Cherrypicking their candidates

David Wilson, Harris County's most accomplished gadfly, pulled a ruse upon both Republicans and Democrats last week when he opted to seek the locofoco nod for Harris County Commissioner in Precinct 4. To the sensible among us this was welcome news. The persistence of Jerry Eversole on the court has become a millstone around the neck of the local pubbies as they try to shake loose from the ethical troubles, both real and contrived, that marred their recent stint at the helm.

And nothing would delight this correspondent more than to foist the militantly anti-homosexual Wilson into the local Democratic tent, which has long beleaguered Republicans with cretins from their own ranks running under false banners. (Such delight, it should be duly noted, is not found in particular affinity for Mr. Wilson's brash approach to his pet issue, but rather in the sheer irritation it brings to the petty busybodies of the HCDP rank and file. Debra Danburg - this one's all for you).

Wilson's strategem provoked an expected response. The local Dems have disqualified Wilson from the ballot by deeming him a charlatan, and somewhat arbitrarily by asserting fraud in his residence at the address purported on his filing form. Such behavior issues from an odd source, given their prior instistence that Tom DeLay be perpetually bound to a former Texas address at a time in which he resided in the Commonwealth of Virginia. To Mr. Wilson's favor though, residency contests are difficult to sustain in Texas even under clear and certain evidence as HCDP Sustaining Member Zaf Tahir might well attest. Or that other Democrat, Kyle Janek.

Such pharisaism is not unmatched though for the Houston Chronicle, a local far left political blog, has editorialized in the Democrats' favor, deeming Wilson unwelcome on their ticket even though he appears to meet the legal qualifications of candidacy, Gerry Birnberg's verbal menstruations notwithstanding. You see, the Chronicle has long besmirched local Republicans for failing to extend "inclusion" to an organization identifying itself as the "Log Cabin Republicans," or some other such neo-Lincolnian gibberish. Though this group has the familiar distinction of being a favored target of hard drinkin' pseudo-gynecologist Steven Hotze, more sensible members of the local GOP have shirked them not for their alleged singular issue of divergence but rather, as the aforementioned cretin ttests, their actual and documented political liberalism on multiple other issues...and an habitually violent strain of it at that as any veteran of the 13th Senatorial District's Republican convention process might attest. It is therefore again with much delight that their favor has now been returned by Mr. Wilson to the Chronicle.

Yuletide Greetings for the Chronicle Editorial Board

The little bag of rubbish that usually deposits itself upon my doorstep in the wee hours of the morning contained an unexpected addition this morning in the form of a Chronicle "Christmas Wish List" intended, no doubt, to make Houston into the same "world class" city that inspires the majority of Jeff Cohen's nocturnal emissions.

In the seasonal spirit of gift-giving, your correspondent has opted an answer in bestowing the following "Solstice Wish List"upon the Houston Chronicle Editorial Board. May your yulean pseudo-diety generously bestow them upon you this morning, and may she continue to infect your superstition-ravaged minds as a warning to the more sensible among us as to why we should discard your musings. In due corresponding order to the Chronicle's list, I humbly present:

10. May the super-cool high-tech startup company you desire for Houston be in the business of producing something nuclear. Weapons would be ideal, though power is more than sufficient.

9. Seeing as Houston already has sidewalks, may the thousands of bicyclists who clutter our roadways discover them and relocate to them, and in so doing cease to encumber motorists with the continuous hazard of their meandering traffic lawlessness.

8. May any attempted entry by Teuton-owned Trader Joe's be repelled from the Houston market by the proliferation of Texas-born Whole Foods. And may the politics of the latter's owner loom over your every lunchtime craving for a vegan rice cake, knowing that he is profiting from your infantile eating habits.

7. May the duly-noted "busking musicians" (normal people call them panhandlers) be welcome in Houston, but with one stipulation: their activities must be confined to a 1 block radius around 801 Texas Avenue.

6. May you come to the realization that the single largest fountain of disrespect for the Bayou City and its residents is housed in the very same building as your printing presses.

5. May the blessing of Global Warming continue to foil your pleas for a shorter summer and save us all from the merciless climates that have presently buried vast regions to our north under approximately two feet of frozen liquid. If you desire a colder climate, then move to Canada.

