A Round of Applause for Paralysis in Sports

You know the ritual when a kid playing high school football goes down with an injury. When he eventually gets up and hobbles off the field, he gets a round of applause from the fans in the stands. Apparently, in the Richardson ISD, that might be all he ever gets, even if he can't get up at all and might never walk again.

Catastrophic care insurance offers a safety net for students who suffer life-altering accidents or illness while participating in an extra-curricular school activity, with policies providing as much as $7.5 million of coverage in cases such as spinal cord injuries, brain injury, infection or stroke. But coverage is not mandatory in Texas, nor is it officially recommended by the state's public school extracurricular governing body, the University Interscholastic League. A Dallas Morning News survey of 65 of the largest school districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area found five that don't provide any catastrophic care coverage: Birdville, Burleson, Cedar Hill, Mansfield and Richardson ISDs.

Source: The Dallas Morning News.

Richardson ISD?!? No coverage? Seriously?

After the jump, WTF?

Make Believe (2010)

IMDB

Make Believe (2010): Teens from world over compete in magic contest in Vegas. Great kids but not much magic in this documentary. C-

Season Ender Game: Skyline 48, Berkner 13

From 2013 11 08 Skyline vs Berkner

The 9-1 Skyline Raiders defeated the Berkner Rams 48-13 Friday night at Wildcat-Ram Stadium. The Rams' season comes to a close with a record of 4-6. From the 104 degree season opener at South Garland to the final playing of the Berkner fight song in 58 degree weather, it was a wild season of blowout wins ... and losses. Thanks for the fun, Rams.

More photos after the jump.

S2L77: Turkey's Aegean Coast

Kusadasi, Turkey
April 14, 1977
First sight of the sea since Kota Bharu, Malaysia.

Source: Personal travel notes.

From 1977 04 08 Turkey

Finally, in Kusadasi, Turkey, on the Aegean Sea, after more than 7,500 miles and eight countries, I saw the sea again for the first time since standing on the beach of the South China Sea in Kota Bharu, Malaysia.

The history of the area around Kusadasi goes back 5,000 years. Everyone sooner or later had some reason to come to here -- the Aeolians, Ionians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Christians, Byzantines, Venetians, Ottomans, the modern Turks, and, in 1977, yours truly.

More photos after the jump.

OTBR: Autumn Leaves on Utah's Mt. Nebo

Latitude: N 39° 58.104
Longitude: W 111° 41.442


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".

"The Primal Scream of Suburbia"

Eric Nicholson nails it in Unfair Park: "The Opposition to New High-End Apartments in Richardson is the Primal Scream of Suburbia."

Eric Nicholson just saved me the trouble of blogging about the public hearing before Richardson's City Plan Commission (CPC) regarding the proposed Palisades Village development.

After the jump, some speculation and gaming this out.

Autumn in Breckinridge (2013)

From 2013 11 03 Breckinridge Park

More photos after the jump.

Election Day: Can You Prove You Are You?

Source: Superbad.

It's Election Day. Thank God, for the first time ever you have to show a photo ID to vote in Texas, the way the Founders intended. No more Democrats stealing elections. Finally, at long last, we'll be able to elect a few Republicans here.

It's a well known fact that photo IDs are difficult to forge. If not, kids would be using forged IDs to buy beer. It's also a well known fact that the desire to vote illegally is much stronger than teens' desire to consume beer, so much so that there have been ten cases of voter impersonation nationwide since 2000. But now, with the new photo ID laws, those ten cases in the last decade are about to be reduced to at most single digits in the next decade. What's not to like?

Repeat Tweets: Interpreting the Mayor

Repeat tweets from October, 2013:

• 2 Oct 2013: Interpreting the mayor: what makes a Richardson dog park a priority is that it's holding up real priorities. www.marksteger.com
  
• 2 Oct 2013: MT @SenTedCruz: "We can work together but Democrats don't want to." Cruz is just trolling us now. #wacko
  
• 2 Oct 2013: Headline: "Congressman Pete Sessions: Republican In Name Only?" Seriously? Sessions isn't deranged enough for GOP? www.neontommy.com
  
• 2 Oct 2013: .@KenPaxtonTX, get your facts straight. Honor Flight cofounder says Park Service "bent over backwards" for veterans: talkingpointsmemo.com
  
• 2 Oct 2013: MT @SenTedCruz: "This is #HarryReidsShutdown. He won't negotiate, won't talk." Cruz on other hand is all talk. He broke it, he owns it.
  

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

S2L77: Hierapolis

From 1977 04 08 Turkey

In the previous installment of this travel journal, we were in southwest Turkey, in Pamukkale, where people have been going for thousands of years to bathe in hot springs on travertine terraces.

The ancient Greco-Roman city of Hierapolis was built there. In 1977, we had the site to ourselves. We were free to wander among the ruins, from the baths to the temples to the huge outdoor amphitheater.

More photos of Hierapolis after the jump.