That’s one reviewer’s take on Austin-Bergstrom International Airport for those who want to sleep there. Bring earplus, suggested another. But a third enjoyed his overnight in the VIP lounge. DFW and Houston didn’t score much better. Seems to be quieter at San Antone. I didn’t know people did this. I have been hit up by the cigarette panhandlers out in front of the baggage area at ABIA. Austin seems to attract panhandlers.
Via Things With Wings.
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Posted in Texana
Tagged Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Aviation Week, DFW, Houston International, San Antonio, The Guide To Sleeping in Airports, Things With Wings
Six days (through Thursday) of triple-digit highs (was only 97 today) with, fortunately, some relief in sight, according to Bob Rose:
A few coastal showers will be possible the latter part of next week, but the majority of the region looks to stay dry. If this pattern develops as currently forecast, we should break out of our streak of 100-degree temperatures the latter part of next week.
That would be nice. Sunday morning is Summer Solstice, after all. Cooler days are coming…
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Posted in Texana, Weather/Climate
Tagged LCRA Bob Rose, summer solstice
The federal infantry and cavalry forts of Texas were not the palisaded stockades of the movies.
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Posted in Texana
Comanches: The History of A People is one of Texas historian T.R. Ferenbach’s greatest hits and I enjoyed it thoroughly, as much for its Texas and U.S. Army history as for the tale of the destruction of the murderous, wholly unlovable Comanches.
The book was written in 1974, so it’s free of Hollyweird indian mumbo jumbo, as well as the hand-wringing, multicultural, everything’s-relative claptrap. By the late 1860s, with their ultimate demise plain to see, Comanche chiefs began lying about their nomadic guerrilla-warfare culture which had, for hundreds of years, been raiding, stealing, kidnapping and enslaving women and children, torturing some for pleasure, raping most, and mutilating all.
"The story of the People is a brutal story," Ferenbach writes, "and its judgements must be brutal." No one but their victims ever understood them, especially not the patronizing Quakers whom Washington put in charge of trying to pacify them. The 4th U.S. Cavalry did it best, by using their own tactics to massacre the men and take the women and children captive to the reservations. Ferenbach is sensitive to the pathos of their end. But, by then, the Comanches had slain so many thousands of noncombants, most of them white and black Texans and peasant Mexicans, that few who knew their handiwork would mourn.
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Posted in Library, South of the Border, Texana
Tagged 4th U.S. Cavalry, Comanches, Comanches: The History of a People, guerilla warfare, Mexicans, Quakers, T.R. Ferenbach, Tejanos, Texans
Computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra invented much of software technology yet only used a computer for email and browsing the Web. He was still writing with a fountain pen when he died in 2002.
Dijkstra once told me that he would never consent to fly on the space shuttle because he didn’t trust the software that controlled it.
With the coming introduction of the Boeing 787, we’re all pretty soon going to be flying in craft controlled by software. Dave, an Airbus pilot who already does, explains why we shouldn’t worry.
But some still do, and, especially since the loss of AF 447, I must admit that I’m one of them.
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Posted in Science/Engineering, Texana
Tagged AF 447, Airbus, Boeing 787, Dav, Edsger Dijkstra, Flight Level 390, The Electric Jet
The wreck of French explorer La Salle’s ship, The Belle, more than three hundred years ago in Matagorda Bay is one of the compelling tales of Texas history that most schoolchildren here learn. These six to ten foot, dismounted bronze cannon, recovered in the remarkable 1995 discovery and subsequent preservation of the ship’s hull and cargo, are just part of the story.
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Posted in Texana
Tagged bronze cannon, La Belle, La Salle, Texana
Not because this last-minute amendment to a passed bill to let state Rep. Wayne Christian (an allegedly conservative Republican) rebuild his beach house on Ike-swept Bolivar Penninsula is particularly unusual. But because, in fact, this is just the sort of thing that gets smuggled into law in the last "chaotic" days of every biennial session. The last days are always "chaotic" because the Lege likes them that way. So much easier to slip stuff through when there’s so much going on that no one is likely to notice until it’s too late. Heh.
Via Lone Star Times.
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Posted in Texana
Tagged Bolivar Penninsula, Hurricane Ike, State Rep. Wayne Christian, Texas Lege
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 