2006 Edit: This is the first post (other than a couple of tests) that I made on Houblog, way back in March of 2004. I’ve decided to copy it over to the modern WP system and backdate it to the original posting day. If you want to read all of the original posts from the older Houblog version, click the link on the right titled “The Post Nuke Days.” Or that one.
Welcome to Houblog!
And did it ever take me a long time to get here. In one sense, 15 years. In another, four months. The four months is how long I had to fiddle with PostNuke until I got it right. Ok, not four constant months, but off and on. While I debated if I wanted to do this or not. Let’s face it–blogging about your industry can annoy people in it who disagree with you. When you chose to blog about not only your industry, but one company in particular — the one that employs you…. well, let’s just say there’s potential of backlash and leave it at that.So why am I bothering? Because it needs to be done. Moving mountains to Mohammed or the other way around begs the key question: did either one need to be moved? In this case, yes. Over the last few years, I’ve been extremely disappointed in the Houston Chronicle’s coverage of the City of Houston, especially the prior administration of Mayor Lee Brown. As a few people are beginning to wake up and realize, this… this politician has saddled us with a legacy it wlll take 20 years to pay off. And don’t get me started on the mess with pensions. I’ll get there, believe me.Ok, enough Mr. Nice Guy. Roll the sleeves up, send the kiddies to bed, break out a beer and get set, because when I’m on a rant, it’s not lead, follow, or get out of the way, it’s follow or get steamrollered. I’m going to say things that City employees aren’t supposed to say to the public. I’m going to say them in ways that City employees aren’t supposed to say. Why? Because I’m pissed off at seeing my adopted home town run into the ground by a bunch of ***** selfish politicians, developers, power blocs, and other idiots.
So just what the hell is this anyway? It’s a blog, of cours. Partly about Houston, and partly about whatever else I want to talk about. Hence Hou-blog. Oooh, I was clever the day I came up with that, no?
Well, it’s also my own little egotistical playground, and if you’re nice, you can play in a corner of it too. I’m an opinionated cuss, and fairly outspoken. I can handle people disagreeing with me, if they’re willing to do it in an intelligent and reasonably respectful fashion, and debate me with logic and facts where they think I’m wrong. I make no promises to do the same back to you. You have been warned. I’m also a sarcastic cuss, so you’d better have a thick skin.
Sometimes being an opinionated, sarcastic cuss is not a good thing. People who would rather be sheep than wo/men listen to me rant, then think I must know what I’m talking about, since they’re too lazy to find out otherwise for themselves. Now you’d probably never have known that (or cared–which maybe you still don’t care so you’ve probably gone “booooooorinnnnng!” and clicked on to the next infobit that has caught your MTV-trained attention span) but for one minor detail known as the blogsphere, of which this is a part.
If you don’t know what the blogsphere is, you lead a sheltered life. Sort of like the one I led before the Iraq war, when disgust with the so-called “independant media” (read “liberal lackwits”) led me to cast about for the real story. Thanks to Baen’s Bar, I found it (What the Bar is will just have to wait on a future post.) So I discovered Instapundit, Little Green Footballs, found the USS Clueless again (had lost the URL), and then all the war blogs. During the fighting, I lived on the internet. In the last days as we hit Bagdad, I’d read blogs to find out who had the best shots on TV, then switch channels and watch until ungodly A.M. Next day I’d be bleary-eyed at work, and do it again that night.
“Well,” I said, “after that major attitude stomping, and CNN’s admission that they censored Saddam’s evil, the press should have learned it’s lesson and we’ll get some decent coverage.” Oh, the folly of youth. (“Youth? Idiot, you’re 42. Get a clue… quick, you ain’t got much time left!”) Pretty soon, I was back in the blogsphere to get my news, if not as fanatically around the clock.
But while I could get the news on the national and international scene, one subject escaped me, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Local information was lacking. All these radio stations, but only one major newspaper to do in-depth reporting and analysis. And the Chronicle just doesn’t do it. (Sorry Houston Press, your attitude gets in the way of your stories. I want FACTS, not hyperbole.) Let me repeat that: the Houston Chronicle does NOT analyze the local political scene, and rarely gives the information you need to decide who is doing their job in city and county government. It doesn’t even try; frankly, it’s part of the problem, not the solution in this here town.
Eventually, I had the obvious “duh” moment–if someone was going to blog an analysis and alternate news source on the Houston scene, it was probably going to have to be me. (“My, how egotistical. Through saving the world and have time for merely local politics now, do we?”) Which lead to about three months of agonizing, because there’s a couple of serious problems with that. First off, I’ve got pretty strong opinions about who’s to blame for this city’s problems…. and I work for them. Uh-huh, thats right. I’m a City of Houston employee. Outa Town Brown was my boss, now it’s Bill The Pill White. Which means, in light of Greg Easterbrook’s several weeks ago (ESPN, go back to sleep if you don’t know what I’m talking about), that “minefield” is one way to describe what I’m stepping into. on the other hand, it also gives me the roach’s eye view of the city, and what’s wrong with it. So right off the bat, there’s the question of what am I going to say and how am I going to say it.
I decided to be up front from the beginning. I’m not going to hide behind a pseudonym [2006 edit: Ok, I changed my mind–sorta], I’m not going skulk around in the dark. If my bosses can’t deal with it, or their bosses can’t, tough. Hiding never works anyway, and if I look like I have something to hide, anything I say will be compromised. So, if there’s a problem, we can have ourselves a nice little first amendment case and see just who wins (after my bankruptcy from all the legal fees, that is.) Now having said that, I am going to have to be somewhat circumspect, for two reasons. one, I don’t trust the press (did I mention that?), but not only do I not trust them to report what needs to be reported, I don’t trust them to ignore the irrelevant crap if it looks like it could sell more papers. And if it gets my ass in a crack, too damn bad. It’s not like I’m Bob Novak’s source in the Plame story, to be protected at all costs — I’m already in the “eye” so to speak. (Big middle finger to the local press. If you’d do your ***** job, I wouldn’t have to.) And two, I have seen how the public can focus on the wrong thing too. I could go on on that subject for a while, but I’ll stop myself before I start, because I’ve got to get to the second reason I had a problem with starting this blog.
