H-Town Man

Perhaps I'm not very intelligent, and need to learn things from billboards that others already know. But I can think of a lot of situations, like the many charity announcements the article mentions, or the guy who needed a liver, or something involving one of the Med Center hospitals, or even the Chinese advertisements for Rockets basketball, where I have enjoyed having (some) billboards in town.

That courthouse in Austin looks absolutely soulless and inhumane. Seriously, they could use that exact picture for the cover of a Kafka novel. When did America start wanting to be like Europe?

Yeah, I wondered about that. For one thing, I had no idea we had such a strong billboard ordinance. But the "2009 OR 2013" thing sounds funny - it could easily turn into 2026, knowing the way these companies do court battles. I don't think I would want all of the city's billboards to be removed - the landscape would be too artificially clean, and we would lose a viable source of public information. But I would be perfectly happy if, say, 80% of them were to go, particularly those in scenic areas. I'm not sure White is going to get his wish with getting these 250 billboards removed. I expect that this little disagreement will go to the courts, where it is sure to move forward at a glacial pace.

I have mixed feelings about the new Chem-E building. It's rather austere, and doesn't mesh well with the other engineering buildings. I too saw that they are planning to tear down the Pavilion. Don't know why. Most of the teardowns I approve of, provided they replace those buildings with something decent. The Student Counselling Center is another building I would hate to see go. The choices they made for the list are interesting. One building that is conspicuously absent is the original Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, with its classical front and stair. The Military Sciences Building ("Honor... The Guiding Star") also seems deserving. Why Bolton, and not Leggett or Milner? Why Hart, and not Walton? Does anyone know the story of some of the buildings they've torn down in the past? You notice that half of the buildings on the Military Walk are gone. Some of those were pretty amazing, although thankfully the best (YMCA) was saved.

Texas A&M has announced a new campus master plan over the summer. The plan will guide campus development over the next fifty years. It essentially condemns most of the building practices of the last forty years, during the school's "crisis period of growth," calling them sprawling and non-contributive towards the traditional campus. The buildings that A&M students love and cherish, the "campus of memory," is said to be found among the older, more urban-style buildings. Future development will be a return to this urban style. The plan calls for new quads, defining of new spaces (and redefining of the old, like O.R. Simpson drill field), removal of parking to the perimeter of campus, and a major increase of density in the historical parts of campus. There are also recommendations on how to improve the quality of architecture; and a landscape plan, which includes turning major arteries such as Wellborn and University Dr. into tree-lined boulevards and preserving natural areas such as the White Creek Greenway. The plan is exciting, as anyone who looks at some of the drawings will attest. It has already won awards from the Boston Society of Architects and a similar Austin-based society, which says that this is the first time they have given their award to a plan instead of a building. It contains interesting discussions of the history and values involved in campus planning, including references to the principles of the French Ecole des Beaux Arts. Anyone interested in the architectural future of one of the nation's five largest universities would enjoy skimming through. www.tamu.edu/campusplan As I looked up this link, I noticed that just yesterday the University President dedicated 16 historic campus buildings as "worthy of preservation," citing them as evoking the values and traditions of the school. Also, a new building in the planning stages, the landmark $100 million Life Sciences Center, is to "rigorously adhere" to the principles set forth in the campus plan. It looks like the school is excitedly adopting this vision.

I've seen it from my car a few times. The official dedication is Nov. 18 I believe, and they still have some work to do on it before then. It's twelve rectangular boxes arranged in a circle, each facing in the direction of one of the students' home towns. Very powerful and tasteful.

I agree with you about Texas courthouses, dbigtex, and I loved your post on the other board about how people used to take pride in govt. buildings, but then in the anti-communist backlash they started complaining about tax dollars being used to make something look nice. Some of my favorite courthouses across the state: Lockhart Waxahachie La Grange (undergoing restoration) Ft. Worth San Antonio San Angelo Gonzales Hallettsville Uvalde

