Monthly Archives: September 2012

(Community Matters) I can’t stop grinning just thinking about how happy this is making her.

The public dedication ceremony of Bettie Naylor Street is this Saturday, 9/22 at 10:30 a.m. at the corner of 4th Street and Colorado in downtown Austin.

(Community Matters) I didn’t expect to read that the base is so disenchanted they wouldn’t even go to the polls (they’re too enthusiastically against Pres Obama to not vote) but this line might be as devastating in this close an election: “a Republican election officer who was so put off by the convention that he said he would vote for Romney but not go door-to-door to corral others to do so.”  Frank Rich’s column, My Embed in Red

(Community Matters) L Style G Style is expanding and looking for a sales representative with experience selling to agencies and small businesses. Preference given to regional experience (Austin, Dallas, Houston) as opposed to national (NY, LA, CHI).

(Community Matters) “The WinShape Foundations [Chick-Fil-A] is now taking a much closer look at the organizations it considers helping, and in that process will remain true to its stated philosophy of not supporting organizations with political agendas.” if this is true and really means not donating to NOM, Family Research Council and the like, it’s a super & positive step

According to Wikipedia, The WinShape Foundation is an American charitable endeavor of the fast-food restaurant chain Chick-fil-A and its founder Truett Cathy and his family

Hat Tip: Towelroad

(Community Matters) Media reports Wall Street money is restarting a flow to Pres Obama’s reelection – a sure sign of at least hedging bets.

(Community Matters) I’m sympathetic w/ my fiends about anti-Semitism. And I’m not surprised by the critics; when I read her Sunday column (which I blogged about – God Save Us), I imagined this might happen. It has certainly worried me that someone might similarly misunderstand my criticisms.

When people feel threatened, misunderstood, not heard and/or ignored, we grasp. Anti-Semitism is alive and growing in many parts of the world & that’s a real threat.  Pointing out the fallacy of Netanyahu’s too-heavy-handed, disrespectful behavior toward our nation’s leader is not anti-Semitic – nor is warning against the return of neocons.

Politico: The Critics of Maureen Dowd’s Critics

(Community Matters) Mrs. Romney on a helping hand

(Community Matters) The real “47%” to which Romney was referring: “. . .African-Americans, Hispanics, liberals, single and college-educated women, and union households.. .”

. . . said longtime Christian conservative strategist Ralph Reed. “Those groups alone add up to about 46 percent of the electorate.” Politico

[Haley] Barbour summed up the Obama message on Romney in perhaps the most memorable sound bite of the 2012 election: “He’s a wealthy plutocrat married to a known equestrian.”

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(Community Matters) Talk About It (Talk.SchoolMessenger.com) is an ap being introduced into the Leander schools which allows kids to instantaneously report bullying. Love this. This AAS article points out there’s been lots of progress against bullying in Central Texas schools.

Talk About It® allows faculty to meet students where they are – online and with text messaging – to help solve issues.

By reducing the stigma of communicating with trusted adults, the patent-pending service allows students to open up and break the ‘code of silence.’

(Community Matters) not to mention his gaming of independent voters – see the second video in this article by my good friend David Corn.

(Community Matters) Vanity Fair: Obama’s Way

An excellent article. Walking through the decision making process on Libya and the story of Taylor Stark, I think will make any American proud (R & D). Reading several books & articles over the last few weeks, I’m moved by the attention to the deliberateness of decision making and preserving one’s energy for that decision making.  Below, just a few of the lines from the VF article that jumped out at me – probably not so helpful out of context but meant to provide me with bookmarks for passages I want to discuss with Steven and others.

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(Community Matters) 22 races in 12 months, an international tour deploying the top engineers, racers, sponsors & fans from all around the world, for three days of festivities culminating in a 2-hour race . . . I might become an enthusiast.

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Fernando Alonso, Pedro de la Rosa, Sebastian Vettel . . . I’ve never known these names but learned some about them and the phenomenon of the race sitting between Juan Miro and Cookie Ruiz last night. I’d forgotten that Miro-Rivera Architects are the primary facilities designers for Circuit of the Americas and didn’t know that both Juan and Cookie were huge F1 fans. I’ve just ordered the movie Senna at Juan’s recommendation to understand the phenomenon.

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