4. May Yao's health be countered with an injury plagued season for the Dynamo (who names a soccer team after a 19th century electrical generator anyway?). And may those injuries prompt a losing season, that casts political doubt on the prudence of building them a new stadium

3. May there be another 20-something year drought of hurricanes for this city, for the secondary reason of escaping their inconvenience but primarily to deprive your newspaper of another story to cloud with sensationalized hype and hysteria.

2. May the next novel set in Houston be a macabre tale in the Southern Gothic tradition.

1. May the A-list New York celebrity you desire be Al Sharpton, and may he come to Houston specifically to "investigate" the disproportionate burden that the layoffs induced by the Chronicle's ailing business model have placed upon minority journalists, newspaper distributors, and street salesmen.

What the fog?

Dark foggy weather like this always incites references to London. We tend to be reminded of Carol Reed's sleek cityscape of post-war Vienna in The Third Man.




Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.

Staying On Top of Old Glory

A few months ago we took note of the growing menace of glory holes and crusading moralist Karen Kay Kristopher's noble attempts to work with County Judge Ed Emmett on this crisis.

It now appears their expertise may be needed in not far away College Station, TX.  According to a writer for Texas A&M's student paper The Battalion (you really need to click on that link b/c we can't do the column justice with a few quotes), they have a problem on campus that requires immediate attention from authorities:

A casual observer might never notice the walls separating the bathroom stalls across campus are made of incredibly hard material, largely stainless steel or some form of faux marble. But a few weeks ago, the walls of the aforementioned bathroom were replaced with thick plastic. In a shorter period of time a large 8" hole along with several smaller peep-holes have been cut and melted into the walls. "

The author believes these holes serve a purpose related to anonymous public sex.  And it's been happening for a while:

The professor told a harrowing tales about one night in the late 80s, when he and his three young children were in the Academic building and went to use the restroom. Upon entering in the restroom he encountered several males openly performing various sex acts. Needless to say he was mortified.

The rest of the column is actually fairly interesting, so if you're someone interested in the occasional anonymous gay bathroom rendezvous,  check it out.

There are several amazingly awkward word choices and phrasings throughout the column, and grammatical errors abound, but the choice sentence had to be this:

Efforts to curb public cuckolding on campus seem to have been, at best, modestly successful.

The author, a senior classical studies major, doesn't seem to know exactly what "cuckolding" means; in the context of this column we can only assume he picked it because it sounded like something else.

If we know Aggies, and we think we do, those bathroom stalls are most likely plastered with used wads of Copenhagen snuff.  It takes a pretty special person to achieve arousal in a closed environment dominated by the aromas of used smokeless tobacco and human waste.  Anyway, we hope A&M will call Ed Emmett or Karen Kay Kristopher for help in addressing this crisis before lavatory fellatio becomes another intractable Aggie tradition.

Eminent Domain is Hilarious!

Prank letters no joke to residents around Baylor University, who feared losing their homes to make way for new stadium

And from the AP via Chron:

WACO, Texas — Some residents near Baylor University are upset after discovering prank letters that falsely stated the school is seizing their homes to make way for a new, $255 million football stadium.

The Waco Tribune-Herald reports Sunday that pranksters slipped official-looking fliers under doormats and taped them to the doors of houses and apartment buildings in neighborhoods near the campus. The fliers said the university was seizing properties in the neighborhood to make way for the football stadium to be built next March.

Thank God some UH kids didn't think to try this in the Third Ward or we'd be seeing smoke right about now. We can only fantasize about the righteous indignation Garnet Coleman could manifest over such a prank.

KKK Goes After the Glory Holes

It has come to our attention that there is a growing menace to the sanctity of our fair county, one that threatens the very fabric of the decent society we have striven to construct amidst malarial environs and deviant temptations. That threat, a most treacherous pitfall for the unsuspecting patriarchs of Harris County families, is something known as a "Glory Hole."

Being unfamiliar with this term, we conducted a little research. Unfortunately, the only Google hit that made it past our security settings was a November, 2003 article from The Onion, which shed little light on the growing crisis.

Fortunately for us and our families, more knowledgeable guardians are on the case. We are most pleased to find that one Karen Kay Kristopher ("remember the K!") has rebounded triumphantly from several comically failed political campaigns, a conviction for auto theft, and being declared a "vexatious litigant," to become the head of The Houston Area Association for Decency.

When not ushering gullible reporters around the parking lots of Gentlemen's Clubs in search of spent prophylactics, Kay can sometimes be found in the driveway of colorful former Judge Gary Michael Block (the same judge who issued the vexatious ruling).

