Robert W. Boyd

I really wish they'd get the Bayou City Arts Festival out of Memorial Park. It's a terrible location for such a big event. There's no parking and only two ways into and out of the park.

I went jogging this afternoon and the park was getting trashed.

I really hated seeing people have such total disregard for the park (parking on lawns/fields, not putting their trash in the trashcans, smoking and walking 6 abreast on the trail, etc...).

I went to the festival and didn't notice people parking on the grass and generally saw a bunch of well-behaved arts-n-crafts browsers. I assume (but don't know for sure) that most of the attendees came by the free shuttle buses provided. One from Northwest mall (I took that one) and one from downtown somewhere.

Sorry we spoiled your jog.

Sears is closing at Greenspoint in May 2010.

And I thought Greenspoint was going back uphill.

It's a bad time to be a mall. Especially one that was already struggling.

I work just down the street from the mall, and I wish it were better. I have shopped at Macy's, but the mall interior struck me as underlit and depressing (I haven't been in it for about a year, though--it may have improved).

According to the Chron, BCM has decided to go it alone. (For now.)

If it was Baylor U. that killed the deal with Rice (which is what I have heard), BCM may have had pretty bad feelings towards Baylor, to say the least. BCM also had to wonder what Baylor was bringing to the table. Anything?

While I have nothing at all against Baylor U and have known many people over the years who attended or were alums of that school, it seems Baylor acted pretty poorly in this matter, and as a result are ending up with nothing.

I spoke with a professor at Rice who was sort of in a position to know what happened, and he gave me his version of the story of the failure of the Rice-BCM talks and the part in that failure played by Baylor University (a BIG part).

At the risk of seeming like a complete blog whore, I'm going to link to my blog post about it.

In short, it looks like Baylor U. played a sneaky and decidedly unchristian waiting game, letting Rice do a lot of heavy lifting and then musciling them aside once the bucks were all lined up.

The Chron doesn't have much yet:

Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University have ended 15 months of negotiations aimed at merging the two elite Houston schools. In a joint statement sent to faculty staffs and students today, Rice President David Leebron and Baylor President Dr. William Butler gave no reason for the collapse of the talks. Just four months ago, they hinted a deal might be in place by the end of this month.

I wonder what this means for Leebron.

The question of which areas have the most crime (or highest crime rate) is tricky to answer.

1) total crime versus crime rate. Different areas of Houston have different population densities. Also, different neighborhoods are different sizes. So if you add up all the crimes in a big neighborhood and compare that to a small neighborhood, it may make the big neighborhood appear more dangerous when in fact the crime rates are identical or even even greater in the small neighborhood. Consequently, I think one should look at crime rates versus total number of crimes. (That, of course, makes the task harder.)

2) What is the purpose of figuring out the crime rate neighborhood by neighborhood (or zip-code by zip-code, or police beat by police beat)? If it is to figure out the chance that you, as a resident in, worker in, or visitor of a particular location are in greater or lesser danger of crime, then you should look at crimes that happen to random people. So property crimes would be the best measure.

3) For this reason, murder rates are probably not the best way to look at crime in a particular area. For the most part, murders aren't random. Acquaintances (particularly spouses and significant others) are common murder victims. People involved in criminal activities (drug dealers) are often victims. It may be that there is a strong correlation between the murder rate and other crime rates. But I think it is better to look at other crimes than murder.

I would definitely like to see a crime map of Houston with crime rates for each census tract (which are divisions used by the census that are smaller than zipcodes). I would like it to include all crimes, and see versions for more specific crimes (assault, burglary, car burglary, robbery, etc.). That would give you a really good idea of which areas are the safest and most dangerous in Houston, and probably would contain a few surprises.

LOL, I was waiting for this post. There was an op-ed piece three weeks ago (which I guess you missed, or at least muttered sulkily as you read it) in which three BIOMEDICAL faculty (not four Arts faculty), and one arts for that matter, supported the merger. Oh and Rice's President too, forgot about him. Apparently four years at Rice has taught you just to see what you want to see and hear what you want to hear. Seems like a waste of money to me.

You'll note how I didn't lurch on to HAIF when that editorial was published, as you have done with this one, because I know that everyone's mind is pretty much made up on this merger, yours and mine included, and in doing so I would have achieved little beyond burdening the Internet with more pointless bytes of information. As you have done.

Actually, I have a BA and an MBA from Rice, so it's more like 6 years--not that it's relevant. I did see the earlier editorial you mention--I thought it added nothing to the debate. It was a rehashing of the synergies argument with no evidence to back up the claims. As for knowing that "everyone's mind is pretty much made up" on this merger, mine wasn't. When the merger talks were announced last year, I was in favor of it (based on what I knew at the time). Over the course of the past year, as BCM's financial problems have been publicly revealed and have worsened, I have changed my mind. I am basing my opinion on observable facts (you can look at both Rice's and BCM's financial statements on line, and BCM's deteriorating credit rating has been reported by Bloomberg). Unlike you, I am not forming an opinion based on the messenger. (By the way, three of the faculty members who signed that editorial came from science and engineering disciplines--not that I think that matters.) Furthermore, I am still willing to change my mind. If someone from the pro-merger side will explain why my concerns over BCM's finances are unwarranted, I will listen. Believe me when I say that I have been waiting for someone to deal with this issue for a while now--but all I hear are more talk about "synergy" and "prestige" and Rice's duty to prop up an important Houston institution, BCM.

I have not forgotten Rice president Leebron. On the contrary, I think he is an empire builder who is willing to take excessive risks in exchange for growing Rice. This is demonstrated by his huge construction programs on campus, and especially by the Bioscience Collaborative Research facility. This facility was paid for with debt (an approach I strongly disapprove of) and was intended to be the platform for increased collaborative research with other TMC institutions--indeed, it was meant to obviate the need for a medical school. One can agree with his growth strategy or not. I think Leebron is acting recklessly, as so many corporate CEOs have done in the past.

Maybe my publicizing this information won't change anyone's mind. If so, the only time I wasted was my own. I'm sure the internet can handle the "burden"--it seems pretty robust in that regard. But when other people started pointing out BCM's problems, it awakened doubts in my mind. My mind was changed on this issue by new information. Perhaps not everyone's mind is made up, as you claim.

I took some photos of this amazing and unusual church complex.

That's on the south side of the church, in front of the small(er) building in the southeast corner.

The front of the main building.

You can see more on my blog.