Shelley Sekula[-]Gibbs Explains It All For You

... In this Channel 11 report from last week, wherein the Republican write-in candidate for the 22nd Congressional District seat outlines her "position" on Iraq:

“If you put it in perspective we’ve lost 2,800 brave men and women in Iraq but we lose over 9,000 Americans at the hands of illegal immigrants every year, according to the general accounting office.”

So that means … out of the 15,000 to 16,000 or so murders in the United States annually, 9,000 are committed by illegal aliens? Or is that the total number of Americans “lost” in killings, car wrecks, industrial accidents, whatever, caused by illegal aliens? Or … what? We can’t seem to find this GAO citation, but we’ll keep looking.

Whatever she meant, we can't thank the doctor enough for putting this whole Iraq thing in perspective. We feel much better.

Nothing Like a Relationship That’s “Working”

We meant to bring this to your attention earlier but got caught up in folding laundry: Last Sunday’s Los Angeles Times had an interesting story exploring how Neil Bush’s Ignite! Learning is “benefiting,” as the paper put it, from his brother’s No Child Left Behind Act through school districts’ purchases of the company's dubious COW doohickeys. Buried down in the piece were some fragrant details about the presidential brother’s ... how shall we say ... efforts at marketing the product to the Houston Independent School District:

In Houston, where Neil Bush and his parents live, the district has used various funding sources to acquire $400,000 in Ignite products. An additional $240,000 in purchases has been authorized in the last six months.

Correspondence obtained by The Times shows that Neil Bush met with top Houston officials, sent e-mails and left voice mail messages urging bigger and faster allocations. An e-mail from a school procurement official to colleagues said Bush had made it clear that he had a "good working relationship" with a school board member. [Emphasis added]

Of this the Times said no more, but we figured some eagle-eyed member of the local 4th Estate would hop to and fill in the blanks for us by revealing the name of the mystery trustee (and maybe somebody has and we missed it).

After all, there are only nine members of the HISD board.

Gosh, we hope it’s not ours.

4 or 5 Reasons We Might “Come Home” to Kinky

Oh, we’ll probably vote for the goofy old lady, at least that’s how we’re leaning as of 9 o’clock this evening, but of late we’ve been inclined to look more favorably on R. Friedman, mostly because:

1. Of his refusal to engage in the bullshit ritual of “apology” and submission as demanded by the state NAACP. Sam Houston would’ve done no less.

2. The prospect that his election would keep Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News in a state of profound agitation.

3. The Houston Chronicle told us not to.

4. The Democratic nominee---the only candidate we’ve ever seen who seems to recede in his own TV commercials---asked him to quit the race (suppose there’s no harm in asking).

5. After paying closer-than-usual attention (reduced to watching Scarborough Country nightly) for the past 2-3 weeks to the coast-to-coast, wall-to-wall, around-the-clock dumbshow that is electoral politics (was it ever thus?), we’ve been reminded of just how puke-sick the whole business leaves us … and so:

6. "Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -- H.L. Mencken*

* Courtesy DJW of St. Louis, Mo.

Houston City Council Campaign Finance Disclosure Trivia Quiz, Part 4 (Special “Cleared by the Klan” Edition)

We recently gave Google News Archive Search a spin by tapping in “Oscar Holcombe,” figuring his long run as mayor of Houston (intermittently, from the 1920s through the 1950s) would give us a good idea of the search engine’s capabilities. As it turned out, most of the hits were to newspaperarchive.com, which unfortunately does not meet our baseline requirement for a search engine (it’s not free) and does not include reproduced pages from the three Houston dailies (although it appears that Holcombe for some reason was frequently chronicled in the Port Arthur News).

Our search did, however, turn up an interesting article on Holcombe from the Dec. 27, 1948 Time magazine. Written with that jaunty mid-century Luce-ian élan, the profile appeared on the occasion of Holcombe’s election to a ninth term as mayor (he’d be elected twice more) and examines his durability as a political phenom in “raw and rollicking” Houston.

We had always figured Holcombe for the rawboned reactionary type, but come to find out it was the “Old Gray Fox” who set the tone for the inclusiveness and diversity and whatnot that, as we’re often reminded (by people who mostly consort with people like themselves), is one of the city’s great strengths. Check it out:

In 1922, after he refused to fire three Catholics from his administration, he was opposed by the 10,000 members of Sam Houston Klan No. 1. The Klan started a campaign of vilification, denouncing him as a chronic drinker and gambler. A Baptist, Holcombe demanded that the Baptist Ministers' Association try him on the charges at a public hearing. Although nine of the 13 ministers on the "jury" were Klansmen, they cleared him after a one-day "trial" held at the Rice Hotel a week before election. He won the election. Three campaigns later, however, he was defeated. One reason: he swung an umbrella at the publisher of a Houston newspaper who had threateningly brandished a letter-opener during a heated argument. "You just can't explain that sort of thing to the people," said Holcombe.