From a September, 2007 posting at The Center:

While in Houston, we find Harris County Judge Ed Emmett rightfully concerned about Sexually Transmitted Diseases for the wives of husbands who use the "Glory Holes" near the restrooms at the topless bars.

We commend Judge Emmett for his knowledge of glory holes, and his compassionate concern for those affected.

In conducting research for this posting, we surveyed several associates who are known to patronize Gentlemen's Clubs, or as KKK refers to them, "titty bars." To a man, they responded with pleas of ignorance and only inquired as to the locations of the so-called "glory holes." Most unhelpful.

Since we are still unsure what these "Glory Holes" really are, we encourage our readers to contact their elected officials and ask them what they know about this terrible menace:

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett
713-755-4000
judge.emmett@cjo.hctx.net

Commissioner El Franco Lee
713-755-6111

Commissioner Sylvia Garcia
713-755-6220
sylvia.garcia@pct2.hctx.net

Commissioner Steve Radack
713-755-6306

Commissioner Jerry Eversole
713-755-6444
jyounts@hcp4.net

Some proposed sample questions:

*What is a "Glory Hole?"
*What goes on in a Glory Hole?
*Where in Harris County can Glory Holes be found?
*Is there typically a fee associated with the use of a Glory Hole or does the thrill of anonymity suffice for - wait...what?

Hit him again, Joe

Though an hour of rhetorical jubilation was thought to be in store for this evening's health care pageant, the telegraph brings word of undeserved condemnation upon one Representative Joe Wilson. As the exalted occupant of the executive branch bawled himself up, pen in hand as if he had been writing, to transmit his marxian sorcery across the land this brave soldier of the Palmetto Republic arose in fitting objection.

"Breach of decorum!" screeched the capitoline sycophancy.

We at the County Seat, however, consider the act good in conception, better in execution, and best of all in consequences. The vulgar recipient of this verbal rebellion deserves nothing less than its scorn, and to Mr. Wilson a brass-headed cane in commemoration!

Postdiluvian Pseudohistory

A casual visitor to this medium might discern this correspondent's conspicuous scorn for the teaching profession, if by no other clue than the purity of misanthropic exhibition. As the history discipline in particular has lacked a suitable expositor since at least the passing of Belloc, it is sufficient to state that nothing good may come from the tortured process of "social studies" textbook selection.

Still, a conservative deference to tradition deems permissible the respect that is owed to the practices of peer review, even if a variety of its byproducts match their progenitor's detestability. Let the writing of history emerge from a credentialed historian, an expert trained in the reproduction of unimportant events, "brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools."

In the uncredentialed pen of the boob or Baptist, history ceases its functionary role as a propagandist rendering of the past glories of the exalted state and assumes the character of comedic mythology wherein Charles Darwin supplants the non-existent tyrannosaur as the original terror of the earth and the number 5,000 assumes ancestral significance ex nihilo.

Such is the regrettable case of the present round of textbook revisions before the Texas educational board, which recently appointed a charlatan named David Barton to its board of credentialed "experts" in history curricula for textbook review. This appointment has placed him at the helm of a Baptist-controlled four man committee charged with reviewing the public school history curriculum for Texas schoolchildren. Televangelist infomercial allstar, VHS cassette huckster, character assassin for hire, and Republican nepotist extraordinaire, Brother Barton can be many things. But T.R. Fehrenbach he is not. And as much as it pains this writer to agree with the boorish shrews of the secular atheist movement, they have correctly pegged Brother Barton's propensity for committing overt acts of fraudulent historical scholarship.

The present interlocutor has cataloged Brother Barton's excesses at this spot in a prior setting. Briefly overlooking of the graft he extracts from Republican Party coffers to promote his private business interests, such an appointment is worrisome, nay, a cause for any thinking and intelligent conservative to cringe in mortification at the undesired connotations his very existence unfairly attaches to our ideological affiliation. Brother Barton, you see, lacks any real credential to practice in the history profession, excluding of course his honorary doctorate in the prevention of "making eye babies" from an unaccredited degree mill in northwest Florida.

