This year's rodeo brouhaha -- there usually is one -- surrounds the alleged lack of diversity of the event's staff, vendors and performers.State Sen. Mario Gallegos has filed a bill calling on the rodeo to open its books and get better about being inclusionary; local ctivist ben Mendez has circulated an e-mail calling for protests and listing grievances.The rodeo has responded, at great length.Some of this is inherently silly -- arguing whether Hispanic entertainer Little Joe got paid enough for
Having trouble keeping score on the latest Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo flap? Let Hair Balls help you out. We talked to both Ben Mendez, a self-described community leader and member of the non-group group protesting HLSR practices (we'll get back to that), and HLSR's Chief Operating Officer Leroy Shafer.What we found is that there's some truth and some bullshit on both sides.About HLSR scholarships not being awarded to minority students:Shafer says: "The Show found that in 2008, 29.3 percen
