The City of Richardson has two candidates for mayor. They have different backgrounds. Their online campaigns emphasize those, illustrating the difficulty of reinventing yourself for electoral reasons. Instead, you try to put the best spin on the resume you have to work with.
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Four years ago, I wrote a blog post ("The Ice House Goeth") giving the history of a little, neglected, unused commercial building on Richardson's Main Street in old downtown. I didn't stop at the history. I also advocated for the City of Richardson to do something to preserve this little bit of its history. I didn't hear from the City at the time. I still haven't, but this week the City of Richardson's Facebook page dedicated to posting history for the City's sesquicentennial celebration lifted my blog post without attribution. They included the history I had researched, but left out all of my advocacy for the City to preserve that history. I conclude the City is interested in celebrating its history, at least every 150 years, but is less interested in preserving the history they extol.
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| From 2022 07 15 Melk and Gottweig |
Today's photo-of-the-day is from Melk Abbey in Austria. It doesn't show the historic abbey (dating to 1089) sitting high above the Danube River town of Melk, Austria. Instead it shows the magnificent view from the abbey.
After the jump, a bonus photo of Melk from the abbey.
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| From 2022 07 14 Passau and Scharding |
Today's photo-of-the-day is from Scharding, Germany on the river Inn, which forms the border between Germany and Austria here. The photo was taken from the German shore. The building across the river is in Austria. The building dates to 1320, when it was built by Duke Heinrich of Bavaria as a castle to protect the bridge leading to Schärding. The castle was converted to a baroque palace in 1752. Today it's a school.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale-Hurston:
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Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men."
Book Review: Their Eyes Were Watching God: 1937 novel by a too-long forgotten author who was a pioneer of Black, feminist, American stories. Here, she tells the growing maturity of a Black woman, using Black vernacular dialect that recalls Twain's Huck Finn. A-
After the jump, my full review.
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"You shall know the person by the company he keeps." — Proverb
The City of Richardson has two candidates for mayor. If that proverb has any truth to it, it's sending a clear message to us today in those two candidates and the company they keep. It may not be everything, but it's not nothing either.
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| From 2022 07 14 Passau and Scharding |
Today's photo-of-the-day is from Passau, Germany. It shows the banks of the river Inn. In the background is a cruise company's longship, similar to the Viking Gefjon that we were on. Passau is built on the pie wedge of land formed by the confluence of the river Inn with the river Danube.
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| From 2022 07 14 Passau and Scharding |
Today's photo-of-the-day is from Passau, Germany. It's sited where the river Danube is joined by the river Inn from the south and the river Ilz from the north. The skyline and river make for dramatic sunsets, good enough for two photos today.
Bonus photos after the jump.