How blinding is too blinding? LED advertising in League City

When are we going to set reasonable limits on the likes of this nonsense?!

LED business advertising sign on Highway 3, looking southbound toward the Walker Street intersection in the background.  The picture is a bit blurry because my telephone could not cope with the over-exposure - it messed up its ability to focus.  And if this sign did that to my high-tech phone, what do you suppose it did to my geriatric eyeballs?  

How many million megawatts of illumination are we going to permit before we start realizing that these new-fangled signs are completely blinding to motorists?  Especially older motorists whose eyes are no longer capable of adjusting quickly?  For an average older adult in good health, I estimate that they would experience a minimum of 10 seconds of visual impairment because of this thing - at least 5 seconds of being blinded during the approach to the sign, and at least 5 more seconds of perceiving abnormal darkness as the age-stiffened pupils slowly re-expanded to a degree appropriate to functioning in ambient night lighting.  During that 10 second period of impaired vision at this location, their car would travel at least 500 feet, during which I believe they would be seeing much less than they rightfully ought to be.  And that is downright dangerous.

I am not in favor of increased government regulation such as sign illumination ordinances (hint, hint) but apparently common sense is not going to prevail on this one (I took this pic while walking my dog last night, but this is by no means the only such sign in League City). And apparently we haven't yet had time for case law to deal with it either.  I'm not an attorney, but if someone blinds me in the roadway such that I run over a pedestrian whom I am prevented from seeing as a result of that blinding, then I would guess that both I and the pedestrian have a claim against the person who inflicted the blinding.  And if we can't act on that claim, I'm guessing that subrogation might get the job done for us.

Google screengrab on the subject of subrogation.

But is it really necessary to let it get that far?  Why can we not, as a society, realize that certain things are just plain stupid and then decline to do those things in the first place?  Instead, apparently we have to escalate into Sign Wars until someone (a City Council maybe?) draws the line and says "when".  Ugh...

League City Public Safety Building grand opening

I was surprised this morning to find no press coverage of yesterday's League City Public Safety Building grand opening.  It was well-publicized in advance.  From the portion that I saw, the event was well-done and well-attended.

I was out and about doing chores yesterday, but I stopped to see the doggies.  

The K-9 demonstrations, in other words.  

Go, doggie, go!!  And I thought MY dog could run fast - this girl had some amazing physical capacity.  I learned a few things about how K-9's are trained and utilized.  Wish I'd brought my better camera.  

Anyway, the dearth of coverage is a bit perplexing to me at a time when all of America has been fixated on the relationship between law enforcement and the public, with the recent internationally-reported incidents in Ferguson Missouri, New York City, and other locations.  Locally, we have also experienced analogous incidents, including the officer-involved shootings in Texas City and Freeport, the latter of which has taken some perplexing turns as the victim is now apparently attempting to recant her initial strong and consistent statements.

So then what happens??  LCPD actually takes the time to do some interesting and positive public outreach, and I don't see a peep about it in the press.  If it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead?  

Cartoon screengrabbed from this other Blogspot site but presumably copyrighted by the original maker.  My public commentary is non-monetized so I believe this is fair use.  

League City run-off election thoughts

No, I haven't been on vacation.  I write several blogs and I've spent the last interval of time racking up about 30 posts on one of the others.

I am unless I have activities planned, because vacations have the potential to bore me, indeed.  I'm not a fan of passive entertainment.  

Despite the unrelated blog-writing frenzy, I've been keeping one eye on League City's run-off election (municipal site here) and the usual propaganda and posturing involved with such a thing.  I was not impressed with the glossy that was mailed out in which every other LC Councilman endorsed Keith Gross (election URL apparently expired as of this writing).  Do you, the voters, really want a Council comprised of nothing but dittoheads??

I'm sorry for the term which I did not originate, and I don't find name-calling to be appropriate in most situations, but I have heard so many people refer to Council as "a bunch of conservative dittoheads" that by this time, the phrase is almost de rigueur.

Jason Long has some questionable history - I get that.  It's been well-expounded in the press.  Normally I would not even remotely endorse a candidate with his record.  But when I look at the big picture alternatives, I don't like what I see.  So, the rest of Council doesn't like J. Long, as they made clear with their mailer.  Is that really so bad in this context?  Who is going to be the counterweight, the whistle-blower, the check-and-balance, if the rest of them are all buddy-buddy?

Are you a conservative?  Good for you.  Now, engage your should-be-truly-conservative brain and remember that this is government we are talking about here.  I don't care what kind of label people are wearing - if they are uniformly buddy-buddy, the net result is frequently baddy-baddy.  Don't be the fool to assume that just because every candidate happens to be wearing your favorite label, that this has no potential to occur.  History doesn't prove it out.

As usual, the choices would seem to be less than ideal.  Maybe I should stick to that other blog I've been working on.

This is an oversimplification because it assumes there are good choices, but we should keep voting regardless, just to remain within the bounds of civic duty. 

