How to get your news in the paper

Do you want to know how best to get information about your group or organization into the pages of The Sealy News?

If so, read on.

Each week I face the same old conundrum: Do I take the time to edit wordy and poorly worded press releases or skip them in favor of things that are concise and well-written? Actually, it’s my job to edit the stuff that readers send in, so it’s not much of a conundrum at all, unless space in the paper it tight and I have to carefully choose what gets in and what waits a week.

If you want to make sure your submission gets in rather than hold for another week, please consider the following tips.

First and foremost, keep it simple. I can’t stress this enough. Any submission should contain who, what, when, where, why, and how. Here is an example: The Local Nonprofit Agency (who) is holding a fundraiser (what) at 2 p.m. on Aug. 31 (when) at the Local Community Center, 123 Main St. (where) to raise money for charity (why). The agency will sell items and collect donations for the cause (how).

Next, please include contact information, including a phone number, email address, or website, as appropriate. That way if anyone needs more information or wants to register for an event, they can do that.

The next most important thing is to make sure you submit your item in a format that I can copy and paste into a Word document. That means either writing your information directly into the body of an email and/or attaching a Word document. If you have a computer, please, as much as possible, avoid using PDFs. Some are in a format that permits the ability to copy and paste text, but many are images and do not allow that.

If you have a photo to send, please send it as an attachment to the email as a JPG (JPEG) file. Please do not attach it to a Word document or PDF, as it is more difficult to extract those photos and they lose image quality in the process. Also, please provide the names of people in the pictures. That is important.

As you can see, we rely heavily on email for submissions and the exchange of information. I know not everyone has a computer and for those who don’t, we do welcome submissions that are mailed or dropped off. In those instances, we ask that items be typed or printed legibly.

Although we will take information over the phone, please keep in mind that using the phone is very problematic. For one, I am hard of hearing and I have a difficult time with phones. Secondly, it is very easy to make a mistake with information given over the phone. Third, without written confirmation, we have no way to make sure information given over the phone is correct.

These guidelines also apply to people submitting letters to the editor. We require that the writer include their name and city of residence. In extremely rare instances we will run an anonymous letter, usually to protect the safety of the writer. In any case, no letter writers are anonymous to us. If we don’t know who you are, your letter – or any submission for that matter – will not run. (Remember, even Woodward and Bernstein knew who Deepthroat was.)

The final thing I need to note is our deadlines. We need everything in by Friday for the next week’s paper. I know it seems like a long time before the Thursday paper, but keep in mind that your item, and dozens like it, must be edited, sent to a page designer, and then sent to the press on Tuesday. Most of that work is done on Monday, in addition to things that we have planned ahead to write and report on Mondays. Plus, by Friday afternoon we are planning out the paper and need to know what needs to get in. If we don’t have your information we can’t make plans for it.

I hope that this information will be helpful to you. It’s most definitely helpful to me. In this day and age of instant digital communication, I, like many journalists, do the work that three or four people used to do just a few years ago. We do not have typesetters. I’m it. In addition to editing the paper, I’m also half the reporting staff. My time is limited, as is space in the paper.

We want very much to get your information in print, but to do so we need you to help us out as much as possible. If you have any questions about how to submit something, please feel free to call me (regardless of what I just said about the phones, I can usually carry on a conversation as long as I’m not trying to take notes). I’d rather take two minutes to explain it to you than take 15 to re-write something.

In the meantime, please keep sharing your news. It’s important to us and to the community.

Memorializing moon milestone a must

Last week my sweet, precious baby girl turned 27.

Once your children become adults their birthdays are not nearly as big a deal as they are in their youth. This one, however, was a milestone – for me. It means I have now been a parent exactly half my life. I certainly don’t feel that old, but according to the fine print on my birth certificate, I am.

That got me thinking about milestones. This year I have been caught up in the 50^th anniversary of the first moon landing with Apollo 11. I am a NASA/space junky and I’ve been observing 50-year milestones in spaceflight history for several years now. Next up is the Apollo 12 moon landing on Nov. 19. Unfortunately, the subsequent Apollo anniversaries will not receive the same attention as Apollo 11.

I can’t help but think what a major failing it has been to not make the July 20 landing of Apollo 11 a national holiday. Even now, 50 years later, landing on the moon is mankind’s greatest achievement, yet most people couldn’t tell you what year it happened, let alone the date.

It should be a no-brainer for Congress to enact bi-partisan legislation declaring July 20 as National Space Exploration Day. The moon landing represents the accomplishment of 400,000 people working together toward a common goal. It ended millennia of curiosity and speculation about the moon. It was an achievement celebrated around the world; one of the few events in human history to unite people in a way that has never been done before or since.

Landing humans on the moon and returning them safely to Earth is a much greater accomplishment and is deserving of more recognition than the discovery of the Americas or any of the so-called Hallmark holidays. Yet it languishes in obscurity, unheralded by the generations that followed. What a tragedy.