Brother Barton has already made much progress in reinforcing the stereotype of the SBOE membership, and Republicans in general, as uneducated tongue-babbling crackpots who would rather reenact the Scopes Monkey Trial with singing sock puppets (and likely an accompanying Christian rock soundtrack) than undertake any meaningful attempt to provide an intelligent traditional conservative counterpoint to the neo-marxian bilgewater that passes for "public history" in the present age. His priorities thus far have included the excision of Thurgood Marshall and Cesar Chavez from future lesson plans, undoubtedly to make room for a chapter on demon howls escaping from the Kola borehole. Or perhaps a "true" geological history of the Great Deluge, reworked to emphasize the role of the Grand Canyon as a giant slip n' slide to help Noah's Ark cross the Rockies.

Overlooking the exaggerated reputations of the subtracted topics and the clear political motive behind their prior inclusion, Chavez and Marshall did little harm to a lesson plan that tends to bask in inconsequential trivia. Their redaction, by contrast, is a sure way to stir the hornet's nest of professional agitators in the black and hispanic "civil rights" lobbies. As has already happened in the land of snot-nosed hyphenated Teutons.

Take note, Terri Leo: thy Ireland is no Bard. Thy Vortigern is a fraud!

The GOP's Latest Scandal

WOODFILL SPOTTED WITH PROSTITUTE!

Photographs allegedly show Republican Party Chief in compromising position

Clear Lake, Texas – Scandal threatened to rock the local Republican Party last week as Chairman Jared Woodfill was allegedly spotted entering a southeast Harris County courthouse annex with a suspected prostitute. An undercover investigator photographed the party chief enjoying the company of Terry Lowry, proprietor of the Link Letter Bordello on the 12600 block of Jones Road in northwest Harris County.

The encounter reportedly occurred late Monday evening in the courtroom of Justice of the Peace Louis Ditta, which had been reserved by Mr. Woodfill for a Republican “Town Hall” meeting on the party’s future. Instead, over one hundred mostly-elderly activists witnessed Mr. Woodfill cavorting with Mr. Lowry. The long time call-girl is rumored to have peddled himself to Woodfill for an undisclosed amount dubbed project “Voter Registration Chair.”

David Jennings, a liberal commentator at the Lone Star Times news network, took the photographs through a camera concealed inside a hollowed-out copy of a book by Mumia Abu-Jamal on the abuse of death row prisoners. “I went to them looking for a way for moderates to infiltrate the Republican Party, and in came Jared with this prostitute Lowry on his arm.” Mr. Jennings admitted he was skeptical of the Republican event but never expected what he saw. “I’m sort of like the Alan Colmes of my organization, you know,” he said, in reference to his role as a counterbalance to the site’s doctrinaire Dan Patrick commentators.

The revelation about Mr. Woodfill came only hours before County Judge Ed Emmett informed the Houston Chronicle, a local political blog, that the party was having difficulty meeting its monthly staff payroll. Activists in attendance questioned whether Mr. Woodfill’s purchase of the Lowry package had imperiled party finances.

“I mean, the two of them were in there for almost 23 minutes!” exclaimed one GOP activist, who declined to be named out of fear that the party leadership would strip him of his position on its influential Young Leadership and Minority Candidates Outreach Subcommittee for Survey Questionnaire Preparation. “I know Terry Lowry and 23 minutes with him isn’t cheap.”

The party’s campaign finance records indicate that Mr. Woodfill is a frequent purchaser of Mr. Lowry’s services. Between 2002 and 2006 Mr. Woodfill delivered almost $60,000 to “Your Vote Counts.” The company is reputed to be a year-round subscription service that Mr. Lowry set up on the side to augment his regular Link Letter clientele, which pays a lump sum only once per election.

Mr. Woodfill was unavailable for comment but a surrogate spokesman insisted via the party’s new Twitter account that the grumblings were only from disgruntled ex-clients of the Link Letter. “Sure, a few people don’t like him but they’re just candidates who weren’t satisfied with the services they received from him. It has something to do with a claim about venereal diseases, but I've been assured they are totally false,” stated one Tweet. “Terry’s the best at what he does, that’s why Jared visited his street corner. Just like he called me to set up this great new hi-tech computer thingy…I think it’s called a Tweety-bird or something. Would you believe that we already have 13 subscribers?”

Not all Republican insiders were pleased with Mr. Woodfill’s use of Mr. Lowry. “I’ve seen the services he provides and there is no comparison to mine,” exclaimed Allen Blakemore, owner of a competitor brothel in Greenway Plaza that is only a short walk from Republican Party headquarters at the 3300 block of Richmond.

