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Look Out Bullies! There’s An Orange Army Coming Your Way

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October is National Bullying Prevention Month, so it's easy to remember to wear orange -- even if you don't own Longhorns swag.

Five stories North Texas is talking about: the battle against bullying, party in the deck park, ‘Nones’ and their habits and more.

If you notice a lot of orange on your way to school tomorrow, you can thank the National Bullying Prevention Center. It’s asking kids to wear orange and asking schools to hold rallies across the country tomorrow to stand against bullying.

This comes as a nation- and statewide effort to crack down on hateful behavior begins to produce some result. The Dallas Morning News published a piece last month about how area schools are creating their own anti-bullying policies because of a new Texas law.

Dallas ISD’s rules cover cyberstalking and sexting. Fort Worth has an online tip system where students, parents and teachers can report bullying. Fort Worth Weeklyreported that nearly half of the students surveyed in Fort Worth ISD said they knew another student who’d been bullied.

-- Lyndsay Knecht

Klyde Warren Park Is Not Even Open Yet, And The Party’s A Hit

The folks behind Klyde Warren Park promised a grand rollout when they named its first event The Concert For Dallas. And they’re delivering a soundtrack as zany as the idea of a deck park over Woodall Rogers, with Polyphonic Spree and Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue.

Free tickets were released this morning for the show, set for Saturday, Oct. 27 at 7 p.m. All 6,000 free tickets were snapped up in a half-hour. What to do? Not much: Park staff directed us to this site, where you can find out more about $200 tickets that include a membership or $150 tickets that include free food and drinks courtesy of area restaurants.

For everyone else in the vicinity, there’ll be a fireworks show to close the night.

If it isn’t already somewhat obvious, The Atlantic Cities blog has a piece with evidence that the rest urban parks offer for city dwellers actually improves their brains. Reassuring for a metro area that we’re sure doesn’t take enough long lunches.

-- Lyndsay Knecht

‘Nones’ And Their Habits: Poll Shows More Claiming No Religion

A Pew poll released today reports one in fiveAmericans now say they’re not religious. There was an increase in the number of Southerners with no affiliation, though the hike was the most modest in our part of the country.

Jeannine Hunter of The Washington Post takes a closer look at the “Nones,” a term for the 46 million Americans who check the so-named box under the “Religion” category in paperwork. According to the Pew survey, these 46 million Americans aren’t necessarily godless; they just don’t credit their routines and rituals as belonging to a particular religion.

Check out this preview of a forthcoming PBS miniseries on the (un-) group.

-- Lyndsay Knecht 

Fair Warning: Too Much Happening To Make Just One Round

The Texas State Fair is packed with a seemingly endless parade of awesomeIt’s even likely a lot of this is familiar. But how about a free Shaolin Kung-Fu show?

A user on Reddit made the following post over the weekend:

If you guys like some freakin' sweet Kung Fu then come watch! (We do Northern Shaolin kung fu, which is what you usually see in the movies). We will also be doingTai Chi, Pa Kua, Lion Dance, and Dragon Dance. We have performers of all ages and genders. We have a super hero themed set, girl power, traditional stuff, you name it. We have two sets, each should be about the same (content-wise) and are 30 minutes long. We perform in front of the Hall of State at noon and 2pm on October 20th.

The group performing apparently belongs to ‘Lee’s White Leopard KungFu’ based out of Dallas. They've been doing similar shows for quite some time at the fair, and it's not all about flying kicks or perfect fighting forms either. The group should be performing at the State Fair’s ‘Hall Of State’ at noon and 2 p.mon October 20th.

Bonus: You’ve probably seen plenty of photos over the years of Big Tex in various stages of preparation at the Fair.

For the curious, another Reddit user (MrHolga) recently posted a time-lapsed video of the whole shebang.
 

-- Justin Martin

Meet The LeBron/Kobe/Kevin Of Education Policy

NPR’s Tell Me More and StateImpact Florida have lined up an educational dream team for a show tomorrow:

·         U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan,
·        His Bush administration predecessor, Dallas’ own aptly named Margaret Spellings
·        Michele Rhee, the hard-core reformer and controversial former chief of the Washington, D.C., school system.

TMM host MichelMartin will anchor the broadcast from members station WLRN in Miami. There’s some pretty cool Twitter action planned --tweet your thoughts and ideas with @TellMeMoreNPR using #npredchat and #IsYourSchoolBroken.

And as part of our “Texas Graduate” initiative, KERANews.org will stream it live – right here at 10 a.m. Central time.

--Rick Holter