Setting the Agenda

Last week, I asked a whole bunch of nosy questions about how agendas for city council meetings are set by the City of Richardson. Bill McCalpin of Rumorcheck.org did his best to answer my questions. He doesn't work for the city; he isn't involved in setting agendas himself; he does have years of experience observing what happens around city hall. I can't say for sure he's right or wrong (if I could, I wouldn't have needed to ask my questions in the first place). But his answers sound plausible.

After the jump, my own understanding of how the process probably works.

Christmas in Richardson (2011)

From 2011 12 Christmas

Merry Christmas to all.

More photos after the jump.

Ride DART to the Stars Game

We drove to the Arapaho Center DART station. We chose to drive instead of walk. Because we're lazy, not because we didn't want to get our shoes muddy. 'Cause we wouldn't have. Anyway, we got to the train platform just as a train was arriving. It was an Orange Line special event train going direct to Victory Station. Right at the American Airlines Center. Sweet. After the game, another train was pulling into the Victory Station platform just as we walked up. A Red Line train back to Arapaho Center Station. Sweet. DART -- all in all, a great service.

Oh yeah, the Dallas Stars beat the Nashville Predators 6-3. Sweet.

Pedestrian Access to DART Stations

I should probably know that when a blogger begins by saying, "Today I vent about ...", that I should quit reading then and there. But how can I resist when the blogger is a member of The Dallas Morning News editorial board (Rodger Jones), and his subject is pedestrian access to the DART stations in Richardson? Jones vents that he can't easily walk from his residence west of US 75 and Renner Rd to the PGBT DART station. There are no sidewalks (yet). I can't tell exactly who Jones blames for this, but it's some combination of the City of Richardson, NTTA and DART.

After the jump, does he have a point?

Review: Moby Dick

Amazon

From Moby Dick, or, the whale, by Herman Melville:


I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts."

A few days ago, in my review of The Art of Fielding, I recommended that you also read Moby Dick. That wasn't just a perfunctory compliment to a classic novel everyone thinks they know already, but if they ever read it at all, it was probably way back in high school. No, I really mean it's worth dusting off and reading Moby Dick again. And just to show that I wouldn't ask you to do something I wouldn't do myself, I've been re-reading Moby Dick.

After the jump, my review and excerpts.

Questions for Rumorcheck.org

Rumorcheck.org is a Richardson-based website with a lofty goal: "countering a pernicious side effect of the Internet -- the creation and mass distribution of statements that have little or no basis in fact."

Rumorcheck.org has done a creditable job of fulfilling its mission. Building on that reactive mission, it now is expanding its mission with a more proactive purpose as well:

While RumorCheck got its start in examining and usually refuting the groundless rumors that swirl around, over time, we have seen the need for other types of content here on the RumorCheck website. Some time ago, we added an "Editorial" section for more editorial content that was perhaps not based on any single rumor.

Now RumorCheck is adding what we think will prove to be its most exciting feature: a Question & Answer (Q & A) section in which we will answer general purpose questions about how local government works.

Source: Rumorcheck.org.

After the jump, a question that has been nagging at me for a long time.

Review: Strange Beauty

Amazon

From Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics, by George Johnson:


He is sometimes called the Mendeleev of the twentieth century, for what he provided was no less than a periodic table of the subatomic particles."

Strange Beauty is both a book about particle physics and a biography of a scientist. It suffers from the weaknesses of its two subjects. Particle physics is a mind-numbingly complex field that few understand, and even they are mostly bluffing. And the scientist examined here is not an easy person to like -- brilliant, arrogant, competitive, sarcastic and insecure. Think "The Big Bang Theory's" Sheldon Cooper without any innocent charm.

After the jump, my review and excerpts.

Review: The Art of Fielding

Amazon

From The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach:


To want to be perfect. To want everything to be perfect. But now it felt like that was all he'd ever craved since he'd been born. Maybe it wasn't even baseball that he loved but only this idea of perfection, a perfectly simple life in which every move had meaning, and baseball was just the medium through which he could make that happen."

The Art of Fielding is a book about baseball. But that's like saying Moby Dick is a book about fishing. The two books have a lot in common.

After the jump, my review.

Late Autumn in the Steger Garden (2011)

From Flowers

More photos after the jump.

Another Look At Single-Member Districts

Bill McCalpin's "Rumorcheck.org" asks the question, "What would happen if Richardson had single member districts?" and comes up with the same answer that "The Wheel" came up with when that question was examined after the last city election in May.

• Rumorcheck.org: "What would happen if Richardson had single member districts?"
  
  
• The Wheel: "Analysis of the Votes for Richardson City Council"
  
• The Wheel: "Are Richardson's Voting Districts in Need of Change?"
  

Spoiler alert: the answer is that single member districts probably wouldn't have much effect on election results.