The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

IMDB

The Hobbit - Smaug (2013): Tolkien would recognize it. Jackson added love interest, some humor and lots of mind-numbing CGI action. C+

Lookout, TCEQ is Coming to Plano

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has prepared a draft permit which, if approved, would establish the conditions under which the new Lookout Trash Transfer Station (LOTS) must operate. The TCEQ has made a preliminary decision that this permit meets all statutory and regulatory requirements. Naturally, dissatisfaction with this decision is directly proportional to proximity to the site.

After the jump, the next act in this long-running drama.

S2L77: Delphi

From 1977 04 21 Greece

Delphi was believed by ancient Greeks to be at the exact center of the world. It was the home of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle of the ancient world. It was also the site of the Pythian Games, the precursor to the modern Olympics.

More photos after the jump.

Merry TubaChristmas - 2013

From 2013 12 24 TubaChristmas

TubaChristmas was celebrated in Thanksgiving Square in downtown Dallas at noon on Christmas Eve, the 36th annual performance of about 200 tubas, sousaphones, euphoniums and baritones. Oh, the joyful sound!

More photos after the jump.

Duck and Cover - ctd

In reaction to the controversy over the comments of the Duck Dynasty guy, Phil Robertson, in a GQ interview, I said I was reading Isabel Wilkerson's "The Warmth of Other Suns." That book is getting better and better the farther I read. Wilkerson spells out plenty of reasons why blacks in the Jim Crow South would not say "Those doggone white people" to a white person, reasons different from the conclusion of Phil Robertson that blacks were happy with Jim Crow.

Blacks living in the Jim Crow South had good reason to distrust *all* whites -- a single careless comment to the wrong person at the wrong time and their livelihoods, their homes, even their lives could be lost. I'm surprised that this is a controversial statement today for anyone, but it seems to be, given some of the reader reaction I've received to my original post. Apparently, the mythology that blacks were happy with racial discrimination persists to this day.

After the jump, another passage from Wilkerson that provides another example of this.