Even More Spring in the Steger Garden (2012)

From Flowers

Another photo after the jump.

Swing Away ... in May

From 2012 00 Miscellaneous

The Lake Highlands HS Wildcat baseball team extended their season with a wild win over McKinney Boyd in the second game of their three game series Friday night. Just how wild was it? I dunno. I left in the second inning when rain started to fall. Lake Highlands was trailing 2-0. Apparently, the serious rain missed the ball field, allowing the teams to get the game in. Judging from these tweets, it sounds like it was a game to stick around for:

RT @GreggCalvin: "Yes please! That's how you do it! #Game3 at McKinney Boyd tomorrow at 12 o'clock"

RT @rthomas422: "Ahh crazy game! Game 3 at Boyd tomorrow at 12. #lhbaseball"

Update: From The Dallas Morning News: "Lake Highlands 4, McKinney Boyd 3: Lake Highlands scored three runs in the bottom of the seventh [high schools play seven innings], capped by an RBI single by Colton Bradley, to even the best-of-3 series at one win apiece. Game 3 is set for noon Saturday at McKinney Boyd."

Keep Richardson Weird

Teresa Gubbons and Pegasus News have the big news:

The City of Richardson's planning commission gave the go-ahead to a plan from Austin-based Alamo Drafthouse to open its first branch in Dallas-Fort Worth in the Richardson Heights Shopping Center.

Source: Pegasus News.

This announcement of a movie theater coming to Richardson, and not just any movie theatre, is exactly the kind of catalyst that could spark a renaissance for Richardson's old downtown ... if Richardson seizes the opportunity.

After the jump, imagining what this might mean.

SBOE Faceoff in District 12

Recently, I offered my opinions on the four candidates for the GOP nomination for the State Board of Education (SBOE) District 12 seat.

• Gail Spurlock
  
• Tincy Miller
  
• George Clayton
  
• Pam Little
  

George Clayton, the incumbent, received my (reluctant) nod.

Tuesday night, all four candidates, plus Lois Parrott, who is uncontested in seeking the Democrat-ic nomination, had a chance to impress me in person at a forum jointly sponsored by the Leagues of Women Voters of Plano/Collin County, Dallas and Richardson, the Greater Dallas Section of the National Council of Jewish Women, and the Women's Council of Dallas County.

After the jump, how the candidates fared in changing my mind.

Repeat Tweets: A Slack Month, Only One Amazing Thing

Repeat tweets from April, 2012:

• 2012 04 06 - Headline: "Texas Voter ID: State Tries To Keep Info Secret." State leg doesn't want open mtgs law to apply to them. http://t.co/DfDZ7Aqx
  
• 2012 04 06 - 50/50 (2011): Comedy about cancer. Not funny ha ha; not weepy either. Succeeds in walking a fine line on a touchy subject. B-
  
• 2012 04 10 - One Amazing Thing, by Chitra Divakaruni: Nine melodramatic stories. Platitudinous. Interchangeable. Pick one. Flesh it out. C+
  
• 2012 04 13 - Headline: "RISD’s Bob Dubey named Athletics Director of the Year." Congratulations! http://t.co/aHk2mMm5
  
• 2012 04 13 - Headline: "Treasury predicts all federal bailouts likely will turn profit." Reason to not trust conventional wisdom. http://t.co/EbTVB7Fn
  

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

Slicing and Dicing Richardson

This is the most passionate I've seen people. My email is blowing up, my phone is blowing up.

Source: Public Hearing, City of Richardson.

What could be causing such a commotion? It was a public hearing of Richardson's Council District Boundary Commission (aka the City Planning Commission, or CPC). Every ten years, with the new census, Richardson redraws its council district boundaries to ensure balance in the population of each district. This public hearing was for receiving comments related to the three district boundary options under consideration by the CPC.

After the jump, what the passion is all about.