I’m not real big on committment. I figured out some time back, I don’t like being trapped into having to do something. And a blog is like that–if you get a readership, they expect to have something to read. So I worked up a rough plan for a very large project, what I’d really like to do with this site if I had the time, the money, and the resources. And frankly, a different employer, because guarandamnteed, I’d step on some toes. The worst part though, was that it was work. Every blogger will tell you, blogging is a hobby. It’s something to do for fun. If and when it becomes work, they will stop doing it.
Which leads to the third reason: I’m also a bit short on the talent to do it the way I WANT to do it. Two of my favorite blogs are the USS Clueless by Steven Den Beste and The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiller by “Emperor Misha I.” Steven is just amazing. He claims to be an engineer with Qualcomm, but I know that’s bullshit. No engineer is allowed to be that damn brilliant about politics, geo-political strategy, political theory (not the same as politics), military forces, and all the associated fields. Just ain’t possible. Nope, I’m on to him. Or I should say, her–SDB is nothing less than the secret identity of Condoleeza Rice. By day, mild-mannered political analyst on a webblog. By night, she dons boots and cape, and flies around defending truth, justice, commondamnsense, and the American Way, with her sidekick “Dubya.” You read it here first folks.
Now the Emperor doesn’t fly around in boots and a cape, for several reasons. First off, he doesn’t have boots, nor a cape. Secondly, he doesn’t fly. And if he did, he wouldn’t wear any silly-ass cape, he’d wear something in basic night-flight camo, so he could drop very heavy explosive objects on people who raise his blood pressure. For his lack of flight, very many many Loony Lefties and Paleswinian so-called ‘militants’ are very grateful. No, his weapons are restricted to his razor-sharp wit–if you could call a sledgehammer “razor-sharp,” and his legion of Imperial Lackies, er, Loyal Citizens, that ferret out the idiots worthy of his attention. And I was kidding. He does have boots, steel-toed if I don’t miss my guess.
And then there’s Bill Whittle, who transcends “favorite” in a way that TRUTH transcends “like” or “hate.” Because thats what he writes. The man writes essays that make me look brief. But if you’ve got the attention span to handle him, and can follow what seem to be random non-sequitors that are anything but random or non, you need to spend time there. Lots of it. Then go back and re-read his stuff. You can only think you love your country until you’ve read him. And if you don’t think you love your country, or if you think your country is evil (bite me), you NEED to read him. Voltaire has returned to Earth, and his name is Bill Whittle.
I’m not on their level. Not even close. So. Does that mean I should just walk off and forget about it? Hardly. Someone’s got to do it, and I’m to opinionated not to. Someone’s got to ask the hard questions. Maybe I won’t think of all the ones I should ask, but if I get a few readers out there, I feel certain that one or two will chip in to buy me a Clue Bat. And I can weigh in with my opinions, both kneejerk, and reasoned (as much as I’m able to reason). So what will you see here? For one thing, occasional impolite language. I’m no Emperor Misha; generally I prefer civil discourse, but there’s times when I’m going to get down and gutter talk because some asswipe has pissed me off. I may not have time to type up a long, rational post about why someone’s an asshole, I’ll just link or mention whatever set me off, say “***** asswipe” and be done with it. As I noted, I don’t promise to treat anyone here fairly, politely, nicely, or any other -ly. It’s my playground, I change the rules whenever I like, and if you don’t like it, take your ball and go home to start your own blog titled “Ubu’s a Big Fat Loser.” If I affect your life to the extent you feel that’s necessary for your mental well-being, I think we know who the real loser is.
But there’s two things I won’t tolerate: Trolling Attention Whores, and Racist Posters. (I mean REAL racist, not the PC crap.) If you want to set foot in this venue and make stupid posts about “Bush Lied!” and “Kill the Jews/Niggers/Wops/Bitches/Ho’s/Honkies/Homies/Rednecks/Wetbacks/Arabs,” then I have two short Anglo-Saxon words for you: ***** Off. (And before you go into PC-shock, be aware that I fit into at least three of the above categories). Oh and a third word: “Delete.”
You can expect links to stories of interest or note around Houston. You can expect some brief comments about why I think it’s important. Maybe a book review having nothing to do with Houston. You can expect longer essays. You can expect shorter ones too. (heh!) Expect me to do my armchair analyses about the city and what’s wrong with it, and occasionally provide insight about how your city functions, (or doesn’t). You can’t expect me to sit in front of the TV every evening clicking from channel to channel looking for something to write the next day. That’s work. You can’t expect me to know everything about anything, or anything about everything. You’re welcome to pitch in via comments, and I may even open up a forum for other interests if there’s enough demand. Tell me what you think is good, whats bad, whats important, whats not. I may debate you. I may not. I may just insult and then ignore you. (One note: if I know you on another board in another venue than politics, it doesn’t carry over unless you insist on it. I probably won’t even realize it’s you, unless you tell me or really, really try to get under my skin.)
Expect subjects like “why do they hate us?” But not the PC Loony Left’s version of that, oh no… Expect stories of waste. Expect stories of stupidity, occasional brilliance, and even the pension *****-up. Although I’m more resigned than angry about that. Heh. We all knew it was coming in a way…
So, welcome to my weblog, the Houblog. Enter and read at your own risk.