Category: Texas/Regional
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Reader’s Guide to the Fiction of Clay Reynolds (1949-2022): A Literary Appreciation
A “cheatsheet” about how to start reading the literary works of Texas author Clay Reynolds. (19
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New Web Address: Lennin Repizo Barber & Beauty Salon
Announcing the new website for Katy hair salon Lennin Repizo (as of Jan 2022)
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Macmillan vs. Harris County Library (and every other public library).
You may have already heard about how libraries really dislike the new pricing model of MacMillan’s publishing company.
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Time's Person of the Year should be "Reality Winner"
Time Magazine’s Person of the Year for 2019 should be Dallas woman Reality Winner. Reality Winner (yes, that’s her real name which was given at birth) served in the Air Force and was a multilingual American intelligence specialist who did her job well. Her Wikipedia page states that she learned Arabic, Dari and Pashtun to…
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Climate Change Forum — CCL Katy (Mon Jan 6)
This page contains information about the nonpartisan CCL Climate Change Candidate Forum which is sponsored by the Katy chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby on Monday January 6. This event is free & open to the public, and all congressional candidates from TX7, TX10 and TX22 are invited to attend or send a campaign representative. Because…
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Notes on Climate Change
Here are some notes for a presentation I prepared about climate change and Texas in November, 2019. Link to the Slides (On Google Docs) — Here’s the PDF. Climatebrief.org — climate change news, comparing policies, etc. Climate change impacts on Texas. My Climate Change Worksheet — I prepared this in 2014 (and updated in 2016)…
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Health care in Houston (2018)
A month ago the HHS-commissioned Health of Houston Survey issued its 2018 report. Unfortunately the key information is locked up in a PDF. So I made screenshots of the most interesting charts:
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Audio Interview with Texas Author Robert Flynn
Here’s my 2007 interview with Texas novelist Robert Flynn. All this information is at archive.org, but here’s a complete description: 0:00 Introduction 1:12 Current projects 2:55 Writing Habits 4:33 Writing For Practice? 6:10 Writing nonfiction vs. Fiction 7:18 Hardest Book To Write? Easiest? 8:30 Tie Fast Country: TV & Getting Inspiration From Rural Life 12:10…
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Cornyn: “We will not be bullied by the screams of paid protesters and name-calling by the mob.”
Dear Senator Cornyn, Friday, you said on the floor of the US Senate: “We will not be bullied by the screams of paid protesters and name-calling by the mob.” To my knowledge, it is not illegal for people to be paid to protest. I know that lobbyists are paid to make their opinion known to you.…
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Cool new hair stylist in Houston
I just wanted to recommend a Houston hair stylist named Dori . She lives and works around the Houston area. She has done jobs on friends and yes even on my own hair. She performs a variety of personal services and can even do these things in the privacy of your home. And yes, that…
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A very odd thing about me and Houston
While coming home I realized a very curious thing: in the 2000+ posts I have made here, next to none have been about Houston, the city where I live. I have lots of opinions about Houston and know a lot of people here from all wakes of life; how surprising that it would never occur…
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BREAKING NEWS: Texas is NOT an Economic Paradise
You may have seen Tyler Cowen’s cover story about Texas (discussed on his Marginal Revolution blog). I’m sure I see these kinds of articles regularly (Economist had a cover story a few years ago about California vs. Texas). They annoy me because they are one-dimensional. I think they compare it to California or NY —…
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Houston Public Library Music RSS Feeds
Recently the Houston Public Library switched over to a new cataloguing system. One nice feature I discovered was the ability to create custom RSS feeds out of search results. So I decided to create a table of permanent RSS feeds for the music CDs for quick reference. This is a work in progress (and actually,…
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“Perrycare” defined
For better or worse, the Affordable Care Act (the new health care reform law) has been dubbed “Obamacare.” Here’s another neologism: Perrycare. It is is defined as health care inside a state which has refused Medicaid expansion despite generous financial incentives to do so. It is characterized by skyrocketing health care premiums and overall costs…
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Book Review: Houston Dining Index by Mike Riccetti
Houston Dining Index by Mike Riccetti (2013), Tempus Fugit Press.180 pages.(Author Website) Ebook Edition: $3.99 (Buy at Amazon, and BN) Summary: great restaurant review book with lots of useful lists (such as restaurants near Metro Rail stops), but it is somewhat difficult to browse by neighborhood or region. The author is a Houston native who…
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Dear HISD Superintendent Grier
Hi, there. I read from the HISD superintendent’s speech that there are plans to start a small magnet high school for energy and technology. This is interesting news because that’s where most of the jobs and exciting new research will be over the next few decades. I realize that this magnet school may still be…