2014 League City election picks for City Council

Early voting for the City Council races in League City (plus many other muni, county, state, and federal positions) began yesterday but I withheld publishing my picks until today out of a desire for fairness and balance.  I wanted to incorporate the primary alternate editorial source, which is the recommendations put forth by Galveston County Daily News (paywalled), and also see some of those forum comments, so that you could compare and contrast both sets of picks in the process of doing your own evaluation and arriving at your own voting choices.

I note again for the record that this is a non-commercial, non-politically-affiliated blog that presents personal opinions only.  This blog is not associated in any way with Centerpointe POA; we just happen to live in the same named place.

Here we go... the early vote is now on!  Signs at the corner of SH 3 and League City Parkway.  

For those of you who are not familiar with my local involvement, I gathered the information that underpins my picks from the following sources:

1. Daily reading of our local newspapers (GCDN and Chron; I am a paying subscriber to both, ca-ching!).
2. Daily participation in local online discussion forums, some behind paywalls, and also email discussion threads.
3. Daily general attention to League City goings-on for the past 5 years of my residency here.
4. A little bit of attendance at a few historical City Council meetings and watching of additional meeting videos on the internet. 
5. Attendance at the City Council candidates forum held on October 8, 2014 (you can see a full video of that forum here - not paywalled - with corresponding GCDN link here). 
6. My own October 9, 2014 public appeal for historical context and additional "back-story" information on all candidates in competing races.  

Cutting to the chase, here are my picks, and I will describe my rationale for these choices in sections to follow this graphic.

POSITION 1:  BECKER vs. EWEND

My choice is either Becker (if you can stand him) or a no-vote in this ballot position (which is called undervoting) if you cannot stand him.  GCDN picked Ewend because they obviously cannot stand Becker, but I find that their rationale for doing so was weak and didn't take all relevant decision factors into proper account.  Becker is well-known for his obvious intelligence and League City managerial experience, but GCDN essentially argues that he's too much of a hot-head to deserve a vote.  My response to this is YES, he certainly is a hot-head, and furthermore, he does not seem to be improving himself in that regard.  But the example that GCDN gave was that of the fist-fight with fellow Council member Okeeffe, which I argued was mostly a cosmetic issue that, if anything, suggests that both men are probably honest at the core.  I don't pick my political candidates based on the cosmetics of their behavior or sensationalized news accounts of same.  Far more consequential in this analysis is Becker's Achilles heel:  Despite his higher IQ, he sucks out loud when it comes to risk assessment and decisional priority weightings.  I could provide you with specific, pointed examples but I'm afraid it would make this post too long, and so I will reserve that for later.

In my opinion, voting for Ewend would simply make a questionable Council seat much, much worse.  Ewend has not represented himself well during this election cycle.  Jim Guidry's local news service, which almost never crosses my radar, explained exactly how in an op-ed titled "The circus left Houston last week - a missed calling".  The writer described Ewend as "our town jester" and I agree with that evaluation.  Ewend seems to be intentionally making a mockery of the American democratic process and he has already cost the LC taxpayers unnecessary time and money with his absolute failure (or refusal?) to comprehend Ethics 101 (sorry - paywalled; can't find an open info source on that one).

In absolutely no scenario that I can imagine would Ewend be an improvement over Becker, as imperfect as Becker is.  Becker is the clear lesser of evils, as I see it.

POSITION 2:  CONES vs. MORRIS

I pick Morris because I think he's strong enough to deserve a chance to prove himself.  He's an attorney, so we get that proverbial "free attorney" on Council which is something we desperately need (and this is particularly important because I do NOT pick attorney Gross; explanation given in the next section).

GCDN picked Cones and argued their choice on the basis that nobody knows LC better than Cones does, but that's not necessarily a good thing unless Cones can also behave in a functional manner with respect to City business and relationships.  During my public appeal, every single piece of feedback I received on Cones was strongly negative, and every email was backed up with objective information that the commenters used to justify their thumbs-down (so it wasn't  just subjective ranting on their parts).  Whatever the hell Cones did during his previous Council tenure, he made a lot of enemies.  And we don't need enemy-makers on Council when we have a potentially better choice available in Morris.

POSITION 6:  GROSS vs. J. LONG vs. DAWSON

I pick Dawson for much the same reason that GCDN also picks her - because there is no other voice on Council who has proven themselves to be the least bit concerned about quality-of-life issues.  We desperately need a canary in our Council coal mine, and Dawson, as limited as she appears to be in certain functional respects (explanation omitted for brevity), has proven herself capable of filling that specialized role.  Dawson will be the whistle-blower when the rest of the WASPy conservative clones on Council step too far out of line.  And we really, really need that for counterpoint perspective if nothing else.

As further support for this pick, I note that Jason Long is not a good choice by virtue of his criminal record (paywalled) which calls his temperament into question if nothing else, and the fact that he does not represent himself well in debate (see the forum video for evidence).

