Miscellany...

Watch for an interesting announcement: the Midland Development Corporation is turning to an Odessa firm for its advertising campaign.

In this edition: Congressional race...

I see that Carroll Thomas is the first announced candidate to withdraw from the race for Larry Combest's Congressional seat, a victim of too many runners and not enough money.

This did not surprise me; in fact, I remarked to my wife a couple of weeks ago that I thought Carroll would soon announce his withdrawal. (I also predicted that he would throw his support behind Mike Conaway at the same time, which he did not do. Still, I think it's coming.) However, I resisted the urge to make that prediction public, since Carroll was a client and I don't discuss my active clients in that way (or, at least, not in an individually-identifiable fashion). However, the fact that we rushed to put up a placeholder home page for the campaign and then never touched it seemed to be a pretty good barometer of the level of activity. I suppose if you want to capture a piece of west Texas political trivia, you can get a screenshot of www.thomas-for-congress.com. It's not my best work, but, like I said, they were in a hurry.

I wish Carroll all the best; he's one of the Good Guys. And I do hope he throws his support behind Conaway. (This was always an interesting matchup in my mind, as both of these gentlemen are long-time active and well-respected members of the same Midland church.)

Vacation re-entry...

OK, so remind me [again] of how this vacation thing is supposed to work. Because I obviously don't have the hang of it.

We returned Monday from our annual pilgrimage to the Santa Fe alternate universe. The snow was great (finally), the food was great (as always), and the political/cultural scene was, well, surreal (again, as always). More about that in a minute. But, two days after returning, I'm just now making a dent in the work that piled up in my absence.

I'm not complaining, mind you...well, not much, anyway. Work is good...it helps pay the bills and put food on the table and buy all the stuff that I've convinced myself I can't live without. (Like ski trips to Santa Fe.) But just once I'd like to come back from vacation and have the time to enjoy the prior week's relaxation instead of feeling like I have to undergo some kind of penance for taking off.

Well, enough of that.

Santa Fe, as I implied above, is not like Midland. It's not like anywhere else; the local Chamber of Commerce got close with its slogan "The City Different," but I think "The Reality Redefined" is more accurate. People talk about Steve Jobs' personal Reality Distortion Field. Steve couldn't get a second glance in Santa Fe.

The local newspaper is...well, let's just say it's hard to believe that this is the only mainstream newspaper in a state capitol. For one thing, it features the ever-ridiculous Molly Ivins on its editorial page. Yeah, I know that even some Texas newspapers run her column, but that's probably due to some obscure EEOC regulation about in-state quotas. Molly belongs in New Mexico, or anywhere besides Texas. (Here's quote from her online bio: "In February 1982, she returned once more to Texas, which may indicate a masochistic streak, and has had plenty to write about ever since." If being in Texas is that much of a struggle for her, I'm sure we could quickly pool bus fare to get her elsewhere in a hurry.)

Then there was the special "Gen Next" section of the paper, in which a series of really fab high schoolers shared their wisdom about the prospect of war with Iraq. "Like, war is so bogus, man. All we really need is peace." And, "going to war over oil is just so stupid; we really need to get Bush out of the White House." And so on. Well, they're teenagers; what do you expect? I don't blame them for a faulty world view; they simply reflect what they hear their parents, their teachers and their "celebrities" say. Fortunately, this is New Mexico we're talking about, so we won't really have to worry about whether any of them will have any meaningful impact on our future, at least from a political perspective.

OK...that was a tacky cheap shot, and I apologize. But it is hard to take seriously a state that has Bill Richardson living in the governor's mansion. Not to mention some of the worst car dealership TV commercials this side of Los Angeles.

OTOH, there are some good - nay, great - things about Santa Fe, and most of them are food-related. Here's my Top 10 Reasons To Go Back To Santa Fe (in no particular order):

1. Cream cheese French toast with peach compote at the Chocolate Maven
2. High tea with scones, clotted cream, strawberry jam and Darjeeling in the lobby of the Hotel St. Francis
3. Anything at the Guadalupe Café, as long as it's smothered in their red chile (prepare to cry)
4. The singing waiters at the La Sena Cantina...although pianist Robert Fox steals the show, cowboy boots and all
5. The esoteric trivialities filling the space at Doodlets (which was a crime scene the day we were there)
6. Skiing through the trees and between the boulders of Camp Robber during a good snow season
7. Blueberry pancakes at Tia Sophia
8. Green chile stew at The Shed (but the posole was a little disappointing)
9. Watching people buy groceries at the Whole Foods Market (they're just so, um, righteous)
10. Being greeted by Fred at the Plaza Bakery, who sees us once a year but always remembers us. Or, at least he claims to, which is a separate but equal answer.

