The Law of Unintended Consequences: The view from the Ivory Tower.

The US Government, long known for its accurate, science-based, sensible approach to try and coerce people to eat what the ruling class thinks they should, are obviously not happy that the traditional definition of alcoholism is not providing them with the horrible, problematic numbers that they desire, have now decided to move the goal posts in order to scare us all into never, ever touching a beer or having a glass of wine again....

Problem drinking affects 33 Million, 14% of US Adults. Lindsey Tanner, AP Medical Writer via HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)

(That's right kids, the Houston Chronicle is now placing AP copy behind their increasingly expensive firewall. Or, you can get the same article, for free, here)

The revised handbook, the DSM-5, defines problem drinkers or those with the disorder as people with at least two of 11 symptoms, including drinking that harms performance at work, school or home, frequent hangovers and failed attempts to limit drinking. Mild problems involve two to three symptoms; severe involve at least six symptoms. The new handbook combined alcohol abuse and dependence, which had been separate disorders, added craving as one symptom and eliminated alcohol-related legal problems as another.

In other words, if you drink, you're probably going to have 2 of the 11 "symptoms" that they have decided are indicative of a "condition".  Not only is that ridiculous, it's damaging to people who really do suffer from the horrible problems associated with true alcoholism.

These are the unintended consequences that arise when the government tries to shoe-horn into people's private lives and classify normal adult behavior as a 'disorder'.  It's not and it shouldn't be.

Enjoying an adult libation dates back to the ancient Egyptians, overindulging is hardly a new concept, nor is it something that makes one somehow ill, except in the crazy land of government health science.  We're to a point now that almost any behavior outside of that the vegetarian, naturapaths partake in is considered to be diseased behavior at some level or another.

Drink too much?  You have alcohol use disorder.  Eat too much, you have an eating disorder. Eat too much meat? You have a dietary disorder etc. etc.

None of it is true and it's all just a bunch of stuff dreamed up to try and stir up the populace and increase the government's control over our private lives and choices.  And, yes, the conspiracy theorists will say that this is all linked to Obamacare and the government wanting to mandate what you eat and drink going forward.

While I won't go that far, if you've ever dealt with a regulatory agency you realize that they're not smart enough to be able to operate with any degree of foresight, especially the foresight to carry out those plans, I do think that there are those in government who truly believe that they are the only things standing between the average American and a fat, slovenly life of idiocy and ignorance.  We call these people low-to-mid level bureaucrats.

Even worse, I fear that by dumbing down the idea of "problem drinking" this diminishes the personal crisis that people go through in cases of real alcoholism.  In recent years we've seen government reports that try and suggest a large portion of Americans are "addicted" to soda, sugar, salt, fat, steak, alcohol, eggs, processed foods and pretty much anything that is convenient and tastes good.  Doing this does not help the general public (never mind that most of the government's health advice is eventually proven wrong [see links at top of post]) but instead leads to confusion and distrust of the Federal guidelines that actually might hold some water.

What these chicken little proclamations really do is distract resources from those who have addictive personalities and who really need help.

If I could petition the government to consider one thing before releasing junk-science such as this it would be the following:

Is my behavior here hurting me or anyone around me in a material way?

By "material way" I mean is there any imminent risk of harm or death.  Don't tell me that drinking can lead to whatever symptom, so can life.  We're all dying we just don't know how fast yet.

If the answer to this is "no", then please, keep your study to yourself and leave me and mine alone.


Now, if you'll excuse me I believe that it's five o'clock somewhere.  A beer and burger sound like the correct response to this mess.

 

Houston Area Leadership Vacuum: Ken Hoffman makes a good point, buries it, and readers miss it entirely.

Reading through Ken Hoffman's recent piece on HISD Graduation parking fees made me realize something......

NRG Parking Fee and Insult at HISD Graduations. Ken Hoffman, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)

(The linked article is behind the Chron's increasingly expensive paywall. My quote here is very selective but please, if you can, go read the entire column)

This was a public-school graduation at a public facility. It wasn't professional entertainment, like a football game or a concert, where you expect to pay for parking.

