Joplin, Five Weeks After The Storm

From 2011 0627 Joplin

June 27, 2011: The thousands of drivers who pass by Joplin, Missouri, every day on Interstate Highway I-44 notice nothing different. The Cracker Barrel, the Steak 'n Shake, the Waffle House are all still there serving whatever it is they serve. But exit the freeway and drive north on Range Line Road and you begin to notice growing changes. Business signs not quite vertical. Blue tarps on roofs. Banners in front of boarded up store fronts advertising "Open for Business." By the time you get to 20th Street there is no missing it. Something bad, something very bad happened here. Whole city blocks, for several miles, where there should be houses and shade trees and kids playing, are now a disaster area empty of everything except for piles of rubble, uprooted or shredded trees, and isolated work crews looking like they don't know where to start to put things right again. For the 159 victims of the May 21 tornado, and the thousands of survivors, friends and relatives, things will never be right again. Even a brief visit to the city, five weeks after the storm, leaves one stunned by the enormity of the damage.

For more photos, look here.

OTBR: On a Qatar Sand Dune (Again)

Latitude: 24.6790 N
Longitude: 51.3246 E

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".

Repeat Tweets: Mavs, CWS and a Road Trip

Repeat tweets from June, 2011:

• 2011 06 01 - Judging by my inbox, looks like Rick Perry is lending his mailing list to Newt Gingrich. Evidence that Perry is *not* running for President?
  
• 2011 06 03 - Maybe you missed it watching the Mavs celebrate at buzzer, but Dwyane Wade flopped after missing that last second shot. Down he went. Again.
  
• 2011 06 03 - Scott Coulson, band director at Mesquite Poteet HS, is retiring. Great band program. Great kids. Great director. Hats off.
  
• 2011 06 03 - Mavs fans, how's it feel knowing the whole country wants your team to win. Or the other team to lose. Except this guy. http://t.co/vZAbDyy
  
• 2011 06 03 - Toy Story 3 (2010): Looking back, I probably should have watched this with a 5-year-old. Spoiler alert: Lotso is Darth Vadar. C+
  
• 2011 06 04 - Looks like Richardson has its eye on some property between Belt Line and Spring Valley, Hyde Park and Floyd. New park? http://bit.ly/jyqcvN
  
• 2011 06 05 - Nowitzki threw the ball away on second last possession, then missed a jumper at the buzzer. But he didn't flop on either. Give me that, huh?
  

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

Steger Fest 2011

I wish I were going to "Steger Fest." Hey, I wish I knew something about "Steger Fest." Anything. Well, in fact I do know something. I know that Giggity was the headliner Friday night. And they do a nice cover of "You May Be Right (I May Be Crazy)". But that's all I know.

Come on, Steger, Illinois, get with the program and put up a webpage for "Steger Fest." I know I'm not the only person looking for information on the premiere summer festival for villages along the border of Cook County and Will County, Illinois.

Chinese History and Texas Education

Members of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) lately have been making direct appeals to the public to rally support for their vision for education in Texas. Recently, for example, I blogged about Thomas Ratliff's appeal to voters to contact their state representatives to ask them to quit making our schools try to do more with less. Ratliff argued for more local control: "In my opinion, the term 'Independent School District' is misleading at best. In fact, I would argue there's hardly anything 'independent' about them."

After the jump, David Bradley's turn.