Look who’s probably coming to the Houston Metro area.
This is one resilient storm.
By the way, Check out these cool aerial before and after Hurricane Ivan photos.

This earlier post passed along this Houston Press story on the bizarre story of C. Tom Zaratti, a fringe player in the local criminal defense bar.
This Chronicle story reports that a Harris County jury assessed the maximum 10 year sentence to Mr. Zaratti after convicting him yesterday of downloading and maintaining child pornography on his home computer in violation of child predator laws. Mr. Zaratti’s legal team was not able to mount much of a defense, as the jury deliberated for less than an hour before convicting Zaratti and less than two hours before agreeing on the sentence.

University of Texas Law Professor Brian Leiter posts this excellent summary analysis of Houston’s Rice University, in which he notes Rice’s relative excellence in comparison to its even greater potential. Based on Professor Leiter’s insight, new Rice president David Leebron would be smart to retain him as a consultant.
My late father, who was an esteemed professor of medicine for years at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston’s famed Texas Medical Center, thought that Rice — which is located adjacent to the Medical Center — had always underdeveloped the research opportunities and resources that the Rice faculty could tap within the Medical Center. He observed that Rice’s failure to seize this opportunity allowed the University of Texas to step into the breach in the late 1960’s and establish the second research institution (to Baylor College of Medicine) in the Medical Center. Even with UT’s success in the Medical Center (particularly with the phenomenal M.D. Anderson Cancer Center), the Medical Center has now grown to such an extent that Rice could harvest much greater research opportunities there and become as integral a force in Medical Center research as UT and Baylor.

This Sunday Chronicle op-ed by Houstonian James A. Reynolds, III examines an important facet of Texas’ indelible culture — the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets — and laments the high risk that the Corps will soon wither away at A&M:

The Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University is dying.
This venerable organization, a prominent component of our state’s first publicly funded institute of higher learning, is withering away. I believe it will be gone within 10 years, perhaps even less.
While our state’s population and Texas A&M’s enrollment are straining upward, accordingly propagating bringing across-the-board expansion for all academic programs, clubs, sports and other activities, the Corps as a whole simply is not following suit. The Corps is, rapidly and inevitably, perishing.

Mr. Reynolds then zeros in on why Corps enrollment is declining:

Compulsory military service after graduation is not a factor. A substantial number of Corps members have no military ambitions at all, and participate as drills and ceremonies cadets, with no armed forces obligation whatever. They merely want to be in the Corps.
The fundamental problem with attracting and retaining Corps members is the difficulty of one’s freshman year in the Corps, the relatively harsh experience of being a “fish.” First-year cadets begin as identical, powerless tiles in a self-contained societal mosaic composed of myriad artificial and onerous rules, requirements and traditions. . .
From the instant you step into the Corps, you relinquish your former self and become fish Jones or fish Reynolds or, as our own governor knows, fish Perry — lacking even the privilege of capitalizing your first name.
Challenging enough when Texas A&M was a small, isolated cow college, the burdens of being a fish today are magnified among a student population dominated by non-regs, ordinary college kids dwelling in a carefree state of parent-funded utopia. The non-regs sleep and eat when the want, they stroll leisurely to classes, they wear shorts and sandals, they shave or don’t, their lives are their own.
Not so for a Corps fish.
Last year at A&M with my old boss, watching cadets prepare to march on Kyle Field before a football game, we saw a dozen struggling, sweating Aggie Band fish double-timing by, each hauling two huge silver sousaphones to the assembly area.
“Look at these kids,” he said. “This is miserable work, but they do it. Most college kids these days just aren’t interested in doing this sort of thing. They look down on it. It’s beneath them. Fact is, it’s just too hard. They can do it, but they don’t like difficult stuff, they hate discipline. They all want point-and-click, immediate gratification. They all want everything to be easy and effortless.”
Which means fewer and fewer incoming Texas A&M University students want to be in the Corps.

Mr. Reynolds then describes the rigidly structured life of a “fish” in the Corps:

The fish must attend all Corps formations and functions. Their dorm rooms are austere, their uniforms plain but perfectly maintained, their privileges nonexistent. The fish must learn the names of all the upperclassmen in their dorms, employing an age-old introductory process, and greet them by name thereafter — causing all shyness to vanish. Freshmen perform numerous duties in their units, from keeping the hallways clean to sounding whistle calls announcing meals and events.
They are constantly supervised by upperclassmen, especially dominated by sophomores who only recently were fish themselves — and whose vigor for enforcing the rules is judiciously tempered by juniors and seniors. The relaxed lifestyle attained after completion of one’s sophomore year allows unalloyed love for the Corps to blossom, along with deep appreciation for the fish experience. But the sophomores are relentless, intent upon ensuring that freshmen toe the line in all respects.
Like it or not, this is a form of hazing. It’s not the horrendous sort of fraternity pranks and initiation rites that yield injurious humiliation — though A&M, like every college, has known isolated occurrences of such — but the infliction is systematic and constant.
For a fish, the Corps is a total-immersion endeavor — every waking moment dictated by regimen, responsibilities and demands of the uniform. Everyone in the Corps, from the newest fish to the eldest senior, scoffs at the “hell week” concept used by fraternities, sororities and other college organizations. One little week of collegiate hell is literally laughable, compared to your fish year in the Corps.