It’s interesting that as a nation we are every bit as divided politically and socially as we were 50 years ago when this one moment in time galvanized us as a people. Even though the moon landing was done by the United States, the whole world looked up and said, “WE did it!” As the plaque left behind by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin says, “We came in peace for all mankind.”

I know Rep. Pete Olson of Congressional District 22 isn’t planning to seek re-election, but what a legacy it would be for him to sponsor legislation that led to the creation of a National Space Exploration Day holiday. His district abuts Johnson Space Center and he is a huge advocate of NASA and the space program, so why not go out with a bang, Pete?

Another reason to favor this action is because NASA is planning to return to the moon in five years and there are many other commercial and international efforts under way to get people back on Luna firma. It could very well turn out that trips to and from our gray neighbor in the sky will become commonplace. I hope they do. With that, however, is the very real possibility of the significance of the first moon voyages being lost to history. If you don’t believe me, let me ask you this: What is the significance of Dec. 17, 1903? (No using Google, that’s cheating!)

That date (but a different year) is significant to me personally, but I’ll get to that in a minute. Dec. 17, 1903, was the day the Wright Brothers flew the first airplane. Today, flying is so commonplace that I doubt a single pilot or passenger even stops to think about the significance of what Orville and Wilbur Wright accomplished and no one celebrates the day. Yet it changed the lives of everyone who has lived since that first flight.

My dear daughter, Heather Southern, her siblings, and everyone else in this great land of ours deserve a reminder of what we are capable of doing when we set aside our differences and focus on what we have in common and can do together.

I know for Heather, turning 27 probably isn’t much of a milestone. It was for me because that’s when I first became a father. As I look ahead to my next personal milestone, I must mark Dec. 17 on the calendar. Although I doubt I’ll be saluting the Wright Brothers, I will be celebrating 20 wonderful years with my wife, Sandy. I love her to the moon and back!

Get to the root of gun violence

Here we go again. The recent shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, are deplorable, horrific acts of violence and terror. It’s sickening to see such tragic and unnecessary loss of life. Things like that should never happen, but they do, and all too frequently.

Inevitably shootings renew debates over gun control. Whenever news breaks of any kind of gun violence I become very hesitant to tune into social media websites. If your Facebook and Twitter feeds are anything like mine, you will be bombarded with a lot of hate and ugliness from both sides of the issue. Rhetoric ramps up, memes get recycled or refurbished. All kinds of hate, half-truths, and misinformation begin to circulate.

Has anyone stopped to think for a moment that all this garbage we share and retweet might be part of the problem? I know I have a history of innocently sharing memes and things that were not entirely true and were very inflammatory to people who don’t share my beliefs or opinions.

I used to think it was a harmless way of getting a thought or viewpoint across. Not anymore.

One thing I think both sides of the gun control debate can agree on is that we want to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and people who pose a threat to the innocent. Even the most ardent, honest, law-abiding citizen with a gun abhors the thought of having to use it on another person no matter how dangerous they are.

There are a lot of reasons why I feel stricter gun control laws are not the answer, and I’ll get to that in a bit. The main point I want to make is that instead of going after the weapons, we need to focus our energy on stopping the violence. We need to take a good, honest look at the causes of the violence and mayhem, not the means for carrying it out. We need to understand the root causes of why people feel compelled to go on mass murder sprees.

I honestly believe that when someone has it in their heart to kill, they will do so with whatever means necessary. Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people with a fertilizer bomb. Jim Jones used psychological coercion and cyanide-laced fruit punch to kill more than 900. The 9/11 attackers used box cutters and airplanes to kill nearly 3,000. Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS, and other terrorist groups have been most effective in the war on terror utilizing improvised explosive devices (IEDs) against our troops.

The list can go on, but the point is that mass murder is committed by killers, not weapons. That being said, I acknowledge that guns are often the weapon of choice of killers, which is why we are having this debate.

Getting back to my point, the issue we have at hand is hearts filled with hate and generations raised without consequential barriers. Growing up in the 1970s and ’80s I used to hear a lot of speculation about what will become of us if we took away prayer from the schools and the 10 Commandments from the courthouses. We used to wonder that effect violent video games and movies would have on children.

We learned to accept divorce and made it inconsequential. We took away right and wrong and left millions of children suffering without a complete, nuclear family. We made children and families disposable. So many young adults today have difficulty with trust and commitment because it was never modeled for them. They grew up with just the opposite. They never learned to deal with their problems, just run away from them. As a result, many young people put off or reject marriage and are unwilling to bring children into this messed up world of ours.

For the last couple of generations many parents taught their children about making good choices, but failed to teach consequences of those choices, especially the bad ones.

Most children today, whether they are in a one- or two-parent household, will grow up in daycare. They will come home to a house where their parents spend more time with their phones than they do with their children.