I don't want to darken anyone's pride in their local school. Basically what I heard from students at Klein Oak is that the teachers don't stay after school with them the way they do at Klein, the academic extra-curricular activities (like Academic Decathlon) aren't very strong, etc. When I told students I had graduated from Klein, it made an impression on them. In a perfect world, all the schools would be equal. But schools are the hardest things to build up - it takes years to gather the kind of faculty and tradition of academic success that makes for a well-oiled machine. When I was at Klein there were teachers who had been there for thirty years, who had Ph.D.'s and had taught college, who had come to Klein from other schools because it was where they wanted to teach, etc. You just don't get that overnight. The IB program is a nice thing, but the bread and butter of competitive high schools is AP - who has the most AP courses. AP classes are created on demand, so having a lot of them means you have students who want to push the boundaries. I don't know what the current tallies of AP courses are at the different schools, but I would trust that more than any other statistic (not that statistics are very trustworthy) in comparing the schools. One very good indicator of a strong math/science program is whether the AP Calculus class is Calculus-A, or if there is also a Calculus-AB, which means that it is taught with vectors. When I was at Klein we had the students interested and faculty who were willing to teach the AB, but the administration was sluggish to create it. Some of my friends in college from Cy-Fair schools had had it. As it was, almost every student in the Calculus-A classes scored a 5 (perfect) on their exam, so it was kind of ridiculous that we didn't have the AB. Now that I think about it, it's kind of ridiculous that we even worry about comparing high schools. If there's anything that students in our suburban high schools need, it's not competitive academic programs, it's an atmosphere that is conducive to one's finding oneself, and not just rushing to get into a good college and make money. Looking back, I wish that I had done something like FFA, which could have really given me a new perspective, but instead I was just rushing to stack up my AP courses and GPA (which the teachers and counsellors encouraged). That left me with a lot of things to figure out my first year in college.

I substitute taught at the Klein schools last year. It surprises me that Klein Forest is considered exemplary. I'll just leave it at that (this is not to comment on the faculty, just the student environment). Klein Oak is a nice school, but the most high achieving students there were basically bummed out that they weren't at Klein or Klein Collins. Those two schools seem to have the highest morale, and strongest academics. Btw, this is funny... I went to Klein High School, back before Klein Collins was built. As far as we were concerned, when you went north or south (to Oak or Forest), you left the acropolis. It was like leaving Rome for Carthage. I'll never forget, after the Klein band directors got outvoted by the directors of Oak and Forest on some issue of music policy, our director giving us this speech that "the two runts don't tell the stud how to do his thing." (something like that, anyway)

Plano and Plano East used to each have around 6,000. They must have finally built another school in that district. I know Elkins used to have over 4,000. Wonder what happened. And Westfield used to only have like 2,500. How did they get over 4,000? BayouCityGirl... did you know a girl named Holly Gregory, or a guy named Matthew Caldwell? They used to be friends of mine in college. Probably graduated in '98. All these big high schools may look neat, but if people cared enough about what's best for kids, the largest high schools wouldn't have much more than 1,000.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, C.E. Barglebaugh... Those Chicago guys really knew how to design a building.

First, did I ever say I was opposed to military action in those countries? Secondly, one thing that kind of sticks out about Saddam is that he was in charge of one of the most powerful militaries in the world, and posed a volatile threat to the region. Even Clinton made it a matter of internal policy to bring about regime change in Iraq. I am not using the "brutal dictators" excuse. I am not even arguing about the war, so much as I am using the case of the war as part of a different argument. Whether the invasion of Iraq was actually justified is immaterial to that argument. You could do me a favor and actually read my posts carefully before responding to them.

You're a nice guy, Montrose, but sometimes I think that you're in a completely different argument with a different person, and I'm getting the responses from that argument instead of this one. Who is shoving religion down your throat? How did this devolve into a discussion about why people choose to believe in God? dbigtex... go to Bush's State of the Union address of 2003, before the invasion of Iraq, and you will see that the "excuse" of overthrowing a brutal dictator did not come "much later." In fact it came right at the same time as the argument about weapons of mass destruction, which sober-minded individuals in both parties believe was valid right up to the time of the war. As for myself, I don't know what we knew about weapons of mass destruction, and whether they justified the war or not. The brutalities of Saddam Hussein's regime are not lost upon me, and for that reason alone I think that this war was a worthwhile thing, regardless of what Bush's or anyone else's intentions actually were. The sad fact of the matter is that most people would rather just hate Bush and concoct arguments about oil than actual consider the human realities of what is going on on the other side of the world. Although it is experiencing troubles right now, I think that in the long run Iraq will be a much happier country than it was before, and they will owe it to President Bush's decision to go to war.

First of all, why do you assume that any person who governs according to what he believes is God's will will invade a country for oil? One could just as easily, in fact more easily, be opposed to such an invasion on the grounds that it is against what God would want. Secondly, isn't this idea that Bush invaded Iraq for oil something that you're assuming? What makes you so sure that this is the sole, or even most powerful reason for Bush's actions? I admit it is a theory, usually put forth by cynics who hated Bush long before the invasion. But isn't it possible that he invaded Iraq to change a ruthless dictatorial regime to a free country - and that he believed that such a change is what God would want? This is not to start an argument on why Bush invaded Iraq, but rather to point out some of the assumptions you are relying on in your refusal to admit that a nation can be governed by people doing what they think is right according to God. You seem to be dodging the issue.

