This Week in Wal-Mart Nation, By the Numbers (Speak, Monkey, Speak)

1. “The Commerce Department reported Monday that American’s personal savings fell into negative territory of minus 0.5. percent last year. That means that people not only spent all of their after-tax income last year but had to dip into previous savings or increase borrowing. The savings rate has been negative for an entire year only twice before---in 1932 and 1933 …" -- "Americans are living large," the Associated Press via the Houston Chronicle

2. "In the last fiscal year, American drivers were caught 4.078 times on suspicion of smuggling [Mexican] migrants through the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa ports of entry into San Diego. The figure has hovered around 4,000 cases since the number of car smuggling cases spiked about six years ago … The American drivers come from all walks of life---homeless veterans, single mothers, senior citizens and college students … some drivers are drug addicts or gamblers down on their luck … [Mexican coyote] Felix has a code word for U.S. drivers: “monos”---monkeys. “Siempre llegan los monos,” Felix says with a glint in his eye. [U.S. citizen and driver] Trent … spends his earnings on a ‘weakness for Latina babes.’ "-- Los Angeles Times

3.. “[Texas] collects a sales tax on sporting goods to help raise money to pay for state parks. State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn’s office estimated the sporting goods tax would generate $100.6 million in the current fiscal year. But lawmakers capped how much parks could receive from that source at $22 million. The rest goes to general revenue to help pay for other state services. And parks don’t even get the $32 million they’re allowed. Only $20.5 million from that tax goes to state and local parks, or about 20 ppercent.” -- “State parks funding caught in budget battles,” Associated Press, via Corpus Christi Caller-Times

4. Of the 12 Iraq War vets seeking congressional seats in this year’s elections, 10 are running as Democrats opposed to the war. – CBS Evening News

The Lesson of Enron

Friends, as we gather here today to pass judgment on these two once-glib sons of the Great Midwest, let us resolve to never, ever forget the bitter lesson of Enron.

And the lesson of Enron is, of course ... is … um … wait, it’ll come to us … the lesson was … hold on … lessee … lesson … Enron … uh …

In the meantime, as we try to recall the bitter lesson of Enron, we would beseech our brethren and sisteren in the media to please spare us, at least for the duration of this trial, anymore sob stories about those Enron employees who “lost it all” when Enron proved a fraud (or was toppled by the “run on the banks,” whichever your prefer). We’ve pretty much run out of sympathy---and never had much in the first place---for those who thought it was wise to invest every nickel of their retirement and more in the company stock, in blatant disregard of that constant drumbeat of advice and evidence about the need to diversify one’s assets (which we don’t recall was somehow found invalid back in what seems like those long-ago days of irrational exuberance). You may have been sold a bill of goods, but you bought in willing---even if you couldn’t clearly explain exactly what it was that your employer did to make money---and you were happy to keep buying in as long as the stock up kept heading up. In your own small way, you were as greedy as Andy, or as obtuse as Ken claims to have been.

Now: the lesson of Enron was … um …. Oh yeah: Everything is just as it’s advertised, and nothing---absolutely nothing!---is too good to be true.

Enjoy the trial.

www.aboutslamposplace.blogspot.com

The Blues Had a Baby and They Called it “Destination Entertainment”

We heard one of the developers of Houston Pavilions saying on TV earlier this week that the House of Blues slated for his planned downtown mega-development will be the only House of Blues in the Houston area.

Our very own House of Blues. And the only one in town! Just like the dozen or so other towns that have House of Blues franchises (Myrtle Beach, for instance). According to an approving correspondent on the Houston Architecture Info Forum, Houston Pavilions is “the exact same thing as the one in Denver.” That one's called Denver Pavilions.

Then we read in the Chronicle that one of the Los Angeles-based developers of the project had declared that Houston Pavilions will be the “focus of downtown.” We must have missed it when this was decided---that the focus of downtown will be a so-very-distinctive retail/residential development whose big tenants thus far are a franchised music venue and, in a particularly Houstonesque touch, a “minor emergency center and wellness clinic” (in case you get a hold of a bad baloney sandwich at the House of Blues, we suppose.)

