It was shortly before or not long after I read Robert Wilonsky’s post from earlier this week about Dallas retaking its rightful crown as the country’s worst major city for cyclists that I wiped out, in suitably humiliating fashion, as I rode my bike to work down Hillcrest Road. I…
Recent anthrax scares at preschools, synagogues, government offices, and just about anywhere else the U.S. Postal Service will deliver a white powder-filled envelope, not to mention the panting media coverage, has people on edge, calling in the cavalry at the sight of powdered sugar. Or blow. Dallas Fire Rescue’s Haz-Mat…
When I wrote yesterday about Mayor Mike backtracking from his backtrack on the Trinity Toll Road, I glossed over the real purpose of his visit to the Oak Cliff Chamber, which was to pitch his GrowSouth initiative. For the uninitiated, GrowSouth is the plan to revitalize southern Dallas, which Rawlings…
. Remember those motorcyclists who briefly took over Central Expressway last year to peel out, do wheelies, spraypaint tributes to fallen comrades, and generally distract commuters from their smart phones? NBC 5 does and reports today that they’re coming back. But Central Expressway is so last year, so the riders…
Progress Texas doesn’t much like the virtual school movement that has drawn increasing numbers of the state’s grade-school students away from real classrooms, many of them full-time. For one thing, it’s proven ineffective, the group argues in a report released yesterday. Case in point: Texas Virtual Academy, an online charter…
Mayor Mike Rawlings was a bit late for his 9 a.m. speech at this morning’s “Building South” presentation at the Oak Cliff Chamber. I knew it was Mayor Mike because OC Chamber director Bob Stimson, waffling for time, kept saying things like “I was told if I started and talked…
As a nickname, “Dead Bird” hasn’t fit so well since the city of Dallas’ airport in South Oak Cliff changed its name from Redbird to Dallas Executive a decade ago in hopes of sparking a revival of the 67-year-old airfield, which tends to be forgotten in the shadow of DFW…
Those kooky animal lovers at PETA are up to their crazy shenanigans again. (By “kooky” and “crazy shenanigans” what we mean is, “Have you ever wondered if PETA is just some sort of pervy scam to get twentysomething women to disrobe in public?) According to the groups press release, they…
I was 6 when Dallas went off the air, so I have been spared thus far, mercifully from everything I hear, from ever having to watch an episode. I haven’t been able to maintain the level of ignorance that I would have liked, since on occasion when I’ve mention my…
Anyone who has ridden cross-country on a Greyhound bus, and who walked by the bus station on Lamar Street yesterday, would have assumed that the group of protesters gathered there were speaking out against the inhumane conditions suffered by its passengers. On the contrary, the picketers were members of the Amalgamated…
View You too can see if your candidate lives in the Texas 33rd Congressional District When the polls close on the Democratic primary for Texas’ new 33rd Congressional District, surprisingly few of the nearly dozen candidates will have cast a vote for themselves. We received a note from a Friend…
Eric Dickerson, the Pro Football Hall of Fame running back and better half of SMU’s Pony Express, has joined the growing list of former NFL players suing the league for failing to protect athletes from permanent neurological damage stemming from brain trauma. Dickerson, along with 14 other players ranging in…
Have you ever wanted to be a monk but are turned off by the inconveniences of monastic life? Maybe said to yourself, “Gee, I’d love to devote my whole life to God, but that’s so hard. How about just four days? And that life-of-celibacy thing is a deal breaker.” If…
With the race for the 33rd Congressional District by all accounts a two-man race that is growing pettier by the day, it’s easy to forget that nine other Democrats are jostling for third place in the May 29 primary. Unless, of course, you happen to glance up from the bumper…
If you appreciate the signs of life that have sprouted downtown in recent years — and anyone who loves this city does — Jeff West is at least partly to thank. The 54-year-old, who died Monday, was a tireless advocate for downtown and the city. He headed the Sixth Floor…
Dallas has a knack for self-regard. Self-promotion? Not so much. The city’s efforts at branding itself (“Live Large. Think Big.”) are, well, embarrassing. We’ve had nothing with the catchiness, not to mention production values, of Las Vegas’ “What happens here, stays here.” But Vegas has a slush fund of $95.5…
In case you haven’t been paying attention, the race for the 33rd Congressional District is still a pissing match likely to end up in a runoff between between Domingo Garcia and Marc Veasey for the Democratic nomination. A quick recap: Garcia called big SUVs un-American, which led Veasey to proclaim…
My 3-year-old son is crushed. Yesterday, his dad was about $1,052,480 shy of purchasing a 75 percent complete fossil skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus bataar, sold by Dallas-based Heritage Auctions. Or at least I would have been had I put in a bid. It’s just as well, though, because whoever purchased…
It wasn’t without some pride that I saw last week that my alma mater, the University of Texas at Dallas, had earned what may be its first superlative. (OK, maybe its second, but the most-hideous-architecture label was unofficial.) The Texas Tribune has helpfully compiled a list of average tuition and…
“Cheese,” the cheap-as-hell mixture of cold medicine and black tar heroin, is again rearing its head at DISD’s Thomas Jefferson High School. The school, which was known by students as the Cheesehead Factory, had reportedly done a pretty good job of ridding if from their hallways.Now, another student has died…
While some in Congress have raised concerns about Facebook’s privacy policies and others are already grousing about the company driving the “biggest Mack truck ever driven through the stock option loophole” with a $16 billion tax deduction, a pair of local congressmen are liking Facebook very much. Representatives Pete Sessions…
You don’t shoot the goose that laid the golden egg. You just don’t — not unless you really, really have to or the goose stops pooping out gold. Which is why SMU’s firing of athletic director Steve Orsini yesterday was so perplexing, and why the non-explanation offered by school President…
