Houston Chronicle Flexes Previously Untapped Powers to Mold Public Policy, Turns Mayor Into Its Willing Stooge (Well, That’s One Opinion)

In our wildest imaginings we couldn’t conceive of any rational person with at least pretensions to objectivity claiming that the Houston Chronicle is fomenting hatred against illegal immigrants. But what do we know. It’s true that the paper’s coverage has, ah, stiffened somewhat over the past few years, dating, we believe, to the killing of Houston police officer Rodney Johnson by previously deported illegal and convicted child molester Juan Quintero back in 2006 and primarily through the reporting of Susan Carroll and James Pinkerton. At the very least, the paper has pretty much shucked its sentimentalized, anecdotal approach for a harder, more balanced examination (although there’s a lot more to the issue than simply cruising the corner, the admittedly narrow corner, where crime and illegal immigration intersect). The paper’s editorial stance, however, is still one of open-borders advocacy, although we’re sure whoever’s in charge of editorial positions would reject the label. But it is what it is: any effort at enforcing existing law, from a border wall to workplace raids to full implementation of the 287g program by the city (which even the Obama administration supposedly wants to expand is greeted with at least an arched editorial eyebrow or a full-on tsk-tsking, while implementation of some pathway to citizenship or another is pushed as paramount and downright urgent (as if there's some 5-alarm necessity in legalizing people who shouldn’t have been here in the first place). Then there’s the periodic moral instruction provided the paper’s morally flawed readers by the Teen Columnist, whose knowledge of what actually transpires on the streets of Houston on a day-to-day basis is about equal to a newborn’s (an anchor baby’s, if you will).

So we were somewhat surprised to open the September-October edition of the Houston Catholic Worker (don’t ask us why), a publication of the Casa Juan Diego House of Hospitality, and find a full-bore rant (unavailable on-line) against the Chronicle. Seems the Casa Juan Diego House of Hospitality blames the newspaper for the city’s participation the 287g program, under which the federal government essentially pays local agencies to enforce immigration law in jails, and for generally riling a supposedly previously unriled populace:

The decision of Mayor White of Houston to implement this program can be traced to the pressure from the Houston Chronicle, which has campaigned for months to create an anti-immigrant milieu in Houston, where it had not existed before.

Day after day, month after month, on the front page of issue after issue of the paper, the Chronicle has found a way to demonize immigrants, implying that they are all criminals.

As in any large city, there are murders and robberies in Houston. The Chronicle has not featured the ethnic background [something entirely different than citizenship--wonder how many of those illegal Fujianese busboys who’re all over southwest Houston are served by Casa Juan Diego?] of these robbers and murderers or featured their crimes on the front page with large color pictures and headlines except in a few cases involving immigrants. [Yes, killing a cop, or a prominent doctor from Methodist Hospital, will bring you out of the shadows and on to the front page.]

The editorial was written by Mark and Louise Zwick, who run Casa Juan Diego and have been accorded favorable treatment by the Chronicle in the past (we personally have no problem with the Zwicks and in fact admire their work ministering to immigrants--it’s the political activism and press criticsim we find bothersome). It may have had an effect: The illegal status of the two brothers arrested in the Bellville slaying of Dr. Jorge Mario Gonzalez last month was relegated to the bottom paragraph of the paper’s initial story on the killing. In a less-than-shocking development, one of los hermanos had been previously arrested for having sex with a 14 year old but was still stinkin' up the streets of Olde Sharpstown.

We do see a way out here for Mayor White, whose efforts to defy gravity and use the mayorship of Houston as a springboard to high statewide office appear to have been at least temporarily discombobulated by Dem party activists' ire over his seemingly half-hearted support of 287g: He could just blame it on the newspaper! The powerful, rabble-rousing Chronicle left him no choice! (These “Latino activists” who supposedly are put out with White over the issue should sober up, look around and recognize who actually votes in Texas and who gets elected to statewide office. If winning an election is, like, their thing.)

