Based on recent editorials one would be wrong.
Road Squeeze. The New Mrs. White, Chron.com
Improving efficiency and applying best practices can provide the traffic equivalent of adding an extra lane - all without the cost of construction. For example, synchronized lights can reduce traffic delays by up to 25 percent and improve drivers' fuel efficiency by about 5 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.This is all well and good but the things that actually help traffic are called sequenced, or coordinated, lights. Light synchronization would turn every light red/yellow/green at the same time. Hence the term "being in sync".
Textbooks, again. The New Mrs. White, Chron.com
But the greater problem is that we elect these board members with no guarantees of knowledge or experience in the education field. Consequently, many see it as a stepping-stone to a higher office, or a platform for their ideological or political preferences.A recurring theme with the New Mrs. White (and her past iterations) is an annoying tendency to blame either "voters" or "the system" (which was, not coincidentally, voted in by the voters) for almost anything that she, or her fellow travelers, doesn't like. In matters of Texas Text Books, Houston Light Rail, area preservation, urbanization, wanting us to be more like some other city that's perfect but not perfect and refusing to elect the 'right', bright people it's the citizens of Texas who are to blame. This reduces problems from something that need to be addressed to something that needs to be dictated away by whomever it is the elite consider to be the smartest person in the room.
For Mrs. White, it's usually someone outside of the State government (all of them being conservative republicans after all) or (for local issues) someone within the City Government. Her overarching them is that the people, you and I, are too stupid and insipid to make their own decisions. That more of you are making the decision to stop supporting ChronBlog financially is viewed as a symptom of your ignorance, not result of their continually writing against the interests of the paying customer.
A Teachable Moment. The New Mrs White, Chron.com
We need to talk about corporal punishment in this country; we need to question whether hitting or slapping or whipping a child is ever appropriate. And while we're at it, we might ask whether a child who's beaten ever truly heals, regardless of whether the punishment is "for his own good."Anecdotal evidence, taken from an extreme case, as evidence for a broader, mainstream call to arms is a favorite tactic of the New Mrs. White in the current form and in all of her previous iterations. Taking a switch off of a tree and (allegedly) whipping a 4 year old until they bleed and have bruising is a far cry from what most of us would consider "spanking".
Only warped mind of an activist do such extreme cases occasion the removal of day to day freedoms. In short, that is what The New Mrs White/The Apple Dumpling Gang/The Artist Formerly Known as Mrs. White/Mrs White are, an activist for progressive causes who occasionally write a supposedly industry/Republican friendly bone in order to paint herself right down the middle. Quite frequently, these 'right-leaning' editorials are done to preserve political access or throw a bone to advertisers.
Lest we forget, this is a for-profit enterprise that we've allowed to construct a profitable narrative about how the world works all the while being held to no logical/accuracy/writing standards of its own.
It's far past time the Chron shut down this waste of resources and redeploy the cost/space savings to local reporting.
