Tick, Tock, the Game is Locked

The late, lamented The Dallas Morning News religion blog has been reduced to a weekly "Texas Faith" posting in which a panel of local religious leaders are asked to comment on a provocative question, such as this week's, "Is it ever right to divorce a spouse with Alzheimers?" Unfortunately, the answers are seldom as provocative as the questions. Something seems to be missing.

Thanks to Unfair Park, we learn that the panel used by the News deliberately excludes a secular viewpoint. Zachary Moore, a coordinator for the DFW Coalition of Reason, has been lobbying the News for months to include a secular viewpoint on the panel, to no effect. Moore says one panelist told him that the other members of the panel voted down the request. Blog moderator Bill McKenzie told Unfair Park, "He's welcome to be a part of the discussion in the comments. I don't think he's being excluded."

After the jump, my thoughts.

Repeat Tweets: Football and Everything Else

Repeat tweets from September, 2011:

• 2011 09 01 - Final. North Crowley 6, Berkner42. It's a great time to be a Ram! #txhsfb
  
• 2011 09 01 - Wisconsin rolls in opener against UNLV, 51-17, in the hottest game in history at 94 year-old Camp Randall Stadium - 90 degrees.
  
• 2011 09 02 - Headline: "US marks first month with no troop deaths in Iraq." Our country needs a little good news right about now. This is great news.
  
• 2011 09 02 - Final. Irving 14, Richardson 37. #txhsfb
  
• 2011 09 03 - Thank you, Baylor, for making that Wisconsin loss to TCU in the Rose Bowl seem like ancient history. TCU, feel free to start a new streak.
  
• 2011 09 03 - Crystal ball: Boise State runs thru rest of their easy schedule undefeated, then watches unbeaten OU and SEC winner play for championship.
  

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

Cottonwood Art Festival

From 2011 10 Cottonwood

Richardson's twice annual Cottonwood Art Festival enjoyed picture perfect weather and large crowds for its weekend run October 1-2. For a look at more photos from this fall's Festival, look here.

Skyline 62, Richardson 7

From 2011 Football

Ouch! It was all Skyline, all the time, Friday night at Eagle-Mustang Stadium as the Skyline Raiders, ranked 10th in the state, beat the Richardson Eagles 62-7. The Raiders scored six touchdowns in the first half. The Eagles scored a 4th quarter touchdown to avoid the shutout.

More photos from this game, and all of the 2011 season, including the bands and color guards and drill teams and cheerleaders and everything else that goes into making high school football the best value in Friday night entertainment, can be found here.

When Four Stars Are Good Enough

Source: Texas Comptroller.

The 2011 update of the Texas Comptroller's Financial Allocation Study for Texas (FAST) was recently released. According to the FAST website, "Each district and campus is assigned a FAST rating of one to five stars, indicating its success in combining cost-effective spending with the achievement of measurable student academic progress. Five stars reflects the strongest relative progress combined with the lowest relative spending."

Some of the nearby school districts that earned five stars are Allen, Coppell, Garland, Irving, Mesquite and Wylie. Congratulations to all of them.

Where did the Richardson ISD land on this rating scale? That little red square at the top of the graph above is the RISD. Scattered around the rest of the graph are 40 fiscal peers. Richardson's position earns it four stars out of five.

After the jump, what the RISD would have to do to improve its ratings next year. And why I'm not sure it's a good idea.