On being hit smack dab with reality

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Hello everybody, I’m Raul, Rico and Claudia’s cousin. I’ll write an about page soon, but to the subject I wanted to comment about:

Six Flags has officially announced that it will close ASTROWORLD at the end of 2005 and sell it. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3350688

It seems that the value of the land is now more than the operational profit of the park itself. So it will probably be razed in order to sell it to future owners. I will sob uncontrollably when I drive by and see a freaking Super Wal mart and Best Buy on the site wherer I forged many childhhood memories.

Don’t get me wrong, I in a way I understand. Land inside, or close to the inner loop in houston, is very coveted, so I can reluctantly accept the decision in a cold, calculated sense. Sentiment don’t pay the bills, and tranditional theme parks aren’t the ‘it’ thing for kids anymore.

Hell, even the nuns with the St. Joseph’s CHRISTUS group here in houston have decided recently to sell the long lived downtown St. Joseph’s charity hospital here and sell to private organizations because they can’t pay the bills and the land is worth too damn much. The nuns basically said that they can only perform charity if they can afford it. Unfortunately, the hospital depends on money from the church, and with the recent sex scandals ands subsequent lawsuits depleting some, ahem, coffers, from what I understand that broke the camel’s back and they had to sell. Good news is that I understand that it is most likely to be sold to another health organization that is private in nature and continue as a health care provider, but that would pretty much mean a severe cut of providing health care to those who can’t afford it.
But that’s what we have underpaid medical residents for though, huh? :)

categories General | Raul | datetime September 12, 2005 9:14 pm

  • By Anonymous, September 13, 2005 @ 9:08 pm

    Them’s the breaks
    “I’m sorry, but you failed to get referred by your primary care priest. You can’t just go to a archbishop complaining of diffuse abdominal pain; a deacon should be weeding those complaints out at the very least.
    “We regret to inform you therefore that you have been dropped by God’s HMO. Any pending petitions will be returned unheard until you place money in the collection plate before being seen.
    “Thank you for your understanding and God bless*.”

    *Pending a $0 balance

  • By claudia, September 13, 2005 @ 11:34 pm

    AstroGONE
    Say it ain’t so!!!
    This is Claud, I’m baking in S TX and dare I say it…I MISS HOUSTON!!!

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