Industries

2012 Summer Guide: Summer Movie Preview

Red, White and Orange: More and More Orange Wines in Houston

"Old man piss." I hate to say it, but it's the best descriptor to use to describe the color of many of the "orange" wines that are finding their way to our market these days. As you can see from the color of the wine in the glass above, orange wines aren't really orange: They tend to have a deep ... More >>

Southwest vs. United: The Tale of the Texas Tape

This week brings another chapter in the titanic showdown between Southwest Airlines, who wants to fly international flights out of Hobby, and United Airlines, the company that flies international flights out of Bush. United knows that allowing international flights out of Hobby would be a very, ver ... More >>

Texas Beer Fest 2012

This week brings another chapter in the titanic showdown between Southwest Airlines, who wants to fly international flights out of Hobby, and United Airlines, the company that flies international flights out of Bush. United knows that allowing international flights out of Hobby would be a very, ver ... More >>

From Defender of Wily Politicians, Serial Killers and Drug Dealers to Texas Winemaker

"I don't read anymore," said Dickson when I asked him to share his thoughts about the recent uproar in the world of Natural wine. "I did enough reading when I was an attorney." On Friday, I drove out to Houston native Lewis Dickson's Hill Country estate and winery, La Cruz de Comal, on the southern ... More >>

Wine of the Week: Natural Wine in Texas

As we noted in last week's post on a new era of Nastiness and a call for civility in the Natural wine debate, it's not easy to define exactly what Natural wine is. As Eric Asimov wrote in his weekly New York Times column, there is no official definition or doctrine for Natural wine or Natural winem ... More >>

The Natural Wine Debate Gets Ugly

"Natural wine is wine to which nothing has been added," said the leading advocate of Natural wine in the U.S., Alice Feiring, when she visited Texas in October 2011 to promote her new book Naked Wine: Letting Grapes Do What Comes Naturally (Da Capo 2011). She was speaking at an event in a wine bar, ... More >>

Meat Market

You'll probably be paying more for your rib eyes and Whoppers thanks to the great Texas drought of 2011.

Harris County Sues Over All That Dixon in the San Jacinto River

Harris County attorney Vince Ryan announced he's suing a collection of companies for 45 years' worth of pollution in the San Jacinto River, and he's asking for up to $25,000 a day in penalties. Ryan is suing International Paper Company, Waste Management, Inc., Waste Management of Texas, Inc. and Mc ... More >>

Last Minute Shopping: The 10 Best Online Retailers (Not Named Amazon.com)

​For a decade now, online retailers have increasingly grown their sales to the point they now rival traditional brick and mortar establishments. Let's face it, it's just easier to shop online if you have a computer, an internet connection and a desire to avoid crowds. You can sit there with a ... More >>

A Roundup of the 2011 Music Industry Based Strictly on Band Names

XL/Columbia​Theologians love saying things like "Man is created superior to animals" and "Animals can't be equal with humans." And then we go scouring philosophy books to see if animals have immortal spirits and if this means we'll someday meet our pets in heaven. That's a bunch of horse dung. ... More >>

Absurdity of Texas Wine Shipping Law Reaches New Heights

Photo by Jeremy Parzen.Castell'in Villa Chianti Classico is one of the greatest values in Italian wine today, but out-of-state retailers can't ship it to me in Texas... at least not legally.​On Friday, one of the most bizarre press releases I've ever read found its way to my inbox. "The Texas ... More >>

Spinning the Black Circle

Is the music industry stabilizing?

Material World: Music to Rock Your Cyber Monday with Video

In the late '70s, there was a movie spoof on Friday the 13th called Saturday the 14th. It was about as dumb as you imagine it would be. Well, insert punchline here because Black Friday is over, but we are still smack dab in the middle of Cyber Monday, where instead of being stampeded by rampaging sh ... More >>

Top 5 Reasons Cyber Monday Is Better Than Black Friday

To bastardize a line from Groundhog Day, "Well, it's Black Friday...again." It's that oh-so-magical time of year when the strong walk away from predawn shopping trips with armfuls of electronic goodies while the weak get treated by EMS for boot marks left by shoppers stampeding into Best Buy. Since ... More >>

5 Reasons You Should Skip Black Friday for Cyber Monday

Well, it's Black Friday again. I sincerely hope you and your loved ones remain un-trampled and filled with holiday spirit or, if retailers got their wish, with carloads of merchandise. Since 2005, the nerdy cousin to Black Friday has been Cyber Monday. Traditionally, and I hesitate to even use that ... More >>

Wine Time: Wine and Sulfur Dioxide

Image via HomeBrewers.com.No, that's not cocaine. It's potassium metabisulfite, one of the many forms of sulfites employed by winemakers for a variety of purposes.​A post earlier this week ("Wine of the Week: A Wine with No Detectable Sulfites") inspired a lot of acidic (pun intended) discussi ... More >>

