David Cobb, a fiery speaker and former Green Party presidential candidate, is touring Texas giving his talk “Creating Democracy & Challenging Corporate Rule”. His presentation is part history lesson and part heartfelt call to action!
Cobb is an organizer and national spokesman for MoveToAmend.org, a coalition of over 130,000 people and organizations whose goal is to amend the United States Constitution to end corporate rule and legalize democracy.
Sunday, October 2, 2:00-4:00pm – BRYAN-COLLEGE STATION.
Clara Mounce Public Library. 201 E 26th Street, Bryan.
Tuesday, October 4, 7:00pm – HOUSTON. Home of Lee and Hardy Loe.
1844 Kipling, Houston.
Wednesday, October 5, 6:30pm – SAN ANTONIO. The Radius Center (in the gallery).
106 Auditorium Circle, San Antonio.
Thursday, October 6, 7:00pm – BASTROP. First National Bank.
489 Hwy. 71. W, Bastrop.
Sunday, October 9, 6:00pm – AUSTIN. Third Coast Workers for Cooperation.
5604 Manor Road, Austin.
Monday, October 10, 7:00pm – CORPUS CHRISTI. Unitarian Universalist Church.
6901 Holly Road, Corpus Christi.
Houston Mayor Annise Parker announced a crackdown on so-called bandit signs Wednesday, pledging to issue fines to political candidates and others who illegally post their signs on city land.
The announcement comes less than a month before early voting in her re-election campaign. Parker said election season is when signs proliferate and that the city spent $450,000 in 2009 to take them down. The $200-per-offense fines aim to recover the city's costs.
"This is about quality of life in our city. This is about visual pollution, and this is about someone trampling on the public right of way and intruding in the public space. And it is about tax dollars – $450,000 a year to deal with illegally placed signs," Parker said during a news conference following Wednesday's City Council meeting.
(W)hether you’re concerned about those signs that break the law or those that clutter our streets and sightlines, it’s all good if the net effect is to convince candidates to leave signs off the junkier placements that serve no purpose.
The Press, with the street artist Shreddi taking matters into his own hands (really; click over and look at his handiwork):
What is it about Eric Dick that gets to you?
Shreddi: I don't think a lot of people have picked up on the fact that politicians use graffiti tactics for their personal gain. Each election year, without fail, we get this illegal political signage jammed all over empty lots, chain-link fences, telephone poles, etc. The problem is, once elected, these politicians persecute the general public for doing the same fucking thing...It's a double standard. It's funny too, because when I pulled down one of these signs, there was another political sign underneath it. So they're even covering each other's tags. I read last year the city spent a million dollars on graffiti cleanup. Politicians could probably cut that number in half if they'd stop posting their mind-numbing graffiti everywhere. Obviously I have no problem with self-promotion, or art in the streets. I have a problem with politicians holding the public to standards they don't abide to themselves. And I don't have anything specifically against Dick....his ballsy sign campaign just stood out.
Update II: In his sneering press release intended as a response to the mayor's enforcement of the ordinance, Dick discloses an endorsement from "The Log Cabin". I am familiar with the Log Cabin Republicans, but does anyone know what "The Log Cabin" is that Dick refers to here? Certainly it's not the maple syrup; could it be that little house in Emancipation Park? Has Dick nailed his campaign signs to its roof?
Is this the same ringing endorsement as the empty lots and utility poles and overhead crosswalks that have also 'endorsed' him? I must admit that I'm not well-versed with all of the changes passed in the recent legislative session with respect to election law: do inanimate objects get to vote now? Do they have to show photo ID if they do?
And if not, then should we alert the King Street/True the Vote thugs to show up at the polls in order to suppress the possible votes of vacant buildings, cyclone fences, weed-filled lots, city rights-of-way, and the like?
When it comes to our freedoms you can't be too scared careful.
I'm concerned that in our habitually low-turnout municipal elections, the boulevard median near my polling place might be able to sway the election. And these days, it just looks a little too brown to ... you know ... be legal.
Instead, the job hungry came en mass(sic) Monday to the Robert A. "Bob" Bowers Civic Center in Port Arthur, turning the first part of a State Department public hearing on the Keystone XL crude pipeline into a virtual rally for the project.
For about the first two hours, the only critical comments of the proposed 1,700-mile pipeline that would connect tar sands in Alberta, Canada to refineries in Port Arthur came from those expressing concerns that the jobs created would not go to Southeast Texans and that the State Department was moving too slowly in issuing a permit.