Nostalgia Trip

The Saturday editions of Houston's leading daily newspaper took a slow ride down Memory Lane (the one with all the potholes and abandoned strip centers) with a story on the city's record-setting heat wave of June 1980, which apparently was but a lil' poopy-baby scorcher compared to the one that presently brutalizes us. Accompanying the article was a file photo of a construction worker with a sledge hammer splashing his face with water at a downtown construction site. You could tell 1980 was a long, long time ago because the hardhat was
an 18-year-old white kid.

Chronicle to Anti-Amnesty Sheep: You Are Under the Influence of Lou Dobbs and Therefore Unable to Think Rationally About Illegal Immigration

Jesse Jones would be proud. Ever since our very own Greater Houston Partnership announced it would be mounting a multimillion-dollar lobbying/PR campaign to keep the pipeline of cheap Mexican labor primed and pumping, Jones’ old property, the Houston Chronicle, has been in a near-swoon, very much like a 7-year-old girl with a ticket to Hannah Montana. Ordinarily, the daily newspaper’s tastemakers would be in a lather over a big-money lobbying effort by corporate interests, but when it comes to illegal immigration they’re deep down in the pocket and glad to be there. First there was the approving pro-Partnership editorial of a couple of Sundays ago---more on that in a minute---and this week, following the “news” that a Partnership-sponsored study by noted shill Ray Perryman has “found” that the disappearance of 8 million-plus illegal workers would cost the U.S. $1.8 trillion in annual spending (give or take a billion, we presume), came another sustained round of applause from Chronicle business columnist Loren Steffy.

Neither of these efforts had much to recommend it, although Steffy’s straight-faced embrace of Perryman’s numbers crept close to being funny (even pro-amnesty Metro columnist [is there any other kind at the daily?] Rick Casey briefly roused himself to point out that economist-for-hire Perryman has a long history of giving his customers exactly what they want). But the conscientious and appraising reader may have taken note of the extra-thick layer of condescension Steffy lathered over his analysis:

Perryman's research firm on Monday released an economic study that attempts to blunt the blaring blather of talk radio and other anti-immigrant fear-baiting.

Yes, dear reader, if you have any reservations whatsoever about amnesty and the obvious (that is, visible to your own goddamn eyes) deleterious effects of illegal immigration, then you are a fear-baiting nativist know-nothing whose weak mind has been befogged by the “blather” of talk radio.

We presume Steffy was directing his reductive Obamaism at many of his own readers, given that almost all of the comments affixed to the online version of his column were, how shall we say, uncomplimentary. Our favorite was from “clothesliner,” who wrote:

Assuming 18 million illegals in the US, $1.8 trillion in spending divided by 18 million illegals is equal to $100,000 in spending per illegal. If my arithmetic is correct, we not only need the illegals that are here now but a couple million more could definitely put the economy back on the growth side.

We can't vouch for the math, but obviously “clothesliner” isn’t taking into account the effect of those magical, mystical “multipliers.” Then consider the observation of another Steffy reader, “inaruba,” who points out

I don't see anything anywhere in here about the billions of dollars per month being sent South of the border. That is money NOT being spent here. How do you take account for that in one study and not account for it in another?

And from “sunspotbaby,” citing Perryman’s comment to Steffy that without cheap illegal labor "we'd have to raise wages a lot, which is inefficient and bad for the economy" ...

I agree Mr Steffy. We need more illegal immigrant business columnists or maybe some out sourcing through the internet. You'll be understanding when your salary is cut to the point where taking the bus to work is the only option. We ALL need more of that.

