Was reading a lovely rant by a Houston native about this Salon article bashing the city for being, well, a city.
“Strip malls and strip clubs. There’s a Gap on every corner next to a Starbucks,” says Tracy Delmer, a speech pathologist who has lived here all her life. “It’s all about trying to make your strip mall prettier than the other strip mall down the street.”
Oh, please. Even a relative backwater like College Station has problems like that, if you want to get worked up about it. Doesn’t every city in the US? And is it worth getting upset over? Surely there are better things to worry about. And surely someone had something more relevant to say; in a piece namely about Enron’s failure as emblematic of Houston business and politics, that quote is terribly misplaced.
Take this line, for example:
Why did Enron happen here in Houston? And can anything be done to prevent the next catastrophe?
I don’t wonder why Enron happened. Corporate greed and ass-covering is nothing new. A better question would be, how many people overlooked it? And does it really have anything to do with being based in Houston, or does it maybe have more to do with being in bed with every Republican currently holding a national office? The two do not necessarily go hand in hand.
I’m shocked to reach the end of the piece and find that the author grew up in Clear Lake. She seems to have left her reporting skills behind when she left for the Bay; she didn’t even get the bumper sticker slogan right (and if she remembers the Houston Proud song, she really ought to remember the sticker as well). I sincerely hope Salon’s readership is smart enough to question her assertions.
(via What She Really Thinks via Electrolite.)