It's no surprise to me really. This is where I grew up; the oil (refining) patch. The area is hurting -- though not so bad as they would think, particularly in comparison to many other places in the country. They just cannot break out of the generational paradigm that's been in place since Spindletop.
They've lived with refinery pollution for decades. What's a little more as long as they can get paid?
Republican Texas State Rep. James White, whose district includes Angelina, Trinity and San Jacinto counties, noted that the agency had already assessed the environmental impact and said he wanted to see the permitting process expedited.
"This is why people are frustrated with government," he said to applause from a crowd numbering around 500. "We need jobs!"
Garden variety demagoguery. Port Arthur is nowhere near James White's statehouse district, but redistricting has paired him in a GOP primary with Tuffy Hamilton and he needs to stoke that TeaBagger fear and hate back home if he wants to entertain any notion of going back to Austin. Here's Dustin Matocha, chairman of the UT chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas, writing at Empower Texas with all the background on that race you can possibly stand. Now back to the Golden Triangle ...
Earlier Monday, 200 people attended a meeting in Topeka, Kan., with a drastically different audience than the one seen in Port Arthur. In Kansas, a number of environmentalists spoke against the pipeline, claiming it would move a "dirtier" and "environmentally devastating form of energy" from Canada through six U.S. states before ending up in Port Arthur ...
Well those damned Kansas liberals.
There's another hearing tomorrow in Austin -- none in Houston, where the pipeline's other southern terminus will be located -- and I'm just guessing a different crowd will turn out for that one.
I knew the film depicted natural gas drilling in the Haynesville Shale as an economic miracle for folks in north Louisiana and East Texas, with barely a mention of environmental health risks. I said yes, received an enthusiastic confirmation letter requesting my bio, which I sent in, a request to sign the “Talent Agreement,” and a list of the panel members.
I saw I was the token enviro on the panel, but I’ve been a turd in the punchbowl before. I did want to know how the panel would be structured, and if I would have an opportunity to correct their misinformation.
I sent back the following email:
I am quite surprised that your panel is so unbalanced. I would like to get more information on how this panel will work. I don't mind being the token environmental person as long as I have an opportunity to give my vast experiences living in the gas patch and working with people who are suffering from natural gas drilling that is too close to their homes.
The next thing I know: I received a phone call from the festival coordinator notifying me that I was uninvited to participate. Maybe they would find a more suitable panel for me sometime. Ouch! But, on second thought, I reclaimed my weekend and shrugged it off to the influence from T. Boone Pickens, one of the festival’s financial backers.
Then somebody sent me this poster from the event.
Hmmm. So the Texas Tribune Festival was co-sponsored by America’s Natural Gas Alliance. The Tribune’s website says other sponsors included El Paso Natural Gas and Energy Futures Corp., formerly Texas Utilities. I was starting to put two and two together.
The TexTrib does a fine job with hiring a few good journos at above-scale wages, a great job with maps and data, the occasional blog-styled snark and once in a great while even a breaking news update. They've more or less made obsolete poor Harvey Kronberg's modern-Internet-challenged Quorum Report, though the insiders still pay for Harvey's access to the players. (The Trib is busily fondling that crowd for all it's worth, too.)
But their polling of political races has beenabsolute shit, and sadly now we know that their integrity is as well.
Then Steve Horn of DeSmog Blog published an investigative piece on Alternet exposing Haynesville as a piece of industry propaganda masquerading as an independent documentary. Turns out Gregory Kallenberg “is actually a well-connected oil and natural gas man, with both a direct and familial financial stake in the ongoing domestic natural gas boom.”
Horn learned that Kallenberg is vice president of his family’s company, Caddo Management Inc. of Shreveport. Caddo Management is an oil and gas exploration company with active drilling operations in Arkansas and Louisiana.
So do you think that when Kallenberg takes his supposed independent documentary to international film festivals he’s upfront about his oil and gas connections and the fact that he’s flacking for the industry? (Even though he makes no mention of them on his website under the “about” section or in “film credits.”)
If you believe that, you probably still believe in the independence and integrity of The Texas Tribune’s shale gas coverage.
Maybe there is an explanation of the Tribune’s behavior that isn’t explained by financial influence of the natural gas industry. But if there is, it is past time for them to make their case. And from where I sit, it better be a doozy.
You just have to understand from now on what you're getting when you read the Trib. You're getting the straight story ... as told by the oil and gas companies' PR departments.