If we’re lucky we won’t have reason to visit either venue, although we realize this is a free country and the developers can pretty much do whatever the hell they please with their property. Yet Houston Pavilions isn’t exactly a triumph of free enterprise---according to the Chronicle and the Houston Business Journal, the developers have received “assistance” in the form of $8.8 million in infrastructure development grants from the city of Houston and “$4.4 million from Harris County” (in addition to a $1 million grant from the quasi-governmental Downtown Management District). Y’know, to make it work. So, even though we won’t be darkening its door, as a payer of federal, city and county taxes we feel like we have at least a wee ownership stake in Houston Pavilions, and as a part-owner we demand that we be consulted before any more tenants are recruited (it appears the development would be the perfect location for a new Harrah’s, once we get casino gambling here in Texas).

In the meantime, we have questions, such as why, when there’s so much concern in the air about “affordable housing,” local governments are using tax dollars (yeah, the ones from the federal government come from taxes, too) to subsidize a development that will offer what we heard described on TV as “luxury condos” in its 12-story residential tower. (Yes, we know the canned answer: The development is supposed to be a “catalyst” for further nearby development---the usual vague and unquantifiable justification that’s tossed out when public money is funneled to splashy private projects [if a “minor emergency center” can be considered “splashy”].)

Slampo's English-As-A-Second-Language Weekend Special: Sign on the windshield of an older model auto in the greater Alief area: "Sail 4." We think they meant "For Sale," but we're not positive of that.

Nation of Poopy-Diaper Babies, Installment No. 436

The Citgo station up on the corner gives a 5-cent (and sometimes higher) discount per gallon if you make your purchase with “cash money,” as the dour bearded gent behind the register first explained to us some months ago.

Instead of having the clerk reset the price from inside, Citgo issues cash-money customers a plastic “cash card” with a magnetic strip that you insert into the credit card slot at the pump to get your discount. When we asked why that was necessary, the bearded gent said something we didn’t understand and then shrugged, as if it were a matter best left to Allah. We were told that the cards were reusable, though, so we’ve been replenishing our original when we stop in to drop some cash money on the Citgo. For some reason ours is decorated with an especially colorful picture of a striped bass that appears to be swallowing some smaller form of aquatic life. Below the fine print on the back is this suggestion: “Protect this card and treat it as you would cash.”

Apparently other, less virtuous customers don’t bother reusing the cards, and they certainly aren’t treating them as they would cash. Today as we were filling our tank we looked down and noticed that the ground around the pumps seemed to be covered with discarded cash cards. We counted 17 of them, then stopped. We were beginning to feel like the Indian chief in that 1970s public-service commercial, the one who stared out at the mountains of garbage covering his native land as a single tear ran down his cheek.

(Sniff …)

www.aboutslamposplace.blogspot.com

The Real Story Behind That DeLay Poll

We’ve been faintly amused by the controversy pinging around the local neck of Bloggersville (as Banjo Jones calls it) over the Houston Chronicle’s recent poll showing Tom DeLay limping a bit as he readies to face the voters this year (overhwelmingly comprehensive linkage at blogHouston).

We have nothing of substance to add to the issue, primarily because our interest in these matters (polls and polling methodology, etc.) long ago diminished past the point of nullity. However, we’re confident in dismissing, without hesitation or equivocation, the notion that UH’s Dick Murray would be party to a cooking of numbers to show DeLay in a bad light. (And yeah, the paper should have noted, and high up in its story on the poll, that Murray’s son worked for Nick Lampson, DeLay’s probable Democratic opponent. The omission of something so obviously begging for disclosure not only provided an easy point of attack for critics but points up what we and others have discerned to be a general lack of quality control at the daily newspaper).

