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Covert hospitality. Houston wants to prettify itself while its shadiest neighbors go on trial:

...the big Enron trial coming up in January featuring former head honchos Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling and Rick Causey as defendants will draw scads of media attention, and Houston's civic leaders want to make sure the city comes off looking good.

Earlier this month, Houston's image makers from the Greater Houston Partnership, Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, City Hall and county government met to begin forming a strategy to "tell the other side of the story," according to minutes of the meeting.

Among the suggestions discussed: "covert hospitality" — finding out from hotel managers where reporters are staying and then coaching hotel employees on how to answer their questions.

[...]

...the group doesn't want to get too close to the Enron story.

"We should come up with a name for our working committee that does not mention Enron in the title," according to the minutes.

"Possible names suggested were Houston Media Hospitality Committee and Houston Awareness Committee," the minutes said.

Covert hospitality, aka "spin," won't erase the fact that Houston's best and brightest orchestrated the biggest corporate (and possibly political) debacle in modern American history.

And has anyone noticed the price of gasoline lately? Surely Houston has nothing to do with all of that.

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