Of Freeway Walls and Windy Man

I-610 Southbound Feeder at Bissonnet St. in Bellaire

As with most cities, Houston's freeways always seem to be under construction. However, since I moved away from there in 1992, there seems to be an new concern about aesthetics. All the new freeways are being built with attention to how they look and fit in with the surrounding neighborhoods.

Let's start out with the photo above. I took this while sitting at the stop light on the southbound feeder of the West Loop (I-610) at the intersection with Bissonnet Street, which crosses from left to right. In this photo, you can see the brick retainer walls used at the interchange. This is not an inexpensive proposition at all.

In actuality, this photo is not technically in Houston, but rather in the city of Bellaire, a small town completely within the Houston city limits. This is a town that in recent years has undergone gentrification in a big way, as small homes built in the 1940s & 50s are torn down and replaced by huge custom homes. This same phenomenon is occurring near Denver University's campus as well. While the transition is taking place, many older homes are sold for very high prices just for the purpose of tearing them down. One of the reasons Bellaire is so desirable is its proximity to the Texas Medical Center. I don't know if the interchange is partly paid for by Bellaire taxes or not, but it is known for its extremely high tax rates, along with its tree lined boulevards.

This photo gives you a peek at another phenomenon of Texas' freeways; the Texas Turnaround. Since the feeder streets are one way, traffic engineers have implemented U-Turn lanes under or over a freeway just before the cross street intersection happens. This allows motorists to get to the opposite side feeder going back the other way without waiting through the lights at the cross street and feeders. I can tell you from first hand experience, this is a simple, but major improvement.

Another new freeway wall design of note in Houston is the reconstruction of the Katy Freeway (I-10 on the west side of town). I did not take the following photo and don't remember where I got it, so if the owner objects, I will remove it. I actually hope to get a shot of my own when I get back down there. In any case this is the new freeway design on the Katy. Different intersections have the big star in different colors. Very striking, and maybe a bit overwhelming.


Katy Freeway retainer wall

The city of Sugar Land southwest of Houston has its own new freeway design as well. The Southwest Freeway (US 59) now has California-style HOV lanes with solid stripes in the middle, rather than full-blown, separated HOV lanes. The new design includes tall pillars topped with the city symbol, a crown within a Texas star. The crown alludes to the Imperial Sugar Company, the business that started Sugar Land and gave the town its name. In the photo below, you can see a Jeep Grand Cherokee coming out of the Texas Turnaround to head back northeast on the Freeway feeder street.



Freeway walls have not been without controversy in another part of Texas. Lubbock, home to Buddy Holly, Mac Davis, and other music notables, has a state highway loop, Texas 289 (Martha Sharp Freeway), that circles the city. I was there in June of 2004 and saw some of the construction for myself. One thing I saw there caused a tremendous controversy by some fundamentalist Christian wackos. Unfortunately, I didn't shoot a photo of it myself, but here is the official picture from the TxDOT web site:


Lubbock's "Graven Image", the pagan Windy Man

The issue was that TxDOT had carved images in the walls, one of which was known as the Windy Man. He was basically a depiction of the head of old man Winter, blowing air. Well, the fundies decided this was a pagan abomination to the Lord God, creator of heaven, earth, and Waffle Houses; what with it being a graven image of a pagan deity or some such thing.

Now you have to understand that Lubbock has the well deserved reputation of being the most conservative city in America, so apparently that includes religious conservatism. So after the image was continually being defaced and vandalized, no doubt by good Christian folks, TxDOT decided to remove them. This cost the taxpayers of Texas more than the cost of installing them during freeway construction.

Of Highways, Tolls, and Another Sign Goof

Denver, Colorado skyline from I-25 southbound - Click for larger view

Denver is the largest city for many miles around. Go east on I-70, and you have to get to Kansas City, Missouri before you encounter a city of any size. Go south on I-25, and its over 400 miles to Albuquerque, New Mexico. West, not much at all. Go to the end of I-70 and the take I-15 north to Salt Lake City, Utah or south to Las Vegas, Nevada. Head north, well, no cities of any significance. Cheyenne is 100 miles north, but it is not very large. Beyond that lies the Great White North.

So the Mile High City stands alone as the major metropolis of the Rocky Mountain West. Even so, it is not an enormous city. It does have an impressive skyline, and its freeways have undergone some badly needed renovations lately, most notably the Transportation Expansion Project, or TREX along I-25 south of town. TREX not only widened the freeway, but ran light rail service along the side of the highway.

From downtown north, I-25 lacks light rail, but instead has High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes. These lanes were formerly only for vehicles with 2 or more occupants. This resulted in the case where a man was caught with a blow up doll in the passenger seat, and auctioned it off on eBay for charity, as part of his punishment. Now the powers that be have figured out a different plan. Instead of prohibiting cars with only a driver, one may now buy their way into the HOV lanes. You can't pay with cash, but if you have a toll transponder(Express Toll), you can zip on into the HOV lanes and be on your way, no worries about a ticket. The Westpark Tollway in Houston uses a similar system; one must have a transponder (EZ-Tag). The difference is that even carpoolers have to pay on Westpark.