Having worked with Murray a bit in the distant past, we found him to be a person of high professional integrity (that is, forthright, cautious and even self-deprecating in his explanations of sample sizes, weighting, developments affecting responses, etc.) It’s laughable to think he’d spoil his reputation as a technician on some cheesy partisan ploy. (We never had much truck with Bob “You-Need-A-Quote” Stein, so we’ll reserve comment on his involvement with the poll in question.)

Of course, we’ve also heard Murray once (maybe twice) declare that “polls are bullshit,” although we were past the legal limit for being shit-faced at the time and can’t recall exactly why he maintained so.

Whatever the margin of error on sub-samples, it defies logic to maintain that DeLay hasn’t been hurt at least an itsy bitsy bit in his district by the cascade of bad news that’s fallen on him of late. His 60 percent unfavorable rating in the Chronicle poll would seem to be a fairly unambiguous reading of that development. At the same time, common sense (that is, a recognition of the demographic realities of the district and DeLay’s established presence and relentless spadework there) suggests that the smilin' shakedown artist from Sugar Land will win his GOP primary handily and probably be re-elected in November (barring further legal developments).

As for the Chronicle’s bias against DeLay … yes, it does seem that the newspaper (along with a good portion of the rest of the Western Hemisphere) has finally turned on the congressman. It wasn’t too many years ago, however, that the paper’s editorial page was generally supportive of DeLay and endorsed him for re-election, and before the end of the last century its news pages were about the last place you’d look to find anything truly negative on the old boy, unless it was a story wired from the Washington Post or elsewhere.

We’re not sure what benefit the paper would derive from rigging a poll against DeLay. In a strict news-value sense, a survey showing “Despite Troubles, DeLay Still Stronger Than Spicy Fresh Mexican Horseradish” would have had more impact than one reinforcing the obvious. But given the paper’s past support of DeLay, it crossed our mind---no, actually, we believe this wholeheartedly---that the entire poll was cooked up by DeLay and the Chronicle to boost his fund-raising, with Murray and Stein abetting.

It makes sense: the poll doesn’t come close to suggesting that DeLay’s a hopeless loser, so it’s not gonna make money fly from him, but it does indicate that he’s gonna have to get out and hump it to keep his nipped-and-tucked visage at the public trough---and for that he’ll need more money. And more. “Dear donor, A recent poll has shown that the merciless pummeling of Ted Kennedy and Michael Moore has left Tom DeLay fighting for his political life. Tom needs your help like never before …"

That’s it: the Chronicle and Tom DeLay, in the sack, again.

Smoke ’Em If Ya Got ’Em

You remember the picture: the dazed and sweaty Marine with the Marlboro hanging off his lip, trying to settle his mind or steady his nerves after the fighting in Fallujah in 2004. It was the kind of photo that can lift newsroom editors from their late-night torpor and cause them to issue breathy exhalations of wonder, and it summarily appeared on the front pages of papers across the nation, including the one in Houston.

We were struck by the picture, taken by a Los Angeles Times photographer, but what really took us aback were two letters the Houston Chronicle subsequently printed from apparently real people who accused the Marine of setting a bad example for the nation’s youth. One, from a Dr. Daniel Maloney of The Woodlands, deserves repeating:

I was shocked to see the large photograph on Nov. 10. A tired, dirty and brave Marine rests after a battle--- but with a cigarette dangling from his mouth! Lots of children, particularly boys, play "army" and like to imitate this young man. The clear message of the photo is that the way to relax after a battle is with a cigarette. The truth is very different from that message. Most of our troops don't smoke. And most importantly, this young man is far more likely to die a horrible death from his tobacco addiction than from his tour of duty in Iraq.

Yes, the picture did indeed make both combat and cigarette smoking seem sooooo appealing. (When it comes to handling stress we prefer yoga to cigarettes these days, although we realize that in some places [Fallujah being one] it’s probably not convenient to unfurl a sticky mat and throw down an Adho Mukha Svanasana.)