That seems presumptuous of sunspotbaby: Why does she or he think Steffy isn’t already a bus rider? Perhaps he takes the same Park-and-Ride as the Upper West Siders on the paper’s editorial board, who on Sunday before last beat the business columnist to the punch in huzzahing over the “news” that America’s employers---or at least the Partnership---“are finally speaking out for sound immigration policy,” as the headline over the editorial put it. (It is not an exaggeration or misrepresentation to say that the daily newspaper considers “sound immigration policy” to be “amnesty for all, enforcement for none.” How else to interpret its repeated insistence on the necessity of the “pathway to legalization” side of the comprehensive “reform” legislation while repeatedly and insistently tsk-tsking and tut-tutting any effort at enforcement of current law since the proposal tanked [in a sea of Mexican flags, we’d say].) According to the editorial

The [Partnership-led] movement aims to inform and motivate the grass roots, where people's views of immigration too often are shaped by commentators such as Lou Dobbs.

At this late date it’s a sign of a very weak mind to stoop to invoking Lou Dobbs when telling readers what a lot of sheep they are. But here’s how the editorial explains the failure of the comprehensivist legislation:

Businesses, trades and large corporations are finally speaking up about this reality. Many say they were caught off guard last year, when a hailstorm of constituent e-mails and letters capsized a promising immigration compromise in a few days …

Yeah, that’s called democracy. Sometimes it works, contrary to the wishes of editorialists.

For a healthy corrective to all this bile, we suggest a few moments with this often-quoted piece by Heather McDonald (the anti-Tamar Jacoby), who knows more about the true costs ("facts on the ground") of illegal immigration than the Greater Houston Partnership, Loren Steffy, Ray Perryman and the Houston Chronicle editorial board combined (we’ll throw in Rick Casey, too). “Lived experience fuels citizen movements for immigration control,” McDonald notes---a truism the daily newspaper’s tastemakers might consider the next time they set out to gratuitously insult so many of their readers (what’s left of their readers).

What was with that McDonald’s Commercial We Saw on TV a Couple of Weeks Ago?

Perhaps you saw it too: The one that showed a vaguely Hispanic guy sitting in a hammock or lawn chair on a sunny stage set decorated with fake blooming flowers and buzzing birds and/or bees? The guy is happily feeding his face with a wad of grease from McDonald’s while an announcer yammers something about the entrée costing only a dollar now and in the future, too, apparently because the dollar is so strong (which was news to us and the rest of the world, English-speaking and non-English speaking). Then you see another, similarly Euro-ish Hispanic guy who for some reason is holding up a hand-lettered sign that says “8.75 pesos” (it may have said “9.3 pesos,” as we weren’t taking notes, saw the ad only twice and didn’t snap-to to pay attention until the second viewing*) while standing against a dark, moody, urban-ish backdrop. The guy in the hammock smiles and waves the guy with the sign over, the non-verbalized message being that he needs to be over in the sunshine, where he can unload those shaky pesos and enjoy the still-only-a-dollar feed from McD’s. Next thing you see is the guy with the sign, except now he’s in the sunshine/on the hammock, eating some artery-clogging McDonald’s fare and motioning over a woman who’s standing against the dark backdrop and holding a sign reading “10.75 pesos” (maybe 11-something), a fairly remarkable slide in the space of 60 seconds.

This was one of the most bizarre things we’ve seen on television in a half century-plus of watching**---stranger, even, than the mere notion of the oreo pizza, our new favorite metaphor for early 21st century America---and not just because it’s the only commercial we can recall that uses currency exchange as a hook to sell a product. We can only conclude that McDonald’s is urging all of Mexico to come on over, have a hamburguesa and enjoy our strong, stable dollar (at least when compared to the peso, which may not qualify as a real currency).

But a multinational corporation wouldn’t encourage illegal activity just to sell hamburgers, would it?

We only hope one of our Republican U.S. senators will promptly sponsor a resolution condemning this outrageous abuse of free speech.


*This was about three weeks back and though we have waited eagerly for its return we have not seen the ad since, suggesting someone at McDonald’s may have sobered up.
**We’ve fallen into a deep depression after realizing the implications of that line. Excuse us while we sit down.