HOV Toll Signage in Downtown Denver

In my last post, I showed a sign goof on I-45 in Houston. Here is one on I-25 in Denver. I saw a similar sign on R-Dub's website, and as I zipped along today I saw this one near Invesco Field at Mile High, home of the Denver Broncos NFL football team:


Interstate "I-25"

What the heck is Interstate I-25. It should be just the numerals 25 in the shield. Hawaii has H prefixes, and I-35 has 35E and 35W in Dallas/Ft. Worth and in Minneapolis/St. Paul. But there is no such thing as Interstate I-25. Actually, I don't think CDOT put this one up. I think it was the Department of Redundancy Department.

A few posts down, I wrote about ghost ramps on the highway. There was one on the ramp from eastbound US 36 to southbound I-25. This is the opposing ramp, I-25 NB to US 36 WB. This is notable for a couple of reasons. First, the little green sign is a bit unusual. I have not seen signs like this in many places, showing the two highways and directions the ramp you are on connects. But also, look in the background. That is the main freeway where US 36 feeds into Interstate 270. There is a mast for a bank of big green signs, but no signs are mounted on it. I imagine that eventually, CDOT will get around to putting something up there. But for now, it stands, a naked mast with no signs.

As for the sign in the foreground, something appeals to me visually about the post. It is side mounted on the barrier (see the 4 bolts holding it on?), and curves upward in symmetry to the arrow on the yellow sign. I guess art and aesthetics are where ever you find them.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign

BGSs (Big Green Signs) on the Gulf Freeway (Click photo for full size)

My upcoming road trip to Houston is still a little ways off, but since I am in a road trip mood, let's take a look at some of the photos I took last October during a visit there (yeah, I got there by air and rented a car). Here are a couple of sign banks on the Gulf Freeway (I-45) getting near Hobby Airport. There are a couple of things to note in this photo. First, there is a sign goof. Do you see it? The Interstate Highway shield for I-45 is not the right proportions. It is a wider version used for 3-digit Interstate loops and spurs. The 45 should have been on a narrower shield.

I snapped this while driving down the freeway and just pointed the camera in the general direction of the signs. The real reason I tried for this shot is in the signs in the background. I will extract and zoom in on that reason in the photo below.



Does it jump out at you like it does me? This sign features the new Clearview font that has been approved for highway signs. Clearview is supposedly easier to read while driving down the road than the older font seen in most of the signs in the first photo. Texas is starting to deploy Clearview signs, but it and Pennsylvania are making the move in the U.S. at this point. Colorado has not adopted the new typeface. After years of seeing the older font on road signs, Clearview jumps out at you just because it is different. I guess time will tell if it really is easier to read.

Below you can see a fairly new section of the Southwest Freeway, US 59 and future I-69, in Sugar Land. Even though this is a new stretch of freeway, the old Highway Gothic font is in use.


BGS in Sugar Land, Texas

This photo also shows a couple of things that you don't see here in Colorado. First, the frontage road, or as Houstonians call them, feeders, are rare outside of Texas. Almost every freeway in the state has them, and they are quite useful for access on and off. Also notice the lanes on the feeder are marked by "Botts' Dots", named after their inventor, a California highway engineer. They are raised dots glued onto the road surface to mark the lanes. They are more durable than paint, and also give you audio and tactile feedback when crossing lanes. The obvious reason you don't find them in Colorado is that we have snowplows here. During the winter, the plows would just pop them right off the road, leaving it unmarked. Botts' Dots are common in Houston and Southern California.

For more on Clearview see the following web sites:

US Department of Transportation
Samples of Clearview and Highway Gothic

Oh Estelline, Why Can'tcha Be True

Estelline, Texas - all six blocks of it

In a few weeks, I will be making at trip that I have long wanted to take. I will be hitting the road from Denver to Houston. My past visits to Texas' largest city from Colorado have been via the fine jet aircraft of Frontier, United, and (since their re-entry to Denver) Southwest Airlines. Flying is great, you get there quick, but you miss the sights of things along the way. You also must put up with the near full body cavity search at the airport. Of course, you also fly six miles high over all the local cops of every podunk town and speed trap.

This trip will take me through Texas' most notorious speed trap, the small and dwindling town of Estelline on US 287 located in the panhandle near the point where the southwest corner of Oklahoma protrudes into the Lone Star State. Dubbed the worst speed trap in Texas by the Dallas Morning News, Estelline apparently has closely spaced speed limit changes with no warning, and an overly aggressive cop. I have heard horror stories of people getting ticketed even when going under the speed limit, being tailgated through town by the cop in his gray Mustang, and ticket payment deadlines set within one week from the alleged infraction.

Texas has a law that any town of under 5000 population must send the state any traffic fines they collect in excess of 30% of their town budget. The trouble is, there is no automatic enforcement, and it is only if they are audited that a town has to pay up. This town of less than 200 people seems to use motorists on the highway as their main source of town funding.

