Perry’s Presidential Campaign Is Having a Deja Vu Moment

Hey, remember when Gov. Rick Perry refused to debate at all when he was campaigning to keep the “best job in America“ not long ago? And then we realized when he announced that he had been called to run for president and had to start debating, that there was probably a really good reason he didn’t want to debate Bill White?

Well, Perry has decided, apparently, that the “best job in America” strategy is a better one than the tried-and-probably-true one that includes debating. So he will be debating less in the future. Part of me understands this, because there have already been an infinity of GOP debates. But part of me is also wondering if the strategy that allowed him to win the gubernatorial race will work well nationally.

What say you?

Village Voice Media Responds to Open Letter in New York Times from 36 Clergy

On Sunday, 36 clergy from around the country took out a full-page ad on A9 in the New York Times, asking Village Voice Media (which owns the Dallas Observer, among many other alt weeklies, as well as the online classified site Backpage.com) to “please shut down the Adult section of Backpage.com immediately so that no minor is exploited through advertisements on your Web site.”

Their contention: “Arrests of adults selling minors for sex via Backpage.com have been reported by the media in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin.”

Yesterday, VVM responded.

Complicated issues require sophisticated solutions, not PR flurries.

Adult advertising, as found on Craigslist, Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, Yellowpage.com and numerous other web sites is complicated by those who seek to exploit this technology.

And the issues surrounding the exploitation of children are equally complex, often involving homelessness, drugs, and abuse at home.

Backpage.com is a digital classified site with an adult component that is attempting to be part of the solution. And we remain open to the possibility of conversation with these religious leaders.

You can find both the letter and the rest of the company’s response here.

Leading Off (10/26/11)

UNT Student Takes Part in Texting Competition Today. Sarah Wood is a 22-year-old college student with a job. And today she’ll be competing against teens. Her sport? Texting. And if she wins, she gets $50,000. One part of the competition requires the contestants to be blindfolded. Wood says that’s easy. She normally texts while watching TV. That last sentence bothers me in multiple ways.

Pigeon Racers May Be Restricted. Until yesterday, I did not know that the sport of pigeon racing existed. I still don’t quite understand the concept. But from this article, I did learn that you need about 200 birds if you’re a serious lover of these “racehorses of the airways.” And a proposed ordinance could reduce that number to 25 pigeons. Feathers are ruffled, residents are yelling fowl, and the pecking order’s been destroyed. I hope this story continues. Mainly because pigeons have so much pun potential.

Kid Pees, Rangers Score. I love when we have teams in sporting events such as the World Series and the NBA Championship, because then we journalist types get to write all sorts of serious, hard-hitting stories about any and everything surrounding the games. Take, for example, this great article about a kid needing to go to the bathroom, and the Rangers scoring every time he left his seat. Good stuff. Hopefully he pees a lot tonight during Game 6. That is, if Game 6 happens tonight.