Friday, March 7, 2025

Should the Coach Get a New Contract?

Source: AP Photo.

The season is coming to an end for the team. The coach's contract is expiring. The coach was gifted good enough game plans, but he couldn't deliver on the reason he was hired, which was to bring a championship to the city. When it came time to decide if the team should extend him a new contract for another season, the team decided to go in a different direction. Most fans thought it was the right decision.

That might sound like I'm talking about the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, Mike McCarthy, but if you guessed I was really talking about the mayor of Richardson, Bob "Coach" Dubey, I can't say you're wrong. The City of Richardson's "Coach" is in the same boat that McCarthy was. Having a long career on the sidelines can result in enough friendships to win you the job in the first place, but that won't save your job if you don't win championships. Too often, Coach Dubey went with his gut, throwing out good game plans on the fly, and ending up with a string of losses. Sooner or later, a coach trading on his longevity needs to be thanked for his service and replaced. Let's look at the results on the field this term to decide if that time is now.

Thursday, March 6, 2025

The Gorge (2025)

Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes

The Gorge (2025): Two sharpshooters in watchtowers face each other across an isolated gorge. Sci-fi, Cold War, post-apocalyptic thriller zombie movie? Also it's a romance, released on Valentine's Day. WTF? Contrived and incoherent. Bad, but not so bad to be unwatchable. C+

AppleTV+

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Book Review: Linguaphile: A Life of Language Love

From Linguaphile: A Life of Language Love", by Julie Sedivy:

Linguaphile: A Life of Language Love

Amazon


"At that time, Italian was to me a bewitching confusion, boiling and streaming in all directions. Its connection to the actual world was tenuous and constantly shifting. It was only now and then that I caught a word with my mind; words were like fish, solid things making sudden, unexpected appearances, flashes of substance and meaning in the liquidity of language flowing all around me. You had to be quick to snatch them before they were lost in the fast-moving stream."

Tuesday, March 4, 2025

Say Nothing (TV 2024)

Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes

Say Nothing (TV 2024): Dramatized history of IRA terrorism in Northern Ireland. Focuses on the involvement (or not) of a young Irish woman in the disappearance of an innocent (or not) young mother. This TV series changed my mind about the IRA and the violence used as a political weapon to unify Ireland. A-

Hulu

Monday, March 3, 2025

Mayor Dubey Explains Taxes

On November 19, 2024, Mayor Bob Dubey was interviewed by Poonam Sandhu, CPA, on her podcast "Tax Bites with Poonam." In the introduction, Mayor Dubey said, "I really don't consider myself a politician. I'd like to say I'm a statesman." A politician calling himself a statesman is like a used car salesman calling himself a "Transportation Solutions Consultant." But Poonam politely let Mayor Dubey's self-aggrandizement slide. Luckily for him, she wasn't in a fact-checking mood. I guess she left that to the listeners. I listened.