I’m at the KUHT studio for Houston Have Your Say along with Ree-C Murphy and Mizanur Rahman from the Chron. We will not actually be on camera – we’re off on the side at the “bloggers table”, which suits us all just fine. There’s a number of distinguished-looking guests, fifty or so, and they are now being told what to expect. There will be three sections – economy and security issues, health care, and education. There will be a short video clip to start, then questions will be asked of the guests. Everyone has been told to play nice. We’ll see how long that lasts. Oh, and no mike-grabbing.
The blog for this event is here. I’m going to post what I can as I can, given the limits of my attention span and comprehension skills.
UPDATE: Among the distinguished and distinguished-looking guests: Harris County Treasurer Orlando Sanchez, and State Sen. Dan Patrick. No Democratic politicians that I have seen as yet.
UPDATE: Just got our hands on the guest list. Other recognizable names: Former City Coucil Member Gordon Quan, Massey Villareal with the Greater Houston Partnership, Rice University’s Dr. Stephen Klineberg, Sonny Messiah Jiles from the Houston Defender, Richard Shaw with the AFL-CIO, and our consensus favorite name on the list, Lura Lovestar, who is listed as a Concerned Citizen. Mike Fjetland, former canidate for CD22, is also here but not part of the on-camera audience.
UPDATE: My first post after the start of the show is here.
For the most part people did play nice, everyone stuck to their talking points and no minds were changed among the panel which BTW was WAAYYY too big.
I’d guess the 2 points which had the most consensus among the panel was that bilingual education may not be to best option for preparing Spanish speaking HS students to succeed in finding stateside employment and that Dan Patrick’s dye job was horrendous. Seriously Dan, I know you work in radio, but if you know your going to have a TV gig, treat the hair to a fresh coat.