Rail in Houston, or, "Meet George Jetson!"

The future of rail of Space City can get extremely confusing unless one pays extra close attention, and even then it can give you a headache.

Even those who are paid to understand it struggle with the intricacies and the intrigue.

Michael Reed, in the latest issue of the West University News Examiner, likens it to a "sort of upside down Bizarro world," one in which a particpant with "starry eyes" at one of the many recent public hearings begins to make perfect sense, maybe even to Mayor White.

While speaking at one of about 10,000 identical public meetings on possible routes, he advanced the theory that the light rail should be scrapped in favor of interconnected conveyor belts that Houstonians could merely step on and ride to their destinations.

We thought at the time it was a very futuristic approach — very Jetsons, in fact, and not nearly as cartoonish as a lot of what had been offered by most of the well-rehearsed partisans or any of the elected officials present.

We noticed, at the time, Mayor White stood transfixed at the podium, probably either scared he would miss something or, maybe, just plain scared. Of course, he could have been lost in childhood recollections of how George Jetson used to get sucked under by his own conveyance system on a weekly basis.

He was probably thinking the city could never absorb the lawsuits, especially with the Downtown Danger Train being successful in so many of its seek-and-destroy missions.