Everybody Should Go to College

Really? Who says? Well, when you try to answer that question, you have to dig some. At most, it appears that some school districts wanted every high school graduate to be college-ready, some going as far as the Los Angeles school district to require all students to take college-prep classes to graduate. But wanting all high school graduates to be college-ready is not really the same thing as saying everybody should go to college. Just that they should be ready to go if they decide to choose that path.

So, who says everybody should go to college? Often, the charge is that the President says so. Either President Barack Obama or maybe going back to President George W. Bush. Did either one really say that?

After the jump, hunting down the origin of conventional wisdom.

Richardson's Finest

A sight you definitely don't want to see when you look out your front door.
Unless you need help. Then you want to see 'em all there.
Experiencing mixed emotions on a Saturday afternoon.
That's all I know. Don't ask me any more.

All of which reminds me of this story...

When Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned in the Tower of London, he occupied himself with writing a history of the world. He had finished the first volume and was at work on the second when there was a scuffle between some workmen beneath the window of his cell, and one of the men was killed. In spite of diligent enquiries, and in spite of the fact that he had actually seen the thing happen, Sir Walter was never able to discover what the quarrel was about; whereupon, so it is said -- and if the story is not true it certainly ought to be -- he burned what he had written and abandoned his project.

Source: George Orwell.

Delete my blog? Don't you wish!

SBOE: Pam Little, Standing Firm

This week, I've reviewed three GOP candidates for the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) -- Gail Spurlock, Tincy Miller, and George Clayton -- and found all of their candidacies wanting, either deal breakers or issues that make me reluctant to endorse them.

There's a fourth candidate in the GOP primary for State Board of Education (SBOE) District 12, Pam Little. After the jump, my first impressions.

SBOE: It's George Clayton by Elimination

This week, I've reviewed two GOP candidates for the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) -- Gail Spurlock and Tincy Miller -- and found their candidacies wanting. That left me, reluctantly, leaning towards endorsing the incumbent, George Clayton, on the grounds that I haven't heard anything about him contributing to the stupid antics of the SBOE. But, to be fair, I couldn't leave it at that without spending some effort trying to find out what Clayton is up to in his own campaign.

After the jump, I'm still trying, but what I'm finding isn't helping.

SBOE: Tincy Miller and Bill Ames

Recently, I quoted some statements by Gail Spurlock, candidate for the GOP nomination for Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) District 12, which includes Richardson. I wasn't too impressed with her opinion that the Pilgrims were communists and sex education isn't needed because kids can figure out on their own how to have sex. I said that I'd take the other candidates, either George Clayton or Tincy Miller, in a heartbeat over Spurlock.

After the jump, what I've learned since that further narrows the field.

Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal

Pablo Picasso is usually credited as the author of that quote, but there seems to be some dispute over who actually said it. Ironically, some wit in history has failed to get proper credit for this pithy saying.

The quote comes to mind after reading a story in The Washington Post about the voluntary resignation of Elizabeth Flock. The Post's ombudsman explains the reason for the resignation.

on April 13, she aggregated a story trending online about life on Mars. Scientists reexamining data collected from the 1976 Viking lander on the red planet concluded that there might be bacterial life there. Flock says that in haste she read about 10 stories about Mars life, including some of the research papers, and forgot to credit and link to the originator of the story, Discovery News. It appears that she copied, pasted and slightly rewrote two paragraphs from the Discovery story.

Source: Patrick B. Pexton.

After the jump, the reflections of a local blogger, yours truly.

Gail Spurlock "Restores" History

The Texas primary election is coming up May 29. The big races are for US Congress and the Texas legislature, but don't forget about those down-ballot races like the State Board of Education (SBOE). These are the people who decide that Texas schoolchildren should be taught to doubt Darwin, to deny there is a Constitutional separation of church and state, and to believe that 1950s McCarthyism had it right after all.

Richardson's own Gail Spurlock seeks to carry the torch for the Republicans. After the jump, Spurlock in her own words.

More Spring in the Steger Garden (2012)

From Flowers

Build First, Plan Later

I started the week on an optimistic note, pointing out how the Richardson City Council held a couple of secret executive sessions to discuss economic development in the Main Street/US 75 area. My hopes for a renaissance in the old downtown were raised.

