The Great Conjunction 2020

Nature cooperated (for me anyway). Clear skies, warm temperatures, longest night of the year. That's Jupiter on the left. The slightly oblong smudge on the right is Saturn. None of the moons of Jupiter or Saturn are distinct enough with my camera to be visible in this photo. So, in the second photo, it's our Moon. By the way, if you didn't catch this last night, go out tonight, or tomorrow night, or the next. Jupiter and Saturn will be drifting away from each other only slowly, so they'll be putting on a celestial minuet in the southwestern sky soon after sunset for the next few weeks.

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)

Rotten Tomatoes

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020): Adapted stage play about a 1927 recording session by the "Mother of the Blues." She demands respect. Her band's ambitious young trumpet player wants a shot at stardom. Energy like a tea kettle about to boil over. Deserves Oscar nominations. A-

The Flight Attendant (TV 2020)

Rotten Tomatoes

The Flight Attendant (TV 2020): Woman on layover in Bangkok wakes up with a dead man in her bed. Murderer and police are both after her. So is her alcoholism. Kaley Cuoco's performance is surprisingly good. Too many bad guys, too many murders, too many confusing subplots. B-

Let Them All Talk (2020)

Rotten Tomatoes

Let Them All Talk (2020): Author takes a cruise ship to England to receive an award and takes two old friends with her. There's time for lots of conversation, enough to surface long suppressed issues. Watching Meryl Streep, Candice Bergen, and Dianne Wiest work is a joy. B-

Parsing the Reasons Why the City Council Said No

The Richardson City Council voted unanimously to reject a plan to build a five story apartment building on the George Bush Tollway just north of the coming Silver Line station by UT-Dallas. You might think if there's anywhere an apartment building just might get approved, it's on a property like that: on a freeway, near public transit and a large (and growing) university, and nowhere near a single family neighborhood. But the City Council said "no." Let's parse the reasons why.

POTD: Nubian Woman

Caption

From 2019 11 19 Aswan

Today's photo-of-the-day is from a Nubian village on the Nile River near Aswan, Egypt. The woman is hawking souvenirs to tourists.

An Unintended Benefit of COVID-19 Denial

Different countries have adopted different strategies to control the coronavirus. New Zealand, for example, imposed one of the world's strictest lockdowns and, perhaps as a result, New Zealanders are looking at a Christmas season free of any restrictions. Sweden, on the other hand, shunned lockdowns in the belief that so-called "herd immunity" would soon follow. Perhaps as a result, Sweden had a death rate much higher than its neighbors. Its prime minister has admitted that the country misjudged its response.

What about the US? As you might expect, our response continues to be divided along tribal lines.