Black Doves (TV 2024)

Rotten Tomatoes

Black Doves (TV 2024): Keira Knightley plays a spy-for-hire married to an unwitting UK Foreign Minister in an action-thriller/black comedy. The plot details require too much explication in the wrapup of the last episode, but I'll forgive it. Supporting cast is great. B+

Netflix

TIL: Ranked-Choice Voting in the Texas House

Source: The Texan.

The Texas House's first order of business of the 2025 term was to elect Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) Speaker in a runoff over David Cook (R-Mansfield). Ana-Maria Ramos (D-Richardson) had been eliminated after coming in third in the first round of voting.

That got me thinking about how this election might have played out if the Texas House used ranked-choice voting (my favorite system), sometimes called instant-runoff voting.

Maria (2024)

Rotten Tomatoes

Maria (2024): Biopic of last 7 days of opera star Maria Callas's life. Oscar bid by Angelina Jolie. Callas comes across not as bigger than life, but as a sad, faded star, looking for something, needing something, but what? She doesn't know and neither does the director. C+

Netflix

Anora (2024)

Rotten Tomatoes

Anora (2024): Worker in a strip club gets involved with the immature son of a Russian oligarch. The relationship goes too far, the parents find out and send some heavies to put a stop to it, who get more than they expected subduing Ani. Mikey Madison deserves the Oscar buzz. Movie deserves its R rating. B+

In theaters

City Charter: Transparent Appointment of Boards and Commissions

Source: Arefin Shamsul Facebook.

On December 2, 2024, the Richardson City Council appointed eleven members to a Charter Review Commission, as required by law every ten years to review and suggest changes to Richardson's City Charter. Here, in a series of posts, I am presenting my own suggestions.

POTD: Old Men Dancing on the Bar

"Where marble tomb stood,
Pride of an ancient empire,
Now old men play games."

— h/t ChatGPT

From 2024 05 16 Bodrum

Today's photo-of-the-day is from the port town of Bodrum, Turkey. "Known in ancient times as Halicarnassus, the town was once home to the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, also known as the tomb of Mausolus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World." Nothing from the tomb remains.

Today, restaurants line the waterfront where tourists dine and old men gather to play backgammon. Playing board games dates back to before the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. I like to think old men like those in this photo have been gathering here ever since.

A bonus photo is after the jump.

POTD: Mighty Aphrodite

"Under Augustus,
Prosperity built temples.
Aphrodite reigned."
— h/t ChatGPT

From 2024 05 15 Hierapolis

Today's photo-of-the-day is from the ruins of Aphrodisias, an ancient Roman city in southwestern Turkey. "Aphrodisias, named after its patron goddess Aphrodite, was founded in the 2nd century B.C. on the site of a rural sanctuary of Aphrodite. In the 1st century B.C., Aphrodisias came under the protection of the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, and this initiated a period of prosperity and growth. A nearby marble quarry supplied the ancient city and sites around the empire such as Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli, with a supply of high-quality white and blue marble."

"The monumental gateway to the city's main sanctuary, the Tetrapylon at Aphrodisias is one of the city's most impressive monuments. The remarkable preservation of the structure—about 85% of its physical fabric survives—allowed for a complete scientific reconstruction, which was completed in 1991."

The Great Snowstorm of 2025

This caused the Dallas area to shut down for two days.

Banned by Facebook

Original source unknown.

" 'Banned in Boston' is a phrase that was employed from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century, to describe a literary work, song, motion picture, or play which had been prohibited from distribution or exhibition in Boston, Massachusetts...Commercial distributors were often pleased when their works were banned in Boston—it gave them more appeal elsewhere."

The modern equivalent is "Banned by Facebook."

TIL: The Evolution of Morality...in Politics

Source: The New Yorker.

In a book review in "The New Yorker" of Hanno Sauer's new book "The Invention of Good and Evil: A World History of Morality", Nikhil Krishnan writes:

It was five million years ago, Sauer tells us, that creatures rather like ourselves, having only just evolved from some now extinct ape, started to develop the psychological dispositions that made them capable of coöperation. Unlike the chimpanzees and bonobos of the dense forests around central Africa, our ancestors had to survive in exposed grasslands. Coöperating for mutual defense against our predators, and for collectively pursuing prey, was our way of compensating for our new vulnerability. Among the dispositions that emerged to help us get along, Sauer writes, was the capacity for altruistic behavior: “putting aside the interests of the individual in favour of a greater common good.”

Source: Nikhil Krishnan.

In short, according to this theory, there was a competitive advantage for our species to cooperate. Today, when we're good, it's because we evolved that way. So, how do we explain wars? Or even closer to home, how do we explain the rancorous divisions in America's body politic?