Later in the week, my optimism waned as I daydreamed about a missed opportunity to exploit the Floyd Branch of Cottonwood Creek as it runs through old downtown Richardson. You didn't know about old downtown's natural creek? Neither did I. Apparently, no one at city hall gives it any value at all. They want to bury it. That's the missed opportunity.

Now, I end the week in a black mood, as I (finally) get around to reading the city staff presentation to the city council on the planned study for redevelopment of the Main Street/Central Expressway Corridor.

After the jump, build first, plan later.

Floyd's Fishing Hole

Bullhead in downtown Richardson. Yep. And I'm not referring to me. Bear with me. I'll get to it. I'm back to pester you about my latest quixotic vision for Richardson.

My frequent paeans to transit-oriented development around Richardson's DART stations are too numerous not to have registered somewhere in your memory, right? DART is real, not a dream.

What is (probably) a dream (for now, anyway) is my vision of ripping up Central Expressway and replacing it with a grand central boulevard for Richardson.

Also just an idle daydream was me tweeting about running a streetcar line up Greenville Ave from Brick Row to the PGBT DART station.

Recently, my lamenting of Dallas's undead plan to pave the Trinity River floodplain inside downtown's levees with a new tollway inspired a new quixotic dream for me about Richardson.

After the jump, what Richardson can learn from Seoul, Korea (even if Dallas refuses to).

Texans for Education Funding Equity

Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in.

Source: Harry S Truman.

Harry Truman said that long before Americans learned about Watergate. It's not like Americans couldn't have known what they were getting when they elected Richard Nixon as President (twice!).

OK, moving on... Do you remember the days when writing a letter to your legislator was an effective way to have your voice heard in government? Neither do I. Always more myth than reality, the notion that legislators listen to anything but money is today considered laughably naive.

That's why this headline in The Dallas Morning News is not surprising: "Richardson dads form PAC to gather cash, clout for Texas school finance reform." Josh Cedor founded the Texans for Education Funding Equity PAC (TEFE). He told the News's Jeffrey Weiss: "Politics is the game of money, whether anybody likes it or wants to admit it."

After the jump, what he's up against. Spoiler alert: his state legislator is Stefani Carter.

Secret Hope for Old Richardson

Are big things in store for old downtown Richardson?

In November, the council approved zoning changes to facilitate a large expansion of the Afrah restaurant, including a market center and plaza.

In January, the council approved doing a Main Street/Central Expressway study to create a redevelopment and reinvestment strategy for the area.

In April, secret doings in city council. More after the jump.

Market Failure

Mention "Great Depression" to most Americans and what do they think of? High unemployment and poverty, certainly. ("I see one third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished." -- FDR.) What they might not think of is failure of the free market. But at the time, it was a different story. There was serious doubt about the viability of America's free market economic system, whose failure was on such dramatic display. There was an alternative system that was increasingly attractive to many Americans, the revolutionary communist system in the Soviet Union ("I have seen the future and it works." -- Lincoln Steffens.)

But in the end, Americans of the day rejected revolution and communism. Americans of our time forget, or never learned, that that wasn't inevitable. We can thank the success of FDR's New Deal in creating a safety net for those suffering the most from the failure of the free market. And on the other side of the coin, the totalitarian nature of communism in the Soviet Union gradually became clear to Americans. With the atomic bomb and ICBMs, the USSR posed an existential threat to the US. Partly in reaction to the threat of Soviet communism, memory of the failure of the free market during the Great Depression faded and was replaced by its opposite, a glorification of the free market. It became a matter of self-evident truth: the free market could do no wrong.

The pendulum had swung too far. After the jump, restoring some balance.

Return of the Dead: Trinity Tollway Edition

Dead development projects have a way of coming back to life and haunting their cities forevermore. Last week, it was a plan for a self-service warehouse on Arapaho Rd in Richardson that the city council dragged out of its grave and plopped down in the middle of a commercial and residential neighborhood just down the street from city hall, where it will haunt Richardson for twenty years.