As further evidence for this pick, I note that Gross is a litigator, an adversarial character whose mannerisms struck me as way, way too far toward a slash-and-burn mentality.  Watch the forum video and I think you'll see what I mean.  He does not appear to come to the table with a cooperative demeanor - rather it's a short-sighted, over-the-top attitude of (paraphrased), "You people are all screwing up spending money on moving oak trees and thank goodness I'm swooping in to save the good people of League City from your wild incompetence and dastardly influences."  We do not need that kind of attitude on Council given the personalities that we've already got.  He may be an attorney and he may have some professional strengths as a result of that, but that's not enough.

POSITION 7:  N. LONG vs. AL-SAHLI

Agreeing with GCDN on this one as well, I pick Nick Long for the simple reason that he's an extremely strong candidate, so strong that if he ran against any one of those others, he'd still be a shoe-in (danged pity that he did not choose to run against Becker).  In the candidates forum, Al-Sahli proved himself to be no slouch, and if he were running against a weaker opponent, I think he would be both electable and desirable as a Council member.  He seems to be a buoyantly positive, laid back kind of guy (in some instances, probably a bit too laid back for his own self-preservational good).  I sense that Mr. Abdul has a latent potential to become a Great Dispeller of Bullsh*t, if only he were given a chance.  I hope that decides to run again in the future if he loses his current bid.

There are my opinions for you to do with as you see fit in formulating your own.  With respect to voting resources, here are a few useful links.  Following the closing meme below, I will also reproduce GCDN's contrasting election picks with their own rationales presented in full for your consideration.

• Your customized Galveston County sample ballot HERE.
• KHOU has a pretty cool election information site that you can walk through to determine your logistics.

But not until the skinny lady sings.  Good luck at the polls.  

***

In the contested races for city council in League City, The Daily News recommends:

• Council Position 1: Jay Ewend. This is a case of addition by subtraction. The incumbent, Dan Becker, was arguably the most knowledgeable candidate at a recent forum. He provided informed answers on questions about debt and infrastructure. But League City got national attention when two council members got into a fistfight in the city manager’s office. Voters shouldn’t have to worry about things like that.

• Council Position 2: Tommy Cones. Cones had a colorful run during his previous tenure on council — and he could work on decorum. Nevertheless, few people know League City better.

• Council Position 6: Joanna Sharp Dawson. Attorney Keith Gross is an articulate candidate and would be a good choice, but Dawson deserves another term. She has been a voice of decency on a council that is sometimes bitterly divided. She’s also been an advocate for parks and historic preservation — interests that ought to warrant at least one spokesman in one position on council.

• Council Position 7: Nick Long. Long, a financial consultant, gave the most detailed view on how the city should balance debt with the need to build infrastructure to accommodate growth. While Long gets the endorsement, it’s hard to argue against the experience in operating small businesses offered by his opponent, Abdul Al-Sahli.

Heber Taylor is editor of The Daily News.

A request following the League City candidates forum

Last night, Galveston County Daily News hosted a question and answer forum attended by all nine City Council candidates.

GCDN editor TJ Aulds, who served as the organizer and moderator, did a superb job of maintaining a rigorous professional order.  

As a blogger, I am in the process of formulating my list of "picks" for this election.  Attending last night's forum was one step in my process of researching and evaluating the candidates.  In conjunction with this process, I invite members of the community to present me with their own opinions and evaluations.  Here are my personal areas of weakness regarding which I would appreciate specific input:

1. I have only lived in League City for about five years.  Therefore, I lack some historical context that is relevant to this present-day evaluation.  For instance, why did Cones lose his Council seat previously?  Why have I observed Cones and Paulissen to fight like cats and dogs on occasion?  What else do I need to know about historical activities and backstories that should be weighed in the evaluation of each candidate's present-day qualifications? Questions such as these are important because they speak to the potential of the candidates to work effectively with Council rather than expending time and energy on the type of conflict and divisiveness for which League City has become well-known.
2. I am politically unaffiliated and socially unconnected where all of these candidates are concerned.  That is a strength I cite in support of my own objectivity, but it is also a weakness because it limits my ability to know from experience who is in bed with whom and why - in other words, what behind-the-scenes alliances may or may not bode well for League City.  Local political offices are routinely exploited by people for personal gain instead of representing the genuine sense of civic duty that should be driving their participation.  A particular candidate might look wonderful on paper and may present well on his or her face, but if that candidate's primary motivation is to use League City as a stepping stone to something better for themselves, then I'm not sure that's the candidate we need.  Knowing more about this factor will help my evaluation.  

If you have information to share (hard information substantiated by facts is particularly desirable), please inbox me via centerpointe.blog - gmail.com.  Conversely, if you start your own blog or provide your analysis elsewhere (such as in the commercial news media), I would appreciate it if you would drop me a line to draw my attention to your content.  I do review the GCDN comment stacks almost daily, but sometimes I miss things.

Thank you!  @CenterBlog. 

There's always room for a meme, especially when it conveys information.  

