Source: Diplomacy.
The 20th Century dawned as a true multipolar world. The world in 1914 was dominated by Great Britain, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia, the Ottoman Empire. But when the sun set at the end of the 20th Century, we lived in a unipolar world, a Pax Americana.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has an opinion piece in the New York Times in which she updates us on what's happened in the first twenty years of the 21st Century.
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The Richardson ISD has called an election for school board trustees for May 7, 2022. Three of the seven seats on the board will be decided. The deadline for candidate filings has closed. We now know who will be on the ballot. Nine candidates have filed for the three seats. It's too early to make recommendations, but it's not too early to have first impressions. As they say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Here are mine.
Richardson Mayor Paul Voelker led a walk today, accompanied by two former mayors (Gary Slagel and Steve Mitchell), the mayor pro tem (Janet DePuy), and about two dozen members of the public. We "explored the Core" as the mayor put it. We walked from the Lockwood District, across Belt Line Rd to the Heights Shopping Center, across Central Expressway to historic downtown Main Street and on to Greenville Ave., then south Polk Street, then back to the Lockwood Distilling Co. for drinks. We stopped frequently for the mayor to explain the history and ongoing and planned redevelopment.
For years, I've criticized parts of the City's redevelopment efforts, but I have to admit that the mayor makes the best spokesman for the City's efforts in this area. While I'm not ready to concede on all points, I'm also not saying categorically I was right and the City was wrong. If the City had waited until everyone was pleased, possibly nothing might have ever gotten done. As President Theodore Roosevelt said about the construction of the Panama Canal, "I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate, and while the debate goes on the Canal does too." Richardson downtown redevelopment does, too.
‘Between life and death there is a library,’ she said. ‘And within
that library, the shelves go on for ever. Every book provides a chance
to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be
if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything
different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?’ "
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That excerpt tells pretty much the whole story. Woman attempts suicide. Between life and death, she's given the chance to see all the lives she might have lived. Does she find the ideal life for her? Does she rekindle her will to live? She does learn an important life lesson. It's a straightforward story, not very deep.
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