But the mother of all living dead projects has to be Dallas's plan to lay a freeway down inside the levees of the Trinity River. No matter how many studies reveal that to be a disaster waiting to happen, the powers that be in Dallas keep finding a way to keep breathing life into that zombie development project.

After the jump, a dream that won't die, a dream to counter these nightmares.

Spring in the Steger Garden (2012)

From Flowers

Clicking for Charity

Maybe I just missed the start of this trend, but it seems like a lot of charitable funding decisions are being turned over to online voting. That leads to get-out-the-vote campaigns by champions of those charities.

What better way to drum up online support than through Twitter? After the jump, three tweets with a Richardson connection that caught my attention recently.

Review: One Amazing Thing

Amazon

From One Amazing Thing, Chitra Divakaruni:


I screwed up my life big-time, a lot of ways. Did a lot of stupid stuff. But at least I saw one amazing thing."

 
 
 
  One Amazing Thing is the "Richardson Reads One Book" pick for 2012. It's a disaster novel (an earthquake traps a diverse cast of characters in the visa office of the Indian consulate in an unnamed American city). It's an uplifting morality play (victims, in turn, tell stories of events that changed their lives). It's short. It's an easy read. It would make a good book to take to the beach this summer.

After the jump, my review.

Richardson is in a Back-Alley Fight

If you are not in the habit of reading Jim Schutze in the Dallas Observer, you are missing the one must-read columnist in Dallas journalism. Not that he's always right (although he's right more than he's wrong), but he avoids the false equivalence that is standard in most journalism today (in the name of "balance"). Schutze always has a point of view and he's not afraid to let you know what it is, no matter whose feathers he ruffles while making it. No, that's not quite it. Making a point seems to be only a means to an end for Schutze. It's more like ruffling feathers itself is his main purpose. No, that's not it, either. Schutze aims at more than ruffling feathers. He wants to de-feather, de-skin, and de-bone his target altogether. You get the point. It's no accident that Schutze's column in Unfair Park is accompanied by a photo of Schutze pointing the barrel of a gun at the reader. Anyway, let me allow Schutze to speak for himself, to show you what I mean.

It's a simple challenge. Jefferey Muhammad, I call you a chicken-shit liar. Prove me wrong.

Source: Unfair Park.

After the jump, what Schutze thinks of Richardson (and every other suburb of Dallas).

Good Friday at Dallas Blooms

From 2012 04 Dallas Blooms

More photos after the jump.

Repeat Tweets: Texas's History, Richardson's Future

Repeat tweets from March, 2012:

• 2012 03 01 - March is Texas History Month in honor of those Texans who gave us the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the New Testament.
  
• 2012 03 01 - Headline: "Patients often unhappy with new Texas sonogram law." News that isn't news.
  
• 2012 03 02 - It was 176 years ago today that immigrants declared independence from Mexico and created the Republic of Texas.
  
• 2012 03 02 - "Attention Young People: Move to Richardson Now!" It's an ad, but still true. http://t.co/CjJD52uP
  
• 2012 03 02 - Richardson's TOD can't get here soon enough. Matthew Yglesias on the nationwide shortage of apartments: https://t.co/PBeKyWyH
  

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

OTBR: Rabbit Tracks in Finland

Latitude: 66.5376° N
Longitude: 25.7216° 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".

Dog Parks and Skate Parks

Dog Parks and Skate Parks? Meh.

This is the result when you have a 12 part vision statement and 57 near-term action items. You lack a sense of priority.

Return of the Dead: Warehouse Edition

Remember when the Richardson City Council rejected a request to build a self-service warehouse on Arapaho Rd west of Custer Rd? The vote was four to three to kill the proposal.

