Category Archives: inthenews

Bill White’s victory party

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a week ago saturday (election day), there was a small snippit about it in today’s City & State section (full story)

But in a nod to his name and his race — thought to be a liability before he managed to win supporters from Houston’s three main ethnic groups — the campaign cranked up an unlikely song: Wild Cherry’s Play That Funky Music (White Boy).

Andrea Greer was a coordinator of the gathering and lobbied against using this song (I agree with her), but she was outvoted.

The Dec. 6 gala had all the makings of the party of the year. The crowd wore everything from dashikis to feather boas, business suits to baseball caps. The unifying elements were the Bill White-heads — paper hats, of sorts, that mocked White’s bald head.Music was provided by the hip local lounge band The El Orbits, who eschewed the White-heads in favor of Santa hats.

-b

History only in NYC, NOT

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According to Ronald Blum, AP Sportswriter, you can only make history in New York City, or perhaps only in the Bronx,… his logic is veiled. Well, he never really explains what the hell he means, but I’m sure that Andy Pettite can make history here in Houston.

“Andy Pettitte chose home over history, agreeing Thursday to sign with the Houston Astros and leave the New York Yankees.” [yahoo news/AP]Anyone wanna bet that Ronald Blum is a Yankees fan and/or lives in NYC?

-b

Contrary to popular belief, the AIDS pandemic is getting worse.

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I’ll leave the World AIDS Day comments to the Chron (whom I agree with emphatically):

Nov. 29, 2003, 5:15PM

AIDS REALITY

From city streets to globe’s corners, a true pandemic

Today is World AIDS Day, a designation to which too many people will say, “So what?” — if they have any response at all.

Perhaps buoyed by the progress made in the treatment of the HIV virus or the misimpression that the disease has no effect on them, many people have turned a blind eye.

That’s exactly the wrong response.

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Texas Talk

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“I got drunk,… as a skunk… because it rhymed.” – Drunkard’s Lullaby, The Minus Five

Studing the lingo that is Texas English, aka TXE. I thought it interesting that newcomers were particularly quick in picking it up.

The by-line is dated coincident with the start of the major ass whoopin’ that was put upon the Aggies this year. If it wasn’t for two Texas fumbles, it would have been 46-3. “Poooor Aggies”.


Scholars of Twang Track All the ‘Y’Alls’ in Texas

Fri Nov 28, 2:34 PM ET
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL The New York Times

COLLEGE STATION, Tex. “Are yew jus’ tryin’ to git me to talk, is that the ah-deah?”

That was the idea. John O. Greer, an architecture teacher at Texas A&M University, sat at his dining table between two interrogators and their tape recorder. They had precisely 258 questions for him. But it waddn what he said that interested them most. It was how he said it.

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Hardy Lebel dies

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I hadn’t seen Hardy, my mom’s cousin, in several years. I’m not even really sure when I last saw him – a reunion or a funeral. It all seems very weird.

[Edit: NTSB’s finding]


Two die in midair plane crash at Westerly State Airport

Associated Press
November 17, 2003

WESTERLY, R.I. — Two Rhode Island men died after the small plane they were riding in collided in midair with another small aircraft at Westerly State Airport, officials said Monday.

The airplanes, a Piper Arrow and a Cessna 182, crashed Sunday about 100 feet above the runway, according to Ted Drozdz, chief aeronautics inspector for Rhode Island Airport Corp. He said the airport does not have an air traffic control tower, and pilots are expected to notify each other when they are taking off and landing.

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