Hell, those were the days---when a newspaper publisher could pull a letter-opener on a mayor with impunity. So in honor of the umbrella-swinging longest-serving mayor in the city's history, and all the riches he reaped flipping land in the city he long governed, let’s take one final Houston City Council Campaign Finance Disclosure Trivia Quiz:

This councilmember and her $2,500-a-month political consultant opened a legal defense fund PAC earlier this year that has reported receiving contributions from former Portland Trailblazers great Clyde Drexler ($1,000), the person for whom the Shirley A. DeLibero Rail Operations Center was named ($200), former Temple grocery-supply magnate Drayton McLane ($1,000), some person with an apparently limitless amount of disposable income named Bob Perry ($5,000), traffic watchamacallhim David Saperstein ($1,000) and erstwhile mayoral hopeful Ned Holmes ($2,500).

A. Carol Alvarado

B. Carol Alvarado

C. Carol Alvarado

D. Carol Alvarado

Answer to last quiz: B.) Pam Holm

Houston City Council Campaign Finance Disclosure Trivia Quiz, Part 3 (Shelley Sans Hyphen Edition)

Like most Houstonians, we spent this rainy weekend inside, with the shades drawn, checking out the Web site for the newly de-hyphenated and write-in-ready Shelley Sekula Gibbs, Republican candidate for the 22nd Congressional District (in which we once resided but no longer do [it left us, we didn’t leave it]).

We noticed something distinctive about this Web site. We looked high and low, but nowhere on it---including the “issues” link and the “talking points” link---could we find the word Iraq. The place where more than 50 Americans have died already this month.

No doubt the busy dermatologist-cum-councilwoman-cum-congressional candidate has some position on the war but just hasn’t had the time to instruct one of her factotums to post it on the site.

She is, however, pretty clear about her stand on gay marriage.

At least Nick Lampson acknowledges (kinda) there’s a war going on.

It makes us sorry we’re no longer a denizen of the 22nd Congressional District, so that we could have the satisfaction of not writing in her unhyphenated name on the electronic ballot.

To assuage our melancholy, we’ll play another round of the Houston City Council Campaign Finance Disclosure Trivia Quiz:

In the spring this councilmember generously opened his or her campaign/officeholder account to contribute to the re-election campaigns of U.S. Rep. John Culberson ($250), state Rep. Martha Wong ($250) and Gov. Rick Perry ($500), but was still flush enough to shell out $22.11 for a “gift for constituent” purchased at Helmsley’s Times Square in NYC ( how come our council member never buys us a “gift”?) and $14.06 for “reading matter” at Newark International Airport (not to mention picking up the tab for a fair number of “meetings” and “staff appreciation luncheons” at La Griglia and Arista and the like [it’s not our money---we don’t care]).

A. Ada Edwards

B. Pam Holm

C. Sue Lovell

D. Shelley Sekula-Gibbs

Answer to last quiz: C.) Carol Alvarado (too easy)

Houston City Council Campaign Finance Disclosure Trivia Quiz, Part 2 (Left Big Toe Edition)

We noticed that the gravity of Yao Ming’s achin’ big toe was sufficient to bring forth a declaration of concern from the weeping philosophers at the Houston Chronicle, who made a bold Rodney King-like call for the Rockets and the sneaker manufacturer Reebok to please, please come together to alleviate the big Chinaman’s misery.

In fact, as others have pointed out, the newspaper appears to be devoting an unusual amount of attention to toes and feet this week. Perhaps some upper-level editor there has deemed the subject part of Houston’s “master narrative.”

We, too, had considered authoring a hard-hitting editorial calling for an end to Yao’s pain, except we long ago laid out our position on the Rockets center: He’s a big puss.

That toe needs to get fixed, though, so Yao can get the hell out of the way when the Rockets put T-Mac and Bonzi on the floor together.

In the meantime, let’s take another Houston City Council Campaign Finance Disclosure Trivia Quiz. Just match the right councilmember with the item taken verbatim from the campaign and officeholder disclosure reports that were due on Jan. 1 and July 15 of this year:

Once the object of controversy for having claimed to have a degree from the University of Houston when he or she had not fulfilled all requirements for graduation, this councilmember tapped his or her officeholder account for $45 on Feb. 10 to pay for membership in the UH alumni organization (and who says the personal’s not political?).

A.) Ronald Green

B.) Pam Holm

C.) Carol Alvarado

D.) Addie Wiseman

Answer to last quiz: B.) Jarvis Johnson

Houston City Council Campaign Finance Disclosure Trivia Quiz, Part I

Note: This blogger is offering his own perspective on a subject that interests him. The posts and opinions are his own and are not edited by anyone. He is solely responsible for the content of this blog.

We were all set to file our richly detailed 8,000-word exegesis of the Texas governor’s race, but due to our lack of interest in that ragged affair and in recognition of the news that the city of Houston may take a tentative half-step toward dragging its disclosure system into the 21st century, we will for a limited time devote this space to our special “Houston City Council Campaign Finance/Officeholder Account Trivia Quiz.” Or whatever we called it up above.

All you have to do is match the right councilmember with the item taken verbatim from disclosure reports that were supposed to be filed with the city secretary on Jan. 1 and July 15 of this year. Please begin:

1. On his or her campaign finance report due July 15 but filed on Sept. 21, this councilmember reported receiving a $500 contribution from Maxxam Inc. on April 4. Direct contributions to candidates from corporations are prohibited under the Texas Election Code.

A.) Toni Lawrence

B.) Jarvis Johnson

C.) Michael Berry

D.) Shelley Sekula-Gibbs

Each day’s answer will be provided in the following edition of Slampo’s Place, if there is one.

Remember: Keep your eyes on your own paper!