Trinity River Project Backers Find New Ally in Sen. Cornyn: No matter who wins Sen. Kay Bay Hutchison’s senate seat, backers of the Trinity River Corridor Project will have Sen. John Cornyn stepping up to take her place as the project’s champion in Congress. Cornyn, clearly not speaking with Jim Schutze in mind, told the Dallas Regional Chamber Friday that “there is a lot we can do with the Corps of Engineers and with the regulatory part of this to help remove obstacles and help expedite the Trinity River Corridor Project.” I hope those “obstacles” don’t include the corps’ general opinion that building a toll road in the river bed is a really dumb idea.
Will Dallas ISD Teachers Follow Through With Sickout? This Wednesday is supposed to be the day when Dallas teachers bang-in sick en masse to protest the school board’s decision to extend the teachers’ workday. But will the educators keep their nerve? On the blog Teachers for Change, the anonymous organizer writes, “I am disappointed in how many of you are giving in to the fear.” It is illegal in Texas for employees to strike or organize work stoppages against school districts.
Animated Short Doesn’t Get Into USA Film Festival, Goes On To Win Oscar: Last night’s Oscar winners included Deep Ellum-based Reel FX’s co-founder (and Traveling Man co-designer) Brandon Oldenburg’s animated short, “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.” Curious fact: the Oscar winning short was rejected from the USA Film Festival.
3 comments
A few months back, while at a visit to the Cowgirl Museum in FW, we wandered into the theater looking to see a movie about cowgirls, which we did. We stayed for an animated movie about a man and his flying books. Just a few minutes into this film we were captivated by it. It was truly a serendipitous moment. How, or why, the USA Film Festival did not grab this film I cannot understand. If you get a chance to see, do not hesitate. You will be amply rewarded.
So the school board is extending the teacher workday? Hmm. Let’s see how does that work. Every teacher I know works all day teaching, then all night grading and preparing for the next day. I think that’s a pretty extensive work day, don’t you?
Perhaps the school board should extend their own work hours and actually get some work done.
CORRECTION — The referenced film was not “rejected” by the USA Film Festival as represented in your blog. The film was entered and accepted into the USA Film Festival’s Academy-qualified Short Film Competition. The film scored well (finalist level) but did not take the top category prize. Virtually every year, the USAFF Competition’s finalist and winning films end up on the Academy’s nomination or short-list, and this year is no exception. Ann Alexander, Managing Director, USA Film Festival Dallas