A F**kload of Bling, Whether You’re Ready for Today or Not

El Chronicle de Houston went long Sunday on local rapper-payaso Chingo Bling, who rated not only the cover of the once-fusty Zest section (“Chingo Bling Gets His Shine On”---some hep talk, that) but also was accorded a blurb that ran higher on the front page than that recurring one with the odd full-body shot of the paper’s nebbishy SciGuy (who may indeed have the “sharpest” eye on all things hurricane but lacks the true mad gleam necessary to whip up a genuine panic).

The Chingo Bling profile took the typically happy-ass and unquestioning approach the newspaper takes to almost all its profile subjects, including Death Row inmates. Nevertheless, there were some interesting facts in the story (we assume they were facts---if that turns out not to be the case, please disregard this posting), which was occasioned by last week’s release of Mr. Bling’s big-label debut, They Can't Deport Us All, on Asylum Records/Warner Music Group (the “Asylum” label apparently having changed a bit since it was home to Jackson Browne).

One would assume that the use of the first-person plural in the CD’s title means that Mr. Bling is residing in the United States illegally and thus subject to deportation (uh huh, right) by the “they” to which he vaguely refers, although the subject of his citizenship or lack thereof is skirted throughout the entire longish newspaper article (not that it would be relevant, of course, when you call your CD They Can't Deport Us All). That’s par for the course at El Chronicle, where the question of a person’s standing as legal or illegal, which is at least occasionally relevant to whatever proceedings are at hand, is almost always avoided, unless he or she has gotten shit-faced and killed three people in a car wreck.

But another item hints that Mr. Bling, whose real name is Pedro Herrera III and whose parents, according to El Chronicle, “Came to the U.S. from Valle Hermosa, Mexico,” is probably a citizen in good standing: The newspaper relates that Pedro III is a graduate of Trinity University* in San Antonio “with a degree in business administration and a concentration in marketing.” So much for the street cred.

Whatever his status, this revelation strongly suggests that Mr. Bling’s us-vs.-them La Raza bullshit is simply a clever marketing ploy designed to relieve the gullible of their $18.95 or however much a CD runs these days, in advance of Pedro III’s eventual move to West University Place or River Oaks, depending on sales (parking on the lawn is prohibited in both locations, however).

One important matter regarding Pedro III went unaddressed by El Chronicle, that being the meaning of his nom de rap. As all Leon Hale readers know, bling is the gaudy jewelry and other shiny consumer items associated with the hip-hop lifestyle, while chingo, as any schoolboy in Houston can tell you, is a bad word, a form of the verb chingar, to fuck, although chingar has so may uses and variations and meanings and shades of meanings that Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz---no relation to future Nobel winner Chingo Bling---actually undertook to address that subject in his exploration of the Mexican mind, Labyrinth of Solitude.

Since “I fuck bling” makes no sense, at least to us, we turned to the authoritative Urban Dictionary (hell, it’s as authoritative as anything else these days), which defines chingo as a “large amount” or, similarly, a “fuckload.”

OK, that’s better: A fuckload of bling.

*Awarded the No. 1 ranking by U.S. News & World Report in the category of institutions that offer undergraduate and select master’s programs in the Western part of the United States.

Related: Local blogger fills in the blanks for the daily paper's new teen columnist.

Let Go (And Turn Off the Spanish-Language TV While You’re At It)

Peggy Noonan, who’s been posting some thoughtful pieces on immigration for the past couple of months, had another one in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal. Writing of “the decision” past immigrants to the U.S. made to finally relinquish their psychic ties to the old country and cast their lot with the new, Noonan put a finger squarely on what’s made Americans uncomfortable with the massive illegal relocation of Mexicans and Central Americans here for the past 25 years or so:

A problem with newer immigrants now is that for some it's no longer necessary to make The Decision. They don't always have to cast their lot. There are so many ways not to let go of the old country now, from choosing to believe that America is only about money, to technology that encourages you to stay in constant touch with the land you left, to TV stations that broadcast in the old language. If you're an immigrant now, you don't have to let go. Which means you don't have to fully join, to enmesh. Your psychic investment in America doesn't have to be full. It can be provisional, temporary. Or underdeveloped, or not developed at all.

