Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

A review of one of my favorite cities--Houston, Texas

Christopher Solomon, NY Times:

FOR years, snarky dismissal - "A few days in Houston isn't a getaway; it's a sentence" - has pretty much been my response to any mention of the nation's fourth-largest city. Never mind that I'd never seen the place save once, as a blur framed by a rental car's windows as I headed elsewhere, fast.

But this fall, a curious newspaper article caught my attention. David Thompson and Randy Twaddle, partners in a Houston marketing firm called Ttweak, had started an unofficial campaign to boost their city's image by laughing at the realities of this city on the swamp....

After the campaign's first few months, Houstonians and former residents had posted more than 1,200 comments on the Web site, www.houstonitsworthit.com. There were the comics: "The cleanest jail cells of any major metropolitan area." (Reason No. 539.) There were also, however, bayou poets: "If Houston were a dog, she'd be a mutt with three legs, one bad eye, fleas the size of corn nuts and buck teeth. Despite all that, she'd be the best dog you'll ever know." (No. 297.) In between, many people sang paeans to favorite haunts. Taken together, these comments formed an accidental guidebook to the Houston beyond the stereotype. A city that could snort at its shortcomings and still throw sweaty arms around its humid, traffic-choked, sprawling self couldn't be without redemption, could it?

...

"There's a reason why Houston is consistently ranked one of the fattest cities in America; it's because the food is so good! Queso, margaritas, barbecue, mashed potatoes and fried okra." (From No. 429.)

...

My mission to taste some real Tex-Mex cuisine took me straight from the airport to Navigation Boulevard and Mama Ninfa's, which those Web diarists had mentioned twice. Ninfa's was on the wrong side of the railroad tracks, in a low, bleak-looking building with a corrugated-metal awning. Inside, tangerine walls and glowing beer signs couldn't shake a dimness, even at lunchtime. It was hardly a deterrent.

The owners of the 31-year-old restaurant say that the place introduced Houston and the United States to the wonders of fajitas. I ordered the house specialty, tacos à la Ninfa ($11.50), two homemade flour tortillas wrapped around seasoned outer skirt steak. They were staggeringly flavorful. With them was a cup of soupy charro beans, whole pintos cooked with smoky chunks of pork. I kept eating, finding my Houston rhythm, as Mama Ninfa smiled down in approval from her portrait on the wall.

Much of the next three and a half days was spent like this, mixing Houston's inedible sights: its unexpectedly abundant theater scene, its revitalizing downtown core of lofts and clubs with the panoply of cuisines that emerges in a city whose residents speak more than 90 languages.

Another afternoon, the search for Texas barbecue led to Houston's far north end. The small cabin of Williams Smoke House hid in a neighborhood of narrow roads hacked from piney woods. Through an open door in the back shed, the coals of oak posts glowed red in the smoker. A good smell left the chimney. Inside, I ordered an ambitious plate of pork ribs and sat down to wait in the small dining room.

The ribs that emerged had been dry-rubbed and then smoked for four hours over those posts. They were just crusted on the outside, moist inside, and no gnawing was required to separate meat from bone. Slices of white bread and a cup of sauce expertly made with vinegar, tomato and something hot were on the tray, but I kept it away from these ribs.

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"Zoning, schmoning. There is a kind of urban anarchy here that gives the city a real punch." (From No. 815.)

It's true: The greater metropolitan area is truly a geography of nowhere, a crazy quilt of strip malls and strip clubs and gas pumps and houses. But the sneaky thing about Houston is that the city's heart isn't to be found in one place; it's in a thousand small places and subtle pleasures. Trouble is, most outsiders don't have the time to assemble the scattered pieces. Only with time does mishmash become mosaic.

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The West Alabama Ice House sits on the busy namesake street where it has sat, more or less unchanged, since 1928. An ice house, in plain terms, is a bar turned inside out. Overhead, a canvas awning reached over several picnic tables. A few stools stood at an ice-filled counter that was governed by a young woman with a bottle opener. I grabbed a $2.25 Lone Star longneck, took a seat and watched the Astros swing for the pennant. A young man pulled his van onto the curb, ordered a longneck, sat a spell. Another rode up on a mountain bike. There was a technician in blue hospital scrubs. A lawyer. A beefy laborer wearing a T-shirt that said, "Everybody's Somebody in Luckenbach." Dogs wandered through. Everybody was talking, rooting, arguing. This was "Cheers," alfresco. This, it seemed to me, was as much Houston as the Rothko Chapel or the high-rises.

If you think you may find yourself in Houston, read the whole article with it's links to additional information. It is a city with neighborhoods hidden in a forest as well as neighborhoods perched in former rice fields with newly planted trees and shrubs. It also has urban housing with downtown lofts and high rises and no hills to block the view.