A few practical ways for the City of Houston to increase revenue, decrease the budget shortfall, and make everyone’s lives a whole lot easier by adapting to 15-year-old technology. By Omar Afra Illustration by Tim Dorsey Despite Houston’s relative resilience to the recession and actual job growth, our municipal government is pretty much up shit’s creek when it comes to fiscal responsibility. With an accumulated deficit of 2.5 billion dollars and an annual budget deficit of 130 million dollars, it is critical that the city both finds efficiencies and raises revenue. Mayor Parker has launched a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’-type ... Read More »

By Alex Wukman This isn’t…there’s no way it can be real. I mean not in two-thousand-and-fucking-twelve. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. The Harris County District Attorney is actually being investigated for using county resources to investigate members of a Grand Jury, two judges and a fucking political opponent. To say that’s some shady-ass shit is to put it mildly. For those of you who don’t follow local criminal justice matters, and if you don’t shame on you, or only know the criminal justice system from inside County Jail or because you got a traffic ticket I’ll try and ... Read More »

WORST OF HOUSTON 2011 ” The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.” - Friedrich Nietzsche They say sunlight is the best antiseptic. They also say a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.  Why those are relevant, I don’t know. But we are proud to offer up our annual Worst of Houston list this year in our continuing efforts to make Houston a better place by exposing some of it’s worst components. We can’t vouch for factual accuracy, positive motivation, or anything else for that ... Read More »

By Alex Wukman After literally decades of complaining by progressives, cycling advocates and inner-loopers Houston City Council did the unthinkable and approved a bike sharing program. The initiative was passed on Wednesday December 21, Council’s last day of business for the year, and will be run by the company B-Cycle, who already have had similar contracts in Denver and Chicago. In 2011 the company began an impressive expansion program in the South and Mid-West, two regions traditionally under-served with bike share programs by adding San Antonio in March, Omaha, Nebraska in June and Broward County, Florida in November.  Unlike older, ... Read More »

By Alex Wukman Dallas area street/graffiti artist Evero was recently sentenced to six months in jail and given a job offer from Dallas’ “graffiti czar,”attorney John Barr. Barr is known throughout the DFW area as something of an anti-graffiti crusader. In an era when walls painted by celebrity London street artist Banksy can sell for  around $400,000 and cities across the globe are working to protect street art by creating legal graffiti spaces, sentencing a street artist to jail seemed a little old fashioned. It also seems strange that, in a time of severe budget shortages, cities keep spending money ... Read More »