Closed Mic in Richardson

Richardson City Council meetings used to feature a "Visitors" section of the agenda. Members of the public were allowed to address the City Council on any topic. Each visitor was given five minutes at an "open mic." The City Council seems to have used COVID-19 as an excuse to do away with the "open mic" portion of meetings.

POTD: Hanging Church

From 2019 11 18 Old Cairo

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Cairo, Egypt. It's a photo of what's best known as the "Hanging Church" in that it was built above a gatehouse of the much older Babylon Fortress. As near as I can figure out, the Babylon Fortress was built about 100 CE and the Hanging Church about 500 years later. I'm guessing Nile River floods filled in the area in that time and the church was originally built at its era's ground level. Sometime in the last 1,400 years, the fortress was excavated and stairs had to be built to reach the now "hanging" church. If so, it isn't the only such architectural oddity we saw in Egypt.

Bonus photos after the jump.

The Old Guard (2020)

Rotten Tomatoes

The Old Guard (2020): Ancient gang of immortals, led by world-weary Charlize Theron, are hunted by evil Big Pharma CEO intent on learning their secret to immortality. Actually a better movie than that synopsis might suggest. How much of a burden would immortality be anyway? B-

Best quote: Are they good guys? Bad guys? "Depends on the century," says Joe.

Defund the Police?

Joe Gamaldi, Houston Police Officers Union President and National FOP VP, posted on Facebook some data from a Pew Research Center survey. Gamaldi's post was shared by the Richardson Police Officers' Association FOP Lodge 105. That's where I saw it.

First, a summary of the Pew data. 42% of Americans favor keeping spending on policing about the same. 31% favor increasing spending by a little or a lot. 25% favor decreasing spending by a little or a lot.

Review: Trust Exercise

From Trust Exercise, by Susan Choi:

All fall and spring of the previous year they lived with exclusive reference to each other, and were viewed as an unspoken duo by everyone else. Little remarked, universally felt, this taut, even dangerous energy running between them."
	Amazon

Trust Exercise: A coming-of-age tale of a volatile relationship, made more electric by a charismatic drama teacher. Then a shift in time and narrator throws everything into question. A brilliantly constructed story of the weaknesses of memory. B+

The Pandemic Next Time

It's time to worry about the next pandemic. What? Too soon? I don't think so. Ebola, HIV, SARS, H5N1 "bird flu," MERS, COVID-19. It's not like we don't know another pandemic is coming. The fact that we escaped the worst with each of these recent diseases, doesn't mean we always will. We've been lucky, even with COVID-19, which, even though the US has suffered 133,000 deaths and counting, turns out not to be the extinction-level pandemic it might have been. The "big one" is still coming. It's not a matter of if, only when. It's time to consider the pandemic next time.

POTD: Babylon Fortress in Cairo

From 2019 11 18 Old Cairo

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Cairo, Egypt. We've moved on from ancient Cairo and those pyramids from 4,500 years ago and into modern times, if you consider 2,000 years ago to be modern. That's the gobsmacking thing about visiting Egypt. Its history stretches back so far that it's hard to reckon with.

The original Babylon Fortress was built in the 6th Century BCE. This photo, though, is of a slightly later version of the fortress, attributed to the time of Roman Emperor Trajan (ruled 98-117 CE). He rebuilt the fortress at its present location because the Nile River itself had shifted course. Even in its present location, it's still about 300 meters from today's course of the Nile. Its foundation is about 15 meters below street level. Wait long enough and everything changes.

Bonus photo after the jump.