This brings me back around to social media and the echo chamber effect. Facebook, Twitter, etc., have not led to civil discussions about important subjects. Just the opposite; they’ve led to political and social polarization. Young people today are learning and believing that if you disagree with someone or their viewpoint that you must hate them.

We surround ourselves with like-minded people online who reinforce what we believe and demonize any differing opinion. Empathy, sympathy, compassion, and compromise are lost in the process. This is reflected not only in the general populace, but in the executive and legislative branches of government as well.

When you start looking at all of these factors, and many more not addressed here, you begin to see a bigger picture of our failings as a society. You can see how anger and frustration, combined with a lack of personal boundaries and consequences, leads to the violence we see today.

If you really want to stop gun violence, stop blaming guns, stop blaming the shooters, stop blaming anything and everything. Start by taking personal responsibility. Take ownership of your life and responsibility for your children and family. Show love and kindness. Teach civility. Model integrity. Speak well of others. Be sympathetic and understanding, not angry and condemning.

If you want to talk about gun control, let us first have an honest discussion about self-control and personal responsibility. Once people learn self-control and compassion for others, gun control becomes a moot point.

Build Allens Creek Reservoir now

It’s time for the Allens Creek Reservoir to finally be built.

I cheered when the Texas Legislature passed, and the governor signed, House Bill 2846 which requires Houston to sell its lion’s share of the proposed reservoir to the Brazos River Authority for no more than $23 million. In turn, the BRA will build and operate the reservoir.

It’s about time someone stood up to our bully of a neighbor and did something. While I can sympathize to a degree with Houston’s complaint that it’s wrong for the state to tell the city what to do, the city was acting in a manner that was harmful to its neighbors and it doesn’t care. It needed a push and the Legislature finally provided it.

The reservoir was first proposed for southern Austin County near Wallis back in 1974 when it was supposed to supply cooling water for a nuclear power plant that was never built. Houston Lighting & Power Company (now Reliant Energy) let the permit expire but the legislature passed a bill allowing the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to award a water rights for the reservoir to the Texas Water Development Board. Later, the Brazos River Authority and Houston purchased the site from Reliant Energy.

In a deal with Houston in 2002, the city received 70% of the water rights and the BRA 30%. The two would fund construction of the reservoir proportionately and the BRA would build and operate it. And that is the way it has been ever since. Every so often someone makes a fuss about getting the reservoir built but Houston balks. It says it doesn’t need the water yet and doesn’t have the money to build it – an estimated $300 million.

As the City of Houston continues to sluff off its responsibility to help build the reservoir, Austin County gets left holding the bag. About 9,500 acres of land between Sealy and Wallis remain unused and, more importantly to county coffers, untaxable. The people of Austin County are stuck waiting for “someday” to come while Houston adopts a “whatever” attitude. The big city has repeatedly said it wants the reservoir for future needs but each time the question comes up, the further out into the future it becomes.

Houston’s delay tactics affect more than those of us in Austin County. It affects the Brazos River Authority and businesses and communities downstream that have a need now for the water it can provide. In a lawsuit filed by Houston, the city claims that the BRA only wants the water to sell for “industrial uses.” Well, yes, that is true. Houston’s unwillingness to budge is costing companies and communities downriver the opportunity to grow and expand.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a statement that his city estimates its rights to the reservoir’s water supply to be about 15% of the future water supply needed for Houston’s population growth. A lot of that water would go to areas west of Houston because Houston manages the Greater Houston-area water supply.

“Houston will fight to keep the resources necessary to ensure that the city can grow and Houstonians’ needs are met,” Turner said regarding the city’s lawsuit against the state and the BRA.

Well, Houston needs to know that the small communities around it are tired of being bullied and pushed around. It is very likely that it will be several more decades before Houston needs the water and in the meantime it maintains a stranglehold on neighbors that need it now. In addition to the economic reasons for needing the reservoir, the region could use it to help mitigate flooding, something that is foremost on everyone’s mind. Yet Houston holds out.

Here in Austin County, not only do we lack any tax benefit from idle land, but just think about the economic impact we are being denied by having a large reservoir in our back yard. Imagine what will become of Wallis once it becomes a waterfront community. Think of all the fishing, boating and other recreational opportunities and support industries that will spring up around Allens Creek Reservoir. All of this is being denied us by Houston’s complacency.

On the other end of this spectrum, it’s no secret the Houston is cash-strapped and deep in debt. The BRA is ready to drop $23 million in its coffers and the city is resisting. That’s absurd!

Besides, no one is saying that future water rights will be denied to Houston. The city will still be positioned to negotiate for water rights in the future when it needs it. Should Houston never need the water rights it would continue to sit on the land and deny its neighbors the opportunity to grow and expand as they see fit. That’s why we needed the Legislature to step in and force Houston’s hand.

It’s time for Houston to fish or cut bait on Allens Creek Reservoir. The rest of the region needs it worse than Houston does and it’s wrong for the city to deny us the opportunities we deserve and have waited so patiently for.