So the question becomes, do I go miles out of my way to avoid the place altogether? I certainly won't take the full Interstate route of going to Salina, Kansas on I-70, then turning south through Dallas. That is many more miles. I also could take a state highway and another US highway and add an estimated 20 miles to go around Estelline. However, I think the only reason I would to that is if I get a ticket there on the way down, and decide to bypass on the way back home.

The truth is that I rarely get over the speed limit, and if I do, it is because of momentary inattention. I would rather relax and not worry about it, but it sounds like you may get a ticket regardless from Estelline's version of Buford T. Justice.

Still, I have not been on this stretch of highway between Amarillo and Wichita Falls, so I am looking forward to it. So, to the podunk cop of podunk Estelline, Texas, just try to get me! As the President likes to say, "Bring it on!".

Oh, so you'll know me, I'll be the guy in the red BMW with Florida license plates. NOT!

Snow Again!

Snowy commute - taken with the Motorola Q

Today we got several inches of snow, and its still coming down. This is April 24. See that big vehicle on the far right? That's a snow plow. It snowed all day long. I-25 is closed from Lincoln Avenue in Douglas County to Colorado Springs; Colorado 83 is closed from Franktown to Colorado Springs. This picture is southbound Pine Drive (Douglas County Road 45) approaching Lincoln Avenue (DC Road 36). Maybe I should see if I can get a transfer to Arizona. This is getting old.

Oh, and yes, I see the brake lights. I was as a full stop when I snapped this.

FCC - More Out of Control Bureaucrats

Thomas Jefferson said, "The government that governs least, governs best." Jefferson no doubt would take issue with the current government in Washington that wants to govern more and more, increasingly incroaching on the liberty of its citizens. President Bush is hellbent on tearing down Jefferson's "wall of separation" between church and state. Personal phone calls are monitored for signs of "terrorist" activity. Emails are scanned and catalogued. Now the FCC is even getting on board the "Destroy Freedom" bandwagon.

The Washington Post is reporting that the Federal Communications Commission is proposing a new law to allow it the power to regulate violence content on cable and satellite television. As with most censorship programs, the excuse is protection of children. "For God's sake, think of the children!!"

Congress has already mandated a solution to protect the children. Every television sold in the country contains the V-Chip, which gives censorship power to the people in whose hands it belongs . . . parents. Not only that, but cable and satellite providers build in parental controls into their decoder boxes.

Every time a violent act shows up on the national news, the government uses it as an excuse to further get themselves into our personal lives. After the shootings at Columbine High School, there were cries from the neofascists to outlaw video games and music they didn't approve of. The attacks of September 2001 gave rise to the infamous USA PATRIOT Act. Now, with the senseless killings at Virginia Tech, we see a renewed effort to censor television.

Constitutional experts say it will be an uphill constitutional battle for the FCC, especially for cable and satellite. That is because people have to actively subscribe to get them, unlike over-the-air signals. Still, with the overstepping of government in the last few years into personal matters, I take nothing for granted. Otherwise, I fear for the possibility of my grandchildren living in a totalitarian fascist state by the time they are grown. Freedom is their legacy and their right; but the theocrats, neocons, dominionists, and John Birch Society types will not be satisfied until the jack boots are goosestepping down your street.

Ghosts of Freeways Past

I will be the first to admit it. I am a "road geek", someone who is fascinated by roads, highways, freeways. All the ins and outs, trivia, history, and design of highways are something I can very easily get caught up in. As a kid, I drew maps of cities I invented in my mind. Today, I play Sim City 4 on the computer. And while most people would rather fly than drive, I still have enjoyment by getting in the car and heading out on the open road.

One thing I have come across in my road geekiness is the phenomena of stub ramps, or "ghost ramps". These are ramps on or off of a freeway that seemingly have no reason to be there. Sometimes they were built as part of a future expansion that never happened. Others are the remains of an interchange that no longer exists.

I got thinking about these again today, as I was driving through the interchange from eastbound US 36 (Boulder-Denver Turnpike) onto southbound I-25 (North Valley Highway) in Denver. Off to the right, I was surprised to see a very wide entrance ramp coming up to the interchange ramp, but it had no beginning. The merge of this ramp to the main one was blocked by barricades. It apparently was supposed to be a ramp from North Broadway onto I-25, but was never connected. Below is an arial photo of this ghost ramp:


Ghost ramp merging into ramp from US 36 to I-25

That got me thinking about another Denver area ghost ramp, this one on the north side of the town of Castle Rock. There used to be an interchange where Black Feather Trail now crosses the I-25 freeway, a route where motorists once exited from I-25 North to US 85 North toward Littleton; and southbound US 85 traffic merged onto southbound I-25. About three years ago, the interchange was removed and a new bridge built over the freeway at that spot. I-85 traffic now must take the next exit at Founders Parkway / Meadows Parkway. When the old interchange was torn down, the ghost of the southbound merge lane was left, a forgotten reminder of an interchange that is gone.


Ghost ramp from old US 85 South to I-25 South. Dirt trail of old road can still be seen.