Here's what I thought in December about a warehouse in that location:

The other request is for rezoning for a self-service warehouse with outside vehicle storage (boats, motor homes, etc.) on Arapaho Rd west of Custer Rd. That's right in a shopping center, across the street from a shopping center, just down the street from the Civic Center. A few years ago, the city thought parked boats and motor homes were such an eyesore that the city council passed an ordinance restricting home owners from parking their recreational vehicles at their houses. The city also spent years buying up aging homes across Arapaho Rd from the Civic Center and tearing them down. Why in the world would the city now agree to zoning that would allow a self-service warehouse, with boats and motor homes parked outdoors, to be built in a shopping center, near a residential neighborhood, and just down the street from the Civic Center? Here's another use destined to destroy any hope that this aging retail neighborhood can be revived.

Source: The Wheel.

Like I said, the council rejected the rezoning request. After the jump, an update. Spoiler alert: like in all good zombie movies, the dead don't stay dead.

Tear Down Central Expressway - update

Regular readers know of my quixotic dream to rip up North Central Expressway from LBJ Freeway to the President George Bush Turnpike and replace it with a grand central boulevard for Richardson -- human-scaled, walkable, lined with trees and sidewalk cafes, designed for pedestrians, not just cars.

I know this is a pipe dream, but I like to think of it as just a larger-scale version of smaller steps Richardson has already taken to impede the flow of traffic elsewhere. For example, the intersection at Campbell Rd and West Shore Dr at the entrance to UT-Dallas is a messy maze of turn lanes designed with a single purpose in mind -- to keep drivers from going directly from UT-Dallas onto West Shore Dr (or vice versa). For another example, where N Collins Blvd meets Renner Rd, it has been completely blocked off to prevent drivers from going directly from Renner Rd or Alma Rd to N Collins Blvd (or vice versa). For a third example, Grove Rd, where it intersects Centennial Blvd, has been narrowed to one lane -- by the addition of a bike lane and by the construction of a bottleneck at the intersection. The goal there is to discourage drivers from proceeding north on Audelia Rd across Centennial Blvd onto Grove Rd.

Given these concrete examples of Richardson deliberately impeding traffic in order to, presumably, increase the livability of the neighborhoods cut off by these actions, should I really be faulted for dreaming big and imagining something similar happening to North Central Expressway?

After the jump, news from the rest of world that keeps hope alive.

Hookah Story Mostly Hokem

"Hookah boom in Richardson causes concerns about underage smoking."

That's the headline to a story in The Dallas Morning News by Ann Marie Shambaugh. Go read the story. Read it again. Does the story support the headline?

After the jump, trying to find some fire beneath all the smoke.

Better Parking, Better Cities

Source: Google Maps.

What's missing from the photo above? It's an aerial photo of Lijiang, Yunnan, China. There are a lot of rooftops. A lot. But where are the streets? It turns out the streets are there. What's really missing are the cars. Eliminate the cars and the streets don't need to take up much space. They can be people-sized. The photo below shows what I mean.

From 2012 03 Lijiang

OK, maybe that's too much for most of us. After the jump, steps we can take, without needing to eliminate cars, to make urban settings more adapted to humans, not just their cars.

Rows of Vegetables or Rows of Cars

Source: Garden Cafe.

I went to a garden party last weekend. Literally, a garden party. I had dinner on the patio of the vegetable garden of the Garden Cafe in East Dallas. What once was a rundown, dilapidated, decaying (you get the idea, right?) old shopping center is now a neighborhood gem serving breakfast, lunch and, by pre-arrangement, dinner, with meals of some of the freshest local produce around.

After the jump, what's wrong with this picture?

Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge

From 2012 03 Lijiang

A three hour bus trip north of Dali, on a two-lane twisty mountain highway, was our last stop on spring break, the UNESCO world heritage site of Lijiang, Yunnan, China. The modern city of Lijiang has over a million residents, but the old city, where tourists congregate, is a delightful, walkable maze of narrow alleyways, canals and bridges. The Dongba culture of the Naxi people is on display, in pictographs and music, as well as embroidery and popular fare such as yak meat.

