POTD: Living Solar Panels

Living Solar Panels, by Ash Gardner

Trees can live for five thousand years.
The oldest ones saw the birth of Cleopatra.
The astronauts, the moon landings.
They are living solar panels.

No-one can speak to the sun.
We can't understand what it is saying.
It speaks in wavelengths we can't interpret.
But trees and corals will translate it for everyone.

Source: Living Solar Panels.

The Wheel Award for Excellence in Motion Pictures

The Academy Awards will be given out Sunday, March 27, 2022. I've seen all the nominees for Best Picture. That means my opinion means something. Right?

I've ranked the movies in order of my preference for "Best Picture." The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science uses ranked choice voting (RCV) to ensure that the winner has broad support throughout the Academy members. I wish US political elections used a similar system (or perhaps some form of proportional voting system).

My ranking of the Oscar nominees is based on the grades I gave the movies immediately after seeing them. In case of ties, I ordered them by my considered judgment today. Note this is not my prediction of which movie will win (cough, CODA), but for which I would vote, had I a vote.

The envelope please. The winner of "The Wheel Award for Excellence in Motion Pictures" goes to...

Dr. Stone in the Superintendent Spotlight

The Texas Tribune hosted a forum, Superintendent Spotlight, that featured three school superintendents from north Texas. They were Michael Hinojosa (Dallas), Kent Scribner (Fort Worth), and Dr. Jeannie Stone, former superintendent of Richardson ISD. The discussion was moderated by The Texas Tribune's Evan Smith. This is the first time that I have seen that Dr. Stone has talked on camera since her departure from the RISD in December, 2021. Read on for Dr. Stone on learning during the pandemic, on mask mandates, on critical race theory, on equity/diversity/inclusion, on book banning, and on why she quit.

The Outfit (2022)

Rotten Tomatoes

The Outfit (2022): Tense, psychological thriller out of the 1950s. A tailor is caught up in a gang war. Like a stage play, all action takes place in one shop in one night. The story goes from slow burn to boil over several times. Mark Rylance shines. Others are stereotypes. A-

Richardson Police vs City of Richardson

We've been following this story for almost a year. It was in April of 2021 that Richardson Police Officer Kayla Walker spoke at a City Council meeting to allege an illegal ticket quota system imposed on RPD officers. The City denied the allegation. Now Officer Walker and David Conklin have filed a lawsuit against the City. The Dallas Morning News and others have the basics of the story. The lawsuit itself can be found on the Dallas County Courts portal. It contains the details.

CODA (2021)

Rotten Tomatoes

CODA (2021): Child of deaf adults is torn between keeping her family fishing business afloat and going to music school. Taut script that leads step by step to a predictable ending. Heartwarming, like a Hallmark movie, but not original. Featuring deaf actors is a nice touch. B-

Meaningless Council Boundaries Shift Again

"A public hearing on Richardson City Council boundaries will take place Tuesday, March 22, at 7 p.m. in the council chambers." So says a story in The Dallas Morning News. That story leaves out the fact that the boundaries have about zero impact on politics in our city. Richardson doesn't have a single-member district electoral system, "the most common and best-known electoral system currently in use in America". Instead, in Richardson all council members are elected at-large. Whichever area of Richardson turns out the most voters can elect all council members for the whole city. Whichever racial or ethnic or religious group turns out the most voters can elect all council members for the whole city. Not a hint of that in the news story. The DMN story reads more like a press release from the City of Richardson. Which it probably was. So much for getting good local news coverage out of the area's only daily newspaper.

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By the way, the two options being presented to the public were drawn up by the City Plan Commission. Oh, it wasn't called the City Plan Commission. It was called the Council District Boundary Commission. Was it just a coincidence that the latter was made up of exactly the members of the former? Hardly. No other option was even considered. The City Council had an opportunity to live up to their adopted goal to "Promote avenues for public engagement and input," including "Evaluate opportunities to promote service of boards and commissions and to broaden the diversity of applicants." They could have recruited members of the public who haven't been picked for all the other boards and commissions. This could have been a good avenue for broadening public engagement and input. Like the headline says, the district boundaries are meaningless. What's the risk in picking some newbies for the commission? It's not like the commission can adopt anything. Adoption is still left to the City Council. But nyah. Those goals were always more PR exercise than promises to live up to. So go ahead. Study the two options like it means anything. Flip a coin. Pick either one.

The Adam Project (2022)

Rotten Tomatoes

The Adam Project (2022): Pilot from 2050 travels back to 2018, teams up with himself as a kid to destroy the time machine and prevent the bad history to come. Steals from other sci-fi. It's really all about reconciliation with dad. Family-friendly fare. Smart aleck kid stars. B-

POTD: The Swing

The Swing, by Robert Louis Stevenson

How do you like to go up in a swing,
   Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
   Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
   Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
   Over the countryside—

Till I look down on the garden green,
   Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again,
   Up in the air and down!

Source: The Swing.

Review: Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future

From Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert

That man should have dominion “over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth,” is a prophecy that has hardened into fact. Choose just about any metric you want and it tells the same story. People have, by now, directly transformed more than half the ice-free land on earth—some twenty-seven million square miles—and indirectly half of what remains."
	Amazon

Kolbert opens her book with the prophecy of man's dominion over all the earth. Until very recently, that fact was considered an unalloyed good thing, a sign of God's favor, a sign of human progress. Only recently have we recognized the downsides to our dominion. Kolbert closes her book with this summary, "This has been a book about people trying to solve problems created by people trying to solve problems." Those problems were originally introduced by us exercising our dominion.