Federal Judge Sim Lake has ruled that the Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice must accommodate a hearing-impaired individual during prison visits.

It's the holidays. I want froth, confection, sugarplums and most of all, happiness. I realize it's a head-in-the-sand kind of response, but I don't care. For me, right now, it's pralines, stockings, and trying desperately to avoid reality while trying unsuccessfully not to max my charge card out. Confection is expensive, people.

J. Crew's men's designers have partnered with Levi Strauss & Co. to bring back the must-have jeans of the Nineties (both the 1890's and the 1990's, actually), the classic 501.

Travis County Commissioners will reportedly discuss in executive session tomorrow (Tuesday) whether to purchase a plot of Downtown Austin land for the development of a new civil courthouse.

As construction on Water Treatment Plant No.4 is underway and land is being cleared, more than a dozen varieties of plant life will be unearthed in the process. In an effort to help preserve the native flora, the city of Austin worked collectively with Austin Water Utility and WTP4 developers to facilitate a plant rescue.

How on earth the Hustle managed to make it through another year of City Council is beyond him. But here we are at the end of the year, and we've got agenda highlights for this Thursday council farewell to 2010: public safety cameras, WTP4, and historic zoning out the wazoo.

If anything positive can be extracted from the Longhorns men's basketball deflated showing against USC in Los Angeles last week, it was the golden opportunity to redeem themselves six days later at home versus neighboring Texas State. UT remained in the Top 25 by the skin of their teeth following their upset by the unranked Trojans.

As a proofreader I read for a living. You'd think I wouldn't want anything to do with the written word in my off time, and sometimes I don't. But I love to unwind before I go to sleep with a good book or the sports page. That is, unless I'm feeling digital, in which case I'm checking out Twitter/Facebook, my fantasy football players, or texting friends on my iPhone.

Who needs to make the actual movie when you have a title this good? That's what I said about Illusion Travels by Streetcar when writing a preview piece a few weeks ago about Cine las Americas' Luis Buñuel en México film series. Well, what about a song?