Word: houstonic
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...there is a lesson to be learned from the disgrace of Alberto Gonzales, it is that placing loyalty above judgment can be a hazardous thing. When newly elected Texas Governor George W. Bush pulled Gonzales from a Houston law firm in 1994 to make him general counsel, the future President was looking for a legal bodyguard. He got one who would protect his interests for the next 13 years. In 1996, Gonzales helped get Bush excused from the jury in a drunk-driving case that could have forced the Governor to disclose a 1976 DUI arrest. From...
Scientists like Leakey aren't the only ones who object to the impending exhibit. The Ethiopian Community Organization in Houston (ECOH), which represents some 6,000 area residents, has voiced concerns about the Houston museum's willingness to deal with the Ethiopian government, which the ECOH calls a corrupt and repressive regime. Although museum officials have met with ECOH several times, the outreach effort failed and ECOH now openly opposes the show. Bartsch, for one, thinks that's unfortunate. "Lucy is a goodwill ambassador; she represents the neutrality of science," he says...
...world's oldest rock star is coming to Houston. Starting Aug. 31, the 3.18 million-year-old hominid skeleton known as Lucy (so dubbed because researchers were blaring the Beatles' Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds the night of her discovery) will headline the Houston Museum of Natural Science's (HMNS) new exhibit, "Lucy's Legacy: The Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia" - only her third public appearance in nearly 30 years, and the kick-off to a planned six-year nationwide tour. But while HMNS curators celebrate Lucy's arrival, some famed paleontologists are grumbling that the rare opportunity simply...
...Ethiopian government an undisclosed fee - estimates range from $300,000 to several million dollars - plus part of the proceeds from ticket and museum-store sales, money that the government has promised to Ethiopian museums. Ethiopian officials are also hoping that Americans who come to see Lucy in Houston or on tour might come to see Ethiopia too. But scientists say that argument is wrongheaded. "People will go to Ethiopia to see Lucy, but why should they travel to Ethiopia if Lucy has come to their local museum?" says paleontologist Richard Leakey. "Sending Lucy or any other original fossil to America...
...around the world ship fragile, irreplaceable, priceless objects every day" - far more delicate items like the Dead Sea Scrolls and China's terra-cotta soldiers have been carted to and fro repeatedly without harm. Ian Tattersall, with New York City's American Museum of Natural History, agrees that the Houston exhibit has value. "You can make the same intellectual point with replicas, but I don't think you can make the same emotional point," says Tattersall, who is currently working on a comprehensive document of the human fossil record. "The original fossils have a presence that casts just...