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Yeah, maybe Caloustian should just walk the two blocks and stop bitching. But then again, we'd like to see how patient Metro executives would be if they were forced to wait in a bus for a half hour while the driver sat outside with a cig.

Of course, that would mean they'd have to take the bus every so often.

Don't Speak Ill of the Retiring

That was one sloppy wet kiss of a good-bye the Houston Chronicle gave outgoing State Sen. Jon Lindsay in its December 30 edition.

Headlined "A Fond Reflection On A Life Of Public Service," reporter Kristen Mack piled on the glowing quotes about the former county judge.

The 51 paragraphs included exactly three on Lindsay's tenuous relationship with ethics and rules. "[H]is county tenure ended in the mid-1990s amid corruption allegations," Mack wrote. She noted Lindsay was indicted on two misdemeanor charges that were eventually thrown out, then resumed the lovefest.

Hey -- that's not the Jon Lindsay we remember.

We remember the Jon Lindsay who was chased out of the county judge's office amidst allegations of getting a $100,000 cash bribe to build a county road on some remote property. Sure, the statute of limitations ran out before the case -- or the suit to force Lindsay to resign because of it -- could be heard, but Jon could always afford the best lawyers.

We remember the Jon Lindsay who then got his cronies at the Port of Houston to hire him for $120,000 a year as a consultant.

We remember the Lindsay who once said of his controversies and allegations, "Ninety percent of that stuff was totally false. Five percent of it, I did show poor judgment." (The other five percent he left nicely uncategorized.)

That's the Jon Lindsay we like to remember. But that's not the one who showed up in the Chron.

"That story had the thickness of Saran Wrap," said an anonymity-preferring lawyer who was deeply involved in the 1990s hoopla. "I was disappointed it had the 1984 quality of simply just refusing to remember what happened."

Come on, now: We wouldn't want any unpleasantness during the holiday season.

Tales from the BBB

There are a million sad stories in the files of the Houston chapter of the Better Business Bureau. Well, maybe not a million, but there are quite a few. And here is one of them: Promark Research Corporation on FM 1960, a company that makes unwanted cold telephone calls but says it is not a telemarketer, dammit. Click Here for the details.