FilioScotia

The story that Coca Cola created the red and white image of Santa Claus has been around for a long time but it's not true. The white bearded Santa dressed in red has been around a lot longer than Coca Cola. Here's the true story on my favorite myth debunking site Snopes dot com. http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/santa.asp And by the way, your pics of the drive from Houston to Lufkin are great. I'm from Angelina County and I've made the drive from Lufkin to Houston and Houston to Lufkin at least half a million times over the past six decades, and I know every one of the spots where you stopped and took a picture.

Well let's see. Dateline 1973. I'm betting it would be the same boat shed where Houston police found a number of the bodies of teenagers murdered by mass murderer Dean Corll. It was also where one of his accomplices, Elmer Wayne Henley, borrowed TV reporter Jack Cato's car phone to call his mother and make that tearful confession "momma -- I killed Dean". How'm I doing?

That "mountain" in north Pasadena is actually a huge above ground chemical waste sludge pit contained by an earthen dam built around it. It's been there since WWII. I grew up in Pasadena in the 50s and I climbed to the top of that thing at least several times. I can also tell you it's a lot bigger now than it was when I was a kid. At least twice as big and a lot higher.

It's at http://www.houstonforeclosureinfo.com/ But it's managed by a local realtor, so caveat emptor.

I'm talking about downtown Houston -- not the Galleria area. For years the downtown buildings would use their interior office lights to create gigantic designs visible for miles. Are you saying they just don't do it anymore because of political correctness?

Maybe I missed a memo or something, but what has happened to the tradition of lighting up the downtown skyscrapers during the holidays? I miss seeing the tall buildings use their interior lights to create giant holiday visual designs that can be seen for miles outside the downtown area. Are they really gone? Or, am I just not coming in to town at the right time of the night to see them?

Sooner or later it happens to everybody in the broadcasting business. It's just one of those things. And it doesn't just happen to newbies. It doesn't matter how long you've worked in a particular place, those old call letters will just slip out for no reason you can explain. It's usually funny when it happens, but the last time it happened to me it wasn't funny. Back in the early 90s, I was working the evening shift at KTRH doing hourly newscasts during the sports call-in show, and at the end of one of my casts I signed it off "Im Filioscotia, KPRC News". (not my real name of course) It had been fifteen years since I worked at KPRC Radio in the early and mid 70s, but for some reason, those old call letters just came out of nowhere and I didn't even know I'd said them until I heard myself saying them. As I said, it's usually funny because people who've been in the radio business any amount of time know that it's unintentional. However, at that time, 1991, let's just say that the person I was working for had not been in the business very long and knew nothing of those small inadvertant flubs radio people stumble over from time to time. This person thought I did it deliberately, and reamed me from one side of the building to the other for saying that other station's letters on KTRH. That person is no longer in the radio business. I am.

Maybe I missed a memo or something, but what has happened to the tradition of lighting up the downtown skyscrapers during the holidays? I miss seeing the tall buildings use their interior lights to create giant holiday visual designs that can be seen for miles outside the downtown area. Are they really gone? Or, am I just not coming in to town at the right time of the night to see them?

There were just two JD's. The old original on Elder, which has found new life as a loft apartment building. Then there was the bigger JD Hospital on Allen Parkway, on the property now occupied by the new Federal Reserve Building. A'propos of nothing in particular, that hospital on Allen Parkway was the county's only charity hospital for decades before Ben Taub was built in the Medical Center in the 1960s. It was where you went for care if you couldn't afford a private hospital or doctor. Even after Ben Taub opened, JD stayed open to take the spill over from Ben Taub. Over its lifetime, countless medical students at Baylor COM and UT Galveston did internships and residencies at JD. As recently as the 70s, my sister in law, who graduated from BCOM in 1976, was pulling med student residency shifts in the ER and OB ward at JD. It was finally closed sometime in the 80s and just sat there decaying until the county sold the property to developers a few years ago. Even in its state of decay, the old JD starred in at least one movie. Robocop II was filmed in Houston, and it was, arguably, one of the worst movies ever made. A number of its scenes were shot inside the old JD.

Excuse me? Does your radio not have an Off/On switch? Does it not tune to other radio stations? Is someone putting a gun to your head and forcing you to listen to Limbaugh? Nobody listens to anyone's "blabbering" unless they want to.