Going Offline...

The Gazette is taking a vacation for a week or so.

If you're really hard up for entertainment, play a few games of cricket with the badgers.

What storm?...Another year of "Analog" cover art...

Update - 2/18/03: Ho hum...yet another day of temps in the 70s. Not a bad start to the day either, as evidenced by the sunrise:

Living in West Texas has its advantages. My wife and I listened to reports of the East Coast blizzard (The Weather Channel folks seemed to take great pleasure from their "Alert Mode," sort of like a certain local TV meteorologist who rejoices at the prospect of potential severe weather) as we prepared for a tandem ride in the sunny winter weather. It's the middle of February, and I'm wearing shorts and a short-sleeved t-shirt, for Heaven's sake. Of course, it was a little breezy, but you don't get warm weather in February without the wind, so it's a fair trade-off.

One of my artist clients, Charles Sovek, reported this morning from his shorefront home in Connecticut that the snow was "up to their knees" and still coming down. However, he is much more concerned about possible flooding from the storm surge; high tide is this evening and he's prepared for the worst.

Charles lives in Rowayton, just up the road a piece from Truro, MA, which...if you were paying attention...you'll recall was the town in which Tommy Lee Jones' character played the postmaster in MIB2. Charles does a lot of painting in Truro, and the brief glimpses in the movie echo the quaintness he captures in those paintings.

What does that have to do with anything? Not much, but it's better than blogging about war.

I forget. Did I announce that another year of cover art from "Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Magazine" is now online? Well, it is...1967, to be exact. You can start with January and some artwork by legendary illustrator Chesley Bonestell if you like.

Fun with newspapers...Evidence of blogging discovered in archaeological dig...

Wonder if anyone at the MRT will notice that in this morning's lead story (link n/a) about City Councilpersons considering re-election, they ran a photo of Mike Bradford (the County Commissioner) instead of James Bradford (the City Councilman)? Granted, they look an awful lot alike, although Mike is taller. ;-)

Then there's this headline:

My first thought: "This guy is really bad at this!" My second thought: "Why don't they just let him go ahead and do it? Such determination should be rewarded!" Of course, as it turns out, the previous 15 attempts were not by this particular individual, but rather by the detainee group as a collective.

And, finally, this quote from spokesperson Sylvia Womble-Saenz (a wonderful name, by the way) for the Texas Lottery Commission:

Well, rats. So much for my system, years in the making. But, I knew all along it had a fatal flaw, in that it required that I do something I've never tried, and that is to actually buy or otherwise acquire a lottery ticket.

It's a miserable Saturday morning...blustery winds, drizzle, mid-40s temps. It's been a long week, culminating in way too much time spent at the local hospital waiting the outcome of cardiac surgery on a family member. The good news is that the procedure worked perfectly and the patient is headed home and doing fine. It was another reminder of the amazing benefits of American technology coupled with caring and perceptive physicians and other medical practitioners.

Anyway, during one of the seemingly endless waits I began reading Biz Stone's "Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content." I have a sneaky suspicion that this blogging thing might just catch on, and I want to learn more about it before the New York Times finds out about it. [Oops...too late!] I do think it's going to be a helpful and interesting read; I've blown $20 in worse ways.

But, I'm still amazed at how many people have yet to learn about blogs. I gave a presentation about websites for non-profit organizations last Monday at a brown-bag session sponsored by the Nonprofit Management Center of the Permian Basin. About forty folks from Midland and Odessa were present, representing a wide cross section of organizations. At one point during the presentation I mentioned blogs - I forget in what context - and in response to the blank looks I perceived, I asked for a show of hands of those who knew what a blog or weblog is. Zero...zip...nada...none. I assured them that they would learn about blogs and probably sooner than later, but it was interesting to see how some things a lot of us take for granted are still filed into the category of Irrelevant Esoterica by many of our fellow citizens.

Better to build than repair...sometimes...

Quotes from a story in today's edition of the MRT:

"It was dated from the standpoint of the décor a little bit, but more importantly from the mechanical side -- from the heating and the air conditioning and the plumbing and the electrical and those kinds of things...So we originally set out to really upgrade."

