Happy Independence Day!


I can’t believe I forgot, but Happy Indepedence Day Texas!

“Independence is declared; it must be maintained.”
-Sam Houston – March 2, 1836

Texas became the Republic of Texas when Texans declared their independence from Mexico on March 2, 1836.
The day before 54 delegates met in the village of Washington-on-the-Brazos. The Texans of the Convention of 1836 wrote and adopted the Texas Declaration of Independence literally overnight.

“Life was never the same again, and America’s Lesser 49 are the better for it.” – Dallasblog.com

Infamous Scribblers

In case you missed Fresh Air yesterday, you can listen online about the early days of American media.

A new book details the scandalous, sensational and partisan press — of the 1700s. Fox News journalist Eric Burns’s Infamous Scribblers details how Alexander Hamilton, Sam Adams and other figures were integral in shaping not only America’s political system but its journalistic one, as well.

An excerpt from the book:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of journalism — and it is no small irony that the former condition led directly to the latter, that the golden age of America’s founding was also the gutter age of American reporting, that the most notorious of presses in our nation’s history churned out its copy on the foothills of Olympus.
The Declaration of Independence was literature, but the New England Courant talked trash. The Constitution of the United States was philosophy; the Boston Gazette slung mud. The Gazette of the United States and the National Gazette were conceived as weapons, not chronicles of daily events, and as soon as the latter came into being, the two of them stood masthead to masthead and fired at each other without either ceasing or blinking or acknowledging the limitations of veracity.

The physical and spiritual Deep Ellum

Michael Tate commented the other day on KERA 90.1 FM on the future of Deep Ellum.

When we say “Deep Ellum” we’re really talking about two different yet related things: there’s the Deep Ellum neighborhood, a physical part of Dallas; and then there’s a Deep Ellum spirit, an essence that transcended the streets and storefronts.

Tate predicts the area will evolve into a new McKinney or Uptown district in the future.

DART Rail

Passengers board the Trinity River Express from the DART Light Rail at Union Station
I got to experience the DART rail for the first time yesterday.
I rode from Hampton Rd in Oak Cliff to Akard Street, where I met Mayor Barksdale, rode to Mockingbird for lunch, rode back to Akard Street and then rode all the way to the Irving Station (just south of D/FW airport), and then back to Hampton Rd without ever getting in a car, sitting in traffic, or looking for parking.
It was an enjoyable experience for $2.50.
DART is getting ready to the rail system with extensions of service to Pleasant Grove, Carrolton and Las Colinas.
So far, there have been $3.3 billion in improvements to areas neighboring DART’s rail stations.
That’s a huge economic impact.
I’d love to see the day when I can hop a train from Waxahachie to Mesquite. Of course both cities will have to see a sales-tax increase and there are a number of other issues involved. But for now, I don’t mind hoping a bus in Glenn Hieghts and connecting to the vast network already in place.
I think in a week or two I’ll hop the train again with my bike and head over to White Rock Lake for a ride.