And this may have implications down the road, and I suspect people whose families have been here a long time are concerned about it. It's one of the reasons so many Americans want a pause, a stopping of the flow, a time for the new ones to settle down and settle in. It's why they oppose the mischief of the Masters of the Universe, as they're being called, in Washington, who make believe they cannot close our borders while they claim they can competently micromanage all other aspects of immigration.

Which is what we’ve been saying here, ad nauseam and with a good deal less polish, for the past year or so. With the demise of the Grand Bargain, we’d humbly suggest that immigrants who are here illegally might use this time to “settle down and settle in” and consider what it actually means to be a citizen (this would entail of host of baseline duties, from learning English to not parking your pick-up in the front yard to buying car insurance to realizing the public schools are more than a baby-sitting service for your children to not throwing your scratch-off lottery tickets all over the parking lot to not tossing beer and screaming obscenities at U.S. soccer players to not waving the Mexican flag at your next “immigrant rights rally” … but you've probably figured that last one out by now).

Perhaps some of America’s leaders could step up and offer friendly, non-coercive persuasion to that end, the way the governor of California did recently when he suggested constituents stop watching Spanish-language TV. Maybe our mayor in Houston could feint or jab in that direction, seeing as how he has no overriding mission, and he likes to make TV commercials.

We Speak, They Listen: Slampo’s Place Gets Results, No Matter How Small the Consequence

In the interest of … could we call it closure? … we flag attention to this small entry by the estimable Matt Stiles on the Chronicle’s Newswatch: City Hall blog:

… I should also note that often these amendments are negotiating points between the members and the mayor. Take Councilman Michael Berry's amendment to eliminate the Mayor's Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, or MOIRA. The mayor agreed that the office should end activities perceived as advocacy for illegal immigrants, so Berry tabled his amendment.

Good enough, we guess. Congrats to the councilman and the mayor for reaching a seemingly satisfactory conclusion. Everything else should be so easy when it comes to illegal immigration, right? Next thing you know the mayor will be coming out against that comprehensive "reform" legislation.

Emerging Paradigm of Opportunity Urbanism, Mexico City Division

''The roads leading to Houston and away from Houston are very good, and there's many commercial transportation methods available to [smugglers of illegal aliens]," said ICE official Alonzo Pena.''So there (are) plenty of opportunities for them to blend in, and if they want to move on, there's infrastructure through commercial transportation modes to help them further their journeys." -- "Salvadoran charged with smuggling after 30 illegal immigrants found," by Susan Carroll, James Pinkerton and Kevin Moran, Houston Chronicle, June 13, 2007

Why Bill White Will Have a Hard Time Getting Elected Governor in Texas (Or Even Land Commissioner)

There’s the crime, of course, with the mayor’s “Criminals, get packing” tagline on his bond-election commercials coming perilously close to a Dukakis-in-a-tank moment.

For another, less pressing “for example,” consider this entity, the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, and the newsletter it publishes every two weeks.

We don’t imagine this on-line newsletter has much circulation outside of a small circle of immigrant advocacy types, if it has even that---in fact, its disinterested readership may be limited to us and the public-spirited citizen who directed us to it---but it’s definitely not the kind of thing you’d want floating out there in the ether under your very own mayoral brand if you were serious about running for office outside the Loop as the nominee of a still-walking-with-a-crutch political party. It’s not hard to imagine some hardballing GOP operative hanging this all over the Bill White for Governor (or Senator) Campaign.

According to the city’s web site, the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, which was created under Lee Brown (natch) and is run by Benito Juarez---not that one, we think---is “dedicated to facilitate [sic] a smoother transition for immigrant and refugee communities living in the city of Houston. The policy of MOIRA is to encourage access by all persons residing in the city of Houston, regardless of nation of birth or current citizenship status, to the full benefits, opportunities, and services which are provided and administered by the city of Houston.”

In addition to advising the mayor on immigration policy---which we thought he himself has said is a federal matter---the office seeks to “inform and educate the public about immigrant and immigration policies, act as a liaison between immigrant communities and city government [and] advocate on behalf of constituents.”

