How can we boost church membership? I know, let's update our look and feel. A new logo maybe. Less stuffy. More modern. No crosses, unless it's so subtle it's almost subliminal. Something more like an Internet company. Or a bank. Something like one of these...
Yeah, something like that will work. Do it! Praise the Lord! FDIC insured.
Twitter is hit or miss. Mostly miss. Many of the tweets of the people I follow are either (pick one) funny, insightful, informative, but many deservedly scroll off the bottom of my tweet roll none too soon. I'm frequently pruning my follow list in an attempt to increase the ratio of hits to misses. And I'm often on the lookout for promising new people to follow. Twitter offers friendly suggestions. One of the names that showed up on my own suggestion list was "abraxas27".
Clicking through I quickly judged abraxas27 a "miss." It looks like he set up his Twitter account in April, 2009. He went to the trouble to upload a graphic of the starship Enterprise to use as wallpaper. He posted seven tweets in two days, and then ... nothing more. Before I clicked away, something about abraxas27 caught my attention - his profile. I know I'm reading a lot between the lines here, but I couldn't help thinking, this explains a lot about the City of Richardson's website. But I'll let readers come to their own conclusions.
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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".
Twitter tracks from July, 2010:
After the jump, more Twitter tracks.
Dallas Police Chief David Brown got himself in trouble this week with comments about the increase in incidences of rape in Dallas. Half a world away, in Afghanistan, rape and mutilation and denial of rights to education, jobs and free movement outside the home are the issues women struggle with.
After the jump, how two very different worlds deal with crimes against women.
During Monday's Richardson City Council work session, the subject of putting the city check register online was discussed. It's not like this should be controversial. The office of Texas Comptroller Susan Combs promotes government transparency, urging cities, counties and school districts to put their budgets, financial reports and check registers online. Plano has done so. So has McKinney and Frisco and Arlington and Irving and numerous other cities around Texas. Good governance was a new section added to this council term's statement of goals, specifically calling for transparency and financial accountability.
After the jump, where does Richardson stand on this committed goal?
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| From 2010 08 Richardson Band |
The temperature was 104° but that didn't stop the Richardson Community Band from playing their regularly scheduled outdoor concert Sunday night on the Fountain Plaza by the library. The music lovers who brought their lawn chairs and blankets were treated to a program of "Conductor's Choice", including two more Sousa marches (the 93rd and 94th played by the band while under the decades-long direction of George W. Jones), the always inspiring Battle Hymn of the Republic, an unusual arrangement of 76 and a Half Trombones, Rushmore and other musical selections that had the crowd tapping their feet and forgetting about the heat.
Come on out for the season finale on August 15 at 7:00 PM. The heat wave will have to be over by then, right?
To see more photos, click here.