But the title of Granddaddy of All Ghost Ramps has a contender in my hometown of Houston. That city has a very interesting layout of freeways. Before getting to the big ghost ramp there, a little visualization of the freeway system of the Bayou City is in order. Main routes radiate from downtown, with a series of loop freeways surrounding the city. Think of a spoked wheel and you will get the idea. The center hub is a little loop around downtown formed by I-45, US 59, and I-10. The next major loop is the Interstate 610 loop, circling the city's center about 6 miles out. Then another 6 miles out is the Sam Houston Tollway / Beltway 8. Further still is a partial, non-freeway loop on the north and west side formed by FM 1960 and Texas 6 (FM roads are a Texas anomaly, meaning "Farm to Market" Road). Now, another partial loop has been started as Texas 99, also known as the Grand Parkway, which currently is partially built from about Sugar Land to Katy.

So anyway, the 610 Loop crosses two freeways that don't go downtown. One is the Northwest Freeway (US 290), and the other being Texas 225, the La Porte Freeway. This is the freeway that parallels the Houston Ship Channel on the south side of it, and passes by the industrial and refining operations in Pasadena, Deer Park, and La Porte. The freeway heading toward Houston crosses 610 on the southeast side of town, but doesn't extend to downtown. Here's the kicker. . .a major stack interchange was built at 610 and 225, and that works to go out to Pasadena. But it also has huge ramps going toward Houston, even though the freeway comes to an end just a few hundred feet inside the 610 Loop! What happened?

Well, as it turns out, Texas 225 was supposed to eventually be built into downtown Houston as the Harrisburg Freeway. But opposition caused the project to be canceled in the 1970s. So we have ended up with a major interchange that leads to nothing. Below is an aerial shot of the interchange, with I-610 the vertical freeway, and Texas 225 the horizontal one. Clearly you can see the end of the freeway just to the west (left) of 610.



To read more about this waste of money and freeway anomaly, you can read the Houston Chronicle article about it from 1999 by CLICKING HERE.

A ground-level photo of the abrupt freeway ending is at the bottom of the page by clicking on this link to the Texas Freeway site.

What a Lifestyle Change!

Today's Denver Post is reporting on what lies ahead for former Qwest CEO and convicted felon, Joe Nacchio. For a man worth hundreds of millions of dollars; someone who is used to giving the orders, not taking them; it will be a hard fall. Apparently, prison reform has gotten rid of the so-called "country club prisons", or "Club Fed". To quote one of my favorite movies, Office Space, it won't be a "pound me in the ass prison", but it won't be a vacation either.

If sentenced to serve time, it is estimated that Felon Joe will spend eight to fifteen years in the big house. While he could get 190 years based on 19 guilty counts, each carrying potential ten year terms, federal sentencing guidelines will likely give him a break there. Still, what an eight to ten years it will be. First, Felon Joe will be awakened promptly at six a.m. to begin his new job at some actual work, such as a painter, plumber, groundskeeper, or some similar trade. He will make somewhere between 12¢ to 45¢ an hour, which he can use at the commissary, or...this is too good...to pay for his phone bills! Former CEO of Qwest Communications International having to pay phone bills for his calls from prison! Plus, he will not be allowed to receive phone calls at all.

All of that is sweet justice, but it gets even better. As it turns out, once you are a convicted felon, your personal fortune gets pretty much taken away. Nacchio allegedly transferred $90-million to his wife's accounts, and then she went and purchased a $9.5-million dollar estate in Jupiter, Florida. Despite Florida's generous homestead exemption laws, the conviction means that the Florida mansion, the one in New Jersey, and all the money could be seized by the feds to payback Qwest shareholders duped by this criminal. And this is all before the civil suits against him ever begin.

As a human being, I do have some compassion for Felon Joe. I am sorry he was so crooked to ruin the lives of so many, including his own. His greed and lust for power blinded him to the evil he did, or perhaps made him feel entitled to play by rules the rest of us must abide by. Of course, in prison, Felon Joe will get something not yet available to many in this country...health care provided by the government.

When it gets down to it though, and this is purely my own opinion, is that Joe was passed over for the top spot at AT&T, so he jumped over to Qwest with the ultimate goal of showing them what a mistake they made at AT&T. I even think he could have been aspiring to have his old company bought out by the upstart Qwest. In the end, Felon Joe proved that AT&T judged correctly in selecting someone else to run that company.

I suppose he never learned that lesson of childhood; that if you get too big for your britches, you are gonna take a fall.

Blossoms

Trees in bloom!

Here in Colorado, we have four distinct seasons. However, our altitude and latitude mean that the warmer times are shorter than in many places. So it is great to finally see, almost a month after the equinox, some signs of Spring. The American Robin is appearing with greater regularity, and now the trees and flowers are starting to bloom from the buds.

Walking to my car to go to lunch today, I pointed my camera phone toward this white blossom on the trees outside the building where I work and snapped this shot. The blooming tree with the building nearby, and the backdrop of the deep blue Colorado sky made a nice image of the season here along the Front Range. The quality of the camera in my phone continues to amaze me at how good the pictures actually turn out.

Nacchio Guilty!

Joseph P. Nacchio, the arrogant SOB who was CEO of Qwest Communications until his fall from grace, was convicted today by a Denver jury. He is guilty of 19 of the 42 counts of insider trading brought against him.