Some picky sorts might take issue with the notion that all people living in Houston are entitled to the “full benefits” offered by the city “regardless of … current citizenship status,” but we wouldn’t quibble with the larger notion that in a city with so many immigrants---many of them legal!---the mayor’s office ought to have some sort of formal liaison with the newcomers and the various institutions, organizations, Bar card holders and gum-beaters who represent them.

But check out almost any issue of MOIRA’s newsletter and it’s apparent that this arm of the mayor’s office takes its charge to “advocate on behalf of constituents” (which constituents, by the way?) to mean advocate in one of the most blatantly partisan and political manners that we’ve seen in supposedly non-partisan city government. The content is heavily slanted toward agitating for “comprehensive” immigration reform (which we’ve come to belatedly realize means amnesty, then more of the same when it comes to the non-enforcement of current law) or something even looser. Is that a responsibility of the mayor's office?

Sure, there’s some neutral, need-to-know information, such as a copy of HPD’s revised policy on illegal immigrants and the occasional news release from la migra or on some community event, but most of it is just straight-up polemics, rhetoric and information aimed at facilitating the organizing of illegal aliens.

Which is fine, it's a free country, but do taxpayers gotta foot the bill?

Take the Dec. 21 edition, which reprinted the United Nation’s “International Migrants Day 2006” resolution, with signatories ranging from the AFL-CIO to the Zapatista Solidarity Coalition and including this ripe verbiage:

In the United States, the U.S.-Mexico border region, in particular, continues to experience intensified militarization with impunity, and has become a de-constitutionalized zone where communities and immigrants are racially profiled and subjected to unfair detentions and deportations. We condemn the Bush Administration's and the U.S. Congress' approval of 700 more miles of additional walls, electronic surveillance and the deployment of 6,000 National Guard troops to police the border.

We reject restrictive immigration proposals in Congress that would criminalize immigrants through intensified border enforcement, and extend inhumane enforcement mechanisms to the interior. We further reject the current "compromise" proposals that contain guest-worker provisions that would expand and sustain an underclass of migrant workers, inevitably exposing migrant workers to employer abuse. Furthermore, we denounce such provisions that ensure corporations a pool of cheap, disposable labor for use and discard according to economic demands.

Is that Bill White’s position? (Although personally we can't argue with that last sentiment.)

Or consider this missive in the Nov. 16 edition, whose inclusion means city of Houston resources were used to encourage meddling in another municipality’s business:

Dear Community Leaders & Activists,

I was given a tip last night that a local municipality is going to follow in the footsteps of Farmers Branch, Texas. I was not told what city it was, but that it was going to be announced within the week.

I ask you to stay vigilant in the surrounding cities and inform us (LULAC District Directors) as soon as possible so we all can be present when they cast a vote for the anti-immigrant legislation.

LULAC has the petition ready to be filed against any city that passes this type of anti-immigrant legislation within our local area.

We will stand together against these types of actions within our Greater Houston.
Jose Luis Jimenez
Deputy District Director
LULAC District VIII – Houston

Or the Nov. 10 issue, which reproduced an “analysis” of the 2006 election by the Greenberg Traurig law firm that bizarrely included only one small section on immigration along with the “tax advice” disclaimer required by the IRS (somebody needs to do more than cut and paste and maybe read this stuff---free advice!) as well as a news release on the janitors' strike.

The previous week’s issue included a “want ad” from the National Association of Latino Elected Officials for poll watchers for the Nov. 7 election (offering a $50 stipend---if we’d only known).

And that's just from recent issues. It actually was a lot riper back in the spring, at the time of demonstrations and school walk-outs protesting non-comprehensive immigration reform.

We're pretty sure this sort of thing won't play well outside the 713 and 281 area codes.

We're pretty sure it wouldn't play all that well in many parts of the 713 and 281 area codes.

The mayor needs to get triangulatin’.