The Keystone XL Pipeline: Houston's Cardno Entrix In The Crosshairs

Keystone XL: Coming to Texas​Houston-based Cardno Entrix is the latest target of scrutiny in the newest allegations of cronyism surrounding TransCanada's Keystone XL Pipeline project. A group of U.S. senators has called for an investigation into the State Department's handling of the Keystone ... More >>

Wine of the Week: A Wine with "No Detectable Sulfites"

Photos by Jeremy Parzen.The Madoff segment on last night's 60 Minutes was made more palatable by a tasting of the utterly transparent Frey Vineyard's "Natural Red."​One of the chief complaints often expressed by advocates, champions, and militants of Natural wine (with a capital N) is that ove ... More >>

Rice Researchers: Lack of Copy Protection Decreases Music Piracy

A joint study between marketing professors from Rice University and Duke University has revealed that music industry efforts to reduce piracy through placing copy restrictions -- referred to as Digital Rights Management or DRM -- may actually serve to increase the very theft they wish to prevent. S ... More >>

Is Commercial Radio Fading Into Oblivion?

​How many times has this happened to you: You're driving home from work. A song comes on. Drums. Guitar strums. A wimpy voice: "Say, oh, got this feeling that you can't fight..." You've heard this same song three times in 30 minutes, and it bores you to tears. Unlike the imaginary audience th ... More >>

What's The Leading Cause Of Poor Record Sales?

​Last week, the music world laughed up a hiccup as Lil Wayne pranced around the VMA stage in nut-suffocating, Le Tigre-inspired jeggings. While that performance affirmed that Wayne is no fashion guru, his chart performance a week later reminded us that he's very good at something else-selling ... More >>

Wine of the Week: Texas Blanc du Bois

​Above: Blanc du Bois grapes from the 2010 harvest at the Cruz de Comal Winery in the Texas Hill Country. To tell the story of winemaking in Texas today, we need to start with what happened in California back in the 1970s and the way wine has been marketed historically in the U.S. When I was ... More >>

Wine of the Week: Orange Wine (Yes, Orange)

​White wine, rosé wine, red wine, orange wine... Orange wine? Qu'est-ce que c'est? No, it's not a wine concocted by Longhorn fans. (They call UT the orange tide? Call me Deacon Blue Nun). Orange wine is a loosely codified category of winemaking and winemakers who macerate the juice obtained ... More >>

AB InBev Trademarking Our Area Code for Crappy Beer

Filling a stein with Budweiser is tantamount to filling a Riedel glass with Boone's Farm, just FYI.​Anheuser-Busch is counting on civic pride to make its next product a smash seller: beer named after America's various beer-drinking cities, based on their area codes. To that end, AB has alread ... More >>

Wells Fargo Hit for Funding Allegedly Badly Run Private Texas Prison

Wells Fargo hit by protests.​Wells Fargo just can't win: All the bank wants to do is make good on its underwriting of a private prison company with a history of inmate deaths, sexual abuse and record-tampering, and now a group called Texas United for Families wants the bank to pull out. Speci ... More >>

Too Much Pavement

Houston's strip malls increase heat, pollution.

Fetuses In A Public Landfill: Not The Way It's Supposed To Happen

Just no​We all know that the souls of aborted babies go to live with Jesus, but what of their earthly remains? Well, in Texas, they legally can't be disposed of in landfills -- which is exactly where the remains from two abortion clinics have been going, according to Texas Commission on Enviro ... More >>

Payday Lending: Texas Takes Teeny, Tiny Step to (Barely) Regulate

Gary Elkins: State Rep, payday lender.​Payday lending, where lower-income, lesser-educated, financially strapped people get some instant cash but sometimes end up paying 500 percent interest, is an industry ripe for some regulating, you would think. But that's why you're not a member of the T ... More >>

Houston Dogs Worst In Country For Attacking Mail Carriers

Probably lives in Houston​It's hard out there for a Houston mail carrier -- if the heat doesn't get you, the dogs probably will. The United States Postal Service has put out its list of the 10 most dangerous cities for dog attacks, and coming in at the top is....us. USPS says 62 Houston lett ... More >>

Pierre Celis, Brewer of Hoegaarden and Celis Beer, Dead at 86

Flickr user wolfworld​Pierre Celis, the "King of Belgian White Beer", died over the weekend. He was 86. In spite of several unfavorable transactions with major brewing companies, Celis is widely considered one of the forbearers of the craft-brewing movement in America. His self-named brewery ... More >>