Although they often draw the same clients Mr. Blakemore insisted that he ran a legitimate political burlesque business, not a “trashy whorehouse like that other guy.” “Our escort associates are instructed to only take on clients at premier Houston venues.” Blakemore named the Westin, the Hotel Derek, and the Hilton Americas as his preferred destinations. “You see with us, the client gets posh, trendy, and cosmopolitan. Terry takes you to Frenchies on Telephone Road then stiffs you with the bill for an extra bucket of Cajun fritters that he intends to deliver as a bedside gift to your opponent.”

The Republican Party reportedly subscribes to Mr. Blakemore’s Silver V.I.P. returning membership plan, but the services sought in this instance were not included in that package. Mr. Blakemore suggested his cathouse offered many benefits over the Link Letter and chided Mr. Woodfill for not expanding his subscription. “Honestly, we instruct our girls to lock their car doors when driving by the Link Letter building. I mean, just the other day we got reports of a Negro loitering in his parking lot. And possibly an Oriental! I told Mr. Rosenth…er…I mean this client we call ‘Orangey’ that it was actually dangerous to go to the Link Letter.”

The potential loss of a client to Mr. Lowry visibly upset Mr. Blakemore. “I’ve had nightmares,” he continued. “In this one dream Jared is brutally raped and murdered by this filthy brown-skinned papist from El Salvador in Lowry’s parking lot. So Steve Hotze and I call Governor Perry and try to bring this thug to justice. But the case is assigned to Joan Huffman’s courtroom, where the court-appointed attorney is Gary Polland and they resurrect the ghost of Mike Shelby with their secret Judeo-Catholic juju magic to cut a plea deal. Jared’s killer gets off with a 3 month probation and goes right back to killing in the same parking lot.”

“That Lowry guy puts his clients at risk,” he continued as a tear formed in his right eye. “They don’t even realize it cause they just see dollars and cents. They only think he’s cheaper than me.”

Our attempts to contact Mr. Lowry for comment on this story were unsuccessful. The residence listed on his business registration appeared to be occupied and a black 1992 Ford Econoline van with painted windows sat in the driveway, but the house curtains were drawn and nobody answered the doorbell.

It can only be Jared!

The anecdotes ruminating from yesterday's quarterly meeting of the Harris County Republican Party Executive Committee vex a disquiet in the air around that venerable policy-making synod. If the morning bloggers are to be believed, longtime captain Jared Woodfill may soon incur the wrath of Ed Hubbard, a Houston lawyer who also happens to rank among the victims of last November's Republican judicial purge on Woodfill's watch.

Hubbard has declared his purpose to challenge Woodfill for his title, and with it comes the right to direct the party's intended ascent from its present cavernous abode. It defies your commentator's comprehension as to why any sensible being would encumber himself with an uncompensated position at the helm of the precinct chair rabble, though one supposes this albatross is necessary and may fortune smile upon Mr. Hubbard in his effort to spare us from the irritating hiss of indecision that radiates from his adversary's makeup-encrusted beak...at least upon the occasion of his availability for media comment, though more so should a prayer brunch necessitate his appearance. Or the administration of a school trustee's oath of office.

Though it would not be difficult to offer a sensible replacement for Woodfill's perennial two-pronged campaign strategy of shuffling satchels of greenbacks to Allen Blakemore and temporarily surpassing the credit card debt refinancing folks as Harris County's largest autodialed disruption of the family dinner, Hubbard actually has a reasonably thoughtful plan for the recapture of Harris County from its current decrepitude.

It may be Hubbard's unfortunate dismantling that relatively few of the peons he seeks to lead are sufficiently cognizant to comprehend his plan, preferring to trouble themselves instead with the pressing issue of whether his mainline ecclesiastical affiliation meets sufficient parity with Woodfill's devotional cult. This issue has already emerged at Houston's other preeminent political blog, where a cadre of Woodfillian have declared their loyalty to Jared not for his abject failure to obtain electoral success in some seven years aft of the mast, but because he professes the "correct" religious affiliations. In the quasi-literate words of one representative convert,

"Jared Woodfill is one of the most Christian conservatives, loyal and dedicated to God, and the Harris County Republican party as there ever could get."

Perhaps. But can the Lakewood Stucco Baron turned HCRP pseudo-messiah win elections? Plainly not, as Hubbard sensibly illustrates. To certain Precinct Chair regulars though, painfully obvious truths carry little meaning even when the evidence is abundant. This fanatical movement decided their candidate free from rational evidence.