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Monday, June 23, 2008
Beldar on WaPo on Houston
Okay, I'm a Houston booster. Houston has been berry, berry good to me, and I admit to having a chip on my shoulder about how unfairly it's usually portrayed by the national media. (To Hollywood, it simply hasn't existed since Terms of Endearment, Urban Cowboy, or Apollo 13.)
So when I read this WaPo article about how Houston is faring in the age of $4+/gallon gasoline, I was prepared to find something to bristle at and denounce. Maybe it's just that if you live and work in Washington, D.C., you don't have much room to complain about humidity and mosquitoes; and surely the WaPo writers are used to people with healthy, even over-sized, egos. But in any event, I found nothing in particular to get mad about.
Now if only they could apply that same objectivity to Barack Obama!
Posted by Beldar at 06:31 AM in Energy, Film/TV/Stage, Mainstream Media | Permalink
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Comments
(1) John made the following comment | Jun 23, 2008 8:13:00 AM | Permalink
Hey, your link to the WaPo article is broken; it leads to your book archive.
(2) John made the following comment | Jun 23, 2008 8:19:48 AM | Permalink
OK, found it.
I moved here from DC in 2004. I thought I'd never leave Washington - not because my job had anything to do with the gov't, but because I loved living there - and I fell for Houston. My DC friends who've visited has generally found that Houston is nothing like what they would have thought.
The two cities have some things in common (besides brutal summer weather - it's worse in DC because you have to walk around in it a lot more). The nation has a particular view of them that's at odds with reality; in DC, it's the real city where normal people live and work that is nothing like the bureaucratic capital people imagine. It's lively, fun, cosmopolitan, quirky, sometimes charming, sometimes annoying, always interesting - much like Houston.
Interestingly enough, I've met a surprising number of former Washingtonians like myself here. Once you adapt to humidity there's no going back, I guess!
(3) Gregory Koster made the following comment | Jun 23, 2008 8:38:43 AM | Permalink
Dear Mr. Dyer: John is right, your link takes you to your review of the TV adapation of JOHN ADAMS. Here's the link to the article:
Your blog post also has been cut off in the middle, missing at least one word at the end. I'd like to read it, and the rest.
Sincerely yours,
Gregory Koster
(4) El Jefe Maximo made the following comment | Jun 23, 2008 11:09:05 AM | Permalink
I've been in Houston, off and on, since college...and I think it gets an unfair shake in the national media also. But I'm not that eager for the media to turn into Houston boosters either, or all the Californians and east coasters will come here.
(5) Leif made the following comment | Jun 23, 2008 11:33:59 AM | Permalink
Beldar,
You're too unkind in your summary of Hollywood's treatment of Houston. Even before we were nuked in Independence Day, we were home to Winona Ryder in Reality Bites.
(6) Beldar made the following comment | Jun 23, 2008 1:34:16 PM | Permalink
Link's fixed — many thanks!
I don't think the post got cut off, though. It just ends abruptly, which was intended as a transition of sorts to the next post.
(7) Gregory Koster made the following comment | Jun 23, 2008 2:49:45 PM | Permalink
Dear Mr. Dyer: This morning when I read it, the post ended at "...even oversized," without the last two lines. Now it is fine. Or maybe it was fine all the time and I was at fault.
Sincerely yours.
Gre
(8) DRJ made the following comment | Jun 23, 2008 11:13:00 PM | Permalink
I don't know if your slice of West Texas was like mine, Beldar, but where I grew up we believed there were two kinds of people: Those who liked Dallas best and those who liked Houston best. That tells you all you need to know about a person.
I like Houston best.
(9) Beldar made the following comment | Jun 24, 2008 1:01:04 PM | Permalink
DRJ: To choose a phrase of praise from a popular wordsmith: Dallas is likable enough.
But my choice to live in Houston was made after having split the summer between my second and third years of law school clerking in Dallas and Houston. I liked both firms (and, ironically, ended up later on as a partner in a newly-opened Houston office of the Dallas-based firm, Thompson Knight). I've tried cases there, and of course I've had lots of business with and against Dallas-based lawyers.
But Houston fits me better.
However, my older brother and his wife both went to professional schools here in Houston, and she's from Conroe originally, but they're quite happy living in a DFW-area suburb and much prefer it to the Houston area. From this, I conclude that the affinity isn't genetic.
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