The Whole World is Watching. Not Any More.

Reminder to self: in 2015, ask Richardson City Council candidates if they pledge to video record all city council meetings. What's that you say? Council meetings are already recorded? That's what I thought. Then, I learned about the three meetings the current city council held (with one more scheduled for September 3) to review and discuss council goals for 2013-2015. No video recording for any of them.

After the jump, why we even have to ask for something everyone thinks we already have.

Repeat Tweets: More than you want to know of Dominican culture

Repeat tweets from August, 2013:

• 1 Aug 2013: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz: Brief not wondrous. Maybe more than you want to know of Dominican culture. Still... B-
  
• 1 Aug 2013: RT @SenTedCruz: "Anti-Assad priest kidnapped by al Qaida jihadis in #Syria. Prayers for Father Paolo." Prayers for the 100,000 killed.
  
• 3 Aug 2013: Overheard: "FREE 'No Spanish Village Walmart' yard signs. Use butcher paper to cover them and make a school/Girl Scouts/lemonade sign."
  
• 3 Aug 2013: MT @SenTedCruz: "al Qaida still a threat. The more reason to find out what happened at #Benghazi." Why not shut down CIA like IRS? #wacko
  
• 4 Aug 2013: Detropia (2012): Scenes from the hollowing out of a great American city, Detroit. No politics, no preaching, no prescriptions, no hope. C+
  
• 4 Aug 2013: RT @TomPauken: "Republican candidate yesterday claimed to be a Reaganite." Pauken moves from '60s to '80s. No longer fighting Vietnam War.
  
• 4 Aug 2013: MT @SenTedCruz: "Obama told us al Qaida was on the run. Today many US embassies are closed in face of new terror threats." He sounds giddy.
  

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

"I'm Out"

Source: Breaking Bad.

It's a completely different context, sure, but like Breaking Bad's Walter White, "I'm out." My exit is not as dramatic, but still, there are similarities, except for the crystal meth part and the lying and killing and megalomania, but except for those, it's exactly like Walter White. I'm not going into it. Like I said, "I'm out."

Friday Night Heat Lamps

From 2013 08 30 Berkner vs South Garland

The car thermometer read 104° on the way to the game at 7:00 p.m. It read 95° on the way home at 10:30 p.m. Regardless, the calendar said it was the first Friday night of the new school year and that means high school football, aka Friday Night Lights, or maybe in this case, Friday Night Heat Lamps.

Unfortunately for Berkner High School fans, the Rams let a close 7-7 game at halftime get away from them in the second half, losing to the South Garland Colonels 35-7.

After the jump, more photos.

S2L77: Herat, Afghanistan

From 1977 03 23 Afghanistan

Herat, the major city in western Afghanistan, is far from Kabul in the east and Pakistan's back door, where most of the action is. Herat is close to Iran's back door, but the action for Iran is to the west, on the Persian Gulf and on the border with Iraq. That isolation means Herat has been spared the worst of the destruction from the now decades-old wars in Afghanistan.

Update: September 13, 2013: Lest anyone think that Herat is safe in any absolute sense, today's headline proves otherwise: "Taliban insurgents in Herat explode truck bomb outside the U.S. consulate, a former five star hotel, killing three local security force members."

After the jump, Herat in 1977.