Houston is the home of remarkably diverse and talented business and professional communities. Houston’s Clear Thinkers is a weblog that focuses on developments in law, business, medicine, sports and other areas of special interest to the Houston legal, business and medical communities. My personal and professional background information may be reviewed here.
By way of background, Houston’s Clear Thinkers is the natural evolution of a private email group that I have maintained over the past five years. Over that period, this email group steadily grew into an eclectic mix of over a hundred businesspeople, attorneys, doctors, accountants, teachers, and professors from Houston and other parts of the United States.
I am blessed to count each of these email group members as friends, and it is my hope that the Houston’s Clear Thinkers weblog will introduce me to many new friends while I pass along matters of interest to the Houston business and professional communities.
Tom Kirkendall
February 2, 2004
Houston's Clear Thinkers
Longtime Houston attorney Tom Kirkendall's observations on developments in law, business, medicine, culture, sports, and other matters of general interest to the Houston business, professional, and academic communities.
Tom – I’ve been an admirer of Houston’s Clear Thinkers for some time but haven’t taken the time to say so; today’s the day to correct that. Keep up the good work. John
Tom
Great to see you last week – great site.
Am i the first UK blogger to admit to reading this stuff??!!
Lochinvar was as beautiful as ever
K
Tom,
I look forward every day to your blog. Prior to getting hooked on your blog (a recent development), I avoided blogs as the musings of those who are pretenders. Now, I am a convert–at least to yours.
Your insights into the current Lay/Skilling trial are forcing me to stand back and objectively look at the overarching issues at stake.
Thanks for the blog–you are doing a great job! (By the way, we went to law school together a very long time ago.)
My best,
Bill Andrews
Good day. I am Content Manager in Newsland Inc., international company providing news on PDAs and smartphones. We are interested in using your site’s content in our usersí devices. It gives your site instant international attendance by our constantly growing audience. It is free to our subscribers and to you. Could you let me know an appropriate person’s contact information so that I could discuss the points of our possible cooperation in the future. Thank you and have a nice day!
Here is an ethical question for an experienced blogger. Is it appropriate or fair for a blogger to “out” his audience? Lauren Steffy did today. I think this raises interesting ethical questions. We already knew his judgement was bad. What do you think?
http://blogs.chron.com/lorensteffy/2006/04/welcome_skilling_legal_team.html
Tom, there is a beautifully framed Vince Young
autographed (PSA/DNA) piece displayed at Michael Klein’s Fine Jewelry (on Westheimer in Houston). The sale of these framed pieces (only 250) benefits ‘The Children’s Fund’ charity—the picture is of ‘The #1 Texas Orange Tower’ (taken in the early AM) and has 2005 National Champions and the score of the Rose Bowl…Texas Longhorns 41-USC Trojans 38. I have been in the sports memorabilia business here in Houston for years
and this is the nicest UT piece I have ever seen… Every Longhorn should at least see it.
I just thought I would let you know…
Hey Tom,
I know you did a piece on Ben Hogan a couple of years ago, but did you know there is another new Hogan book coming out at the end of September 2006?
It’s on Amazon under “The Secret of Hogan’s Swing”.
It got some good early reviews from John Andrisani and also Steven Pressfield.
Check it out.
Tom
Tom –
I’ve greatly enjoyed your blog . . . except your posts on the ‘stros & the texans. The iggles took the latter down today and I’m only waiting for the phillies to take the wild card spot. Nevertheless, in case you’ve missed it, here’s a link to another excellent post on the criminalization of agency costs – http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=3894&sec_id=3894.
John
Tom —
Every time I look at that beautiful photo of the Houston skyline, it simply kills me.
I lived in Houston for 21 years, and now have been away for 13, and still miss the Space City every day.
Your blog is good reading.
Jake
Clear Thinkers – I address several Texas credit unions at a marketing conference in week or so in Houston. I work with a northeast dairy cooperative. I am to speak about using my company’s cooperative advantage in consumer communications. Any words of wisdom to the marketeer of the world’s best cheddar about TX cooperative issues, opportunities, land mines?
Thanks.
Tom: I have looked at whether there are victims of of Enron’s fraud or if investors and employees foolishly failed to take advantage of readily available share price insurance. See http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=20134&CFID=1541514&CFTOKEN=40436236 I have also written a tribute to Milton Friedman for his contribution to derivative trading, beginning with foreign exchange. What banks do in tailoring FOREX hedges for their customers and then hedging their net risk exposure using the FOREX derivatives, is what Enron was doing for energy hedging. Will federal prosecutors now go after the Chicago Mercantile Holding Corp? See http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=20171
Jim
“A sense of unfairness can be created if someone is not punished. Think of the outcry when an executive is let off with a fine for losing millions of dollars of investors’ money, when someone else might be jailed for stealing a purse.”
Excerpt from Your Brain at Work by David Rock. I can thank this blog for educating me on the fallacy of this general viewpoint.
Dear Tom,
Thank you for your sacrificial work. I consider your blogging to be an essential component in our work as humans and as Americans in pursuing democratic values and justice for all people.
Sincerely,
R. Scott Harrison
Human Rights and Civil Liberties Advocate and Activist