Excerpts: The Island of Lost Maps

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From "The Island of Lost Maps," by Miles Harvey:


At first, Bland had seemed to me an exotic and intriguing figure - but, as is often the case with familiarity, the more I learned about him, the less interesting he became. He was, I ultimately determined, a fairly unexceptional person who had happened to commit a fascinating crime."

After the jump, my review and more excerpts.

OTBR: An Old Barn in Italy

Latitude 45.640600° N
Longitude 12.704900° E


A child on a road trip with his family asks, "Where are we?" and the father answers, "Let's check the map. We're off the blue roads [the Interstate Highways marked in blue on the road atlas]. We're off the red roads [the US and state highways]. We're off the black roads [the county highways]. I think we're off the map altogether." It was always my dream to be off the map altogether.

After the jump, a few of the random places (and I mean random literally) that I visited vicariously last month that are "off the blue roads".

Tick, Tock, the Game is Locked

The late, lamented The Dallas Morning News religion blog has been reduced to a weekly "Texas Faith" posting in which a panel of local religious leaders are asked to comment on a provocative question, such as this week's, "Is it ever right to divorce a spouse with Alzheimers?" Unfortunately, the answers are seldom as provocative as the questions. Something seems to be missing.

Thanks to Unfair Park, we learn that the panel used by the News deliberately excludes a secular viewpoint. Zachary Moore, a coordinator for the DFW Coalition of Reason, has been lobbying the News for months to include a secular viewpoint on the panel, to no effect. Moore says one panelist told him that the other members of the panel voted down the request. Blog moderator Bill McKenzie told Unfair Park, "He's welcome to be a part of the discussion in the comments. I don't think he's being excluded."

After the jump, my thoughts.

Repeat Tweets: Football and Everything Else

Repeat tweets from September, 2011:

• 2011 09 01 - Final. North Crowley 6, Berkner42. It's a great time to be a Ram! #txhsfb
  
• 2011 09 01 - Wisconsin rolls in opener against UNLV, 51-17, in the hottest game in history at 94 year-old Camp Randall Stadium - 90 degrees.
  
• 2011 09 02 - Headline: "US marks first month with no troop deaths in Iraq." Our country needs a little good news right about now. This is great news.
  
• 2011 09 02 - Final. Irving 14, Richardson 37. #txhsfb
  
• 2011 09 03 - Thank you, Baylor, for making that Wisconsin loss to TCU in the Rose Bowl seem like ancient history. TCU, feel free to start a new streak.
  
• 2011 09 03 - Crystal ball: Boise State runs thru rest of their easy schedule undefeated, then watches unbeaten OU and SEC winner play for championship.
  

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

Cottonwood Art Festival

From 2011 10 Cottonwood

Richardson's twice annual Cottonwood Art Festival enjoyed picture perfect weather and large crowds for its weekend run October 1-2. For a look at more photos from this fall's Festival, look here.