OTBR: Werribee Open Range Zoo

Latitude: S 37° 55.938
Longitude: E 144° 39.468

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".

POTD: A Poem in Stone

From 2016 02 11 Jodhpur

Today's photo-of-the-day is from the Ranakpur Jain Temple in Rajasthan, India. Pardon me while I go silent and let the unknown author of the temple's website describe the beauty of this place.

In the heart of the remote and enchanting valley of the Arvallis, skirting the rivulet Maghai and enveloped in the solitude of the surrounding forest, stands, in solemn grandeur, the Chaturmukha Jain Temple of Rishabhadeva. Placed on a lofty plinth, the three-storeyed marble edifice, to which the genius of the artist has imparted exquisite artistic grace, and which his deep devotion has endowed with serene spiritual dignity is, verily, a poem in stone. Majestic yet in complete harmony with Mother Nature, in whose beautiful lap it rests, this magnificent monument of devotional architecture seems bathed in celestial bliss. The very hills around, dwarfed by its imposing bearing, appear absorbed in mute meditation, as if spell-bound. The concord achieved between the bounteous generosity of Nature and man's creative expression of gratitude, stands uniquely symbolised in this Divine Creation. To behold this holy shrine in its spectacularly sublime setting is to experience instant uplifting of the soul.

Source: About Ranakpur Temple.

From ReactionImages.tumblr.com

Repeat Tweets: Scales Falling From Eyes

Repeat tweets from July, 2016:

• Jul 3 2016: "scales-falling-from-eyes kind of book". How you describe a book that confirms your preconceived notions. @roddreher
• Jul 4 2016: American Sphinx: Complex, conflicted, contradictory. Not the Thomas Jefferson in schoolbooks. No longer count me on Team Jefferson. B+
• Jul 4 2016: My Twitter feed is hard to follow this morning. Near as I can tell, Donald Trump is considering Kevin Durant for VP. Or vice versa.
• Jul 4 2016: So, Kevin Durant is taking his talents to the West Coast. Does that about sum it up?

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

Natural Allies

It occurs to me that the Black Lives Matter movement and the tea party movement ought to be natural allies. Wait, hear me out. The movements share some of the same policy goals.

BLM has as one of its 10 categories of policy solutions: ending the "over-policing of communities." The tea party has as one of its 15 non-negotiable core beliefs: "Intrusive government must be stopped."

BLM focuses on things like the criminalization of issues that should be handled by social workers or mental health professionals instead of police. The tea party focuses on things like red light cameras and the militarization of police. The root cause underlying many of the complaints, "intrusive government" and "over-policing," is the same.

If the tea party and BLM sought common ground and allied themselves, they would make a powerful political movement. Why don't they? I have a theory about that, too. ;-)

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016)

IMDB

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016): Female reporter goes to Afghanistan. Based on a real story. Watchable but satire doesn't have enough bite. B-

POTD: Do Feed the Animals

From 2016 02 11 Jodhpur

Today's photo-of-the-day is from rural Rajasthan, India.

Go ahead and feed the cows. The customary explanation given is that "feeding cows, or any other animal for that matter, according to the Hindu religion, is believed to be an act of goodness and humanity." An economic benefit is that "the milkmen in India let their cows roam free as they know they will get free food...It's like a double jackpot for them, because the cows return to their owner's place to give milk after eating [free] food."

Poor People, Go Home

Donald Trump and the Republicans have a plan to counter immigration. Namely, ban Muslims and Hispanics from entering the country, deport the ones here, and then quit trading with them. Or something like that. It keeps changing.

It reminds me of the 12th century story of King Canute commanding the incoming tide to stop. Contrary to popular belief (i.e., what I believed until I looked it up), Canute in fact understood the futility of this. (I recommend more people try fact-checking before posting on social media.) I imagine Trump understands the futility of trying to stop the tide, too, but is cynically trying to get elected by appealing to voters who don't.

A news story today suggests why Trump's followers are bound to be disappointed even if they succeed in electing Trump in November.

High-Rise Hotel Coming

A key tract at the entrance to Richardson's huge CityLine campus has sold for a major hotel project. Missouri-based developer Drury Southwest bought the almost 3-acre site at CityLine Drive and U.S Highway 75. The property is just west of State Farm Insurance's high-rise regional campus and near DART's commuter rail station.

"Plans call for 168 rooms in an 11-story building with four levels of parking and seven levels of hotel," said BC Station Partners' Joe Altemore. "Construction is set to start in four to six months."

Source: Dallas Morning News.

Maybe I should have realized from the start that the land at US75 and PGBT was way too valuable to ever be used, as promised, for a walkable, transit-oriented, mixed-use, urban development. I should have known all along that it would end up, eventually, like the IH635/Dallas North Tollway intersection. And so it is.

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To understand why I'm less than thrilled with seeing CityLine turn into another IH635/Dallas North Tollway intersection, read "CityLine, Palisades and Strip Shopping Centers."

India's 50 Million New Trees

Trees are a valuable tool in the fight against climate change. It's the ultimate in carbon-capture technology — but all natural, and without the licensing fees.

On July 11th, volunteers in India took this old-school climate-fighting tool to a whole new level by planting a record number of trees in a single day, beating Pakistan’s previous record of planting 847,275 trees in 2013.

It took 800,000 volunteers to plant just under 50 million tree saplings along India's roads, rail lines, and on public lands. This is all a part of India's commitment to reforest 12 percent of its land — a commitment made at the Paris climate talks last year.

Source: Grist.

What does this have to do with Richardson, you might be thinking.

Review: Sapiens

Amazon

From Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari:

Seventy thousand years ago, homo sapiens was still an insignificant animal minding its own business in a corner of Africa. In the following millennia it transformed itself into the master of the entire planet and the terror of the ecosystem. Today it stands on the verge of becoming a god, poised to acquire not only eternal youth, but also the divine abilities of creation and destruction. Unfortunately, the Sapiens regime on earth has so far produced little that we can be proud of."

"Sapiens" is another of Bill Gates's book recommendations for this summer. The paragraph above encapsulates the book's thesis, including the bias that, in the end, caused me not to like it as much as Bill Gates did.

After the jump, my review.