I have blogged about this criminal earlier, so I won't belabor it here. Just let it be said that finally, justice is being done. Along with Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom, and Jeff Skilling of Enron; Nacchio is now a convicted felon. He faces ten years on each count, as well as millions in fines and restitution.

Joe's constant mantra of "We have to make the numbers" will soon have a new number himself . . . the one on his prison uniform. I hope you find your cellmate attractive, Joe. You will be "buddies" for a long time. Oh yeah, one other thing. You might want to be careful picking up the soap in the shower! It couldn't happen to a more deserving crook.

Mass Killings

What is it about April and crazed mass killers. Twelve years ago today, Timothy McVeigh parked a truck filled with explosives under the day care center inside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168 innocent people. This cowardly act of domestic terrorism was somehow justified in the warped mind of McVeigh, based upon the BATF raid on the Branch Davidian cult and its leader, David Koresh, in Waco, Texas two years to the day earlier.

Then tomorrow is the eighth anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, where teacher Dave Sanders and twelve young students were killed in cold blood by the two misfits, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who somehow carried out their evil deeds upon their fellow students. Rather than being the "Columbine State" for the beautiful flower, Colorado was now known as that because of the horror that turned an ordinary spring day at an ordinary high school, into hours of horror and death.

Now, another twisted and warped person takes out his personal issues and turns them into an excuse to commit mass murder, this time at the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. This horrible excuse of a human being takes the lives of those in his campus community with complete disregard for the sanctity of every human life.

In part, I blame our lack of adequate health care for the problem. Even when people have good insurance, mental illness is not afforded the same coverage as physical ailments. Thus, the people who could possibly be brought to some degree of normalcy through medication and treatment, are instead let loose to bring terror down on their fellow human beings.

My very deepest condolences go out to the families and friends of the victims, as well as to the entire Virginia Tech community.

Texas Injustice

There are many things I love about the state of Texas. The bluebonnets in springtime, the sandy beaches, the sights of the hill country, the work of nature in Palo Duro Canyon, the arid landscapes of West Texas, and the varied architecture of its cities and towns, all have a strong appeal to me. Even so, this state so rich in natural beauty, history, and culture, has a dark side when it comes to human rights.

It is somewhat ironic that Texas slogans developed for perfectly good purposes, can be seen in another light, given the state's record of justice. The Office of the Governor, Economic Development and Tourism division has a slogan, "Texas, It's like a whole other country", and the anti-litter campaign, "Don't mess with Texas" take on another meaning when compared with the state's dismal record of executions and its system of indigent representation in the courts.

I have long been troubled by the sheer number of people put to death by the criminal justice system in the Lone Star State. Texas leads the nation in executions, and not by just a small amount. Take a look at this table, taken from www.deathpenaltyinfo.org, listing the number of executions in the U.S. since 1976, by state:

STATE	EXECUTIONS
TEXAS	391
VIRGINIA	98
OKLAHOMA	84
MISSOURI	66
FLORIDA	64
NORTH CAROLINA	43
GEORGIA	39
SOUTH CAROLINA	36
ALABAMA	35
LOUISIANA	27
ARKANSAS	27
ARIZONA	22
OHIO	24
INDIANA	17
DELAWARE	14
CALIFORNIA	13
ILLINOIS	12
NEVADA	12
MISSISSIPPI	8
UTAH	6
MARYLAND	5
WASHINGTON	4
NEBRASKA	3
MONTANA	3
PENNSYLVANIA	3
U. S. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT	3
KENTUCKY	2
TENNESSEE	2
OREGON	2
COLORADO	1
CONNECTICUT	1
IDAHO	1
NEW MEXICO	1
WYOMING	1

It doesn't take a mathematician to see that Texas is putting its citizens to death at a rate much higher than any other. It is also readily apparent that the south as a whole performs most executions in this country. Is it a coincidence that this is also the region known as the "Bible Belt"?

Now one could say that perhaps the fact that Texas has a huge population compared to other states. Well, so does New York, which doesn't even appear on the table. There is obviously something else going on here. In reading up on the issue, I have found there are several things happening that drive the number of executions up

Yesterday, my son was telling me about the fact that Texas doesn't have a state system of public defenders. In most Texas counties, it turns out that judges appoint whatever attorney they want to defend indigent defendants. This leads to a couple of problems. One is that judges end up appointing attorneys they like, leading to a system based on patronization rather than justice. Even more troubling is the fact that ANY attorney can be appointed. So for example, an indigent person charged with a capital crime can have an attorney appointed to defend him who has absolutely zero experience in criminal cases. A person accused of murder could end up with an attorney who specializes in landlord-tenant disputes, or perhaps in child custody cases. How effective a defense do you think such an attorney could mount?

A second issue that drives executions in Texas is that the state's appellate judges are elected, which means to keep their jobs, they have to show the voters that they are tough on criminals.

Third, Texas lies in the jurisdiction of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has historically been more conservative and aggressively pro-death penalty than other circuit courts.