"It actually made a lot more economical sense, believe it or not, to build a new clubhouse than it would be to spend all the money it was going to take to fix what was behind the wall..."

Boy, do those quotes ever sound familiar. Let's see...we must be talking about Midland schools, right? Well, of course not; as we all know by now, these are some of the reasons that the members of Midland Country Club have voted to build a new $8.2 million, 51,00 square feet clubhouse.

I suspect that at least a few of the MCC members breathed a sigh of relief at the passage of the recent compromise school bond, as that surely took a little air out of any movement to label the country club project as a tad hypocritical in the event the bond had failed [again]. Sure, this is an "apples and oranges" comparison...but it is really easy to jump on it anyway. I do wonder if the timing of the announcement was intentionally delayed until after the election.

KWES TV's "School Security" Series: Don't shoot the messenger...

I never thought I'd say this, but judging by some of the reactions to Channel 9's recent "School Security" series, the local media are going to have to start simplifying their stories; they're getting too sophisticated for their audience.

I didn't see every segment of the report by weekend anchor Jennifer Mayerle, but what I saw was very interesting. In summary, the station sent a man with a consumer-level camcorder to several MISD and ECISD campuses to see what sort of access he could gain without "official" credentials and before getting caught or challenged. His actions were self-documenting via the same video camera that often seemed to work as an excuse for his wandering down school halls...the few times he was questioned. I was surprised, but not flabbergasted, by just how often and far he was able to get anywhere he wanted in the buildings.

The station then showed this footage to school administration and board members in Odessa and Midland, and captured their reactions. Those folks without exception seemed sincerely appreciative of the efforts to highlight potential security weaknesses.

However, judging by some of the email received by the station, and one letter published in the Reporter-Telegram this morning, the benefits of this approach were totally lost on some of our citizenry. The letter writer, in particular, was incensed at the "dishonesty" of the station, apparently feeling that we might as well stop teaching our kids right and wrong, given such deception on the part of our heretofore trusted media.

I couldn't disagree more. There's no room for assuming the best in people when it comes to something as important as school security. Guess what? The bad guys lie, deceive, fail to comply with instructions, disregard authority and in general flaunt all our conceptions of acceptable social convention. That's why we call them bad. I would hope that parents would be grateful that the holes in the system were probed by a harmless investigation, rather than confirmed by a real evildoer.

I'm not saying the coverage was perfect. It fell a little short in terms of follow-through; I would like to have seen them wait to air it until after they visited with the school administrations and after a second attempt a week or two later to duplicate the unauthorized entrances...a "before and after" story would have been even more interesting and, possibly, comforting to parents. But this doesn't detract from the validity of what they did run (and I understand - if not totally agree with - the desire to hit the air with a substantive story as quickly as possible; patience is not generally a news media virtue).

But, as I said at the beginning, all of this effort is wasted on an audience that just doesn't get it. This is one time when the media outlet deserves better.

Low-Expectation Friday...

Today's a good day to stay inside by the fire, sipping a cappuccino and reading an old sci-fi novel. Unfortunately, I am engaged in none of those activities and have no realistic expectations of being so engaged. Perhaps you're more fortunate, although if you're reading this, then you've dropped the ball in at least one area.

Just a few tidbits to ease us into the weekend...

• Peter-Paul Koch has an interesting article entitled "Form follows function" in the current edition of DigitalWeb Magazine. He muses about the ongoing pressures on web designers to create sites that look good (a loose definition, at best) but work lousy (not as subjective; we all know 'em when we see 'em). I particularly like this phrase in describing why "artists" have trouble designing good websites: "This appealing to an audience twice removed is not something the average artist can do (or needs to do)."
  
  
• I see the triple chair lift to the top of the mountain at the Santa Fe ski area is still closed due to "unforeseen maintenance." When you couple something like this with yet another pitiful snowfall season, it makes you glad your 401K is invested in something safe - like, say, international oil stocks (see previous post to more fully appreciate sarcasm) - instead of ski resort operators.
  
  
• And, speaking of lousy snowfall - where it counts, anyway, that being within driving distance - where's the rainfall we were promised last fall when the meteorological community stated that our area could expect "above average" winter precip due to El Niño/La Niña/Global Warming/Global Cooling/Jet Stream Aberration/etc.? If the Midland Development Corporation really wants to make progress in attracting significant new investment to this area, they better figure out how to fill up O.H. Ivie Reservoir! At just under 38% of capacity and no relief in site...and the city of Abilene just waiting in the wings to start taking its 16%+...this is serious stuff.
  
