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So TV critic Diane Holloway on the front page of today's Austin American-Statesman can't figure out who the "Gladys" is that had Ellen Degeneres cracking up on her national show, but I instantly had a theory: I suspect it's "Brother Russell," aka "Melba," the Austin prank caller supreme who has been duping radio hosts (especially the fundamentalist Christian variety) for years. UPDATE: We have yet to see a follow-up on this in Statesman, but both Brother Russell and Holloway confirmed that it's not him. Read More | Comment »

"What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?

Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!

Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!

Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!

Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!

Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smokestacks and antennae crown the cities!

Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!

Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch!

Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky!

Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible mad houses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs!" -- From Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" Read More | Comment »

We knew something good had to come out of the Lege's return, aside from a bunch of dead grackles: Our favorite public affairs program is returning to KLRU. Special Session is hosted by the indomitable Paul Stekler, documentary filmmaker of George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire, Last Man Standing: Politics Texas Style (documenting the Patrick Rose/Rick Green electoral battle) and more. (Going off Green's E-Day sucker punch of Rose, maybe Stekler can host some ultimate-fighting-style brawl between the two to settle things for good. It would work wonders for the pledge drive.)

Anywho, each week Special Session devotes its half-hour to a new issue, with Stekler and his creekbed-dry wit querying his quests. According to the SS episode guide, upcoming shows touch on the new legislature, John Sharp, Ann Richards, and social services, like CHIP. But to get a better idea of the show, why not watch an episode? They have all their past episodes online for viewing, but may I suggest you begin here? A good show, but jeez, that King guy…

Special Session convenes Sunday, February 4, at 11am on KLRU. More info from PBS below the fold. Read More | Comment »

Looks like the prez kindly blessed us with an advance of his State of the Union address tonight:


Of course the blogosphere will offer an unfettered amount of liveblogging and navel-gazing, but the fine folks at Think Progress have promised real time fact checking on Bush's address. For those of us who can't stand to watch our simian leader molest the English language for more than two minutes before pulling a Presley on the TV set, this could come in real handy like. Read More | 1 Comment »

Turn on your TV right now if you want to see live coverage of the trial of one of Austin's most gruesome murders in recent memory. Not surprisingly, given the horrific nature of the killing of UT student Jennifer Cave, national media is catching on to the trial of alleged killer Colton Pitonyak, and it's showing on Court TV as I type this.

UPDATE: Wells here. This seemed like a good excuse to revisit the best/worst catchphrase of 2005: "that's just how I roll!" Read More | Comment »

Another Austin political pro writes in to concur that Wal-Mart is message testing with their phone calls – although, from the look of things, it sounds like they couldn't resist a little push-polling while they were at it. Most times, testers want to float both positive and negative message in such polls – says our e-mailer, “normally, you want to include 1 or 2 negatives for every 10 positives (i.e., pro-Wal-Mart in this context).” Yet all descriptions solely list the positives Wal-Mart says they'll unpack at Northcross. Again, it sounds like a two-fer – measuring public sentiment while maybe trying to tweak it.

Secondly, several readers have written in pointing out a pro-Mart message ad which apparently debuted tonight, wherein a smiling multicultural cadre directs all to a one WalMartFacts.com. There, they'll be regaled with AstroTurfed tales of how the retailer's new breed of “neighborhood” stores are comprised of “earth-tones and soft themes.” C'mon, the sign is green, people!

And if that's still not enough, Responsible Growth for Northcross has posted audio of a call on their Web site. Do I sense a remix in its future? Read More | Comment »

Re: Council Agenda, Thursday, Jan. 25, 2007

Item 9: The city manager will supply required notices of street name changes instead of the city clerk. We're cookin' now!

Item 14, a bit more substantive: awarding, on first reading, Austin's new taxicab franchise to Capital City Cab Company. Judging from the Public Works evaluation matrix, CCCC narrowly edged out competitor Lonestar Cab Co., with a score of 12 to their 13. (Like golf, in this game the low score wins; both applicants smoked Longhorn Cab Company, which clocked in with a 23.) With the narrow margin of victory, and city law requiring third and final approval to transpire no less than 60 days after first read, this story may not be over yet.

Items from Council, No. 25–28: Not a damn thing of interest, unless you count waiving park rental fees for the ATXcellent Adventure of the YWCA of Greater Austin.

12pm Citizens Communications: Noontime regular Carol Anne Rose Kennedy outdoes self, titles forthcoming harangue "FederalIncomeTax & the STUpiDessed thing sense WHITECRACKERS = INFERNAL REVENUE: SERVE U.S. say GOODNIGHT, UNCLE SAM: P.S. you WANT me, BUTT I DO NOT WANT you BACK."