Fourth, is that Texas' criminal justice system places most of the power of clemency in the hands of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, rather than the Governor. Unless the board votes to grant clemency, the Governor has no power to act. Of course, when Texas elects a governor like George W. Bush, it wouldn't matter much anyway. As Governor, Bush mocked the first woman put to death by Texas since the American Civil War, Carla Faye Tucker. In a 1999 interview with Tucker Carlson for Talk Magazine, Bush made fun of the condemned woman:

In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, a number of protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Karla Faye Tucker. "Did you meet with any of them?" I ask. Bush whips around and stares at me. "No, I didn't meet with any of them", he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. "I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with Tucker, though. He asked her real difficult questions like, 'What would you say to Governor Bush?'" "What was her answer?" I wonder. "'Please,'" Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "'don't kill me.'" I must look shocked — ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel — because he immediately stops smirking.

So much for that famous "compassionate conservatism".

In any case, the time is long overdue for Texas, along with other states, to reform the way they handle capital cases. The ideal would be to eliminate the death penalty altogether. DNA evidence has proven that many innocent people have been condemned to die at the hand of the state. Even barring that, by fixing the problems I have outlined here, Texas could right terrible injustices, much as it did when it finally let mitigating circumstances, like mental retardation, be considered by juries.

It is also imperative that states be required to make it mandatory for DNA evidence to be considered. With this technology, we can improve the accuracy of our justice system. No innocent person should be facing execution, nor even wasting their life away in prison, if modern science can prove they did not commit the crime. The time for reform is now!

Like a whole other country? Indeed!

What Year is This?

I thought it was 2007, but I read a story this week that made me think perhaps it was 1950. Turner County High School in Ashburn, Georgia is changing. The senior class has taken it upon itself to overturn a shameful legacy. Earlier this year, they abandoned the school's practice of naming a black and a white homecoming queen.

Now they are planning the school's very first racially integrated senior prom. The school has long had separate proms for the black and white students. This year's seniors decided to make their class an instrument of change. I highly commend them, but wonder why it took until 2007 for a class to do something like this. I thought this kind of thing ended years ago. If this class of seniors have set the bar for successive classes, they will have moved their community out of the dark past of segregation and closer to a world envisioned by Dr. Martin Luther King, who said:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Let Freedom Ring!

The Imus Fiasco

Radio personality Don Imus, as most of you probably know by now, has been fired from both MSNBC and CBS Radio. I am not sure if firing him was the right punishment, but what he said was in very poor taste. His comments were directed toward young women, just a year or two out of high school. He definitely went over the line, but this is nothing new. He has made less than flattering remarks about many people over the years. To use terms, even in passing, like "nappy headed hos" shows Imus opened his mouth without engaging his brain.

Yet he does tremendous good. He and his wife run the Imus Ranch in New Mexico, for children with cancer. He raised millions for charity. This one-time railroad brakeman who hit the big time in radio, has always been a controversial and iconoclastic figure. He certainly has freedom of speech, and CBS certainly has the right to dismiss him. What we don't have in a free society is the freedom from being offended by someone's comments.

While Imus' words that got him in trouble were not the right thing to say, there is much worse out there. Rush Limbaugh, Mike Savage, and Dennis Prager have also made their stock and trade in vitriol. Then we have Ann Coulter, who said about the 9/11 widows, "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband's death so much."

I would venture to say that Don Imus has helped many more people than Coulter ever will. Yes, he deserves punishment, but I think firing was too severe. Apparently, it is okay to denigrate victims of terrorism in this country, but you'd better not piss off Al Sharpton.

My opinion of Imus, outside his philanthropic work, is that he is an egotistic and bombastic former shock jock. That said, unless some other talk show pundits get the boot as well, Imus is owed an apology himself.

My prediction? If he doesn't return to terrestrial radio, look for XM to pick him up. With his arch nemesis Howard Stern owning a huge chunk of Sirius, I doubt he will land there. But if he wants to get on XM, he'd better move quickly before the Sirius/XM merger happens.

Even if he gets back on the air, I won't be listening. I didn't before this mess, and I sure won't after!

Easter

Today is the day that the western branch of Christianity celebrates Easter. But most of the time, Christians don't give thought to the fact that they are intermingling their god with a pagan goddess and other religious ideas that are contrary to Christianity.

It is no coincidence that the symbols of this holiday are eggs and bunnies. Easter is just a Christianized version of early fertility festivals, of which eggs and bunnies represent. The earth is awakening from winter and experiencing a new birth of springtime. Truly, the event is the outgrowth of pagan celebrations of fertility, sex, and rebirth; painted with a thin veneer of Christianity. The re-emergence of the sun is not that different than the re-emergence of "the Son".

In fact, the name Easter has nothing to do with the story of Jesus Christ. The name comes from a Germanic Goddess, known variously as Eostre, Eastre, or Easter. Much as the "Christmas" traditions spring from earlier pagan rituals, so do those of Easter. Many Christians say it doesn't matter what the origins are, it is the current meaning that counts. Fine, but the Bible itself warns in several places about mixing the things of God with so-called "false" religions. So it's either be true to the Bible or true to traditions. You can't have it both ways.

