POTD: Beach View

From 2016 09 04 Bar Harbor

Today's photo-of-the-day is a distant view of Sand Beach in Acadia National Park in Maine. "Sand Beach, in Acadia National Park, is nestled in a small inlet between the granite mountains and rocky shores of Mount Desert Island. This gorgeous 290 yard long beach is one of the most popular points of interest on the island."

Dallas to Suburbs: Drop Dead

Regionalism is dead. It was killed over DART's desire to build both a downtown Dallas D2 line and a suburban Cotton Belt commuter train line. DART included funding for some preliminary work on a second DART line (D2) line through downtown Dallas in its 2017 budget. It also included funding for some preliminary work on the Cotton Belt.

The latter became the casus belli for the mass transit war between Dallas and its suburbs to the north.

Review: Anne of Green Gables

Amazon

From Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery:

Matthew Cuthbert's father, as shy and silent as his son after him, had got as far away as he possibly could from his fellow men without actually retreating into the woods when he founded his homestead. Green Gables was built at the furthest edge of his cleared land and there it was to this day, barely visible from the main road along which all the other Avonlea houses were so sociably situated. Mrs. Rachel Lynde did not call living in such a place LIVING at all. 'It's just STAYING, that's what,' she said as she stepped along the deep-rutted, grassy lane bordered with wild rose bushes. 'It's no wonder Matthew and Marilla are both a little odd, living away back here by themselves. Trees aren't much company, though dear knows if they were there’d be enough of them. I'd ruther look at people. To be sure, they seem contented enough; but then, I suppose, they're used to it. A body can get used to anything, even to being hanged, as the Irishman said.'"

Did anyone raise his eyebrows when he saw my latest reading selection? Was it unexpected? There's a reason I chose "Anne of Green Gables." Actually, two reasons. And I'm glad I did.

After the jump, my review.

POTD: The Old North Church

From 2016 09 02 Boston

Today's photo-of-the-day is of a window in the Old North Church in Boston, famous for its role in the American Revolution. The church's story is told in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "Paul Revere's Ride." Can you still recite the opening lines?

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Source: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

My Beautiful Broken Brain (2014)

IMDB

My Beautiful Broken Brain (2014): Young woman's recovery from brain damage. She knows the things she lost. Her spirit isn't one of them. C+