Trackbacks:

• League City candidate website
• Ewend
• Becker (candidate website not found as of 20141009)
• Cones
• Morris
• Dawson
• Gross (candidate website not found as of 20141009)
• J. Long (see Facebook, votejlong)
• N. Long
• Al-Sahli

The polarity predicament, Part 1

I have been quieter than usual lately on this blog in part because I've been making some behind-the-scenes inquiries into what responsive measures might be possible with respect to the continued open animosity between the City Council of League City and some members of the local Muslim community.  I've addressed a few facets of this issue previously in this post and this post, but as a blogger, I have yet to deal with the core issue head-on.

That is, indeed, what we have on our hands in LC on the immigration resolution issue.  

Here is one hobbling limitation that has been repeatedly emphasized by the folks with whom I have spoken thus far:  The lack of available public information on this conflict, specifically as it relates to newspaper coverage.  The residents of League City would genuinely like to know more about what's been happening, but they have few options for obtaining this information.  I have complained bitterly about this limitation on many previous occasions, to the point of establishing a blog category titled "Newspapers".  Those with whom I have spoken in the past few weeks have confirmed and even elevated my own concerns, with comments such as "I subscribe to Houston Chronicle but they are not covering League City's issues" and "Galveston County Daily News may be reporting on it, but their overall product is of such poor quality that there's no way I'm ever going to grant them the satisfaction of my subscription fee, so I really can't get any information about what's been happening."

GCDN is covering it at least in a limited sense, but that content is almost entirely paywalled.

I apologize if you find the memes distracting, but I think this discussion could benefit from some much-needed comic relief and the general not-taking-of-oneself-too-seriously, among other things.  Memes are certainly good for those purposes.  

Just as an aside, GCDN is commonly accused of indulging the usual and customary liberal media bias, but some of the most negative comments I've received recently about GCDN have been from people who self-identify as having very liberal viewpoints.  Their complaints seem to center on the quality of the investigative reporting - specifically on what they perceive as a complete lack of any intellectual perspective whatsoever - rather than on the ideological slant.

I "bereave" the liberal media - yes, I most certainly do!!
:-)

The world-renowned actor Jackie Chan undoubtedly did not approve of this internet meme, although he has been known to be outspoken on political issues.   

I am currently at a loss as to how people might compensate for this informational vacuum.  I do agree (as people have noted) that it's unworkably pricey to subscribe to both Houston Chronicle and GCDN - that's going to be out of the budget of many of the Clear Lakers who are caught in the middle, geographically and otherwise (I'm considering Clear Lake to encompass League City).  It's unworkably pricey especially because neither of those publications is located in our area and neither of them do justice to our area.  Regardless of which one is chosen, you don't receive that much relevant content for your considerable amount of subscription money, frankly.

So where does that leave us?  As I've said many times before, the newspapers royally suck and our local blogosphere is nonexistent, and I never set my blog up for the kind of generalized communicative purpose that is called for here.  Effective dissemination of this kind of information requires extensive market penetration of the kind that I originally intended to deflect rather than achieve.  Those 155,000 hits you see on the counter below are all from people who had to work to get here - to make a long story short, I was shooting for readership quality rather than quantity, which is valid for its own purposes, but it is far from effective when the objective is disseminating general public information that isn't otherwise available.

Anyway, FWIW, the latest offering from GCDN is a very formulaic editorial titled "It's bad policy to disdain the public's complaints" (paywalled).   It references the fact that a few members of City Council walked out of the public comment period during a recent Council meeting.  The public participation, as always, referenced the original "radical Islamist terror groups" clause in the resolution that has already been DEBATED TO DEATH, BUT ONLY WITHIN THE PROFOUNDLY RESTRICTED FRAMEWORK OF PREVAILING ACCEPTABLE SOCIAL POLARITY.

...but not for as long as each and every one of you insist on maintaining your current polarized positions.  

The reason why I have started talking to some people in the community is that, like everyone else, I'm sick to death of the obvious ideological stalemate.  I have specific ideas about how this issue could be (brace yourself) actually moved forward in a mutually productive way.  Unfortunately, thus far, I'm not finding many other people who feel similarly and who would be willing to contribute a bit of their time and energy in order to do something about the stalemate which is continuing to manifest like a really bad broken record in Council meetings and in the press.  Mostly what I'm finding is that people have a passionate desire to continue stamping their feet and proffering their particular polarized oversimplifications.  Most people seem to want to continue taking bi-weekly baths in their righteous indignation as they pout and hold their positions with their minds clamped as firmly shut as they can possibly muster.

Anyway, as a first measure in this regard, I started calling louder bullsh*t on the polarity in response to that newest editorial linked above.  Because it's paywalled, I will reproduce my comments below FYI.  You don't really need to read the original editorial - all it basically says is that certain City Council members are bad for walking out during a public comment period.  There's no historical or contextual weighting, no suggestion as to what else might be done to really address the underlying issues (that's what op-eds are supposed to do, isn't it? Suggest things?).  It's just that little dissociated bit - Council is bad.  And that's the polarity predicament in a nutshell.

***

What continues to amaze me about this situation is that everyone is behaving exactly as our current ultra-polarized society expects them to behave, every step of the way. 

