Autumn in the Steger Garden (2011)

From Flowers

More photos after the jump.

Shooting the OWS Messenger

Today's dialog is about how the conversation about income inequality started by the Occupy Wall Street protest movement has morphed into a conversation about the shortcomings of the protesters themselves. As is often the case, my dialog is prompted by the writings of my favorite crunchy conservative, Rod Dreher, on his blog at The American Conservative.

After the jump, my dialog with Rod Dreher.

New Front in Culture War at the SBOE

I was shocked in 2010 when George Clayton defeated Geraldine "Tincy" Miller for the GOP nomination for the District 12 seat on the State Board of Education (SBOE). Clayton was an unknown. Miller was the longtime incumbent. Most attributed his victory to an indiscriminate anti-incumbent attitude by the voters. I personally was lukewarm (lukecool?) to both candidates, but I sided with Miller because at least I knew what I was getting with her. I was concerned with what I was hearing from Clayton.

Since the 2010 election, I have heard little about George Clayton's service on the SBOE. In recent years, I've considered no news to be good news when it comes to the SBOE. Usually the SBOE makes news for pushing Creationism in the science curriculum or Christian revisionism or McCarthyism in the American history curriculum. So, if George Clayton and the SBOE were keeping theirs heads low, they couldn't be doing too much damage, right?

Well, George Clayton has now raised his head, on a surprising matter that is likely to become a factor in his bid for re-election. After the jump, the story by Ross Ramsey in the Texas Tribune.

Occupy Wall Street Wins

And so does Occupy Dallas and Occupy Oakland and all the other spontaneous movements that sprang up across the United States to protest the growing income inequality between the so-called 1% and the 99%. Critics have dismissed the movements, either because protesters are disorganized and lack consensus on what to do about the issue, or because the protesters are becoming a public nuisance. I won't dispute those criticisms. Occupy Wall Street, like almost all spontaneous protest movements, is disorganized (by design) and disorderly (more or less) and destined to disintegrate (probably).

So, why do I say Occupy Wall Street wins? The answer after the jump.

Not Quite as Open Mic in Dallas

The Dallas City Council is proposing rule changes for public speakers at council meetings. Dallas proposes moving up the deadline to request time to 5 p.m. the day before the meeting. Also, if you have spoken within the last 30 days, your time will be limited to one minute, instead of three minutes allotted to everyone else.

After the jump, my thoughts about how this is handled in Dallas and Richardson.