Ups and downs
Forget, ad astra
(to the stars), because it looks like NASA has a new slogan: ad vias — to the streets! Employees at the Johnson Space Center lined up outside the NASA HQ on Tuesday to protest the ongoing federal government shutdown, which has caused them to miss their paychecks. One engineer even set up a GoFundMe page to help cover furloughed workers’ bills. How about this as a solution? Put the NASA guys in charge of the rest of the government. They successfully sent a probe to the farthest reaches of the solar system, so congressional budgets should be a cinch.
Just don’t get BBQ sauce on the mission control panels. Killen’s BBQ provided free meals for government employees (with government ID of course) on Friday. Restaurants like D’Amico’s Italian Market Cafe in Rice Village, Bistro Provence in the Energy Corridor, Ouisie’s Table near River Oaks and the Rainbow Lodge on White Oak Bayou are also offering deals for furloughed workers. Stellar.
President Trump might be saying et tu, Brute to his fellow Republican, but we’re hailing U.S. Sen. John Cornyn as a conquering hero for rallying the Texas delegation against a White House plan to divert Hurricane Harvey recovery funds and spend them instead on a border wall. Freshman U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw also pushed back against the president’s bizarre idea on Fox News. Here’s a compromise: Build Trump’s wall, but put it along the Gulf Coast and call it the Ike Dike.
It was with arte et
marte, skill and valor, that Jeff Lidner offered a steady hand during Hurricane Harvey as the Harris County Flood Control District meteorologist, so we’re glad to see he’s a finalist to be named weather person of 2018 by the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes. Lidner’s “steady, straight advice to citizens as the flood waters rose,” gave Houston-area residents the knowledge they needed to know whether to evacuate, an accompanying news release said. He’s one of five finalists. Winner will be named Feb. 1.
Another case of
caveat emptor — buyer beware. Houstonians paid nearly 18 percent more for electricity in 2018 than the previous year while nationwide electricity costs were up only 1.1 percent. That’s not a problem folks have in San Antonio, where the city’s electric utility held off rate increases last year. Houston went down the deregulation route years ago, and we’re still paying for it.