There's not been a shred of creativity or original thinking anywhere in this equation - I feel like I've been watching a collective Dance of the Automatons, from LC City Council to the Muslim community to this local press itself.  Every single party playing their prescribed role, right on cue.  There's no room for thinking outside the box.  There's no room for asking legitimate questions (they have been in there, but were drowned out by all the BS, especially the name-calling of which both sides are guilty).  There's no room for orthogonal viewpoints.  There's no room for thought experiments in devil's advocacy.  There is no room for anything that even remotely resembles a fresh perspective.  It is simply not allowed. 

There is absolutely no room for anything other than extremely polarized cookie-cutter views that conform to established stereotypes (especially liberal vs. conservative).  And the situation is SO BAD that when I make the observation for folks that what they are doing amounts to nothing more than cherry-picking an off-the-shelf extremist view, they literally think I'm nuts.  Twice in one week in behind-the-scenes conversations, I had the unnerving experience of pointing out to different people that they have reduced a nuanced situation to an unworkable level of black and whiteness, and they responded to me, scandalized, with (paraphrased), "What do you mean?  I'm not taking an extremist view - I'm simply taking a HUMAN view."  In other words, they've totally lost touch with their own extremism, if they even had any awareness of that in the first place.

Of course, it's the height of fashion right now to join in the American polarity movement.  It's so effortless and attractive, instant gratification in the style of illegal drugs - you can get instant street cred, an instant "in", not by having any actual ideas, but just by dropping a few key words and phrases that confirm your subscription to The Group.  But at a certain point, you have to ask yourself what you're really getting out of that kind of mindset.  OK, bully for you - you're "in", and those unfathomable guys on the other side of the issue are also "in", but what are any of you actually gaining from all this polarity?  And much more importantly, what is everyone losing because of it? 

City Hall scene

Small meteorite?  Wrath of God?  Micro-hurricane come ashore when we were not watching?  Graffiti shroud?  Grand unveiling about to occur?

Yeah, I know, it's most likely to be a roof leak or structural issue.  Given that it's only two years old, I hope it's still under warranty.

The blue roof blues, as seen yesterday evening.

An open letter to City Council candidate Abdul Al-Sahli

Mr. Abdul, as a candidate for League City Council Position 7, I am curious as to why your business chose not to lower its flags to half staff yesterday to commemorate the 13th anniversary of 9/11.

September 11, 2014, approximately 4:00 p.m.

Your exact role at this business is reported variably depending on the source, but it's clear that you have substantial authority there.  The DE website does not mention any owner or controlling entity by name and neither does the corresponding Secretary of State franchise page (officers and directors information is missing), but your own LinkedIn profile describes you as DE Flooring's "President".  I've heard people verbally refer to your relationship to this business in ownership terms (partial vs. full ownership not specified), and when I signed a small services contract with DE Flooring about a year ago, you were explicitly described to me as "the man in charge".  As such, it would appear that you are the authority who would be in the position to make administrative decisions such as flag-lowering.  

Yesterday was a day of national mourning in which American flags were ordered to half staff.

Screengrabbed from this site.  

Of course, not every private business in our area complied with this directive.  For instance, a day care center not far from DE Flooring also had flags at full staff.  The crucial difference is that the day care owner has not claimed a role for himself or herself as a political figure.  He or she is not currently running for an American public office and seeking the public's trust.

All public offices and most local businesses did lower their flags, however.  About three minutes after I took the above photo of DE Flooring, I took this one of ACU of Texas' League City branch, which has established an unfailing local reputation for its tasteful displays of patriotism.  

Even the initial act of declaring political candidacy is a demonstration of leadership, and the very first task of leadership is to identify with the people and confirm a strong connection to the people.  I intentionally looked at your place of business yesterday on my way home from work because I assumed you would be showing this kind of solidarity on a day when such observances are absolutely vital to the American soul.

While DE Flooring's flags were at full staff late yesterday afternoon, this is what was going on a short distance away.

Image courtesy of the City of League City.  

In your case, of course, the participatory issue goes beyond generic political candidacy due to your ethnicity.  I mention this because I personally think it's fair game to discuss that aspect of what you potentially bring to League City's political table (which is currently characterized by a woeful lack of diversity), and because obviously you think this is fair game, too - your campaign website specifically references that element:

Screengrabbed from this campaign page.  

As a Council candidate, it cannot possibly have escaped your attention that League City has spent the last two months embroiled in conflict over a City Council resolution that contained the phrase "radical Islamist terror groups".  While most reasonable people question the motivation behind the injection of this reference (and the resolution itself, for that matter), the unavoidable fact is that the resulting social conversation is well underway, and some of the questions being raised by local residents are arguably valid and deserving of responses (e.g., see the most recent discussion threads on Galveston County Daily News here and here).  Many of those questions boil down to a very simple inquiry:  which is more important to any given individual - their ethnicity and the religious and cultural factors that go with it, or their allegiance to America?  People genuinely want to explore that issue, and I believe that it is healthy for them to do so.