Why do you assume that, if the government does what's for the "best," it would oppose God or be sinful? Clearly anyone who believes in God would think that following His will is always for the best, even if it doesn't seem like it in the short term. I don't know what you mean by "if the government was religious." It seems like you have certain assumptions regarding religion. Just because governments in certain religious societies have taken certain forms, doesn't mean that any government whose members are religious has to. I would imagine that for most of our nation's history, most of the people in our government have been religious, and have made the decisions they thought were the best according to their beliefs.

He's probably been looking for you all your life. The best advice I can give for anyone who has not found God, and wants to, are these three mysterious words: "humble your heart."

Separation of church and state is an often misunderstood thing. The goal of the framers of our Constitution was to prevent there being any sort of alliance between the new government and a religion; religion meaning a human institution characterized by certain beliefs about divinity. This was the case in Europe, where the Catholic clergy often mixed seamlessly with the nobility. What separation of church and state does not mean is that people should be prevented from expressing their faith through actions of government, when their faith tells them that this is necessary. So for example, the faith of many Americans tells them that the human being is sacred, even when an individual has done wrong. Hence, our country does not practice or condone torture. Our opposition to torture comes from this view of humanity as being sacred, as do all of our rights, and this view of humanity comes from religion. It may have been expressed at some point in non-religious terms, but trust me, it would never have arisen without religious faith. The same thing is true for many other laws, as well as symbolic actions such as putting "In God We Trust" on coins. The fact is, if we were to practice our government entirely without reference to God, it would still endorse a belief - that of atheism. You can't have it both ways. Think about it. Either you believe that the world is governed by God, or you don't. If you do believe so, why would you ever try to conduct something as mind-boggling as the government of a nation without His help? Why would you make laws affecting millions of people without mulling over what you think He would want? To decide laws and form policies without considering God's wishes already assumes an atheistic mindset. If the majority of our population ever becomes atheist, then I imagine our government will take on an atheistic character. But in the meantime, we can base our decisions on our faith in God without allying the state with a religion, and so we can thus have a "nation under God" while still maintaining "separation of church and state."

Actually, grade inflation is a well known problem at Harvard and Yale. I'm not making this up. A few years ago it was found that 89% of Harvard students graduate with some sort of honor. Both schools have in the past been notorious for the proportion of students earning A's or B's (presumably because of the high status of students and contributions of their families), and have in the past few years been trying to do something about it. My alma mater (U. of Chicago) perpetually made fun of the Ivy Leagues for handing out A's (although Chicago has a bit of a chip on its shoulder). The Bushes were a prominent New England family of original Yankee stock, who can trace several famous people (including I believe George Washington) on their family tree. Bush's dad was a Yale alum, and a member of Congress at the time his son got accepted. This is not intended as an argument for or against Bush.

Really? Because I thought the 9/11 attack was entirely George W. Bush's fault. Thanks Ricco.

Which ones did you post? Mine were #384 and #568. Let me guess. You posted about a hundred. I'm not sure which ones, but I suspect that the one about the view of downtown from 288 was from you. And some of the big paragraph ones. And at least one of the "Where else can you..."s.

Stupid? One of these days, someone's going to buy that thing. And while we've added new wrinkles to our forehead from years of hand-wringing and frustration, they'll be counting out their four million dollars. Evil, yes. Stupid, no.

I got this e-mail from the folks at "Houston. It's Worth It." THANKS Thanks to you, HIWI has taken off beyond our wildest expectations. Your contribution to the site has helped make "Houston. It's Worth It." the unofficial slogan for our great city. HIWI ENTRIES HIT 1000! The HIWI website received reason why it's worth it #1000 on September 2nd at 7:33 am., less than three months after the site went live. We've also had hundreds of thousands of hits on the site. Considering we expected about 12 people to write in (including family and friends), we

From what I understand, the editor (Jeff Cohen) is trying pretty hard to make this a great newspaper. There've been a lot of changes and upgrades the last few years, such as the Bivins -> Sarnoff upgrade, of which I think we all approve. I get the feeling he's trying to improve everything he can, while at the same time keeping the paper profitable in difficult economic times (esp. for newspapers). The circulation is ticking up ever so slightly, which is about as good as can be expected. That said, there are things I do not love about the Chronicle. But I get the feeling that the people involved in this decision all would like an architectural critic, it's just the business side of it that is being debated.

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