Guns: Adding Insult to Injury

Source: Nationhood Lab.

The last few days have seen a confluence of gun tragedy. A shooting death in the church of Joel Osteen ("church" used loosely) in Houston and a shooting death (and 21 wounded) at a Superbowl rally in Kansas City. More and more, mourning for the dead has barely begun before new dead take their place in the headlines.

Council Recap: Rules of Procedure

"7. REVIEW AND DISCUSS COUNCIL RULES OF PROCEDURE"

With that innocuous wording, the Richardson City Council took up a question that has long puzzled me. That is, why don't City Councilmembers drive change in the City of Richardson? I attributed it partly to lack of will, but also partly to confusion over whether they even have the power to set the agendas for the City Council meetings. If it's not on the agenda, they can't deliberate it, they can't make motions for it, and they can't pass the motions that bring change.

Society of the Snow (2023)

Rotten Tomatoes

Society of the Snow (2023): Spanish. Docudrama of the real life tale of survival of a plane crash in the Andes in 1972. No sensationalism. Respect for the dead and the survivors. 2+ hours of a slowly unfolding disaster punctuated by moments of sheer terror. B+

Good Grief (2023)

Rotten Tomatoes

Good Grief (2023): Good first movie by Daniel Levy, who wrote, directed, and starred as Marc, whose husband dies suddenly, upending Marc's life and revealing cracks in the lives of his close friends. Watching them all work through their issues is not as much of a bummer as you'd think. This ensemble would work in a sequel as a TV sitcom. B+

POTD: Australia's Top Pub

"Car stops, man offers
to show us Thursday Island
On his Thursday off."

—h/t ChatGPT

From 2023 03 30 Thursday Island

Today's photo-of-the-day was taken on Thursday Island, in the Torres Strait between the Australian mainland and Papua New Guinea. It's Australia's top pub, that is, its northernmost pub. There's not much else on the island so my guess is that it gets a lot of the island's business.

Ellen and I were hiking up to what's left of the historic, hilltop fort when a man in a car stopped and offered to give us a lift. He worked for the Australian border service and had the day off. So he gave us a panoramic tour of the hilltop, then offered to drive us around the rest of the island. We took him up on his offer and received the best personal tour available.

A bonus photo is after the jump.