Rocket Ship Fails to Achieve Liftoff

Source: City of Richardson.

This week marked the fiftieth anniversary of the orbital flight of John Glenn. Fittingly, the City of Richardson unveiled "Rocket Gateway," the sculpture design concept selected for the redeveloped Heights Park Recreation Center and Aquatics Center (the latter is what we used to call a swimming pool, but in a nod to John Glenn, maybe we ought to call this one a splashdown target zone). A lot of attention was paid to reusing the old playground equipment, especially the rocket ship climbing structure removed when the playground was redeveloped a few years ago.

After the jump, a high-brow art critic's opinion (of course, by high-brow art critic, I mean low-brow and me).

Where Is Everybody?

Yesterday, I praised the improved transparency and usability of government databases. Today, I use an excellent example, courtesy of Washington and New York. It's US Census data and a user interface provided by The New York Times.

After the jump, does your Richardson neighborhood feel less crowded than it did ten years ago?

Transparency and Usability

There are more government databases becoming available to the public. This improved transparency is good. The usability of that data is improving as well. This is also good.

After the jump, an example from Richardson, and a wish for more.

The Recovery

Jeffrey Frankel, Professor of Capital Formation and Growth at Harvard University, suggests that, listening to the political discourse in this election year, whether Republican, Democratic, or middle-ground observers, a listener would be led to believe that economic statistics show no discernible improvement in the economy over the last three years. He offers three graphs that dispute that. He says you can argue about the causes behind the positive trend, but you can't argue with the data itself. He suggests the reason for the misunderstanding is that data now show "the US economy to have been in far worse shape in January 2009 than was reported at the time."





After the jump, the other two graphs.

Repeat Tweets: Caucuses, Bowls, and Other Games

Repeat tweets from January, 2012:

• 2012 01 04 - Local Tea Party blogger headline: "Bitter-Sweet Ohio Caucuses." I'd add geographically-challenged, too.
  
• 2012 01 05 - The NFL's loss is Wisconsin's gain. (To be safe, better take out an injury insurance policy.) https://t.co/5QCPasMh
  
• 2012 01 06 - Headline: "Payrolls up 200,000 in December -- 50k above expectations. Unemployment down to 8.5 percent." GOP blames Obama.
  
• 2012 01 07 - Wisconsin's JJ Watt picks off TCU's Andy Dalton, returns it for TD. A tiny measure of revenge for 2011 Rose Bowl loss. https://t.co/9ph8J7rz
  
• 2012 01 09 - My tweak to the BCS format: four team playoff of highest-ranked conference champions. https://t.co/nVWSONyx
  
• 2012 01 10 - Headline: "Engibous replacing Ullman as Penney's chairman." What's a retired semiconductor exec know about retail? http://t.co/RkLLBS1S
  
• 2012 01 12 - Burka has finally gone off the deep end. This is conspiracy thinking gone mad. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck territory. https://t.co/JnayWLy5
  
• 2012 01 12 - Film Socialisme (2010): Weirdest movie you'll ever see. Pretentious crap. Still, liked the llama in gas station. D- https://t.co/XnxHXigt
  
• 2012 01 13 - Craig James, candidate for US Senate from Texas: "I don’t trust anyone who has been a politician." There's a paradox in there somewhere.
  
• 2012 01 13 - High school basketball: Berkner 64, Richardson 50. It's a great time to be a Ram.
  

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

"Tumultuous and Divisive"

Dan Johnson was named Richardson's Deputy City Manager on November 7, 1997, and originally joined the City of Richardson in June 1996. Prior to joining the Richardson staff, Johnson served as City Manager of Carrollton, TX.

Source: City of Richardson.

That's from the official biography of Richardson's next city manager, Dan Johnson, from the City of Richardson's website. That's about all that anyone probably knows about Dan Johnson's background, or at least all that anyone probably remembers, given how dated his pre-Richardson work history is. I, for one, didn't even know that much.

Richardson residents weren't given much time to learn anything about their next city manager before his appointment. One minute and seventeen seconds. That's the amount of time from when Richardson Mayor Bob Townsend announced Dan Johnson as the city council's choice to succeed retiring City Manager Bill Keffler and the time when the city council voted unanimously to make it official. One minute and seventeen seconds is hardly enough time to find the Google search box and type in "Dan Johnson."

After the jump, one of the more interesting hits Google returns.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

February 7: The City of Richardson issues this press release: "City Manager Bill Keffler announced today he is retiring from the City of Richardson after a 35-year career with the City, 17 as City Manager. His last day will be May 31, 2012. The City Council will consider options for a successor at a future date."

February 13: Mayor Bob Townsend, in public meeting, announces: "We discussed a search firm. We decided that we could not find anybody that's more qualified to run the city of Richardson at this time than Dan Johnson." With that, the Richardson City Council approved the appointment by unanimous vote.

Time flies. After the jump, some thoughts.

OTBR: On the Island Muhu in Estonia

Latitude 58.5993° N
Longitude 23.0737° E

A child on a road trip with his family asks, "Where are we?" and the father answers, "Let's check the map. We're off the blue roads [the Interstate Highways marked in blue on the road atlas]. We're off the red roads [the US and state highways]. We're off the black roads [the county highways]. I think we're off the map altogether." It was always my dream to be off the map altogether.

After the jump, a few of the random places (and I mean random literally) that I visited vicariously last month that are "off the blue roads".

City Hall Fills a Pothole

I urge them to take their time, to act independently and resist outside influence, to conduct a wide and thorough search, and to choose someone who is a strong leader, an able manager, a good communicator and will always have the best interests of Richardson at heart.

Source: The Wheel.

That was my advice to the Richardson City Council last week upon hearing the news that longtime City Manager Bill Keffler was retiring, effective May 31, and the council would need to choose a replacement.

After the jump, how is that working out?

Red Tails, Red Faces

The Dallas school district (DISD) sent 5,700 fifth-grade boys to see "Red Tails," a movie about the WWII African-American fighter pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen. Noble subject. Talented executive producer (George Lucas of "Star Wars").

So, what's wrong with this field trip? After the jump, let's count the ways.