Lijiang's latitude puts it somewhere south of Corpus Christi, but its 7,800 feet of elevation gives Lijiang a mild climate. The mountains are never far from sight. A classic image of Lijiang is of the Black Dragon Pool, with a temple and bridge in the foreground and the towering Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in the background. The mountain forms one side of the Tiger Leaping Gorge, a breathtaking narrow canyon with steep mountain sides through which flows the Jinsha River, the upper reaches of the Yangtze. It's a popular destination of backpackers. We took a shortcut -- a drive along a highway carved out of the side of the gorge to Tina's guest house in the middle gorge, then a three hour hike down and back up a ridiculously steep trail to the river.

After three nights in Lijiang, we were up at 4:30 am to go to the Lijiang airport for a short flight to Kunming, followed by a longer flight back to Shanghai. The next day, we took the long flight to Chicago, followed by a connecting flight to DFW airport. Memories of our Yunnan vacation are as close as my cell phone, where I still have the "Tibetan Cafe" on my phone's list of Wi-Fi hotspots. I can look at the "Tibetan Cafe - out of range" indicator and sigh with warm memories.

More photos from Lijiang after the jump.

Dali, Yunnan, China

From 2012 03 Dali

After touring the Stone Forest in Kunming, we were dropped off at the Kunming west bus station to catch a bus for the four hour ride to Dali, one hundred sixty miles west of Kunming. We walked in, bought tickets for the next bus, and waited only fifteen minutes before departure. There's much to be said about the intercity travel options in China. (The toilet facilities in the older bus stations of China are something else again, but here, too, China is rapidly modernizing.)

Yunnan province might be the most ethnically diverse in China. Dali is the ancient capital of the Bai kingdom. Its walled old city is the main tourist attraction and where we stayed. The old city is laid out in a neat grid pattern, of which the north-south pedestrian-only Fuxing Road contains the best shopping and the east-west pedestrian-only Huguo and Renmin Roads contain the most restaurants. We ate in the "Bad Monkey" and the "Tibetan Cafe," typical of the small, slightly seedy nature of the area, catering to young Westerners, including many backpackers who are attracted to Yunnan's hiking trails. The atmosphere is reminiscent of the old hippie culture, updated with ubiquitous Wi-Fi. By the way, China seems to block social networks like Twitter and Facebook altogether and even Gmail is hit or miss. Sometimes you can connect, sometimes you can't.

About a mile from the old city are the Three Pagodas, a complex of Buddhist temples, the oldest of which dates back about twelve hundred years. The temples stretch up the mountainside, unveiling themselves one by one as you walk the complex. In a separate location there's a cable car you can ride halfway up the mountain to a trail and guest house. The cable car was closed the day we attempted it, so we can only imagine the views.

More photos from Dali after the jump.

Kunming and the Stone Forest

From 2012 03 Kunming

Kunming is twelve hundred miles southwest of Shanghai. Its climate is ideal. It's on the same latitude as Miami, Florida, but with the elevation of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Kunming is one of the seemingly countless number of huge, sprawling cities in China. It has a population of 3 million (or 6 million, depending on how broadly you define the metropolitan area). If Americans know anything of Kunming, it might be from WWII history. Kunming was the base from which the Allies supported the efforts of Free China to resist the Japanese invasion. The main supply route was the Burma Road from Rangoon to Kunming, defended by American fighter squadrons known as the Flying Tigers.

Kunming was the starting point for our vacation in Yunnan Province. We spent an afternoon in the city. We strolled the delightful Green Lake Park and ate on the street-side patio of one of the restaurants across from the park. The next morning we visited the main target of our stay in Kunming, the Stone Forest, a national scenic area about 75 miles away. Supposedly, there's an old saying, "If you have visited Kunming without seeing the Stone Forest, you have wasted your time." We didn't partake of enough of Kunming's other attractions to vouch for the truth of that, but our time in the Stone Forest was definitely not wasted.

More photos from Kunming after the jump.

Shanghai, the Adventure Begins

From 2012 03 Shanghai

Our spring break vacation began and ended in Shanghai. Last year we spent a couple of days there. But this year, Shanghai was only our jumping off point. We spent more time in the airport, taxis and subway trains than in the city itself. So, this first installment of our spring break trip report is a short one.