So, what is the purpose? What is the value? Mr. Reynolds answers:

I have met numerous A&M former students who were not in the Corps, but declare they wish they had been. I have yet to encounter a single Corps graduate, male or female, who regretted the experience, who would have attended A&M as a non-reg.
An old boss of mine, a band member Class of ’63, insisted the Corps literally saved his college career, with its upperclassman-enforced nightly study time on Sunday through Thursday. Overall, Corps grades are higher than the general student average.
Several years ago, a friend worried terribly about his son’s decision to join the Corps. My friend fretted that his child — on his own for the first time — would be hazed miserably, tormented into scholastic failure, personal injury and permanent psychological scarring.
My friend was a normal parent: He feared sending his son to college without any sort of supervision. He was afraid of letting go.
A week after his son became a Corps fish, however, my friend was a changed man. His son had been taken into a family, a strict one to be certain, but this young new Aggie was anything but unsupervised.
Frank and his wife subsequently became enthusiastic Corps parents, dedicated Old Army supporters. Both wept proudly upon seeing their son wear senior boots, and they hoped their young daughter, too, would attend A&M and join the Corps.

I hope Mr. Reynolds is wrong, but I share his concern about the future of the Corps. It is a difficult to sell the long term benefits of sacrifice and hard work within a culture that worships instant gratification. If we Texans lose the Corps, then we will lose an important part of what defines our culture, and I submit that what replaces it to define our culture in the future is unlikely to have the salutary attributes of the Corps.

When you find yourself becoming cynical while reading the next inevitable article about an obnoxious professional athlete, remember the Stros’ Craig Biggio.
Yesterday, for the 13th straight year, Bidg and his wife Patty hosted their 13th annual party and baseball game at the Juice Box for the Sunshine Kids, the local Houston charity that works closely with the Texas Medical Center‘s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Texas Children’s Hospital to provide recreation and support for children diagnosed with cancer.
This Chronicle article relates how important Bidg and his wife’s efforts are on behalf of the Sunshine Kids:

Suzie James said her family returned from vacation just in time to make it to the stadium so her 7-year-old son, Cameron, could participate. When Cameron was diagnosed in February, his mother said, a social worker at Texas Children’s Hospital told them about the Sunshine Kids.
“This is our third activity,” she said, just before Cameron took his turn at bat.
He has undergone surgery, radiation treatments and chemotherapy, his mother said.
“The activities help us get our minds off it for a while.”
Cameron connected for a solid grounder on his fourth swing. Sunshine Kids don’t strike out if Biggio can help it.

While other local charities have seen a downturn in charitable donations over the past several years, Bidg’s efforts on behalf of the Sunshine Kids have increased their charitable donations over that same period. Bidg’s annual charity golf tournament on behalf of the Sunshine Kids — which he puts on during the distraction of the baseball season — has turned into a huge fund-raising affair.
Craig Biggio is not only a Hall of Fame quality baseball player, he is a Hall of Fame quality citizen of Houston. During his long tenure with the Stros, Bidg and his family have settled comfortably in the West University area of Houston and have become integral members of their church and community. As a father of two young men who have literally grown up admiring Bidg during his unusually long career with the Stros, I appreciate the classy example of manhood that he has always displayed. He is part of what makes Houston a special place.

Following on Charles Kuffner‘s blog post on the subject, this NY Times article reports on the the “Houston. It’s Worth It” Internet-based branding campaign, which permits people who visit a Web site to describe why they enjoy Houston:

Financed in part by Michael Zilkha, a wealthy wind-energy entrepreneur and a prominent patron of the arts in Houston, a guerrilla-style branding offensive began this month. The campaign, using the slogan “Houston. It’s Worth It,” relies on descriptions of urban afflictions and images of giant mosquitoes and cockroaches to convey a sense of how Houston is nevertheless beloved by many residents.
The Internet-based branding campaign permits people who visit a Web site, www.houstonitsworthit.com, to describe in their own words why living in the city has its advantages. Functioning as a blog, or Web log, the site has received hundreds of comments from residents or people with a connection to the city.

The Times reports that one of the main goals of the originators of campaign was to distinguish it from past failed campaigns to promote Houston:

Distancing the campaign from past efforts was of paramount importance to its creators at ttweak, the marketing and advertising company based in the leafy bohemian district of Montrose. Ttweak became known in the last year for leading the unconventional advertising strategy for Bill White, a Democrat who was elected mayor of Houston in December.
“The ‘in spite of all the afflictions here’ angle really appealed to us,” said Randy Twaddle, who owns ttweak with a partner, David Thompson.

