RISD Superintendent Steps Down

RISD Superintendent Jim Nelson is leaving the RISD. That's too bad. He had good credentials and a good management style. He wasn't afraid to take a position publicly. He verbally backed the fine arts programs at RISD schools, then stood behind his words when budgets and programming were worked out.

Now the long process of hiring his successor begins. He'll be hard to match.

Is TXU's Trimming a Threat?

According to a story in The Dallas Morning News, TXU spends up to $25 million per year trimming trees near their power lines. And some Richardson residents don't like it. Residents complain that TXU is overtrimming, both ruining the aesthetics of the trees and risking the health of the trees. TXU claims that its pruning practices have been honored by the National Arbor Day Foundation for six straight years.

Having just paid to cut down three trees along our alley, all with power lines threaded through their upper branches, I can understand the homeowners' pain. On the other hand, there are alternatives, all of them reasonable in my mind.

First, TXU will consider burying the lines, at homeowner expense. This is the best solution, once and for all. Second, homeowners can pay to keep their trees trimmed themselves, which may prevent a visit by TXU at all. Or, finally, residents can let TXU do the job and live with results.

Pomp and Circumstance

I attended the Senior Recognition ceremony at Richardson's Berkner High School tonight. Watching and listening as several hundred young men and women were recognized for their achievements in academics, leadership and service, I couldn't help feeling better about the future of our country and the world.

Graduation ceremonies for Richardson's four high schools are next Saturday. If your son or daughter is marching across that stage, pat yourself on the back. And if not, try to wrangle a ticket from a neighbor or friend. It's a couple of hours that will help balance a whole year's worth of crime stories on the 10 o'clock news.

What's a cure for cancer worth?

Economists from the University of Chicago value a cure for cancer at $50 trillion. Just a one percent reduction in cancer mortality would be worth $500 billion.

-- BusinessWeek, May 22, 2006

Payroll taxes

"An estimated 75% of U.S. taxpayers now pay more in Social Security and Medicare taxes than they do in income tax."

-- Time, May 15, 2006 

Putin's approval rating

President Vladimir Putin's approval rating is "a rock-solid 70%."

-- Time, May 15, 2006 

What People Get Wrong about the JFK Memorial

In the wake of 9/11, with all its discussions of memorials, I found myself wanting to revisit another memorial of a violent event that also tore the social fabric of this country. The John F. Kennedy Memorial in Dallas is one block east of Dealey Plaza, where the 1963 assassination took place. The design, by Philip Johnson, is simple, an open-air room formed by massive concrete walls that appear to float above the ground. Within, a granite slab bears the name of the president. It is all, sad to say, poorly done. ... The Kennedy Memorial in Dallas marks a particular place where an event took place — as opposed to the British JFK Memorial, say, which honors only the memory of the slain president.

Source: Slate | Witold Rybczynski.

The key to understanding the JFK memorial in Dallas is in this last sentence. The memorial marks a place; it does not solely honor a man. And that place is Dallas, Texas.

JFK's grave is not in Dallas. JFK's spirit is not in Dallas. Visitors to Dallas hoping to find something of the man won't find it in Dallas - not in 1963, not in 2006. The emptiness of the memorial - no statue, no bust, no plaques, only that black granite slab bearing the President's name - conveys the emptiness of the city itself of all things Kennedy. He is not here. He never was of Dallas.

Hostility was in the air in Dallas that autumn in 1963. The crowds lining the street greeted the Presidential motorcade warmly, but the underlying tension is obvious in the words of Nellie Connally, wife of Governor John Connally, riding with the President. Her last words to the President were, "Mr. President, you can't say that Dallas doesn't love you."

That tension, that hostility, is captured by Philip Johnson in the JFK memorial architecture. The massive concrete walls surrounding the granite slab shut out the city. Standing inside that empty room, the city and the hostility are blocked out, the high walls screening even the cold stare of the skyscrapers, until only the blue sky above offers an escape from the memory of that oppressive hostility on the day of the assassination.

The JFK memorial in Dallas leaves visitors feeling cold and empty. What they don't appreciate is how appropriate those feelings are for a memorial to JFK in downtown Dallas. It is all, sad to say, very well done.