chronblog understands why this is a problem, which is why they are how they are.

You think they'd eventually be too embarrassed.....

...to keep shovelling out dreck like this...
Sullivan for Tax Assessor-Collector, The Apple Dumpling Gang, Chron.com

The incumbent, Don Sumners, served for 10 years in that politicized environment. As head of the tax office since 2008, he has been in the crossfire of ongoing disputes over his department's voter registration procedures.

That's a pretty big factual error on the part of the gang. Sumners was elected to the office in 2010. In 2008 Vasquez was appointed to replace Paul Bettancourt, who quit.

As with most generated by this shop, the conclusions are wrong-headed and the support is factually inaccurate. I've no beef with Mike Sullivan, nor do I have any beef with Don Sumners. You could cast a vote for either and do OK in my book.

Just don't make your voting decisions based on inaccurate ramblings spewed out by the worst editorial board in America.

Shutter the Ed board Chron. It's the decent thing to do for the region.

More ChronBlog fun with group identification.

The Daily Caller as "the conservative website". Which it most assuredly is. No beef with this one.


Jezebel.com as an "abortion rights blog for women". Which it is, from a very progressive perspective.

Not that Francisca Ortega would recognize the content on Jezebel.com to be progressive, because it's directly in line with her progressive worldview. Middle of the road and all of that.

Obviously this I have a big problem with, because it's an inaccurate framing of a hot-button issue. A framing that shouldn't be allowed to exist in an entity that still (at least superficially) aspires to be the newspaper of record in the Houston region.

ChronBlog indeed. With this and the recent drivel from the Ed board the Chron is on a quick path to becoming nothing more than a bloated member of the InterLeft. I'm sure that's not the intended path Jeff Cohen had set out for them, but it seems to be where they are rapidly going.

Yes, it's THAT important

At lest, it must be that important to the folks over at ChronBlog.....

Why else do you insert a faith-based climate story by Eric Berger 3 TIMES in the headlines?

In a way though, I'm glad they do this. Because the more and more AGW climate true-believers try and link individual weather events to their religious beliefs the more they'll look silly as natural weather patterns take hold.

Yes, the Earth's climate is changing, as it has for Millennia. What's happening now is no different then what happened during the times of the Dinosaurs, the Ice Age, the Dark Ages, and during the Renaissance. The Earth's climate has always changed. It's just that we're more attuned to it now because we have better tools and temperature tracking.

Unfortunately, we also have computer models, which can be programmed to assume that CO2 has X effect on the climate. The result of this is that models with increased CO2 in the atmosphere show the climate getting warmer. This is "true" in the models because that is what they are programmed to do. This leads to the false hope that man can somehow control Earth's complex eco-system by just cutting back on our economic activity, preferably through government control. Al Gore and his investors made a fortune doing this, and the scientific community agreed to throw-out the scientific method to play along and receive funding dollars.

The news media went mad, and this is the result. Now the clergy of the AGW faith are going through a mini-reformation as their faith becomes shaken by fact. Not a true reformation as we saw in the Catholic Church, but a plea to the powers that be to stop saying those things which make that in which they believe seem factually shaky.

Ah, but now the PUBLIC has seen the weather reports and is starting to believe that humanity has set the global oven to simmer. We're like frogs sitting in a cool bucket of water blissfully unaware that the Cajun chef has slowly cranked up the heat. The "faith" is being widely adopted which means that we can finally take the 'needed' steps to turn off the burner before it's too late.....Except that even our best efforts won't turn off the stove will just nudge it down imperceptibly. The water will still boil.

Yet it's so vital to our future that we MUST show this story three times. Faith MUST be restored. Meanwhile we're losing time figuring out how we're going to deal with climate change in a desperate attempt to try and prevent it. King Canute comes to mind, except that the great King used his moment of helplessness to learn humility. Modern nature conquerors aren't crossing that bridge.

Here's a project for you economics students

In an editorial Wednesday the Apple Dumpling Gang waxed poetic regarding the benefits of rear-view cameras on vehicles....

Rear-view cameras save money and lives, The Apple Dumpling Gang, ChronBlog

Our latest favorite feature? Rear-view cameras. These handy devices are proving so effective that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is considering a rule that would require the cameras in new cars.