The quoted piece, above, is the argument against the NRG complex charging the parking fee. Sure, Hoffman goes on to do what we all do, argue that many of the student's families attending the graduation might not be financially well off, but he needn't do that.  The argument against was in the quoted sentence above.

What Hoffman did, by making economic demographics the central figure of his piece is to politicize it needlessly.  Take the following response from the comments:

Well, I think life is too short to complain about a $12 parking and if you can't afford it, then you shouldn't be driving an uninsured car.

This is why, in the incredibly insipid world of anonymous online commentary, bringing a red herring into the argument such as demographics only serves to distort the argument for into something it is not.  By bringing in issues such as income inequality and demographics Hoffman all but ensured that his central point (this was a public event at a public-owned [albeit privately operated] facility) has been lost in a wave of anti-corporate, and anti-immigrant snark.

There are also a lot of commenters blaming NRG for this mess.  In fact, NRG only has the naming rights for the complex and had nothing to do with the decision to charge for parking.

If you want someone to blame, then look at the Harris County Sports Authority who neglected to carve out a 'public use' exception to the parking fee in the contract with the Texans and the Rodeo. Had Harris County the leadership to negotiate in this manner, issues of this type would not exist. Instead, it often feels like the lease to run the complex was nothing more than a giveaway on behalf of the County to Bob McNair*.

Should the Texans have offered parking for free?  Certainly. But, absent a contractual obligation to do so they were well within their rights to charge full-rate, regardless of the nature of the event. If you want to blame anyone, point your ire directly at the Harris County Sports Authority.











































*On another, tangential, note: Has there been another public figure who has fallen so far, so fast in public perception than Bob McNair?  From savior of football in Houston to nothing more than a greedy, conniving, miser who's doddering management style is not only ruining the Texans, but embarrassing and financially damaging the City of Houston as well.

 

Houston Area Leadership Vacuum: Why govern when the former newspaper of record is willing to campaign for you?

Representative Sylvester Turner is gone, long live Mayor Sylvester Turner?

Turner heads home to Houston, and Mayor's Race. Rebecca Elliot, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)

(In keeping with the Chron's wishes that no-one read their journalism, wishes they've doubled-down on by increasing the on-line subscription price to $3.50 per week, I will only quote selectively here)

With a knack for passionate, sermonizing speeches, Turner began focusing on juvenile justice and criminal justice reform, as well as public health policy and social services, advocating against state budget cuts that would impact welfare.

While the Chron does allow that some of Turner's votes "could" be of detriment to him, and quotes an opponent in the race, it really doesn't offer any unaffiliated criticism of Turner's tenure in the House other than a glowing quote from a political scientist praising Turner for not being a "bomb-thrower".

Overall it's very clear that the Chronicle fully expects Turner to be the next Mayor and is doing it's level best to get on his good side early.  Not that this is unusual for the Chron, which has shown a habit for writing puff pieces and glowing, slobbering stories that reflect their institutional sources in the best light possible.

If anything, the Chron has a weakness for the ruling class. Not just any politician mind you but those of the ilk who believe in rule of the masses by a select group of intellectual betters.  In short: progressives.

And, lest you think this is a Democrat/Republican thing they have been known to slather it on pretty thick when a so-called "conservative" consents to a progressive idea as well.  It's trinket governance that treats a certain type of politician as the trinket.

What this results in is a mass of 'leaders' who are under no pressure to lead. Freed from the burden of actually running the city and producing results today's elected officials choose instead to provide to their supporters, and fellow travelers such as the Chronicle, a series of baubles meant to distract.

This is why progressives are so enthralled with programs like the so-called 'one bin' recycling program. It's why parklets had a brief, inglorious, run for a news cycle and it's why dilapidated infrastructure and an our of balance pension system is considered 'junk-food' by what passes for political thinkers on the left.  Well, that and a fundamental lack of financial knowledge.