Or, as the website puts it:

“A city must know itself before it can sell itself.”

Read the whole piece.

One of Houston’s genuine colorful characters of the past half-century — Paul N. “Red” Adair — has died on Saturday night at the age of 89 in Houston. In a rather stunning oversight, the Houston Chronicle does not have an article posted on Mr. Adair’s death as of Sunday morning. Update: Finally, here is the Chronicle story.
Mr. Adair was a world-renowned oil well firefighter who revolutionized the science of capping oil and gas wells that had exploded and were burning. Although his work was incredibly dangerous, Mr. Adair often boasted that none of his employees ever suffered a serious injury while fighting the fires.
Mr. Adair founded Red Adair Co. Inc. in Houston in 1959. He is credited with battling more than 2,000 land and offshore oil well fires, including the hundreds of wells left burning after the Iraqis fled Kuwait at the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The Houston native spent his 76th birthday clad in his traditional red overalls, swinging valves in place as his crews capped 117 Kuwaiti wells left burning by retreating Iraqi troops. Mr. Adair’s expertise contributed to making a firefighting operation expected to last three to five years a nine month operation, which saved millions of barrels of oil and prevented a potential air pollution disaster.
Mr. Adair used explosives, drilling mud and concrete to control and cap wild well fires. His reputation for having never met a blowout he couldn’t cap earned him the nickname “Hellfighter,” which inspired the title of a 1968 movie based on Adair’s life starring John Wayne. Mr. Adair always considered having Mr. Wayne play him in a movie was one of the highest honors that he ever received.

In an effort to persuade Moody’s investment rating agency from downgrading its bonds to junk status, the Harris County Sports Authority voted to issue $37.2 million in new bonds this week to cover the ongoing cost financing the building of Minute Maid Park, Reliant Stadium and Toyota Center in Houston over the past five years. The three sporting venues cost $1.036 billion to build — Reliant Stadium cost $500 million, Minute Maid Park, $286 million, and Toyota Center, $250 million. With the bond issuance, the price tag has now risen to $1.073 billion.
I have always been fascinated with this type of reasoning regarding investment: “In order not to allow the interest rate on our existing highly-leveraged bonds to rise, let’s go ahead and issue some more highly-leveraged bonds.” H’mm.
At any rate, the new bonds were needed to make up for declining hotel and car rental tax revenues, which services bond debt. In 2002 and 2003, the revenues sagged by approximately 10 percent. To meet the annual payments for $900 million in previously issued bonds, the authority had projected annual 3 percent increases in hotel and car rental tax revenues. During the past two years, the tax revenue generated by the special taxes has declined about 5 percent each year, which means that the sports authority missed its projections by close to 8 percentage points during each year.
The Sports Authority was facing penalties if it failed to fulfill its agreement to replenish its cash reserve fund from $32 million to $47 million by May 2006. With hotel and car rental taxes declining, the Authority was not going to be able to raise the money unless it issued the bonds. About $15 million of funds generated from the new bonds will be added to the cash reserve fund.
Paul Bettencourt, Harris County tax assessor-collector, was skeptical about the public financing of the stadiums at the time that each was approved. “It’s just three, four, five years after the elections, and already they’re selling more bonds,” he said. “This is a big concern to me, and it should be to taxpayers.”
I am hopeful that that Professor Sauer, who comments regularly on the follies of public financing of sports stadiums, will have his usual keen observations on this development.

Charles Kuffner over at Off the Kuff points us to an interesting website that allows people to write and read what they enjoy about Houston. Check it out.
My favorite: “Ridiculous to sublime. Rothko to Airline.”

Everyone who has lived in Houston over the past 40 years has shopped at a Randall’s grocery store. Robert Onstead, the co-founder of that grocery store chain, died Wednesday morning while on a trip to Italy.
After Mr. Onstead and his original partners started Randall’s in the early 1960’s, the chain grew steadily through the next three decades and became the premier grocery store chain in the Houston area during the 1980’s (remember those great Randall’s “Flagship” stores?). But then, in the early 1990’s, Randall’s hometown character began to change when it acquired the Dallas-based Tom Thumb grocery store chain and a dozen AppleTree grocery stores in Austin. While that expansion made Randalls one of the largest Texas grocery companies, it also foreshadowed a change in the way Randall’s did business.
By the time Mr. Onstead sold his the Randall’s chain of 117 stores to Safeway for almost $1.5 billion in 1999, Randall’s was beginning to reel under the competitive pressures being exerted by other grocery retailers in Randall’s key markets. Now, Randall’s is becoming an afterthought in the Houston grocery wars as Wal-Mart, Kroger and increasingly H.E.B. take over turf that Randall’s previously dominated.
But Randall’s had a great run, and it was largely due to Mr. Onstead’s vision and leadership. Houston’s business community will miss him.