Every year, about 228 people die and about 17,000 are injured in back-over accidents, and 44 percent of those deaths are children under 5. We like the idea that something as straightforward as car cameras can save lives. Of course, they're not free.

In keeping with the Gang's M.O. they offer up this nugget a little later:

The price is high because it would affect so many future cars. The cost per car doesn't sound as startling, adding an additional $58 to $203 per vehicle, depending on whether it already has some sort of screen. And as the technology advances, that cost should drop.

What the Gang doesn't say is that this is the latest of many "features" that they've advocated for vehicles that will just add a "small cost" to each individual car. I wouldn't be surprised if, since the current make-up of the Gang was established, they've advocated for features that would make up an increase in car prices in the 4-5 thousand range.

So, here's the assignment for some aspiring economist who wants to see the effect of Place Called Perfect economics. Round up all of the Apple Dumpling Gang's "things we'd like to see mandated for every car" and then add up the estimated increase in the price per vehicle.

When you're finished with that, take an entry-level car (say the Chevy Sonic) and see what the price would be with all of the Gang's doo-dads added on.

Then ask yourself: Would these "additions" price a large part of the population out of the car market?

And who would find this most desirable?

You can thank me for the A you'll receive later.

This was actually posted on a major market newspaper's website.

This is not a joke, a ChronBlog "reporter" actually wrote this, and it is currently on their website. (I've cached this page to Diigo just in case they change it later.)

D-Day at Taco Bell: Doritos Locos Tacos drop, Chris Preovolos, Hot Topics, Chron.com

Today, after test marketing the Doritos Locos Tacos in the culinary wonderlands of Bakersfield and Fresno, the neon orange monstrosity is available nationwide.

So I guess ChronBlog is playing economic favorites now? After all, their curious habit of disguising sales pitches as journalism frequently favors companies the reporters seem to like. I guess the logical extension of that is to trash the ones they don't?

Unfortunately for ChronBlog's elevated progressive sensibilities, it appears that these tacos are going to be a huge hit. Maybe they should reserve the monstrosity tag for their in-house opinion columnists and The Apple Dumpling Gang?

Things (bad) newspapers do (part II)....

Run riveting political analysis such as this:

(Runoffs will decide final makeup of Houston City Council, Zain Shauk, Chron.com)

"The mayor has some real stake in this, of course," said Richard Murray, a political science professor at the University of Houston. "She had a fairly rocky two years, I thought, with council. So, the new council, will it be better for the mayor? Worse?"

Never mind that the Chronicle still can't get Richard Murray's identification correct (He's a Democratic analyst and party activist, not "just" a political science professor as they continually note) but that analysis should have been thrown back into the ocean like a small fish.

Not content to stop there, Houston Democratic political analyst (and bicyclist!) Bob Stein gets his chance to weigh in:

Although Jones often has voted with Parker, she "has never been an easy vote" and likely will become more aggressive in a third term, Rice University political science Professor Bob Stein said.

"She will be term limited," Stein said. "All the gloves will be off with Jolanda. She won't have to worry about appeasing stakeholders or interest groups."

Ummm, the thing with Jolanda has been (whether people have liked it or not) that the gloves were never ON with her.

The problem with over-relying on the same, reliably left-leaning, experts is that eventually, they just have nothing new to add. Curiously absent from almost any Chron.com story on local politics are voices from Republican poli-sci professors. There are some in Houston, and you don't have to go too far to find them. (St. Thomas University for example) If Chron.com wanted to include a variety of thought in its analysis it wouldn't be that hard to find. That they don't tells you a lot about the editorial influence over their reporting.

Things (bad) newspapers do....

Assign articles about Playboy magazine articles to the online religion editor.


Things over at the Chron have been declining for a while, but they're really starting to show stress fractures of late.

The choices we make.

We should not be allowed to make, according to the anonymous ed board of ChronBlog.

(Congress caves on school lunches, The Apple Dumpling Gang, ChronBlog)

If declaring all that makes us sound as though we favor a nanny state, then so be it. When it comes to diet and health, this country's young people - all of us really - need more guidance and help. And better leadership on the subject than it is apparently getting from Congress.

Translation: We feel that all of you are too stupid to make the correct choices when it comes to your diet.

I have a better idea: Shutter the Editorial Board, which is obviously too stupid to understand the 10th Amendment to the United State's Constitution. School menus are the provision of the States, and the boards that people elect to oversee them.