Bob Townsend, 1933-2017

Mayor Voelker honors Bob Townsend

The City of Richardson announced that former Mayor and longtime city council member Bob Townsend passed away.

Townsend was first elected to the City Council in 2001 and served until deciding not to run for re-election earlier this year. His term ended last month. During his time on the Council, Townsend also served as Mayor from 2011-2013, Mayor Pro Tem from 2007-2011 and again from 2013-2015.

Source: City of Richardson.

To mark the sad occasion, we republish Bob Townsend's responses to questions posed by The Wheel last year in our first (and so far, only) online Town Hall Meeting.

Alien: Covenant (2017)

IMDB

Alien: Covenant (2017): Inept crew, androids and aliens like monkeys in Oz. Exploding bodies. Dripping goo. Joe Bob says check it out. C+

Repeat Tweets: Iconic Art Space is At Risk

Repeat tweets from May, 2017:

• May 2 2017: Have you ever been to the UT-Dallas Art Barn? This may be your last chance. The iconic art space is at risk.
• May 2 2017: The Circle (2017): Telegraphed morality tale about loss of privacy to online big data. Nothing novel here. Watch Black Mirror instead. C-
• May 3 2017: "James Comey Says He's 'Mildly Nauseous' at Suggestions He Swayed Election." Word nerd alert: Yes he is and he makes me feel nauseated.
• May 4 2017: Beauty and the Beast (2017): Visual feast but uninspired remake of Disney 1991 animated movie. Most believable beast and love story yet. C+

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)

IMDB

Pirates of the Caribbean (2017): Jack Sparrow's an old drunk. Movie franchise is just old. Too many characters. Too many ships. Too much. D+

POTD: Politics Gone

From 2016 10 09 Alexandria

Today's photo-of-the-day is from the streets of Alexandria, Virginia.
From before the election.
When America was Great.

Review: Hillbilly Elegy

Amazon

From Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis , by J.D. Vance:

I didn’t write this book because I've accomplished something extraordinary. I wrote this book because I've achieved something quite ordinary, which doesn't happen to most kids who grow up like me. You see, I grew up poor, in the Rust Belt, in an Ohio steel town that has been hemorrhaging jobs and hope for as long as I can remember. The statistics tell you that kids like me face a grim future—that if they're lucky, they'll manage to avoid welfare; and if they're unlucky, they’ll die of a heroin overdose, as happened to dozens in my small hometown just last year."

I had high expectations from this highly-praised 2016 bestseller. It would explain the mentality of poor and lower working class whites, of Fox News viewers, of Trump voters. Or so I thought.

What We Do in the Shadows (2014)

IMDB

What We Do in the Shadows (2014): Mock doc. Cult classic. 4 vampires share a flat and house chores in NZ. Clever concept lacking a plot. C+