HOUSTON FIREFIGHTERS AVOID THE SCANDAL OF ACCEPTING FREE GIFTS FROM A HOUSTON MILLIONAIRE!
When it happened most people in the audience laughed and didn’t quite know what to think but the Insite got the message. It happened Friday afternoon at Gallery Furniture. Jim McIngvale held an appreciation event for the Houston firefighters who saved the bulk of his business during that fire back in May. Hundreds of firefighters and their families showed up. One the tokens of appreciation was the raffling off of several gifts. During the ceremony McIngvale told the firefighters to make sure they held onto their tickets because there would be a raffle for gifts. As Mattress Mac wrapped up Assistant Fire Chief Adrian Trevino made his way to the microphone and said something most didn’t understand. He said, “firefighters make sure you give your prize to a family member if you win.” So what message was he sending? City workers like news reporters can’t accept free gifts for services rendered. It would be ethically questionable and against the city’s policy. Most just laughed it off. But I’m sure most of the firefighters got the message. The Insite sure did!
THANKS MATTRESS MAC BUT NO THANKS!
A MOTHER’S DESPERATION OR WAS IT A SCAM!
WE’VE LOST EVERYTHING PLEASE HELP US!
I was driving along the feeder road on the North Freeway when I noticed an entire family out pleading for help. It was a woman, two sons and a little girl. They were in the 90 degree temperatures with signs. Their poster boards read ‘please help, we’re living on the streets after losing our home.’ Usually, I wouldn’t take a second look at a scene like this. But I saw those kids with sweat rolling down their faces. They looked tired and hungry if that facial expression is possible. I was in a far lane and unable to get a better shot from the Insite cam. However, I was able to get a crude pic at best. It was a heartbreaking situation. Then I started to wonder if this was a scam. Was this Mother using her children to get weekend drinking money or worst drug money? Have you seen them on 45 near Airline? And what do you think, is it genuine despair or a scam? The Insite would like to hear from you!
STEPPING OUT OF THE CLASS AND INTO THE FIELD!
TSU JOURNALISM STUDENT DEREK HAWKINS DROPS BY THE INSITE!
Sometimes when you’re learning your craft you have to throw yourself in head first. That’s exactly what TSU journalism student Derek Hawkins did last Wednesday.
The senior was headed to class at the historically Black institution of higher learning when he noticed police converging on his campus. Instead just ignoring the scene Hawkins whipped out his camera and note pad. He started digging for the details.
Hawkins stumbled upon a shooting that left a high school student hospitalized and a fellow TSU student being questioned by cops.
By the time several Houston news crews arrived on the scene Hawkins had all the details. He’d already interviewed witnesses and family members who were on the scene of the tragic incident. Hawkins says he wanted to try out the skills he’d learned in class.
With a camera dangling around his neck he maneuvered through the crowd trying to track down every detail. By the time The Insite noticed him he was already headed back to class to file a report. I was just getting started.
Hawkins next big assignment starts on July 13th. As part of the Mickey Leland program at TSU he was picked as one of the students to head to Tanzania. He says he will be reporting and blogging from the international location.
Broadcast news crews look out, here comes Derek Hawkins. By the way, Derek thanks for dropping by the Insite!
AN INSITE LOOK AT HISTORY: DID YOU KNOW ABOUT FORDLANDIA?
HENRY FORD’S RUBBER PLANTATION DISASTER IN BRAZIL!
Fordlândia is a now-abandoned, prefabricated industrial town established in the Amazon Rainforest in 1928 by American industrialist Henry Ford for the purpose of securing a source of cultivated rubber for the automobile manufacturing operations of the Ford Motor Company in the United States. Ford had negotiated a deal with the Brazilian government granting his newly formed Companhia Industrial do Brasil a concession of 10,000 km² of land on the shores of the Rio Tapajós near the city of Santarém, Brazil in exchange for a nine percent interest in the profits generated.[1]
Ford intended to use Fordlândia to provide his company with a source of rubber for the tires on 
Ford cars, avoiding the dependence of British (Malayan) rubber. The land was hilly, rocky and infertile. None of Ford’s managers had the requisite knowledge of tropical agriculture. The rubber trees, packed closely together in plantations, as opposed to being widely spaced in the jungle, were easy prey for tree blight and insects, a problem avoided by the Asian rubber plantations where transplanted Amazonian rubber trees faced no such natural predators. The mostly indigenous workers on the plantations, given unfamiliar food such as hamburgers and forced to live in American-style housing, disliked the way they were treated — they had to wear ID badges, and to work midday hours under the tropical sun — and would often refuse to work. In 1930, the native workers revolted against the managers, many of whom fled into the jungle for a few days until the Brazilian Army arrived and the revolt ended.[2]
Ford forbade alcohol and tobacco within the town, including inside the workers’ own homes. The inhabitants circumvented this prohibition by paddling out to merchant riverboats moored beyond town jurisdiction[3] and a settlement was established five miles upstream on the “Island of Innocence” with bars, nightclubs, and brothels.
The government of Brazil was suspicious of any foreign investments, particularly in the northern Amazonia region, and offered little help. Ford tried again, relocating downstream to Belterra where better weather conditions to grow rubber existed, but by 1945, synthetic rubber was developed, ending the world-wide demand for natural rubber. Ford’s investment opportunity dried up overnight without producing any rubber for Ford’s tires. As a result Fordlândia was a total disaster. In 1945, Henry Ford sold it for a loss of over US$20 million. Despite repeated invitations from residents and periodic promises to do so, Henry Ford never actually visited his ill-fated jungle city.
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