6pm Public Hearings: Item 44, approving the Big Box Ordinance is listed, but it must be a mistake. Thanks to the freeze, the revised BBO never made it to the Planning Commission. Word is it's tentatively rescheduled for the PC Tuesday, Jan. 30, and likely to come before council Feb. 1 or Feb. 15.

Bearing that in mind, we have one light-assed agenda. UPDATE (Wonk Alert): Item 44, the BBO isn't techanically an error, as council set the date last month – but thanks to the PC cancellation, Council will hear the item, if only to postpone it. Read More | 1 Comment »

Phantom Wal-Mart calls, deep freezes shutting the city down for days – just when you think things can't get any stranger, something like this appears in your inbox:

"Media Advisory: Ancient temple dance to highlight community meetings announcement at City Hall

…To highlight the City's diverse arts community, the news conference will feature a special performance by Auradha Naimpally from Tanjore Performing Arts. Naimpally will perform an ancient and colorful temple dance of South India called bhrata natyam."

Hopefully this will flush out some of the abundant bad juju that's out there. Also, it's the kickoff to creating the city's community cultural plan, so that's an extra bonus. Anything creating public art that isn't a bunch of ugly-ass giant guitars is fine by us.

Hurry, performance is at City Hall at 10am this morning. Read More | Comment »

A seasoned hand at Austin politics writes in to say there may be more behind the rash of Wal-Mart phone surveys than a crass attempt to sway public opinion:

"What Wal-Mart is doing isn't necessarily a 'poll.' It sounds more akin to a voter ID program, where they are attempting to ID supporters (and activate them somehow in the future), but also test messages on the opponents. It's a two-fer, but probably not the kind of thing they release to the public as a 'poll.'

They did this in South Austin in 2003 as well. Look for a slick mailer to hit your mail box soon with some subset of the messages tested."

There you have it: finessing their message and identifying sympathizers as to activate them as needed. Wow.

Wal-Mart's creating sleeper cells! Read More | 20 Comments »

It wasn't entirely clear who commissioned it, but somebody who supports the proposed Wal-Mart at Northcross Mall is push-polling the neighbors of the moribund shopping center.

"Push-polling," for those not familiar with the term, is a polling technique where the pollster presents the pollee with a statement – sometimes factual, but not necessarily – that is meant to prejudice the answers. It is a technique used when the entity commissioning the poll wants to produce a certain result, and not one used by reputable pollsters who are trying to accurately guage actual public opinion.

So after seeing some 1-800 number come up on my caller ID for the fifth (!) time today, I decided to answer and ask them to leave me the hell alone. Read More | 2 Comments »

So birds of a feather do flock together. Adolfo Valadez, medical director for Travis County Health and Human Services, is delivering a press conference right now over the winged rodents' mysterious deaths – and they really are as filthy as we all imagined. "Birds are not the cleanest of animals. They eliminate in their food and water supply," said Valadez. So when one grows ill, it can rapidly spread. That's the gist. Move along people, nothing to see here. One comment does imbue the birds with a certain hard-partying, Behind the Music, beautiful-corpse ethos: "One too many stressors pushed them over the edge and the birds died."

Just like Janis, man. Read More | 2 Comments »

Seems that for the Dems, Tom DeLay is the gift that never stops giving – or, in this case, the stick which lets them keep beating Rick Perry. Yup, the state had been using two DeLay-linked DC lobby firms but has been forced to sever ties with them. Our beloved governor had been paying Cassidy & Associates and the Federalist Group $15,000 a month to work their lobbying magic for Texas, but guess what? They were also pretty closely connected with Mugshot Tom (the Federalists, for example, worked for several TRMPAC donors and hired former DeLay cronies Drew Maloney and Chris Lynch.) So their lobbying contracts, which were supposed to run until August, have been canceled.

But don't presume this means Texas will have less clout on Capitol Hill. Announcing the firms' termination was eight-term Houston Democrat U.S. Rep. Gene Green. Watch out: He's working on becoming the Dem's point guy on cleaning up the House. He's already serving as a senior deputy whip and serves on the House Ethics committee. He's also pushing hard for an independent investigative office, so that Congress doesn't have to act as its own judge, jury, and (as so often seems to happen) pardoner. Could it be that Texas might actually become synonymous with clean politics? Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Read More | Comment »

Got to pass the proverbial "props" to PinkDome for the above picture. No, the speaker was not responsible for the en-masse death of those 60-plus birds Downtown earlier this month – PD reports, via the Statesman, that they croaked due to parasites and a temperature drop.

We echo their disappointment. Read More | Comment »

The city itself may incur the final injury of the ice storm, if it doesn't stop patting itself on the back so hard. They could strain something!

