Thanksgiving Day (2012)

From 2012 00 Miscellaneous

"Don't let the turkeys get you down."
-- Sandra Boynton

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Dysfunctional by Design

Watching Richardson city government in action can be frustrating. Sometimes I find myself asking the same question the great baseball manager Casey Stengel asked when hired to manage the hapless New York Mets in their first year of play, "Can't anybody here play this game?"

But then I catch myself. Just how is the game supposed to be played? I end up thinking that maybe the appearance of dysfunction in city government may, in fact, be just how it's designed to operate.

After the jump, am I expecting too much?

A Tale of (Parking in) Two Cities

What's the difference between 20th century suburban sprawl and 21st century urban renewal? In a word, parking. The last time we looked in on parking in Richardson, the city council was deliberating whether to allow a Burger King restaurant to whittle away Richardson's strict landscape buffering requirements in order to build a bigger parking lot. That's right, the business owner wants even more parking than what Richardson requires, which is already a lot. That's a sign that Richardson is still stuck in 20th century suburban sprawl.

After the jump, a city with a 21st century attitude towards parking

Review: Leonardo's Lost Princess

Amazon

From Leonardo's Lost Princess: One Man's Quest to Authenticate an Unknown Portrait by Leonardo Da Vinci, by Peter Silverman and Catherine Whitney:

One would have to be a fool not to be wary of a Leonardo attribution. There's bound to be controversy. The last time a serious claim was made, it took nearly a century to sort it out."

After the jump, my review.

S2L77: Thaipusam at Batu Caves

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
February 3, 1977

We visited the Batu Caves during Thaipusam. Men skewered their cheeks and tongues and danced themselves into a frenzy on their procession to the great cave.

Source: Personal travel notes.

From 1977 02 02 Malaysia

One hundred miles up the Malay peninsula from Malacca is Kuala Lumpur. We arrived just in time for Thaipusam. Thirty five years later, I'm still stunned. That's all. I don't know what else to say. To learn more about this totally amazing festival, look it up yourself: Thaipusam.

More photos after the jump.

The Permanent Campaign Comes to Richardson

It used to be that Richardson residents would be blessedly free from local election campaigns until a couple of months before the May election, about the time of the filing deadline. That all changed November 6, when Richardson residents voted to have a say in the choice of who cuts ribbons and presides over the city council. Now that the voters will directly elect the mayor, the election campaign begins earlier than ever. On November 14, Amir Omar announced his candidacy, a full six months before voters go to the polls.

After the jump, the implications.

Finding Clarity in a Mountain of Trash

Two years ago, the Neighborhood Protection Alliance of Richardson (NPAR) announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) concerning the reconstruction of the Lookout Trash Transfer Station (LOTS). Even though NPAR was aware that the MoU carried little or no weight, NPAR still presented it as some kind of achievement. I was skeptical. Here's what I had to say about the MoU at the time:

Don't let the fact that the agreement is "tentative" worry you. Or that the guarantee is "implicit." Don't mind that "there are still questions as to the legal teeth" of the understanding. Trust that capacity will be capped at 625 tons even though "NTMWD has rejected any stipulation to permanently restrict capacity." Ignore the fact that, on their own websites, neither COR nor NTMWD admits to any commitments, or even mentions an agreement at all.

Source: Mark Steger.

After the jump, NPAR finally appears to get the clarity they somehow missed two years ago.

Breaking and Branding Richardson

Source: City of Richardson.

Central Heights. Trailside. McKamy Spring. Rustic Circle. Civic District. Chinatown. Recognize these areas of Richardson? They're all supposedly neighborhoods in the planning study for the Main Street/Central Expressway redevelopment project that the City of Richardson has launched. The city's latest thinking on the subject is full of new names and pretty pictures.

After the jump, my thoughts.

The Curious Interview in Des Moines

On October 23, President Obama gave an interview to the Des Moines Register. The story goes that the president asked that the interview be off the record, the newspaper questioned why that should be, and the Obama campaign relented and released the transcript.

This background is but a footnote to the presidential election campaign, but the President said something in the interview that struck me at the time as curious. After the jump, the president on immigration reform.

S2L77: Malacca

From 1977 02 02 Malaysia

150 miles from Singapore up the Malaysian peninsula lies Malacca. It's about a three hour car ride on a two lane coastal highway through occasional villages. It's how I got my introduction to driving in Asia (as a passenger, not a driver myself). You don't wait for a break in oncoming traffic to pass slow moving vehicles (and when you're in a car, everything else is slow moving). You pass by pulling out into the passing lane, bluffing as much of the oncoming traffic off onto their own shoulder as you can, and just keep going until you're forced back into your lane by a better bluffer than you. Cheaper than a Six Flags ticket, more exciting than any thrill ride.

After the jump, a geographical history lesson.