Guys and Dolls at BHS

From 2012 01 Musicals

Guys and Dolls, at BHS: Celebration of 1940s sexism. Great singing, live orchestra, shout out to choreography. See it.

Berkner 76, Lake Highlands 71

From 2012 02 Berkner Basketball

The Berkner Rams men's basketball team extended their District 9-5A leading record to 10-1 with a 76-71 win over Lake Highlands (7-4) on the Wildcats court. Berkner closes out their home court season next Tuesday at 7:30 pm with a game against Richardson (5-6). Be there to support your school, whether it's BHS, RHS, or just the kids in general.

All photos can be seen here.

Review: The Prague Cemetery

Amazon

The Prague Cemetery, by Umberto Eco: Spider web of 19th century European conspiracies. Relentlessly depressing novel. C+

From The Prague Cemetery, by Umberto Eco (2010):


At the end of that alleyway, quite inconspicuous, was the window of a junk shop that a faded sign extolled as Brocantage de Qualité -- a window whose glass was covered by such a thick layer of dust that it was hard to see the goods on display or the interior, each pane being little more than 20 centimeters square, all held together by a wooden frame. Beside the window ... a door, always shut, and a notice beside the bell pull announcing that the proprietor was temporarily absent."

After the jump, my review.

Campaign Promise? That Was Then

Perhaps you remember the 2011 Richardson City Council election campaign as being particularly contentious, with the candidates unable to agree on anything, even the benefits of planting trees. Well, memory can be a tricky thing.

Despite the overall tone of contention in the election campaign, one thing that all candidates agreed on, every last man and woman, was that they were open to the idea of a charter review. It's been a quarter of a century since the last time a commission was appointed to review the city charter to bring it up to date.

The man ultimately chosen by the council to be mayor, Bob Townsend, said he would strongly support a charter review. Even the one candidate who expressed opposition to making structural changes to Richardson's form of government, Scott Dunn, even he said that if specific sections of the charter were found to be outdated, he'd be open to review and revision.

Monday night, the city council finally got down to work on the issue. Or not. After the jump, what went down.

Assigning Blame for School Closures

Yesterday, I looked at a recent Dallas Independent School District (DISD) school board meeting and criticized the trustees for not all remaining present for a public hearing. Some stepped out during the hearing and eventually the whole board moved to a private room to finish their deliberations and vote on a plan to close 11 public schools in the DISD. Trustee Carla Ranger said her fellow trustees "walked out on their community."

I didn't criticize the DISD for those school closures, only for how they mishandled the public hearing. It's a shame that they did. DISD is between a rock and a hard place, but their behavior at the public hearing caused the public to overlook the state's share of responsibility for the mess our public school financing is in.

After the jump, placing blame.

"They Walked Out on their Community"

"They walked out on their community." So said Carla Ranger, Dallas Independent School District (DISD) trustee about her fellow trustees.

After the jump, what precipitated the walkout and the lesson for Richardson.

A String of Pearls on the Red Line

A few isolated urban centers, left to fend for themselves, are going to wither on the vine. Nurture them to grow together into a string of overlapping vibrant urban centers all along the DART line from Spring Valley to PGBT and Richardson will have a cornucopia.

Source: The Wheel.

That's what I said in a recent blog post. After the jump, a supporting argument I read a few days later in a Slate article by Matthew Yglesias.

Stumbling onto the Fun at Eastside

In mild weather on a Friday evening in January, outside Chiloso's Mexican Bistro in Richardson's Eastside, the Berkner Jazz Band played for an impromptu audience of several dozen music lovers. A percentage of the proceeds from dining at Chiloso's went to help fund the band program.

Great food, great music, great time. That's what I call "stumbling onto the fun."

Irony on the Campaign Trail

News from the always irony-rich campaign trail:

• Newt Gingrich, who had affairs while married to his first two wives, who reportedly asked wife #2 for an "open marriage," and who is now married to the other woman from that second affair, was congratulated on his primary victory in South Carolina by the National Organization of Marriage, a group dedicated to the preservation of traditional marriage. (h/t to @pourmecoffee.)
  
• Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) objected to a TSA pat-down at an airport in Kentucky as an governmental invasion of his privacy. Paul was reportedly traveling to a pro-life rally, that's right, a rally against a woman's right to control what happens to her own body. (h/t to @JamilSmith.)
  
• Newt Gingrich (again), who surged to the lead of GOP polls by attacking President Obama, the press, the "elites" and pretty much everyone who doesn't appreciate his greatness, came under attack himself in a GOP debate in Tampa, Florida. Responded Newt: "You know, there is a point in the process where it gets unnecessarily personal and nasty. And that's sad." Newt Gingrich -- self-proclaimed victim.
  
• In June, 2011, Mitt Romney told a group of unemployed voters, "I should tell my story. I'm also unemployed." Mitt chuckled. This week, Romney released his tax return, revealing that he made $20.9 million in 2011. There was no word on whether he chuckled.
  

Are politicians oblivious to the irony or are they just cynical? Such questions are why politics remains endlessly fascinating ... and maddening.

Is Richardson Screwed?

At a large lunch at Dallas's downtown Omni Dallas Hotel, scene of the annual meeting of Downtown Dallas, Inc., keynote speaker Carol Coletta spoke of the importance of urban centers. D Magazine's Peter Simek was there and summarized her message as this: Dallas is Screwed.

After the jump, does this verdict extend to Richardson, too?