A press release from the city trumpets their response to the storm and all its subsequent mayhem. Here's some highlights:

"City of Austin Public Works and Transportation: During the course of this event, 11 sanding truck crews and 21 hand-crews worked to clear off 130 bridges, maintained (sanded and cleared) 34 street locations, and continually monitored 22 locations that are potential dangerous in icy weather.

Austin Fire Department: From midnight, Jan. 15, through noon Jan. 18, AFD responded to 887 calls

Austin Parks & Recreation Department: PARD coordinated with local service agencies and provided a location for overflow capacity. On the nights of Jan. 14 through 17, more than 380 homeless persons were provided shelter at a PARD facility.

Austin-Travis County Health and Human Services: During this weather event, the Town Lake Animal Center followed established cold-weather procedures. At night, animals were kept in indoor kennels where heaters and blankets are provided."

A little more curiously, they say "ABIA had sufficient supplies of deicing agent for the taxiways and runways." So they had sufficient amounts for the taxiways and runaways… just not the planes. Hmmm, might want to tell that to these guys.

Entire press release pasted inside. Read More | 1 Comment »

"Day after day, the egalitarian creed of our Declaration of Independence is trampled underfoot by hired experts and sloganeers, who speak of the "death tax," "the ownership society," "the culture of life," "the liberal assault on God and family," "compassionate conservatism," "weak on terrorism," "the end of history," "the clash of civilizations," "no child left behind." They have even managed to turn the escalation of a failed war into a "surge," as if it were a current of electricity through a wire, instead of blood spurting from the ruptured vein of a soldier." – Bill Moyers addressing the National Conference on Media Reform, Friday, January 12 in Memphis, Tennessee.

Read the transcript of Moyers' speech at Democray Now!'s Web site, or watch a YouTube upload of it here. Read More | Comment »

My God, I never thought I'd be so happy it was 36 degrees outside. Read More | Comment »

And Cap Metro says:

Capital Metro will resume regular service on Thursday, January 18.

All routes will be in service.

AISD magnet routes and UT shuttle service will begin two hours late due to the delayed opening of AISD schools and the University.

Due to road conditions, passengers should expect service delays through midday Thursday.

We will continue to provide updated information at www.capmetro.org. Read More | Comment »

Austin ISD says:

AISD will resume classes on Thursday, January 18, on a two-hour delayed schedule.

January 17, 2007 - The Austin School District will resume classes on Thursday, January 18, on a two-hour delayed schedule. All school buses will pick up students two hours later than their regular schedule, and all classes at the elementary, middle and high school level, will start two hours later than normal.

Transportation that Capital Metro buses provide daily for students who attend the Liberal Arts & Science Academy at LBJ High School, the Kealing Magnet Middle School, and the International High School at Johnston will also run two hours later than normal.

Dismissal of classes and bus routes on Thursday afternoon will be on their normal schedule.

Superintendent Pat Forgione said the two-hour delayed schedule was developed in consultation with City, County, University of Texas, and neighboring school district officials, through the Office of Emergency Management.

The delayed start of Austin schools on Thursday will provide additional time for maintenance crews to prepare areas roadways for increased traffic. The two-hour delay will also allow school principals additional time to make sure their campuses have ample heat, electricity, and running water, and that their walkways are free of ice, before students arrive.

Through the Office of Emergency Management, local officials have tried to ensure that the resumption of schools and other governmental services on Thursday will not overburden the region's still-limited highway system, brought about by more than three days of ice, sleet, and snow. Read More | Comment »

Press release from the Austin Independent School District:

No Decisions Yet on AISD Operations for Thursday, January 18
January 17, 2007 - AISD officials continue to meet with represenatives at the Emergency Operations Center, reviewing weather-related, transportation, and utility concerns, brought about by more than three days of freezing temperatures and icy roadways. No decisions have yet been made on the resumption of Austin schools on Thursday, January 18.

Additional deliberations will take place this evening, when District officials can better gauge the impact that freezing temperatures will have on Austin's roads and bridges on Thursday morning.

AISD officials are also working closely with the City of Austin, Travis County and the University of Texas to ensure that the resumption of classes and other governmental services will not overburden the region's fragile highway system, brought about by three days of ice, sleet and snow.

Additional information about AISD operations on Thursday, January 18, will be released to the Austin news media, as it becomes available; will be posted on the District's website at www.austinisd.org; and will be broadcast over AISD-TV, [Cable] Channel 22. Read More | Comment »

The city announced that garbage and recycling collection will resume Thursday, after a couple of days off due to our ice storm. Service will slide back a couple of days: Routes normally collected on Tuesday will be picked up Thursday, Wednesday moves to Friday, and Thursday and Friday routes move to Saturday. If you piled up too much trash for your cart, the city will pick it up without requiring an Extra Garbage Sticker through Jan. 26.

Full details and guidelines here. Read More | Comment »