Feds Sue Kinder Morgan for $1 Million in Unpaid Overtime

The Department of Labor has filed a lawsuit against Houston's Kinder Morgan that seeks more than $1 million in what it says is unpaid overtime owed to "4,500 current and former operators, technicians, maintenance workers, laborers and administrative nonexempt employees." Kinder Morgan provides serv ... More >>

Neal Uy Lim: Got Millions Through Counterfeit Postage Scheme

Don't mess with Newman​A Houston man has been convicted of running a multi-million scheme where he used counterfeit postage machines to rip off the post office. Neal Uy Lim, 50, owned three large pre-sorting mail businesses in the Houston area, operations that handle bulk mail and get a disco ... More >>

Pointing Lasers at Planes: A Big Texas Pastime

Save it for Laser Floyd, people​The FAA has issued its annual report on the growing problem of airplane pilots being targeted by laser pointers as they try to land, and be proud, Texas: You had more such incidents than any state but California. It happened 239 times in Texas in 2010, FAA spok ... More >>

Top Six Artist Vs. Record Label Feuds

​Pink Floyd has finally settled its lengthy dispute with their longtime record label EMI. The band, which signed to the label over 40 years ago, first took EMI to court last spring in an effort to clarify their existing contract. Floyd sought to prevent EMI from "unbundling" their albums by se ... More >>

Prison Pays

Despite a history of abuse and bad conditions, private prison corporation GEO keeps getting contracts from the state.

GEO: Private-Prison Company Somehow Keeps Getting Contracts In Texas

Illustration by Keri RosebraughA look into private prisons​When Arthur William Brown left his Houston halfway house December 15, he did the usual: he signed the check-out form that residents of the facility have to sign whenever they leave the premises for the day. Only on that day, Brown ... More >>

New Dynamo Stadium May Not Change Concert Climate Much

Marco TorresLady Gaga at Toyota Center, July 25​Conceivably, today's announcement that the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority has agreed to act as landlord for the proposed Houston Dynamo stadium in downtown's East End could present a serious challenge to the Houston area's reigning concer ... More >>

Five Reasons Not to Shop on Black Friday

Ho Ho Ho! Merry Shopping Free-For-All!​Every year around this time in the United States, we celebrate a day so important, so American that it brings people together like no other day can. Around 3 a.m. this Friday, bleary-eyed shopaholics will power into retail outlets all over the country in ... More >>

Anthony Ray Ferrell, The Good Samaritan Killer: Third Escapee From His Halfway House In 20 Months

Photo courtesy HPD Victim Sam Irick and his alleged killer Anthony Ray Ferrell​The man charged with killing a Good Samaritan during a purse-snatching is the third person to escape the same state-contracted halfway house in the last 20 months.Anthony Ray Ferrell had fled a "halfway house in ... More >>

Amtrak's Terrible Sunset Limited May Become A Daily

Improvements on the way?​Amtrak has a new plan out on how to improve service on the Sunset Limited, the long-distance passenger train that comes through Houston on its way between Los Angeles and New Orleans. Any plan would likely improve service, since the Limited is notorious for long, long ... More >>

A Taste of Honey: Harvesting A Beehive

Photos by Brittanie SheyTom Helm, urban outdoorsman and hobbyist beekeeper​This weekend we were invited to a honey-harvesting party at the home of Tom Helm, an urban outdoorsman who in 2006 was the subject of our cover story "Dark Water", in which he and then-Press reporter Josh Harkinson kaya ... More >>

Bullet Train Between Dallas And Houston: It's Coming (Maybe)

How about a Lone Star flag on the front of that thing?​Houston business leaders got briefed yesterday by a Japanese company looking to build a bullet train between Dallas and Houston, with mostly private funds.It's part of a U.S. offense by the Central Japan Railway, which, according to media repo ... More >>

BARC Supervisor, On Tape, Squelches Employee Complaint And Says Mayor Has His Back

BARC, making sad puppies everywhere​When Chatauqua Allen, a supervisor at the Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care, was shut out of certain meetings, she got the nagging notion that it may have to do with her race.The feeling was compounded when Allen, who is black, w ... More >>

$50-Plus Wine for $10 (And How the Hell This Is Possible)

​A friend called about a week ago.  She excitedly relayed the details of a Cameron Hughes Wine presentation she had seen at Costco that afternoon. My reply: "That sounds great, but I think you're leaving something out. There is just no way this guy is buying up someone else's high-priced fin ... More >>

Pig Farm

The rise and fall of pork bellies, by the writer of Urinetown

Beer Wars

Ben Stein leads a live world-premiere screening and discussion on American suds

November Cinema and Media Arts Festival

Alex Rivera screens Sleep Dealer during the Houston Cinema Arts Society film fest

A Matter of Fat

The U.S. beef industry's lower standards have led to an increase in chop houses