  
• And, speaking of Abilene, did you know that Keep Abilene Beautiful has its own song?
  
  
• And, finally, while I don't normally plug my own work, I would like to point out that we went live this week with the new site for the Ector County Community Supervision & Corrections Department. Most of us would recognize this group as the "Adult Probation" department, though that title is apparently a little dated. What's commendable here is the CSCD's relatively progressive approach to using the web to carry out its mission, and doing so in a fairly independent fashion. That is, they've elected not to be tied into the Ector County internet presence, instead getting their own domain name and standalone website in order to optimize usability and accessibility. As I understand it, they will begin offering enhanced victims resources and other services of potential interest to the community, such as fugitive lists (the latter already being a part of the site). On a purely personal note, I must admit that working with clients who pack heat tends to make one even more conscientious than usual about delivering a quality product! Posted by Eric at 08:41 AM | Permalink
  
  

Miscellany...

In this edition: Oil company stocks: No war premium here...More protection for your email address (Warning: high geek factor)...

OK, I need for someone to explain this "War For Oil" thing - especially the part about the secret deals cut with The Big Oil Companies by the POTUS. Because, frankly, I just don't get it, and I'm a pretty rational guy...as is the stock market (rational, that is; I'm not sure about its gender, and any speculation on my part would surely offend someone).

See, if it were true that the primary beneficiaries of war with Iraq are the oil companies, this would be reflected in their stock prices, wouldn't it? And yet, according to a report yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, the major oil stocks now are trading at their lowest price/earnings ratios in five years. "Giants Royal Dutch Petroleum, ChevronTexaco and BP now fetch 12 to 14 times projected 2003 earnings while smaller integrated operators ConocoPhilips and Marathon trade for 9 to 11 times earnings." Most major oil companies are trading at 30-40% below their 52-week highs. This has taken place even as oil prices have risen almost 70% over the past year.

If it's so obvious to the money guys that there's nothing on the immediate horizon to warrant financial optimism when it comes to oil companies, why do the peace-before-freedom types continue with this annoying refrain? The only conclusion I can draw is that they're intellectually lazy, dishonest, or both.

For a more realistic perspective on the issue, including a logical warning about what the US should not do with respect to Iraqi oil, read Thomas Friedman's editorial in the New York Times (of all places).

Take a close look at the preceding link. Scroll over it and watch it change colors (assuming your browser supports CSS2), and note how the status line at the bottom of the page shows my email address. Pretty slick, huh? What's that? You're not impressed?

Well, take a look at the source code for this post, and see if you can find my email address (the ones in the right hand column and at the bottom of the page don't count). Aha!

Thanks to a clever and free bit of software called Enkoder, from a small company named Hiveware, you can now place your email address on your website(s) and feel [relatively] safe from those nasty address-harvesting bots and spiders which are constantly working on behalf of spammers around the world.

Many website owners have defended themselves against spambots by encoding their email addresses using browser-interpretable decimal or hexadecimal characters instead of simply spelling out those addresses. In this scheme, a appears in the browser as the letter "a," b as the letter "b" and so on. This seems to work pretty well, but we all know that where there's a will, there's a way, and the spammers definitely have a will to grab all the email addresses they can. Many of them have tweaked their bots to recognize and interpret this encoding, and the address is once again vulnerable.

Enkoder puts a clever twist on this approach by using a Javascript array to create the hex equivalents of the characters in an email address. So, not only would the bot have to know how to decode the hex characters, it would also have to be smart enough to figure out the Javascript key to the coding. Obviously, that's not an impossible task, but it may well prove to be more trouble than most spammers are willing or capable of dealing with.

You can download Enkoder as a standalone app (for Mac OS X, and command line versions for Windows, Unix and even DOS), or just do the web-based thing which generates coding that you copy and paste into your HTML.

Even if you're not overly worried about spammers getting your email address, there's something wonderfully cool about including this code in your page!

[Tip thanks to John Gruber's Daring Fireball...]

Free money from the record companies...

Until today, I was unaware of the class action settlement against some of the world's largest recording companies, including Capitol Records, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Bros. Records and Atlantic Recording Corp, plus a few national retail chains, including Tower Records and Musicland Stores.