It saddens me that your business did not lower its flags yesterday.  I may be the first to publish this question, but I cannot possibly be the only League City resident who noticed those flags.  By not participating in the national observance of Patriot Day, you will give additional ammunition to those of the more extreme voices in the conversation who are quick to seize upon any perceived negative development to support their fears and distrust of other cultures, especially those that they believe are associated with Islam.  They're going to say things like (paraphrasing), "WTF??  This guy named Abdul Al-Sahli is running for office and he had the nerve not to observe 9/11?  See??  I've been telling you all along that these people are not really with us!"  Even if accidental, this type of outcome hardly seems consistent with your own stated campaign intentions.

I hope you will address this question, not to me, not to this blog post, but to those who deserve your response - the good people of League City, Texas.

On top of everything else we've got going on locally, yesterday was not an "ordinary" 9/11 anniversary - it had a larger sadness component than those in recent memory.  All of America is increasingly anxious because, every single day, there is a new news story documenting the burgeoning power of the group known as Islamic State.  We don't know what will happen, but we know that thousands of people have already died, and thousands more will surely die, with or without the planned American airstrikes.  

I could not get done with work in time for League City's memorial service yesterday, but I did pause to face these half-staff flags in front of another City Hall about 50 miles from here.  I stopped to pay my respects and to say a small prayer for international peace.  I also pray that we can reach a better state on our local level, a state in which we can all understand each other more deeply than we obviously do today.   

 

Questionable Decision: A strange adjunct to the LC immigration resolution

DirecTV subscribers in League City Texas can see a bizarre case of art echoing life on their very own TV sets right now.  Bear with me for a moment while I set the stage for context.

The debate over the League City immigrant resolution rages on, both within City Council meetings and in the press, largely in Galveston County Daily News, where the comment count is now among the highest I've ever seen.

Front of the proposed resolution.  I re-published the original text in this July 2014 post. 

The resolution's reference to Islam has long since eclipsed the original debate about whether or not to receive Latin American immigrant children in League City.  Some League City Muslims are still actively opposing the reference, but the people who support it have also been vocal.

Based on the current reporting, it doesn't seem like either side exhibits a clear majority at this point.

Screengrab courtesy Galveston County Daily News.  

It's immediately apparent from reading the GCDN comment stack that many of the resolution supporters have taken their positions out of what they perceive (rightly or wrongly) as an abundance of caution.  That stance appears to arise because many people simply don't feel like they have a reliable lens through which to discern what Islam means on a local scale.  This perspective was quoted in a GCDN piece as having been stated in a Council meeting:  “During (the public comments two weeks ago) of the individuals who spoke, representing the Muslim community, never once did I hear an allegiance to this country, to our flag, to our Constitution, to anything about the American way of life,” Russell Fielder said during the public comment portion of council to a round of applause from many on the council.  In a similar vein, one commenter on GCDN noted, "It is long past time that normal, moderate Muslims speak out against radical Islam."

What both of those communications suggest is that residents simply lack a coherent framework for parsing any of this.  What they expect or hope to see doesn't exactly match the reality that has manifested.  Thirteen years after 9/11, this is apparently where we still are socially, for reasons that I'm not sure anyone really understands.

Case in point where such confusion and discrepancy is concerned - the oddness of what's currently offered in juxtaposition on your DirecTV service: two versions of the same classic American movie, but one of these things is no longer like the other.

I'll get to the explanation in a minute.

Screengrabbed from this site.   

Executive Decision has always been one of my all-time favorite movies.  It was made 18 years ago, "back in the day" when suspense films were still built primarily on plot and character development rather than on mindless ADHD-inspired computer graphics.

The film also showcased Kurt Russell's unparalleled work ethic as an actor.

Image screengrabbed from this site.  

Not only was the film a gutsy depiction of a very difficult subject (that being "radical Islamist terror groups"), it was also noteworthy for having featured a 747 aircraft that actually was bombed by such a group, that being the following:

In 1982, a bomb was detonated on PAN AM Flight 830, resulting in the death of one minor child and the injury of 16 other people.  Despite the resulting damage, the plane was able to make a successful emergency landing in Honolulu.  The aircraft was apparently re-painted for the movie with the fictitious airliner name "Oceanic".  Either that or they just used it for interior shots.

Screengrabbed from Wikipedia.

Executive Decision was a stunning portent of 9/11 five years before it unfolded, and as far as I'm concerned, it's a creative work of national significance.  But prior to being released on Blu Ray, Executive Decision was "edited", or, some would say "censored", for reasons that are not clear.  Furthermore, I can't find a single source on the internet which describes the full extent of what was done to eviscerate the film.  Most references such as this one and user Iceboy's Amazon review primarily cite digital alterations to the imagery, including removal of certain religious references and deleted scenes.  But I believe that the most significant changes actually involved extensive dialog dubbing throughout the movie, dubbing which changes utterly the character of the film and manifests most strongly with this scene.

A suspicious glare indicating a sea change of attitude 1 hour and 24 minutes into the movie:  When the leader of the terrorist group finally reveals his plan to utilize the jet to strike a deadly blow against countless innocent American citizens, his second-in-command revolts, stating, "This has nothing to do with Islam.  This is not [the Deity's] will.  You are blinded by your hatred and I will have nothing to do with your plan."