Even more damaging than trinket governance is the reality that Houston's elected officials are under little pressure from a watchdog media to keep their campaign promises.  True, some of the TV news stations are trying hard. (Ted Oberg of Channel 13 is one example) but TV news does not have the ability to deep-dive into government issues as does print news.  And, in Houston at least, there is no meaningful watchdog print journalism left in town.

So welcome back Representative Turner, to a city where the coronation appears to be already in progress and where there will be no expectation that you accomplish anything other than getting people a blue bin to put out in their yard.

Nice work if you can get it.

Texas PSA: You are now safe.

sine die.


It is now officially time to sort through the carnage and see what the unintended consequences will be from the bills that ultimately get signed by Gov. Abbott.

Oh, and wait for the inevitable special session on education funding that will be necessary when the judge rules.




*sigh*

Houston Area Leadership Vacuum: Time to audit Rebuild Houston

Remember Rebuild Houston?

The program designed (for the most part) by current Houston Mayoral Candidate Stephen Costello was sold as the answer to Houston's Life, it's Universe and it's Everything! (With apologies to the late, great, Douglas Addams)

On their website Rebuild Houston cites several projects, both completed and in progress, for which it takes sole credit in advancing. The biggest issue behind all of this is that we have no audited account that the statements are both true and accurate. These could be new projects that Rebuild Houston funded or they could be existing projects that were already on the books to which Rebuild Houston played an ancillary role.  The fact is we just don't know.

After the rains and flooding of last week, some of Houston's alt-media outlets are starting to take notice:

Refund Houston?? Jeffrey L. Boney, Houston Forward Times

After the most recent severe thunderstorm to hit the city, Houston taxpayers are beginning to wonder whether they should be asking city officials for a "refund" as opposed to continue to pay a drainage fee that is supposed to help the city "rebuild" its infrastructure.

While I think it's a little unfair to hold Rebuild Houston partially responsible for a 100 year flood event, I do think now is the right time to begin asking questions about a project that was sold, in part, as a way to lessen the impacts of major storms while improving Houston's crumbling infrastructure, an infrastructure that has been all but ignored by a succession of Houston Mayoral administrations.

The biggest problem with calling for any audit of this program is that it's unlikely to be implemented until after the upcoming city elections.  Current City Controller Ronald Green has performed very few audits since being elected to the position and he's currently embroiled in a nasty divorce. Because of this it appears that the role of auditing is going to fall to one of the aspirants of the office.

You would like to see some journalistic curiosity from Houston's mainstream media, and the most likely candidate to have this is Ted Oberg of ABC 13. You can probably write off the Houston Chronicle who are too busy celebrating their self-awarded Pulitzer Prize and running endless pictorials of women in bikinis then they are actually investigating anything.

Historically, Houston's City Hall has not been interested in taking a deep-dive look at anything unless their embarrassed into doing it.

That said, there might be some hope.

Earlier today Mayoral Candidate Bill King Tweeted about the issue and one would hope that this becomes a campaign issue. Granted, it's not likely to get much traction from the left, who consider infrastructure and basic city services to be "junk food" issues that obscure the more important items such as one-bin recycling so any movement for accountability is going to have to come from the center and the right. Given the relative dearth of good candidates in Houston from those political perspectives I've got little faith this is going to happen. For one, why would a liberal candidate such as Sylvester Turner want to turn off a rather large spigot of money that allows him to use other funds to purchase votes from a constituency that's largely in love with trinket governance?

In summary: I would love to see Rebuild Houston receive a thorough audit but, given the current state of political leadership in Houston, I'm not encouraged that it will every happen in a full and transparent manner.

Houston Area Leadership Vacuum: The Next Battle? Zoning.

On Friday, typically a news day that's used to sweep away publicly unfriendly news stories, the New Mrs. White launched a trial-balloon regarding what I believe will become the next big push from her and the unproductive class.

Outer Loop Envy? The New Mrs. White, ChronBlog

In this fight against unwanted growth, plenty of the small towns can rely on their own zoning laws and other strict construction codes to help guide development. These are tools that have largely been banished from Houston's City Hall.

