This morning’s frost is long gone by now, and I’m sure many of us cursed it as we shivered our way through our morning commutes. Our intrepid photographer, Can Türkyilmaz, got out in the frigidness himself this morning and snapped a few frames. Looks like someone in Lakewood let their sprinkler run overnight. But their error sure does make for a couple of pretty photos:

How worried are Texas’ electric companies that the Legislature might actually force them to compete for customers, which might then actually force them to cut prices? I got a flier in the mail from Reliant Energy offering me a $50 Target gift card for switching. It didn’t necessarily offer me lower rates (I read the fine print), but this may be the first marketing pitch I have received in a couple of years — and, coincidentally, at about the same time that even the die-hard free-market warriors in the Legislature have had enough.

There have been comments here before about how poorly electricity deregulation has worked, and it’s not news that we pay some of the highest rates in the country. Last fall, I interviewed a legislator (the conversation was off the record, so I need to be reasonably vague), and was told that deregulation was still the goal, but that it was becoming obvious that TXU, Reliant and their brethren were going to have to be coerced into competing. This member of the legislature was tired of getting phone calls from constituents, including and especially school districts with fixed budgets, about the price of electricity.

This is the Texas Legislature, of course, so guessing what will happen requires more skill than I have. And TXU, which is a target of several pieces of legislation, has deep pockets and lots of friends in Austin. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if something happens this session to cut rates, at least by more than a Target gift card. So Reliant

The cyber dust-up that my Monday posting about The Morning News’ Rod Dreher caused caught me completely unaware. Call me naïve, but I’m honestly surprised by all of the commotion. I’m not naïve any more, of course, and I learned a lesson: there’s a lot of heat in the blogging kitchen.

Tim Rogers of D is correct. I don’t speak French, which is one reason why I’m not an academic. I had been accepted into the graduate program at the University of Illinois in 1981 to study 17th- and 18th-century European history. But the program required French, and I have no aptitude for foreign languages. So I stayed in the newspaper business, and the world was spared a thesis on the Duke of Marlborough’s relationship with his Dutch allies during the War of the Spanish Succession. If Tim would like to read something of mine in English, I refer him to my essay on the hard-boiled novelist Chester Himes in volume 226 of the Dictionary of Literary Biography.

I’m a little more disappointed with Dreher, if only because we apparently have a bit in common. I worked in south Louisiana for a couple of years while he was growing up in Baton Rouge, and we may know some of the same people (especially at the Morning Advocate newspaper). There used to be a terrific restaurant called The Cabin in Burnside, near the Sunshine Bridge. I also learned much about Louisiana cooking, thanks to a grand woman named Merlin Boudreaux Kleinpeter, who taught me the secrets of gumbo, jambalaya and crawfish etouffee (though I never did figure out redfish courtbouillon). Rod is more than welcome to come by the house to eat. My only request is that he bring the Dixie beer.

It’s not the name calling that bothers me about this foolishness; I’ve been called names for years. It’s that a serious discussion about something of importance to the neighborhood degenerated to this -– something that one of the regular commentators here, Norm Alston, warned about. This blogging takes a bit of getting used to,

Just north of the SuperTarget at Skillman & Abrams north of Northwest Highway, you’ll see dirt turning. Here’s the scoop: Official groundbreaking for the new Top Golf USA flagship golf driving range is scheduled March 2; I’m assuming the facilty will be completed in time for summer. I don’t know much about what is happening at the former Scotty’s Golf Park/Hank Haney Driving Range, other than that I’ve been told the softball and baseball batting cages aren’t going away, and the new golf facility will be one of the most highly electronic golf facilties in the country, with micro-chipped golf balls, contests among golfers, lessons, etc.