The Lexington Herald-Tribune recently updated the whereabouts of the Marine, 21-year-old Blake Miller of Pike Country, Ky., who survived both the war and the cigarette and is back home after receiving an early but honorable discharge. At the time Miller was caught in his Willie-and-Joe Kodak moment, he was smoking about five packs a day, according to the paper---a level of consumption more commonly associated with Bangkok cab drivers or coronary-bound New York ad executives of the 1950s. He still carries shrapnel scars from the war and

began having problems soon after returning from Iraq early last year: sleeplessness, nightmares, times when he would "blank out," not knowing what he was doing. Then, just after Hurricane Katrina last fall, Miller was sent to New Orleans, where he and other Marines waded through flooded neighborhoods, recovering bodies. Somewhere along the way, all the stresses piled up, and they boiled over a few days later while Miller was on board the USS Iwo Jima, a Navy ship on hurricane duty off the Gulf Coast.

"I was coming out of the galley, when this sailor made a whistling noise that resembled the sound of a rocket-propelled grenade," Miller said. " ... They said that I grabbed him, threw him against the bulkhead and put him down on the deck, with me on top of him. But I have no recollection of it whatsoever."

Jesus. If anybody deserves to be left alone to smoke in peace, it’s Blake Miller.

The good news, though, is that he’s down to one pack a day.

He’s also had second thoughts about the war.

Pike County, by the way, is in the Kentucky coal country that is the setting for the Frontline special Country Boys that PBS aired over three nights earlier this month. We stumbled into the middle of the first installment of this documentary and couldn’t stop watching. See it, if you get the chance.

Slampo’s English-As-A-Second-Language Weekend Special: Spotted on a hand-scrawled sign near the corner of Kirkwood and Bechnut in Southwest Houston: “Big Garage Sale Frayday.” We figured this was a mere typo, the result of the kind of mental glitch that afflicts us about every 30 seconds. But farther down the street we saw a similar sign, same handwriting: “Big Garage Sale Frayday.” It kind of works, phonetically.

Big, Stiff, Genetically Engineered Product of a Command Economy (With a Dollop of Seal’s Penis)

Five possibly pertinent points about Yao Ming, while waiting for the Rockets’ center’s left big toe to heal, as related by Brook Larmer in his excellent Operation Yao Ming:

1. Yao was the product of a marriage arranged by Shanghai sports officials who wanted two of the tallest basketball players in the nation to produce a giant who could help give China an edge in international competition (pages 39-41).

2. Yao’s mother, Fang Fengdi (Da Feng, who now lives in the Houston area with Yao’s dad), was a gung-ho member of the Red Guard during Mao’s Cultural Revolution and as such was part of cadre that imprisoned a former top sports official and “some three other dozen top coaches and administrators in makeshift jails” in a Shanghai sports center. “At night the young captors took turns harassing and haranguing their former bosses to keep them from sleeping. During the day they forced the haggard leaders to read Mao’s works or write ‘self criticism’ confessing to crimes ranging from having relatives living abroad or not showing enough enthusiasm while singing the final chorus of The Three Rules of Discipline and Eight Points of Attention.” (page 29)

3. “Most Chinese sports teams rely heavily on secret homegrown brews that have passed down generation to generation …. [some] remain resolutely foreign, such as the tonic made of dog’s kidneys or the popular liquid elixir brewed from seal’s penis and testes.” (page 89)

4. “… the ‘caterpillar fungus,’ the rare, grass-like growth found on the carcasses of dead moths and caterpillars high in the Tibetan mountains … is a licorice-tasting respiratory tonic that is supposedly 50 times more powerful than ginseng. In the 1990s it became one of the elixirs fueling … Yao Ming.” (page 102)

5. “Yao’s passivity [on the court in the NBA] wasn’t simply a function of personality, but also of the insulated atmosphere in which he had been raised. Being an athlete in China, Yao explained, was ‘like being a plant growing in a greenhouse.’ The Chinese sports system may have helped him to develop his skills, but it shielded him from the kind of harsh, competitive forces that most other athletes around the world face everyday.” (page 315)