Ruckus 2.0?
A prototype? Would you like a sort of Nova Digest like this? And make it famous enough for me to make a living off of it?
Preamble
Weather: “Summer lite,” with highs scraping 90 and lows in the lower 70s. Partly cloudy with some chance of showers.
Sports: Astros win a relative laugher on Friday and then lose two straight low-scoring one-run games to the Blue Jays in Toronto. The hometowners finished the weeklong road trip 4-3 after taking 3 of four from the Rangers in Arlington.
With what some are hoping might be one of their best drafts ever– with a dozen or so picks, it certainly was one of their most drafts ever – the Houston Texans attempted to fill holes in their secondary with LSU shutdown cornerback Derek Stingley with third overall pick and road-grading Texas A&M guard Kenyon Green (Atascosita HS) at number 15. Six of their nine picks were either defenders or offensive linemen, so while it wasn’t a particularly sexy draft, it might be just what the beleaguered franchise needs.
On this day: May 2, 1837 marks the birthday of West Point grad and military engineer Henry Martyn Robert. The South Carolina native was chairman of the Board of Engineers that built the Galveston Seawall, thereby saving the city in 1909, 1915 and possibly 2008 as well. He was also the nation’s leading “parliamentarian.”
Meaning? He was the Robert of Robert’s Rules of Order.
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That Sinking Feeling: As a kid, the existential threat to Houston we all heard about was how the city was “sinking.” It was hard for me to wrap my head around then — you mean, like the Titanic? — and it still remains so now, and after decades of Biblical “500-year” and “thousand-year” floods, Sinking Houston kind of faded away as a threat.
Now thanks to a report from the World Economic Forum, it’s back: the Bayou City is one of ten cities – and the only one in the Western Hemisphere – in danger of slipping beneath the waves thanks to subsidence on land and rising sea levels. (Others include Hanoi and Saigon in Vietnam; Shanghai and Jakarta; and Tianjin, in China, which comes in first, sinking at 5.2 cms a year vs Houston’s 1.95.)
If present trends continue, the report warns, Houston could disappear by 2102.
Vanish. Slip beneath the waves. Atlantisize. Transco Tower awash in Davy Jones’s locker.
Pumping out groundwater and heavy construction seem the likeliest causes of Houston’s subsidence, and it matters because, in the WEF’s words:
“[Flood models that only account for sea-level rise will be insufficient to predict the intensity and speed with which worse floods will come on. Essentially, coastal cities are in for a watery future sooner than current models predict. Plans to flood proof cities in the future will need to involve floodwalls and other types of measures to keep water out, but must also include regulation for the activities that sink cities further into the ground.”
The report further notes that while subsidence is irreversible, certain coastal cities, like Jakarta, have drastically slowed it down. Still, the report continues, recognizing the preeminence of time and tides, the Indonesian government is bailing on its metropolis and moving its capital to higher ground in a purpose-built new capital on the island of Borneo.
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Click2Houston has a complete rundown on five of the most spectacular love triangles in recent Houston history. Read the stories in Keith Harris’s voice of Clara Harris; spurned Clear Lake Dentist; Lisa Nowak, spurned astronaut of adult diaper, car trek infamy; spurned MD Anderson Cancer Center cancer researchers Dr. Ana Maria Gonzalez-Angulo of “very, very sweet” “special Colombian coffee” in infamy.
Also included are Katy high school football coach David Temple, convicted twice for murdering his pregnant wife in 2007 so that he could marry co-worker Heather Scott, and the bizarre case of beloved Montrose vet Valerie Busick McDaniel and rebound lover Leon Philip Jacob, who together tried to contract a hitman to ex out both their exes. Said “hitman” was a cop, of course, and you’ll just have to read the rest.
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It was with dismay and denial that I first read of the Whataburger jalapeno cheddar biscuit’s discontinuation from the formerly Texan chain’s breakfast menu: a single poster lamenting on Facebook. I set it aside but have since seen it unofficially confirmed on Reddit and by a host of Whataburger fans, who’ve also told me the chicken fajita tacos and mushroom and Swiss burger are likewise goners.
The latter is replaced, apparently, by a “double-bacon, double cheese” burger slathered in coleslaw. I gotta give you credit, Whataburger, you waited awhile, but you have now started Texas’s most beloved fry pit on the road to ruin. We love jalapeno biscuits; mild as they may have been, they are not the sugar-sweet honey biscuits we are expected to order now. And with grilled jalapenos added, the mushroom Swiss burger was a wonder of spicy earthiness.
I get it. You are trying to streamline your operations. However, we will not cotton to this Carolina-style burger you are trying to ram down our throats and you should be ashamed of yourselves for thinking we will.
My advice to you is that you sell the Texas outlets of the franchise to HEB and keep the rest to your Yankee selves.
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In happier burger news, the two-years-closed American Graffiti-era Bellaire Broiler Burger has been resurrected. The downtown Bellaire mainstay is already slinging its si
gnature #1, #2, and #3 burgers out of an onsite food truck installed by new owner Jason Scheinthal, a fan of the original spot since childhood. (Scheinthal has also unveiled plans to reopen the adjacent Roadster Grill, a popular Greek-American spot mere feet away that also closed recently.)
My Back Pages
Apropos of nothing Houston, here is the most gloriously terrible cover of the Who’s “Pinball Wizard” you will ever see.
Tommy is lucky he is practically senseless, but he can probably smell the titanic ambition gone so very far awry for Dukes and Lee, this contemporary (to the Who) English lounge act. Make sure you sit through the shrill refrain for many more treats to come. That’s their son on drums on her mum on piano. (Thanks to Englishman-in-Austin Nigel Richardson for the extra info.)
Gotta news tip? I want to break news again.
Funny story? Interesting real estate listing? A picture you’d like me to share? Courthouse news or gossip? I want to share any and all of it.
Send me what you got to Ruckus at jnovalomax@gmail.com and let’s make Houston a funkier place.
Yes to all the questions you posed. The pic of the "White Whataburger" must have been inspired by Billy Idol. I'm still laughing over the Pinball Wizard recent link. How could Click2Houston have forgotten about the "love triangle" between Candy ?? and her nephew who killed her husband and was acquitted by a FL jury? She was represented by the late great Percy Foreman and the nephew (with whom she was having an affair) went on to build black glass towers next to the Arena Theater only to lose them during an oil bust despite the fact he claimed they were his homestead since he lived on the top floor. I can't recall the names. Enquiring minds love your reporting.
I enjoyed it.