Just remember that today, as Jesus emerges from the tomb, if he sees his shadow there will be 6 more weeks of winter. As for me, I will probably find a way to worship the holy cacao bean today by getting some good chocolate eggs on clearance and enjoying some divine goodness!

Tire & Ice

Somewhere earlier in this blog, I posted the Robert Frost poem Fire and Ice. For this entry, I need one called Tire and Ice.

Sometimes you see unexpected things when you take time to observe. Driving through the falling mix of rain, ice, and snow yesterday made for slick roads and dangerous conditions. Yet even in that environment, you can find something interesting. I parked the car at Barnes & Noble Bookstore, and as I got out, I looked at the tires. Clinging to the rubber surface was a large circle of icicles that appear like a tire-sized flower, or perhaps shiny, pointed studs encompassing the circumference of the tire.

What is amazing is that the delicate pieces of ice were able to cling to a tire and grow as it spun around while the car was moving. The centrifugal force of the rapidly rotating tire pushed the water away from the center of the tire, and as it re-froze, these icicles formed. Not only did they stay attached, they also were not crushed against the road surface.

Who cares about such things? I don't know that anyone else does, but I do, and since this is my blog, I figure it is worth an entry!

Molly, Attorney at Law

Molly was getting ready to get down to some serious study, when we caught up with her. She had a copy of Black's Law Dictionary tucked under her arm, and the Colorado criminal statutes open and ready to do research on her next case. She primarily does pro bono work, and her regular practice is criminal defense. Her dogged determination to get the facts has helped many a client avoid an unjust prison sentence. Prosecutors tremble when they learn she is on the case. They know if they slip up, she will bite them on the ass! Her favorite TV show? Why "The Practice" of course, although she does enjoy old Perry Mason reruns as well.

Evergreen? Perhaps Not!

Just south of Denver is the suburban town of Littleton, Colorado. Littleton is a nice bedroom community with the typical homes and businesses one expects to find. Santa Fe Drive is one of the primary north-south routes through town, and as such, is always very busy. Heading south out of Denver, Santa Fe splits off from I-25 just south of downtown, and meets the highway again in the town of Castle Rock, in Douglas County. This road was once the main highway along the front range, as it was, and still is, US Highway 85. Although it has been superseded by Interstate 25 for long distance travelers, it is still an important local corridor, as it carries a heavy traffic load, as well as having a light rail route parallel to it.

Back in the days when US 85 was an important long distance highway, it was much like many others. As it passed through the towns and cities, there were motor hotels, or motels along the side of the road. In Littleton there remains one such business, the Evergreen Motel. Lying just to the north of Arapahoe Community College, and beside a McDonalds restaurant, this establishment has outlived its time. I didn't think it was operating any longer, but it does have a telephone listing, so I guess it is. With land values what they are, I would think its time is running out. Yet, I can easily imagine a time a few short decades ago, when the glowing neon and fresh paint on the sign that today shows the ravages of the years, beckoned weary travelers to a night of rest along the busy highway. The comfort of "steam heat" must have been something that seemed very soothing on cold nights along a snowy Colorado byway.

What was once an oasis of warmth and sleep now stands largely forgotten along the side of the road, cramped in between more recent structures, awaiting its meeting with the unforgiving wrecker's ball. When that happens, one more piece of mid-Twentieth Century Americana will be gone.

Another Old Memory

This rambling post probably won't be of much interest to anyone except me and my sisters. It actually ties into two other things I have written about here. I have mentioned traffic circles in earlier posts, and yesterday talked about logos. While surfing around the Net, I came across this old logo:

People in most of the country, and younger folk, won't know what it is. Here in Colorado, there is a Deep Rock Water Company, but that is not related to this one. This is a logo used in the latter days of Deep Rock Petroleum (eventually bought out by Kerr-McGee), which operated gasoline stations. I found this on an extremely interesting web site, http://www.gassigns.org. It has photos and scans of all the old stations I remember. You'll find Derby, Clark, DX, Skelly, Apco, Champlin, and many, many more there.

In any case, this one brought back a vivid memory. As a child living in Houston in the late 1950s and early 1960s, we made the occasional trip to Oklahoma City to visit my grandparents. One milestone along the way that always stuck in my mind was a Deep Rock station north of downtown Dallas. Deep Rock didn't market in Houston to the best of my knowledge, and I really don't recall seeing them anywhere else but the station in "Big D", but it is indelibly burned in my memory. The station was located on a traffic circle, and to the best of my recollection, it was at the intersection where Harry Hines Boulevard (Old US 77), Northwest Highway, and Storey Lane meet. I seem to recall a "Circle Motel" was also located on the circle. That traffic circle has since been replaced by a more modern interchange. When we got gas at the Deep Rock, I knew we were over halfway to Oklahoma City.


The current interchange where the old traffic circle was located.
Credit: Google Maps


Same area on a 1960 street map. Notice 114 as a 2-lane road, the
partially completed Stemmons Freeway, and the Humble logo (now Exxon-Mobil).