The plaintiffs in the case - referred to as the "Compact Disc Minimum Advertised Price Antitrust Litigation" - were the attorneys general of 43 states and US territories, and they successfully alleged that the recording companies conspired to illegally raise the prices of recorded music - CDs, albums and cassettes - by implementing "Minimum Advertised Price policies." Apparently, if a retailer wished to discount the price of a CD below that "Minimum Advertised Price," it risked the loss of promotional payments, amounting in the aggregate to millions of dollars.

The interesting part of the settlement is that the members of the settlement class are entitled to a cash refund of up to $20.00 each. The really interesting part is who makes up the settlement class: anyone who purchased a CD, album or cassette from any retailer during the period January 1, 1995, through December 22, 2000. According to the Wall Street Journal report I just read, more than 4.1 billion albums were sold during that period (source: Nielsen SoundScan).

So, if you purchased offline music between 1995 (heyday of Hootie & The Blowfish and Boyz II Men) and 2000 (can you say "Santana"?), all you have to do is file a claim on or before March 3, 2003, and wait for the dough to roll in. You don't even need a receipt.

Maybe. See, the deal is limited in scope (up to $67 mil and change), and the more people who file, the lower the payout per person. There's also a clause in the settlement that says if the per capita payout drops below $5.00, nobody gets anything... individually. Bummer, you say; like, where's the justice in that, man?

Well, here's where this is actually a win-win situation. If not enough people file claims, and you do, then you could get enough cash to buy another 1.2 CDs (although I'd advise you to spend it on a movie DVD, or maybe multiple triple espressos, given the sorry state of current music...but that's a whole 'nother post.) OTOH, if too many people file a claim, you get nothing yourself, BUT...the aforementioned cash will be distributed to "not-for-profit, charitable, governmental or public entities to be used for music-related purposes or programs." (That's in addition to $75.7 million of music CDs to be distributed to those groups regardless of the cash payout. See next paragraph for details.)

So, here's my recommendation. If you did buy music during the stated period (no cheating, now), file a claim. The worst that could happen is that you help some presumably worthy group get some money. And there's no point in worrying how those groups will be selected or whether they are righteous or not, because they've yet to be selected. As to the music to be donated, according to the WSJ article the CDs to be donated have already been picked and "Record companies were given strict guidelines about acceptable titles -- lots of jazz, classical and pop records, and absolutely no albums stickered for obscene language."

The downside - and it is extreme - is that some otherwise deserving school is going to get a boatload of Mariah Carey CDs, along with something like "Slim Whitman Yodels Beethoven." Ouch.

Scamming the Nigerian scammers...Idiots weigh in on Columbia...

I've recently gotten a slew of those email scams from the good folk in Nigeria; I figure they must have heard that I'm now in the website design business and therefore in desperate need of cash. Anyway, today I received a variation on the scam via an email with the provocative subject of "Donation for the Lord." If you care to read it, I've uploaded it in all its pious and humble glory here.

I had not seen this particular version before, so I went to a few of the usual debunking sites to check it out, including Urban Legends and Folklore (about.com), Urban Legends Reference Pages (snopes.com) and the Hoaxkill Service (which I found to be disappointingly incomplete). Anyway, in casting about I discovered an entire sub-industry devoted to this scam, and no wonder, considering its widespread use. According to this source, "The U.S. Secret Service gets reports of about 100 victims per day, and receives 300-500 pieces of scam literature forwarded to them each day. In Nigeria, the scam is widely known as the "419" scam, named so after the provision of the Nigerian penal code that relates to fraud."

A hundred "victims" per day? That implies that people are actually falling for these cons, juvenile as they might seem. Indeed, "According to the State Department, by 1996 over 15 people had been murdered after they travelled to Nigeria to participate in this 'opportunity.' Even more have been beaten or subject to threats and extortion." This is - or can be - serious business. But what can you do about it?

Well, one group has come up with a rather satisfying approach: why not fight fire with fire? Their counter-tactics involve sending a serious-sounding reply to the initial scam letter, then intentional leading the scammers down the primrose path via a serious of increasingly comic communications. The Scamorama website documents these email exchanges, message-by-message, and the results border on hilarious (and, at times, a tad profane and just a little on the, um, racy side). Apparently, many people are now resorting to this subtle form of retribution, and forwarding the results for posting to the website.

