By:Amanda Hart It is expensive to be born with a vagina. Tampons alone at times are a commodity (ladies, let me introduce you to your new best friend: The Diva Cup. Your “shit, i guess I’ll just use toilet paper” days are over). And tampons are just one of the many items our vagina’s demand that we sometimes can’t afford. However, i would have to say that above all the other items we need to function in our society the one closer to the top of the list is some form of birth control. I would like to think that ... Read More »

By Alex Wukman As no one needs to be reminded this spring’s political conversation was dominated by the fight over public education funding, both here in Texas and across the nation. As the story unfolded one question kept buzzing around, the one question no one was asking: “Why?” As in why pick on education funding now after all we’ve been in tight budget spots before? Why are conservatives so intent on making it impossible for schools to do their job? Why has it come to this: teachers and parents taking to the streets to keep schools open? Admittedly at the ... Read More »

By Alex Wukman The intersection of Westheimer and Taft is where Montrose begins. Even though the street named for the flour selling German immigrant Michael Louis Westheimer starts a few blocks to the east, the community that defines the road starts near Numbers, where Shannon Hoon from Blind Melon is said to have scored a hotshot. It’s at this intersection where, for years, an adventuresome soul could find almost anything for sale in just a few blocks. You just needed to know what to look for. Just a few blocks north of the main thoroughfare for our town’s arts district, ... Read More »

By Alex Wukman Outside Love Elementary everything is prosaic; the sound of a Mariachi trumpet drifts east across Shepherd and down 13th Street from a used car lot dotted with US, Texas and Mexico flags. Timbergrove Little League’s White Socks practice run downs on the school baseball fields, and in the shadows cast by the booms of TV trucks a jogger stops to kick a soccer ball with a father teaching his two young sons to pass to the inside of your teammate’s feet. Inside Love Elementary things are not so pleasant.  Parents, holding signs and wearing t-shirts proudly proclaiming ... Read More »

By Alex Wukman Imagine this scenario, if you can: it’s 10:30 at night and you’re walking to a store for whatever reason. A cop pulls up and flashes his lights. Like a good boy or girl you stop and 5-0 rolls on up and demands your name. Now, since you weren’t doing anything but minding your own business you don’t particularly feel the need to tell the po-po who you are; so you give the cop some variation of “get lost.”  Next thing you know you are arrested, charged with a Class C misdemeanor for failing to identify yourself and then, because of ... Read More »

By Alan Smithee A new poll released by the Texas Freedom Network finds that 80 percent of the 972 possible voters surveyed want high schools to teach contraception, including birth control and condoms, along with abstinence. According to the poll, support is fairly well spread all across the spectrum. TFN states that “77 percent of Protestants, 82 percent of Roman Catholics and 70 percent of people who identified themselves as “born again” Christians” support teaching about contraception.  Additionally 97 percent of liberals, 93 percent of moderates and 63 percent of conservatives want their children to learn how not to get ... Read More »

By Alan Smithee The Chron has a story up about an HPD officer who was injured by a flying tire on I-45 South near monroe. The officer was writing a ticket when he was knocked into the median and suffered a dislocated knee, broken clavicle and broken right arm. Despite the fact that the officer’s injuries are not life-threatening, since it was a law enforcement officer who was injured it might lead to someone in power step and try to make a dent in the debris on Houston’s freeways. The city or state government taking measures to cut down on the amount ... Read More »

By Alan Smithee On Monday, May 24, Houston Independent School District (HISD) will be hosting a public forum to discuss the district’s future. The forum is not just open to parents of HISD students or taxpayers but to anyone who has an idea about where the largest school district in the state, and the seventh largest in the nation, should go. In an era where the Texas State Board of Education has minimized the role of the civil rights movement , removed the rationale behind the seperation of church and state and now requires history students to analyze attempts by ... Read More »

By “Alan Smithee” It’s been a month since Arizona passed their infamous anti-immigrant bill and almost as soon as it was passed rightwing copycats decided to jump on the band wagon. Two Texas State Representatives, Debbie Riddel (R-Tomball) and Leo Berman (R-Tyler), have each vowed to introduce bills similar to Arizona’s. Riddel and Berman have been telling everyone who will listen, including KPFT’s Partisan Gridlock, that the bill they want to introduce will be exactly the same bill, except of course there won’t be any racial profiling. Berman told Austin TV station KVUE that “It will be the same bill except that we ... Read More »