But the same lines in the censored version are spoken very differently, indeed.

Screengrabbed from my TV set.   

The bizarre part is that, if you so desire, you can currently watch both the censored and the uncensored versions at the same time.  If this situation is of interest to you, it's an opportunity for you to compare and see for yourself what's been done to the film.

The Encore HD version is the Blu Ray version available for instant access.  The Encore Suspense ("ENCSUS") version is the original uncut version.  I recorded both versions within 24 hours of each other this past weekend.

Photo from my DirecTV list with intervening screen space eliminated for clarity.  

The resulting existential questions are as follows:

Why was the movie altered in the first place?  The original version was arguably quite responsible to Islam by forming an explicit distinction between Islam and that which has "nothing to do with Islam" but is instead driven by "[blind] hatred".  This is much the same distinction that the GCDN commenter was seeking in referring to "normal, moderate Muslims" as opposed to "radical Islam".  What benefit to understanding is derived by obscuring this essential distinction in this film or in any other context?  Clearly, we need more of that distinction, not less.

Why are Americans provided primarily with the censored version?  I can understand Warner Brothers / Warner Home Video wanting to change the tone of the movie in certain restricted distributional regions where such actions might be expected, but they only made one Blu Ray, that being the censored version.  In general terms, most Americans are probably going to default to the Blu Ray as their obvious choice (audio and video quality are both superior to the DVD). Given the age of the film, most present-day watchers may not even know that an original version of the movie exists.  In more specific terms, why am I sitting on my flat American butt in my house built on American soil accessing an American content provider streaming an American-made classic movie which has effectively been censored?!  What the hell is up with that?!

The whole thing doesn't sit well with me, and it is an example of what is working against those people who are honestly trying to put Islam into an appropriate social perspective.  "Censorship" is one of the dirtiest words we have in America, provoking immediate defensiveness and hostility in those who sense that they have encountered it.  What's been done to Executive Decision is just going to raise even more suspicions and questions and confusion about perspectives and allegiances where Islam is concerned, both locally and elsewhere.

At least the "editors" had the guts to admit what they had done.

Screengrabbed and annotated from this site.  

Dog park doldrums (Act 2)

We've been waiting patiently for further announcements on the possibility of a League City dog park (blog category here for a recap of developments to date).  After a great flurry of initial excitement about four months ago, there's been even more radio silence.

O dog park, dog park, wherefore art thou, dog park?!

This is an outline showing the proposed location on West Walker Street near the city municipal complex.  

In late June of 2014, I asked winged messenger from heaven Kristi Wyatt what the status was, and she informed me in an email of two developments:

1. While the on-line survey did, indeed, show overwhelming support for a dog park, it was not a "scientific" poll and therefore LC followed up with a separate survey (why they did the on-line poll in the first place I did not ask).  To my knowledge, those results have not yet been released publicly.  
2. Reportedly, further discussions about the dog park were due to take place "during the upcoming CIP process".  So sayeth the City Manager.  

I haven't pressed the issue to date for a reason that should be obvious to anyone who follows League City politics:  The dog park prospect was re-invigorated by Councilman Andy Mann, whose term is up this year.  For the past few months I have been assuming, duh, that there would be a positive announcement whose timing would show an uncanny correspondence to a re-election bid.  It would be a classic political abracadabra, a municipal misdirection (but a welcome one), a revelation orchestrated to suggest that City Council actually accomplishes more than incessant culture warring (most recently regarding immigrant children) that results in much squandered time and energy and occasionally in lost taxpayer money, too (what they wasted on the Jornaleros lawsuit alone could have paid for TWO new dog parks).  Not to mention that this behavior attracts national scrutiny of the wrong kind, discontent among minority residents (paywalled but this other piece is not paywalled), and no net benefit for any of us.

The New York Times quote of the day from July 17, 2014.  Dallas County effectively speaking to League City and Galveston County (and possibly others) via the NYT.  It was one of those "I thought I'd seen it all" moments for me.  

This dog park announcement scenario outlined above is what I had expected, BUT, as is so often the case in League City, things took a bizarre turn last week when Mann unexpectedly dropped his re-election bid (paywalled) in what appears to be yet another flurry of purely-political bullpoop (more on that in a subsequent post).

Andy Mann's political career, at least temporarily.

And no, this is not a "threat" that purportedly needs to be censured (paywalled link).  This is just satire.  More on that later, too.

And yes, I know that I'm mixing Shakespearean metaphors, which is in extremely bad taste.  But it's just a blog post, hastily done to boot.  It's not a work of literary art.  

So where does that leave those folks with dogged determination where the dog park is concerned?  At this point, I don't know.  We will know by close of business today who is actually running for which Council positions, so that will potentially help to constrain who we should be talking to.  If nobody steps forward to discuss the issue in an election context, I will file a FOIA request to obtain the results of the subsequent survey that League City conducted, because too much time is passing without any action on this issue.  Stay tuned for more.