While hardly a new concept, zoning proponents have typically pointed to other, more world classy one presumes, cities in support of their arguments.  The big problems with heavily zoned cities has always been two-fold.

1. They are prohibitively expensive in which to live. Unsaid is that, to new-urbanists, this is a feature and not a bug, serving to keep out the undesirables and ensure that what is built is almost primarily stuff white people like.

2. Segregation in these cities is a huge problem. And, yes, it's a problem that's growing in Houston as it becomes more new-urban as well.


The problem, for the New Mrs. White and her new New-Urbanist friends, is that Houston is not proceeding along the path to Houtopia quickly enough. There are not enough little walkable enclaves filled only with boutique storefronts and coffee shops reminding them of a white-washed version of those European cities they see on TV. Instead, in Houston, we get CVS that dares to want to have a parking lot.  In the new Mrs. White's view this mars a project, that won awards despite the fact, that prevent Houston from being inundated with praise from fellow new-urbanist/design types across the country.  The only thing worse than not being considered World Class(y) to New-Urbanists, is that thought that you might be ridiculed by other New-Urbanists for not having something they have in their versions of Utopia.

It's the ultimate city-wide game of "keeping up with the Jonses" and it ignores all of the things that make Houston distinct and great. It's also trying to undo years of developmental history without any cost/benefit analysis given to what is being proposed replacing it.

The New-Urbanists won on the issue of light rail. As a result Houston is now saddled with an expensive system that is more suited to becoming a quirky wedding venue than reducing congestion. If they win on the zoning issues, Houston could be in even worse shape.

At least they've given up on the thinly-veiled lie that was "form-based codes" and have owned up to what it is they really want.....full control and say over what is built inside the Loop, how it is built, when, and what private land-owners can do with it.  Private property rights be damned.

I can't help but wonder if the Chron has penned a "internal memo" laying out a call to arms in support of stripping away personal property rights in Houston?

Houston Area Leadership Vacuum: The battle over rail in Houston is finished.

For years now, since my first foray into blogging in 2006, I've been staunchly against Metro and their rail plans. I've blogged about the error of Metro's design both on this blog and it's many predecessors.

And I've lost.

Metro, Culberson announce agreement on transit. Katherine Driessen, Chron.com

Long-awaited rail complete, but discussion far from over. Dug Begley, HoustonChornicle.com ($$$)

I've long known that any objections forwarded on a small, hobby blog with a readership that wouldn't fill a cafeteria was going to have roughly the same impact as King Canute commanding the tide stop rising. Bad political ideas don't ever die, they just keep coming back until the opposition finally throws in the towel.

That's what happened with Rep. Culberson and it's what's happening with other opposition to Metro. Nevermind that the much ballyhooed 2003 referendum made promises Metro is not keeping (remember the promised uptick in bus service?), or that the agency has dug itself a financial hole from which escape will probably only be achievable through taxpayer bailout*, Houston wanted itself an inner-loop system to establish its world-classiness and it's going to build it come hell or high-water. (Which, amusingly, shuts down the train)

The Billions that have been spent on Light Rail are now a sunk cost. In accounting this means that they're off the table when discussing the on-going costs of the program.  They're spent, done, the books are closed and Metro can never get the money back to invest in projects that will actually have a chance at reducing congestion.

The plan that I envisioned (commuter rail from outside the city to terminus points and then circulator bus routes to get people close to Houston's multiple job centers) is as dead as Astroworld. Houston's biggest concern now is going to be the gentrification in neighborhoods that increasingly occurs as developers begin to cash-in on the decidedly "things white people like" aspects of the light-rail system.

Sure, those in the unproductive class will bemoan this, between Sunday morning mimosas probably, but the ship has officially sailed, so to speak.

So, congratulations to those of a new-urbanist lean, you've won, those of us in opposition, and Houstonians who reside outside the Loop, have lost as well.































*Of course, those who support rail will say this could never happen.  This ignores both the law of unintended consequences as well as the truism of politics that the primary solution to any problem is to increase the amount of money that is thrown at the problem.