We took the Shanghai Metro subway from our hotel out near Pudong airport to downtown. It took about an hour. It cost 5 yuan (about 75 cents) for a one-way fare. It was new, clean, fast, convenient. It was crowded, but not packed. It's the kind of system that America could use more of.

More photos from Shanghai after the jump.

Review: Gandhi

Amazon

From Gandhi: The True Man Behind Modern India, by Jad Adams:

Gandhi did not in the end command his followers to commit suicide, but in the light of the late-twentieth-century cults of Jim Jones at Jonestown, David Koresh at Waco and Marshall Applewhite at Rancho Santa Fe, Gandhi's exhortations have an uncomfortably modern ring."

Gandhi, by Jad Adams: Eccentric, mystical, primitive and a bit creepy. Your crazy uncle let loose, who wows the world. C+

After the jump, my review.

Review: Swamplandia!

Amazon

Swamplandia!, by Karen Russell: Teen girl's tale of gator wrestlers, ghosts, a birdman, and family. Another world, universal feelings. B+

From Swamplandia!, by Karen Russell:


Our mother performed in starlight. Whose innovation this was I never discovered. Probably it was Chief Bigtree's idea, and it was a good one -- to blank the follow spot and let a sharp moon cut across the sky, unchaperoned; to kill the microphone; to leave the stage lights' tin eyelids scrolled and give the tourists in the stands a chance to enjoy the darkness of our island; to encourage the whole stadium to gulp air along with Swamplandia!'s star performer, the world-famous alligator wrestler Hilola Bigtree."

Swamplandia! is a tale about coming of age in one of those faded, family-owned roadside attractions from another era. In this case, it's Swamplandia! and to get there requires a ferry ride through the Florida mangrove swamps to an island "thirty-odd miles off the grid of mainland lights."

After the jump, my review.

Real Heroes, Less Suspicious

Two years ago, the Richardson Coalition, a political action committee formed to elect its preferred candidates to city council, created something called the "Real Heroes" award. Their voting procedure, requiring the public to submit their email addresses to the PAC, smacked of an email harvesting scheme. Many people were suspicious of the PAC's motives (and by many people, I mean me and by suspicious, I mean dead certain). I pointed it out at the time. A year later, the next cycle of voting showed no changes to the voting procedure. I again complained about it here.

After the jump, how's it look in round three?

Update: Collin County Performance Hall

Not Collin County

From 2006 06 Salzburg

Do you remember the opening scene in "The Sound of Music" where Julie Andrews runs through an alpine meadow singing the movie's theme song? Well, if Julie Andrews ever comes to Collin County to give a concert, it'll be the same story here. Only without the scenery. She'll have to find some open cotton field to sing in because there aren't any alpine meadows ... or first class concert halls.

A long-troubled plan to build a performance hall in Collin County took one more step towards extinction this week. Originally called the "Arts of Collin County," it was troubled from the start, when voters in McKinney decided not to participate. Somewhere along the way, it was renamed the "Arts Center of North Texas." Then, last year, voters in Frisco voted to pull out, leaving only Plano and Allen.

After the jump, this week's bad news.

Update: Tree the State

Two years ago, when Richardson launched its "Tree the Town" program with a goal of planting 50,000 trees in ten years, I was skeptical. There just isn't enough space in Richardson (28 square miles) for 50,000 more mature trees.

I backed off a little when I learned that the goal included trees planted on private property by homeowners and business owners. But something else has happened since then that makes me rethink my skepticism even more.

After the jump, the record-breaking drought.

OTBR: A Rare View of Hoover Dam

Latitude: 35.9853° N
Longitude: 114.7721° W

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".

Espree at LHHS

From 2012 01 Musicals

Espree at LHHS: Almost a century of popular music from rock to Disney. Great voices, infectious enthusiasm, fun evening.

