“Around the Republic: Roundup of Austin Blog Posts Week of September 6th 2009″

Why spend Sunday reading the New York Times? Each week we bring you our favorite posts from local Austin bloggers.  If you see a post from your fave Austin blog and want it to get recognized, email Rory (rory[at]republicofaustin[dot]com) and let him know!

You know why they call it Labor Day? Cause it’s a lot of work trying to get through the weekend in one piece.  Yup, we over here at RoA had too many friends in town, too many drinks and too much fun.  After a week hiatus, we’re back with our favorite posts from Austin bloggers for the week of XXXX.

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like…Springtime?

Nope, you aren’t dreaming: It’s raining in Austin! From the look of things outside, it may as well be spring.  Scorched earth giving way to green means many a gardener are loaded with trowels, ready to get DURTY!

• Annie from The Transplantable Rose celebrates the breaking of our collective fever and snaps some beautiful night photos of her Moonflower Vine.
• The Garden Posse will be hitting up a couple of triangles with some guerrilla gardening this week. Check this post for date, time and location.
• Coyote Mercury took advantage of a break in the rain to hit up a trail in his neighborhood. Post includes pics of this odd, springlike flora behavior.

Remembering September 11th

Eight years later, the horrors of 9/11 still weigh on the nation.

• We love this post from momof3 over at These Are Days giving her account of the days events.
• Perhaps not 9/11 related, but still timely, Lavanna over at I Stare at People painted an awesome portrait of a retired military man

Pole Dancing Nightmares

Tolly over at Austin Eavesdropper recounts a pole dancing accident at gay dance club Kiss and Fly over the holiday wknd. Tolly, fess up: That “friend” was really you. It’s ok. We’ve all been way too drunk at a gay bar and did things we may or may not have regretted later.  For example, I have a “friend” who blacked out at a gay bar , only to wake up the next morning in the middle of an accident with a different kind of pole…don’t tell anyone.

Make New Friends…

• East Austinite welcomes a new contributer
• And Taco Journalism welcomes two

Teabagging the Capital

Texans from all across, um, Texas descended on the Capital to protest high taxes, national healthcare and…Sorry, i can’t continue writing this.

Look, folks, I’m a ‘Dillo, so I don’t really care about politics. But I don’t quite understand how an event that happened 200 years ago to protest taxation without representation is connected to a group of people protesting taxes; we have representation, and our president was elected by a majority. Anyway, I digress. We have a 1st Ammendment, and I love it when people exercise those rights–but don’t get crazy.

• Snowed In gives a first-hand account of the rally from a conservative dad’s point of view. He shares lessons learned, mainly: Don’t bring a 5-year old to a protest. While there, he saw three counter-protesters
• Lindsay over at Crap in a Bucket was one of those three folks protesting the protest. Check out her account of the event. Maybe Crap in a Bucket and Snowed In can get together and have coffee….
• For pictures and YouTube videos of the event, you can also check out Houston Tea Party Society.

Take Another Pizza My Heart Now Baby

• The folks over at Homeslice Pizza are vacationing in NYC and eating tons of pizza. Follow their adventures here.
• While the Homeslice folks are on their Pizza Pilgrimage, Seth over at Year of the Pizza has been chronicling his trip through insanity free pizza withdrawal.  [Backstory: Seth won Homeslice's "Hands on an Eggplant Sub" Contest in May and gets free pizza for a year. Poor guy was recently laid off, and as a result, eats more pizza than anyone we know.] The pictures of Seth in a cardboard box labeled “S.S. Free Pizza” are def worth the click.

From Austin City Hall

• That grassy taste in your water comes compliments of blue green algae in Lake Austin. Don’t worry. It’s ok to drink.
• Your lawn isn’t the only victim of the drought. The wells that feed Deep Eddy pool are damn near dry, resulting in the closure of the shallow end.

From Austin Area Foodies

Maybe it was the holiday. Maybe it was the rain. Whatever it was, the food bloggers have been eating, cooking and writing up a storm. SRSLY, you guys: SLOW DOWN! You’re putting the rest of us bloggers to SHAME!

• Natanya over at Fete & Feast resumes Food Trailer Friday after a heat hiatus. This week she reviews Vietnamese Trailer: Lulu B’s.
• Tasty Touring reviews Austin Bagel shops in a totes LOL post lovingly titled “Two Jews and a Goy Eat Five Kinds of Bagels and ‘Roll’ Home.”
• Poco-Cocoa visits Justine’s, the newly opened, eastside French Brasserie that already has a hella long wait (yeah, we wanted to try it, but couldn’t wait for 45 min).
• Austin Farm to Table loves the new sustainable restaurant Olivia.
• The Rebeccamendations offers a quick and easy recipe for “No Fret-ta Brushcetta.”
• Our favorite boozy chef, MisoHungry, drops a recipe for Beer Bread.

Tidbits

• Creative bloggers Public School took back to school portraits in traditional elementary school manner
• Doublespeak over at The Life and Times of Archy and Mehitabel made a really cool needlepoint, um, clean up rag. It uses erotic art from a greek urn as inspiration, so be warned this is NSFW
• The Midlife Gals discuss hit TV show “So You Think You Can Dance” from the hippie perspective <—This is pretty darn LOL.  Ladies, come DT and we’ll dance with you!
• Move to Austin shares Austin unemployment numbers. To clear the bad juju out of her life, she visits a psychic woman who does some voodoo. Will this help her husband find a job? We hope so!
• Adam over at The Apiary News takes a look at Soviet fetishism in Austin club/bar logo design and wonders if perhaps those symbols are as bad as the swastika. From our own experience, Adam, a lot of people think it is.

Didn’t see your favorite blog post from the last week? Tell us about it in the comments!