DIGITAL DIGEST THE DIALOGUE

Consider the chicken: When a type of animal becomes our friend, do we stop eating it?

I can’t eat anything that has the capacity to experience joy. I stopped eating chicken before I began keeping them, but people I know have stopped eating chicken after meeting my birds. They have such big personalities.

—Kimquat

We don’t keep chickens, but ducks. Before we got them — two years ago — roast duck was my son’s favorite food. We haven’t eaten it since. I would eat it, but whenever I suggest it, either my wife or my now 11-year-old son suggests something else.

—Jason M. Fitzmaurice

Those folks who told you they wouldn’t eat little Fluffy in the backyard are still likely the same folks who frequent the local chickenbased fast food restaurants. So I don’t think not-eating-your-backyard-chickens is a matter of principle, it’s a product of our disconnected, convenience-oriented, ignorant culture.

—Amy

Chickens, cows and pigs were domesticated as a food source. Our deal with them is that we will feed them and protect them from predators, and in exchange when their useful life is over as milk-givers/egglayers/breeders, they get slaughtered.

—James_the_P3

I can’t give up the chicken gumbo at the Alligator Cafe, but other than that I’ve quit eating chicken for the very reasons you mention, even though I’m not a chicken farmer. We should all go as meatless as we possibly can, and not just chicken, either.

—Lee Gibson

Should Dallas repeal the bike helmet law?

So let me make sure I understand this… If I drive a motorcycle, a helmet is an option! However, if I ride a bicycle, a helmet is required by law … Yep, makes sense to me! I, for one, ride a bicycle and will continue to wear a helmet. I certainly don’t need a law to dictate this …

—Matt

My husband is an avid cyclist. He wears his helmet. Our kids see daddy wearing his and they wear theirs. It’s not an option, it’s just what we do. Like brushing teeth or wearing a seatbelt. Adults set an example. “Uneven” application is setting a rule only for 16 and under. City council needs to move on to the many more pressing issues in Dallas and leave a functioning safety regulation in place.

—Erin Barnes Johnston

Yeah, lets spend more cop power on this rather than finding who broke into my house. #revenuestream

—Robert Kelly

If the people who ride bicycles in Lakewood actually obeyed the laws then I would say “yes.” BUT, since 99.9% of them do not obey the laws and I have seen two bicyclists splayed out on the rode (both on Abrams, one at Belmont and the other at Richmond) after being hit by a car, I’m against repealing the helmet law.

—Donna Mann

all of us at Coldwell Banker.

We live in a privileged nation and we are all blessed to have our independence.

We are also blessed to live in and work in LAKEWOOD/EAST DALLAS. HAVE A HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

Patient Quote of the Month:

WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Blind Butcher receives nod for late nights despite neighbor

opposition

Will HEB, Market Street replace Albertsons, Tom Thumb?

Body of drowned man recovered from White Rock Lake

Video: Is that boat a … car?

Vagabond eyes coveted title of ‘neighborhood bar’

The Dialogue

Are neighborhood families making the switch to Mata Montessori?

Two words, Alex Sanger! No one mentions the school. It needs restructuring. What about allowing students from AS to go to Mata? In fact, AS is right down the street from Mata, in Forest Hills. —Geexo

My son is scheduled to start kindergarten at Lakewood next September, and we are seriously considering Mata. He has been in Montessori preschool for the last three years, and we have been very pleased with the results. —James_the_P3

Prediction: ZERO students with the choice to attend Stonewall or Lakewood will enroll at Mata in the fall. —No overcrowding help to be had

Do you know what parents do to get their kids into Dealey? Give it a chance, and it could become another great school for East Dallas. I used to take the bus from Lakewood to Dealey, imagine that. Things do change for the better sometimes. —Ben

Q&A: The faces behind the flags

EveryFourthofJuly,hundredsof small flags start showing up around our neighborhood. They don’t pop up out of thin air, so who’s behind this long-standing patriotic tradition?

Dick Clements has been in real estate in Dallas since 1955, and in 1988 he and his wife, Chloie Clements, assembled a team of Dick’s employees to help plant flags in neighbors’ yards. In 2009, he passed the baton to his former employee, David Bush, who continues the tradition to this day.

How’d the tradition start?

Dick Clements: We had a marketing girl, and she came to us and said she thought it would be a good idea. The only thing I really remember is that we started with just a few hundred.

David Bush: Y’all probably just did it along the [Lakewood] parade route.

Dick Clements: Yeah, we may have. It was accepted so overwhelmingly, just in the few streets that we did, that we expanded. We kept expanding it every year, and the last year that we had it before we gave it to David, we had 8,000.

Were you surprised by the reaction?

Dick Clements: Oh, yes.

Chloie Clements: Remember that bulle- tin board in the office? We just got lots of thank you notes and phone calls.

What was it like at the beginning?

David Bush: We would meet up at Dick’s office at like 5 in the morning — phew — to start passing them out. We’d have one driving, and then one jumping out to pass them out. We’d reconvene at the office and usually have a picnic-style breakfast. After that, you’d have people jumping up to run hotshot deliveries because people would call to say, ‘I didn’t get my flag.’ I’ve sold houses before where you’ll see them all rolled up in people’s garages because on the 4th of July they’ll grab those and put them out in the yard. We did it together from like 2000, and we collaborated until 2009.

And, David, you took over from there?

Dick Clements: David asked if he could take it over, and I said, ‘Sure, take it.’

David Bush: It’s kind of one of those things like, ‘Golly, I don’t know if I want to pay for all this,’ but it’s one of those things that people expect. People enjoy it and it kind of adds to the whole small-town, slice-of-Americana feel that Lakewood has. It just seemed like something that you couldn’t not do anymore. It’s part of our Fourth of July.

How has it changed over the years?

Chloie Clements: It really took a lot of planningasfarasmakingtheassignments to the agents, but now David hires a man to put them out.

David Bush: Yeah, apparently Dick is a better salesman than me, because he talked his agents into being foot soldiers to put these out when it’s 100 degrees outside. I couldn’t convince my agents to do it. They said, ‘Why don’t we just pay someone?’

Has that made it easier?

ChloieClements:Well,it’smoreexpensive. It’s not as fun because you don’t have the camaraderie. But you know, we were younger and it was just fun.

David Bush: Yeah, that was just a part