In those pre-Interstate Highway days, the Stemmons Freeway (I-35E) which today parallels Harry Hines didn't exist. Neither did any of the other freeways. The route was all two-lane US Highways . . . US 75 from Houston to Dallas, US 77 from Dallas to Oklahoma City. Today, the route is the same, but it is I-45 from Houston to Dallas, and I-35E from Dallas to Denton, then I-35 from Denton to Oklahoma City.

It is also interesting thinking back to those trips, how huge the Arbuckle Mountains near Davis, Oklahoma seemed. The winding, hairpin road of US 77 seemed very high and scary. Today, I-35 makes the Arbuckles seem like a bump in the road. Another favorite stop along the way was the Little Brownie cookie factory in Marietta, Oklahoma, just north of the Texas-Oklahoma border at the Red River.

On one particular trip, my oldest sister (a little less than 3 years younger than me) and I got some candy cigarettes at a store along the way. We were sitting in the back seat and found that after dark when we held them up, lights from cars behind us made the orange-colored tips of the candy look like they were glowing from fire like a lit cigarette. Of course now, things like candy cigarettes and bubble gum cigars are not considered good things for kids. In those days, it was different. Those candy cigarettes came in packs made to look like real cigarette brands, but slightly modified...brands like Winsom instead of Winston, or L&N instead of L&M. Kids would hold them between their fingers and pretend to smoke them, but really ate them slow so that they seemed to be burning down shorter. They are still made and can be ordered on the Internet, but you don't often see them in stores. They also had bubble gum cigarettes that were wrapped in white paper. Curiously enough, neither I nor any of my siblings smoke. So much for the insidious tobacco industry using them to hook us on smoking!

Those trips were always exciting, and we made them many times in our 1950 Ford and later our 1957 Chevy Bel-Air. I would really like to have either of those cars today!

What's Going on With Lower-Case Logos?

A couple of days ago, I went to read the daily news on MSNBC.com. The logo that has been with this joint venture between Microsoft and NBC has been around since the inception of the network. Here is what I was used to seeing:

But instead of the familiar image, I found they had replaced the logo with a new one. No big deal, right? Of course not. Companies freshen up their trademarks and images from time to time. Look at the evolution of the Morton Salt girl, or Betty Crocker over the years. But I have noticed a trend that sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't. That is the use of lower case logotype fonts. Here is the new MSNBC (or is it msnbc) logo. In this case, I believe it works, particularly since the type is boldface. I actually like this one better than the original.



The place where it doesn't work, in my self-proclaimed expert opinion, is in the logo of the new AT&T. This is the company formerly called SBC Communications, and before that Southwestern Bell Telephone, before it bought out its old parent company and assumed its revered name. AT&T, which once actually stood for something (American Telephone & Telegraph) had kept a bold face, all caps logo through many iterations. When I was a small child, this is the logo they used:



Pretty straightforward, and easily recognizeable. Then in the 1960s, they updated to a stylized "Bell" mark:


Still, nice, bold letters. A look of power and monopoly worthy of the parent of the old "Ma Bell". Then Judge Green comes along and on January 1, 1984, AT&T was separated from its former operating companies, leaving it with AT&T Communications (formerly Long Lines), AT&T Information Systems (equipment), Western Electric (Now Alcatel-Lucent), and a few assorted odds and ends. The newly-formed "Baby Bells" got group ownership of the Bell trademark. The original Bells formed at that time were Pacific Telesis, US West, Southwestern Bell, BellSouth, Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, and Nynex. Only BellSouth, Southwestern Bell, Bell Atlantic, and US West kept using the familiar symbol at first.

AT&T, stripped of its Bell System and Bell logo adopted the "death star" logo which had "lines of communication circling the globe". I worked for the company at the time, and noticed the number of lines varied depending on what size and on what item it appeared.



In the 1990s, the company reduced the lines, simplified the logo and added some mild 3-dimensional shading, to this:


Notice, the typeface remained constantly bold and upper case text. Finally, when SBC acquired the old AT&T, they once again updated the logo. The new globe is cool enough, but the new type face was changed to lower case and unbolded. This just doesn't work at all, in my opinion. I don't dispute the decision on the globe going 3-D, nor in using the AT&T brand. Still, the lower case text just looks so blah! So here is what we are left with:

While we are discussing logos, and particularly the MSNBC logo above, I am reminded of a major "uh-oh" moment for one of its parents, NBC Television. Back in the 1970s, the network paid a gazillion or so bucks for a new logo, dumping (temporarily, as it turns out) the familiar peacock logo. Ask any baby boomer, and they can certainly recall the announcer saying, "The following program is brought to you in living color on NBC!" Except in my house, it was only in black and white, since we didn't have a color TV until I was in high school.



The new design introduced by NBC with much fanfare, was a stylized "N". Unfortunately, the Nebraska Educational Television service had been using it for years, and had paid $100 for it. Turns out it was the best $100 they ever spent. The small network sued NBC, and settled for another gazillion dollars, a bunch of TV equipment, and lots of publicity.



Ultimately, NBC superimposed a small peacock over the "N", and eventually reinstated a simplified peacock. Here is a comparison of the two.



One of NBC's best known logos is an audio logo; the NBC Chimes. They are the musical notes G, E, and C, standing for General Electric Company, the network's one-time owner.