There are general assignment reporters whose only job is to cover an event and file a story. They're expected to just report what happened and who said what. Nothing more. There are "beat" reporters who're assigned a specific beat, like police, city hall, the courts, the legislature, Congress, etc. Those reporters are allowed more latitude, because so much of their reporting calls for some level of analysis of the goings-on, and commentary is unavoidable. Then there are reporters whose only job is to analyze and comment on issues in the news. Their columns are always labeled as "analysis and commentary", so readers know going in that they're going to get a boatload of the writer's opinions. The kind of reporting you mention with the CNN camerawoman is what's known as "advocacy" reporting, and it's controversial. Advocacy reporters take sides on issues and controversies, and while their reporting does often have good results, it's almost always devoid of objectivity. NPR and Pacifica reporters are infamous for this. They believe they are on the side of the angels. You get only one side of any given issue from these reporters, and speaking just for myself, I think they do the cause of honest journalism more harm than good. I say that because if an issue or problem is real, and people are being harmed, honest, balanced unbiased reporting will do more to solve the problem than the one-sided and often hysterical reporting from advocacy journalists.

That's complete BS. I've reported the news for more than 30 years and I'm here to tell you it is possible and it happens all the time. Countless reporters do it every day and don't have the first problem with it. The problem here is that people are confusing "reporting" with "analysis and commentary". A reporter's only job is to tell you what happened and what people said. Nothing more and nothing less. Just the unvarnished facts. It's really not hard at all, and any reporter who says it's not possible is just looking for an excuse for the opinions he or she wants to sneak into a story. It's also dishonest in the extreme, because it's used to justify a dishonest account of a news event. Far too many reporters today will tell you they became reporters so they could "change the world", but that's NOT a reporter's job. Any reporter who can't remember that needs to find another line of work and leave the commentary to those who're paid to analyze and offer up opinions. If they want to change the world they should go into politics or a ministry. In my own life I have a life long friend and fishing buddy whose political and social views are the complete opposite of mine. The only thing we agree on is that we don't agree on anything. My friend knows my position on all the big issues and controversies, but he tells me that my reporting on these issues reveals absolutely nothing about what my views are. He knows how I think, but he says he cannot see it in my stories, and I take that as a giant compliment. I work hard to keep my reporting honest and bias free, and I prove every day that it can be done, especially in stories about people and issues I don't personally agree with. I don't want people to be able to tell what my opinion is, and I do that because I don't think anybody cares what I think about anything. They just want to know what happened and who said what, and they want me to keep my opinions to myself.

KTRH, KPRC, KBME, and a bunch of other Clear Channel owned stations are all in the same suite of offices in a building over on the West Loop at San Felipe. Just one big happy family all under the same roof.

I say that as a long time reporter who places a very high value on my credibility, which should be every reporter's most precious asset. If the people I report to cannot trust me to tell them the truth at all times, and believe "absolutely" that what I am telling them about any given story is the truth, then I am of no use to them or to my employer. My personal opinions have no place in any story I cover and that's why I work hard to report the news as it happened. Any opinions expressed in my story are those of the newsmaker -- not me. That's why I think reporters who set up personal blogs to disseminate their opinions are doing irreparable harm to their crediblity. Yes, reporters have the right to have opinions, but I don't think they're helping the cause of honest journalism when they express their opinions in public. Because I know Carey's opinions on various issues, how can I trust him to present balanced and unbiased report on one of those issues on TV? That's the tight rope reporters have to walk, and if they can't walk it they should get out of reporting and set themselves up as commentators. As for Isiah Carey, I only went to his blog a few times, but I think his employer told him to shut it down because so much of his employer's "in house" dirty laundry was showing up there. If Carey was working for me and revealing private "in house" stuff to the public I wouldn't like it either. I really don't know why the blog is gone. That's just my opinion.

I don't remember that mono-rail EVER actually carrying passengers because it didn't go anywhere. It was just a short track built to test the feasibility and show the public what mono-rail looked like.

Their food was LOUSY. Awful. Putrido. They needed to go bankrupt and when they finally did nobody missed them. The handful of people who've signed on here to sing its praises may be the only people in Houston with good memories of Monterey House. Every time my wife and I ever tried to eat there we ended up with gastric attacks and monstrous flatulence. The new Monterey House Tex-Mex is a completely new outfit under new ownership, and by all accounts, the food is great. Larry Forehand knows how to run a restaurant. We eat at one of his Casa Ole's all the time.