Repeat Tweets: Musicals, Basketball and Elections

Repeat tweets from February, 2012:

• 2012 02 01 - NCAA put Nebraska on probation for distributing textbooks to athletes. That's right. Textbooks to athletes is a no-no. https://t.co/A0rHY0Gz
  
• 2012 02 01 - Metroplex. Metroplex. There. Not a fan of the word, but I’m less a fan of prigs who tell me what words I shouldn’t use. https://t.co/8Aj4rRgG
  
• 2012 02 02 - Realignment of District 9-5A: Jesuit, Skyline, Sunset, WT White, Berkner, Richardson, Lake Highlands, Pearce. https://t.co/0iLvhVWz
  
• 2012 02 02 - Headline: "LH’s Adam Meierhofer to run for RISD school board." Is it too early for me to endorse? https://t.co/g7HxabcQ
  
• 2012 02 03 - Prague Cemetery, by Umberto Eco: Spider web of 19th century European conspiracies. Relentlessly depressing novel. C+ http://t.co/2ef40ADj
  
• 2012 02 03 - Headline: "BIG upside surprise: Economy added 243,000 jobs in January. Unemployment down to 8.3 percent." GOP blames Obama.
  
• 2012 02 03 - Headline: "Trump backs Romney but do endorsements even matter?" Romney better hope the answer is no.
  
• 2012 02 04 - Headline: "Indiana election chief guilty of voter fraud." Why voter fraud is issue for GOP. From personal experience. http://t.co/jOGGzPXM
  
• 2012 02 04 - Guys and Dolls at BHS: Celebration of 1940s sexism. Great singing, live orchestra, shoutout to choreography. See it. http://t.co/NUMQVE1k
  

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

Button Pops Off

Yesterday, I predicted that I would support George Clayton over Angie Chen Button in the GOP primary election for Texas House District 112. For reasons, I mentioned her membership on the DART audit committee in 2008 when DART surprised everyone, including the audit committee, with a $900 million budget shortfall that had been building for years. More importantly, I can't support her attitude towards school finance in particular and the state budget in general. She is a safe vote for underfunding schools, health care, roads, water, and other necessities of a modern state.

Now, it's still early and Clayton still has plenty of time to lose my vote, too, but while I wait to hear from him, Button continues to rack up reasons for me not to support her.

After the jump, Button on Voter ID.

Redistricting Musical Chairs

New Texas House district maps were published by the court this week. Maybe, finally, the redistricting fiasco handed Texans by the last Texas legislature is coming to a close.

After the jump, what it means for Richardson.

Raises? What Raises?

Total expenses for fiscal year 2011 increased by approximately $11,374,000 (8.96%) when compared to fiscal year 2010. This increase is predominately due to increases in salaries and employee benefits.

Source: City of Richardson.

Those sentences are from the 2011 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for Richardson. I'm still trying to figure out where the city thought the money for those employee raises was going to come from. But even more, what raises are we even talking about?

After the jump, following the money.

Playoffs: Desoto 64, Berkner 55

The Berkner Rams men's basketball team lost their third-round playoff game Tuesday night to Desoto 64-55 at Grand Prairie High School. The Rams jumped out to a 9 point 1st quarter lead, led by 7 at halftime and still led by 1 after the 3rd quarter. But the Rams seemed to run out of steam in the 4th quarter, with Desoto outscoring Berkner by 10 to make the final result 64-55. Kendal Harris led the Rams in scoring with 20 points. The Jaguars were led by Matt Jones with 29.

With the loss, the Rams' season is over. And what a season it was. The Rams were District 9-5A champions with a 13-1 record. Their overall record was 27-7. Thanks for the great season, Rams.

More About That KPMG Audit

A word of thanks to the Richardson City Council audit committee (Bob Townsend, Laura Maczka, Scott Dunn) for asking the city's auditor, KPMG, if their Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) could be published in spreadsheet format. KPMG insists that it not be, in an effort to make it harder for unscrupulous people to change the data. Of course, that also makes it harder to audit the auditors, so to speak. KPMG have allowed the report to be published in a searchable PDF format. I can attest that this year's CAFR is searchable (thanks).

After the jump, so what?