A good example is the account entitled "JUAN PEREZ MUNOZ DE BARATA TUDELA LOVEDAY VERSUS YET ANOTHER MRS. ABACHA & HER LAWYER." It's rather lengthy, but it takes time to set up a good counter-scam, particularly one involving your beneficent cousin Jed Clampett, who, unfortunately, goes for a three-hour cruise - just a three-hour cruise - and becomes lost at sea (albeit with a very able skipper), only to be rescued by an intrepid Captain named Picard. Meanwhile, the scammers continue to express their condolences and concern about the family travails of their intended, but beloved, victim.

Then there's the give-and-take between the scammers and a gentleman named "Kristopher Kringle"; this one is still ongoing as of mid-January.

Some of these counter-scammers have actually succeeded in convincing the scammers to send them money...not much, but surely enough to claim a moral victory of sorts. Things like this sort of give you hope for the world, you know?

But then there are things like this. I saw the following post on another local blog, which shall remain nameless to spare the owner embarrassment, even though the message was a reply, not a post:

I think the idiocy of this statement is self-evident, so I'll say nothing more about it than this: it's OK...it's even good to bash "The Media," but only if you can do so without looking worse than those you bash.

Thoughts about Columbia...MISD Bond Election...

I've just finished watching Katie Couric interview Evelyn Husband, wife of Columbia's flight commander. Katie seems to always draw these kinds of assignments, but she's certainly qualified for them. Having lost a husband herself, she brings a spirit of empathy and gentleness to the interview that can't be faked. She also appears to be genuinely interested in the people with whom she speaks, and, for the most part, is content to let them speak...a rarity for the typical ego-infused talking head.

Anyway, Ms. Husband exhibited a calm grace coupled with undeniable toughness that we've come to expect from Texas women, dating back to Lady Bird, and continuing through Barbara and now, of course, Laura. I suspect that some viewers will attribute Ms. Husband's almost cheery demeanor to post-traumatic shock, and I'm sure there's a little of that present...the NBC makeup techs couldn't disguise the stress and tears in her puffy eyes. But those of us who understand and share her faith recognize the "peace that passes all understanding" that can come only from a Source outside (and yet inside)...an assurance that the parting with a loved one is simply a temporary situation and that the reunion will be all the sweeter for the fleeting absence.

Ms. Husband admitted, "I don't understand any of this, but I just trust the Lord." She recited the Bible passage that Col. Husband added to his autographs: Proverbs 3:5-6 (and which, amazingly, NBC quoted on the screen as she read it). "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight."

By all indications, both the Husbands based their lives on this foundation. Why else would Col. Husband pursue a "career" in which the odds of dying on the job are now 1 in 75? He knew, like the Apostle Paul, that "to live is Christ and to die is gain." (Philippians 1:21). Ms. Husband knows that as well, and just as the human spirit of achievement has gained as a result of her husband's life, so has he gained through his death.

Meanwhile, life in all its comedic and tragic glory goes on. The good citizenry of Midland turned out in underwhelming numbers to finally - FINALLY! - approve one school bond proposition, and reject a second. My pre-election predictions were right, as far as the end result, although I thought Prop. 1 would be closer and Prop. 2 would be less so than the final tally revealed.

I hope the southside elementary supporters don't spend too much time trying to debrief where things went wrong; the power burns and missing toes on certain hands and feet should be evidence enough of the self-inflicted wounds, inevitable (from my perspective, anyway) fallout from last September's suckerpunching of that failed bond issue. It will be interesting to see the voter turnout and results by precinct; as of this morning, only the overall totals have been posted online.

Some have predicted that this election spelled the demise of the CFR. I don't think so. Its fallback position is inevitably one of gathering evidence for its "I told you so" proclamations, should MISD stumble at any point in the execution of the newly-approved plan (and should the Almighty Homestead Exemption be rescinded. By the way, I suspect that many citizens don't realize that the value of the state-mandated Homestead Exemption extends beyond the local-option tax shield.).

That's not necessarily a bad thing. The burden is now on the administration to prove its critics wrong. There is little margin for error in putting into place the improvements to be funded by the bond, and watchdogs do tend to keep the flock safe. We can only hope that our dogs don't eat the sheep.

No words yet...

I've had all day to think about it. I've started writing twice, and deleted both attempts.

You know what? I don't feel like writing about it, not yet anyway.