Wow. New furniture. Now all they need is some real news anchors.

Nobody walks away from a middle six figure salary without a damn good reason. Something is going on behind the cameras that's driving women anchors away from KHOU and I'd give anything to know what it is. Foronda's own choice of words is telling. "...you could give me millions, and I wouldn't stay". She went on to say that she has "no idea" what she might do next, only that she will remain in Houston, and "I can guarantee 1,000 percent it will never be in television news again." You can forget about Marlene McClinton coming back. Remember she quit on the air one night and couldn't get out of there fast enough. I hope Foronda has one heckuva good gig lined up because, in this town at least, paychecks as big as the ones she was taking home are practically nonexistent outside the TV business.

Check out this item on BlogHouston dot net http://www.bloghouston.net/

Well, what would you call it? You are, after all, the one who is saying you have higher standards than the Archbishop. That's the same thing as saying his standards are not as worthy as yours, and it's loaded with the implication that you think those who don't share your enlightened views aren't as intelligent as you. I call that elitist snobbery.

Gosh! Imagine that! The person whose organization owns the structure, and the person most responsible for it, and who will be using it the most, having the unmitigated gall to tell the designer what he wants it to look like. What gall! Whoever heard of such a thing? What is it with you people? I've seen a lot of elitist snobbery in my time but you guys take the prize. You're living proof of something I've believed about architects for a long time. They don't design buildings for the people who will use them. They design them to impress other architects.

Gee I guess they should seek you out and apologize to you for offending your architectural sensibilities so egregiously, and apologize for not consulting you first. Maybe we should arrange for everybody in town planning to build something to submit their architectural designs to you for your approval. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You don't like the new cathedral design. Fine. That's your opinion, and you know what they say about opinions. Decision makers in the Archdiocese don't agree with you. They like the design and it's the one they're building. Where is it written that every structure must represent "important" or "memorable" architecture? And just who defines "important" and "memorable" anyway?

Thanks for the support, but Houston19514 isn't wrong in this. His information is more complete than mine. I was only trying to define the word "basilica" within its commonly understood Christian context, but the word predates Christianity in Roman culture by many centuries. Before the Christian era, a basilica was a secular structure of the type Houston pointed out. They were built as public markets, courts, assemblies, etc, and not necessarily for religious events. Not unlike the George R. Brown Convention Center, or Reliant Center. In the 4th century AD however, as Christianity became the official religion of Rome, Christians took over many public buildings and turned them to their own uses. They especially liked the large basilicas because they were perfect for large religious gatherings, so over many centuries, basilicas came to be identified with the Christian church. Basilicas aren't the only vestige of ancient Rome that's still around today. Think about local governmental divisions across the Roman Republic and later the Empire. The country was divided into provinces, the equivalent of modern states, and provinces were divided into Dioceses, the equivalent of modern counties. When the western empire collapsed in the fifth century, and the Church of Rome grew to replace the government that had disappeared, the church appointed Bishops to rule the local dioceses, and the term "diocese" survives today as the word for an area governed by a Bishop.

Surely you're kidding. O'Henry is not named for Henry Aaron. It's named for the popular 19th century newspaper man and short story writer from Austin Texas. whose real name was William Sidney Porter. And even the makers of Baby Ruth aren't a hundred percent sure where the name Baby Ruth comes from. There are several theories. The official "company line" is that it was named for former President Grover Cleveland's baby girl, Ruth Cleveland, but that's open to question. Babe Ruth the baseball player hadn't yet become a superstar when the candy bar made its debut. Here's a link to the confusing story and all the theories on Snopes dot Com. http://www.snopes.com/business/names/babyruth.asp And there's another candy bar named for John Kerry. Nut-Rageous.

The word "basilica" is used to describe the style of architecture that's been used in building churches since ancient times. It refers to form, instead of function. Whereas, the term "cathedral" refers to function instead of form. Here's what Dictionary dot com says about "basilica." "an early Christian or medieval church of the type built esp. in Italy, characterized by a plan including a nave, two or four side aisles, a semicircular apse, a narthex, and often other features, as a short transept, a number of small semicircular apses terminating the aisles, or an atrium. The interior is characterized by strong horizontality, with little or no attempt at rhythmic accents. All spaces are usually covered with timber roofs or ceilings except for the apse or apses, which are vaulted."