Hint, hint.  If Council could kindly and momentarily tear itself away from all of the special interest political crap in which it engages, we might get some actual work done around here. Maybe.  

League City vs. the USA, Part 6: Those who live in glass tract houses

Most League City residents have contributed to illegal immigration through their own economic activity.  We can't all reap the benefits of the cheap construction provided by the 50% of Texas tradesmen who are undocumented and then turn around and disavow all responsibility for the corresponding problems that demand-driven illegal immigration predictably brings to our doorsteps.

Here's a join-the-dots example showing exactly how these moving parts all work together.  I chose this example below because this speaker voluntarily elected to self-identify in public and therefore it can be reasonably assumed that she claims no expectation of privacy with respect to her personal identity or her views on this subject.  

Screengrabbed from Y. C. Orozco's very thoughtful and thorough account (non-paywalled) of the vote that was held this past week.  

But where was Ms. Vickers' objection to third-world illegal immigration when those same people were most likely building her own house?  Publicly-available CAD records (PDF link) suggest that she and her husband purchased their 2002 suburban masterpiece directly from builder D.R. Horton, the same D.R. Horton who made the news shortly thereafter for its treatment of illegal alien residential construction workers.

I've read other news stories in which major builders proudly disavow any hiring of illegal aliens.  But of course they hire subcontractors en masse, and they typically don't check the immigration status of anyone working in the resulting supply chain.

Screengrabbed from this site.  

I am by no means singling out Ms. Vickers as disproportionately responsible for contributing to the local demand for illegal labor.  I suspect that, if a thorough analyses were done, every local homeowner would share a roughly equal responsibility.  Including the bulk of our City Council.

Every one of those elected reps who voted for that unenforceable resolution... every one of them appears to hold title to exactly the kind of suburban tract home that we can reasonably assume was likely built using a significant component of illegal labor.  But was there a single one of those representatives who was overtaken by the strength of their principles at the time of their home purchase and said, "Oh no, I cannot in good conscience follow through with this purchase because I know from simple statistics that this house was likely built in significant part using illegal labor, and I have taken a strong moral stand against contributing to the support and economic stimulation of illegal immigration in any way."

Apparently, not a one of them experienced an actionable twinge of conscience, a conscientious objection, at the time their sales closed.  But when there's an opportunity for political grandstanding that invokes those same anti-illegal-immigration principles that they'd prefer not to see violated, that is another story.

This is the basis for my objection to what League City has done here:  Those who live in glass tract houses should not throw stones.  Other commentators have invoked a humanitarian justification against the resolution, but I don't think that the analysis needs to progress beyond this simple bit of common sense that I'm presenting here.  

I am a legal immigrant.  It took me 13 long, difficult years to follow the procedure and finally attain the rights of American citizenship.  During those 13 years, I watched millions and millions of illegal immigrants simply walk into the country across an open border.  I would fervently like to see the federal government secure the border once and for all and stop all this madness.

Given those personal circumstances of mine, you'd think that I would be counted among those who are the most angry at the specter of tens of thousands more undocumented people streaming across our border at this time.  But the situation is not that simple because I recognize my own contribution to creating the conditions that brought us all to this unfortunate juncture.  

Before the illegal?? labor-intensive transformation: 
Our subdivision lot in League City, prior to the start of construction. How many of you have had the amazing privilege of building your own home?  It's a remarkable experience, especially if you're able to take a base architectural plan and transform it utterly into an almost-unrecognizable one-of-a-kind custom home, as my husband and I did with ours.

A hard hat, buckets of fresh joint compound, but no worker:
I have almost two thousand pictures of our home in progress, but only three of those pictures contain any evidence of human presence, and those three photos show no faces.  That's because every time I would show up with my camera to document each day's building progress, the tradesmen would hide themselves away until I was done.  I was always very careful to be discrete and respectful about what I was photographing, because it's not proper behavior to frighten vulnerable people, especially when they are working fourteen hours a day seven days a week on your behalf.   

Nameless, faceless, and furtive:
It was plenty warm out that day, as the mason in the blue T-shirt indicated by not wearing a jacket or even a long-sleeved shirt.  But his low-skilled helper felt compelled to pull up his hoodie so his face could not be seen.  Why might he have done that??  

I have absolutely no evidence that our builder or its subcontractors used any illegal construction labor.  I can only report the behaviors that I saw and the statistics that characterize the industry, those being that a full 50% of Texas' construction workers are undocumented (PDF link).     

I signed our home build contract.  I put up all that money that was used to stimulate additional demand for the services of those construction workers, including the very young man shown above who felt compelled to hide his face.  We have most definitely made our own suburban beds on the illegal immigration issue.  Now we have to lie in them.  

Good advice:
League City's building inspectors did not suffer fools gladly during our construction process, but this is good advice for everyone - Ms. Vickers, City Council, and everyone else who forms an opinion on our current illegal immigrant issue:  WAKE UP!  Wake up and see your own wider role in our collective situation.