“The Fall Guy,” by Jim Schutze, February 26 Start making sense Jim Schutze highlights what was a blatantly ridiculous stance by The Dallas Morning News editorial board. This is, of course, the same board that had a problem with Farmers Branch holding landlords accountable to renting to illegal aliens. Irrational,…
In reading the latest news about flood dangers downtown and the Trinity River Project, it’s important to know that this is an 11-year-old story that Dallas officials and The Dallas Morning News are just now being forced to acknowledge. And even at that, the acknowledgment is grudging and slow to…
Dallas Morning News Metro columnist Steve Blow talked bad about me in the paper Sunday, so now, I guess, the laws of newspaper combat dictate that I must talk bad about Blow. I shall.But first, I remember this scene from way back in my newspaper childhood. Back in the late…
“Death, Metal,” by Pete Freedman, February 26 RIP, Abb My best weekends were spent in that club [Joe’s Garage]. Every weekend, no matter who was playing, my future wife, three or four friends, and I would overload my little Nissan car and make the long trek to Joe’s from McKinney…
Now that the truth is finally coming out about the Trinity River toll road project, it makes a difference to remember who said what two years ago. And not just as gotcha. The Trinity River toll road is in trouble now because the basic due diligence on it never took…
The real tragedy of the Inland Port situation is illustrated by the sound file you can listen to at the bottom of this item — an excerpt from Cheryl Smith’s long-running program Reporter’s Round Table on KKDA-FM (104.5). If you listen to this carefully, you will discover some important things…
Last night, after that town hall meeting, I spotted Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price standing alone outside the Harold Wendell Lang Middle School. I approached him, because the commissioner had been ducking my calls and e-mails for a couple months, and I had some business to transact with him.As…
You know, maybe instead of a lot of wood-chopping by yours truly, I should just put this log out there and let you whup on it yourself for a while. I’m tired, man.Last Sunday The Dallas Morning News broke the story that Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert has been in talks…
Back during the campaign season for the 2007 referendum on the Trinity River toll road, Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Blow and I got into this really high-flown intellectual debate where I said, “Steve, you’re stupid,” and he said, “Jim, you’re dumb,” and I said, “Steve, you’re a ninny,” and…
Wow. Have I got a story for you! Headline: Ancient riddle solved! Dallas city officials join with local newspaper to discover root cause of crime. Apartment owners! Amazing. All these eons, moral thinkers and criminologists have been sorting through possible explanations. Poor impulse control. Socio-economic disadvantage. Chromosomal mishap. Old Nick…
“Getting to No,” by Jim Schutze, February 12 Blame Uncle Sammy As a native and resident of New Orleans who lost everything in Hurricane Katrina, I was mortified to see comments by your columnist Jim Schutze. He made disparaging, false comments about New Orleans while discussing a project which is…
Been talking to people on deep background about Mayor Tom Leppert and his proposed, alleged takeover of the Dallas Independent School District. Some of this is from people who know Leppert, and some is from people who know DISD. Here is the thrust:1) Leppert’s idea about taking over the school…
Merten just got back from City Hall, where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers just got through telling reporters that 34 of the 170 areas of the Trinity River levees are “unacceptable.” Sam will have more to come shortly — including a surprise cameo appearance by Mitchell Rasansky, who had…
If Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert doesn’t mention his ideas for taking over the Dallas school system at his town hall meeting Thursday at Harold Wendell Lang Sr. Middle School, you can bet somebody in the audience will bring it up. In fact, it sounds to me like people will be…
On February 11, I wrote a piece for the paper version of Unfair Park in which I said officials in New Orleans shared blame for the levee failures during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Specifically, I wrote, “The locals had pushed and pulled for a century to get the federal government…
So the Democratic Party in Dallas County is going to slit the neck of its own highest office-holding incumbent, Dallas County Judge Jim Foster, who has committed no sin. State Senator Royce West and Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price, two of the county’s top Democrats, have declared publicly that…
Here we are, one full decade — 10 years, count ’em, one-10th of a century — into the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and City Of Dallas’s Trinity River Corridor Project, and tomorrow the city council’s Trinity River Corridor Project Committee has a briefing scheduled that I would summarize as,…
You know what I love? When people live up to their own stereotypes.My column this week in the paper version of Unfair Park is about signs that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers may have grown a backbone in the matter of resisting political pressure on flood safety. I talk…
I want you to see me here, sitting at my desk with my left hand clamped over my mouth. My right hand is twisting my own right ear. Painfully. What am I doing? Easy. I’m controlling myself. I am about to talk about the Trinity River Project—our decades-old massive public…
Unite Here!, the New York City-based labor organization gathering signatures for a referendum on subsidies to developers, tells me it will turn in its petitions tomorrow — and with plenty more than the required 20,000 signatures. City Secretary Debra Watkins told me this afternoon it isn’t clear that will mean…
The Farewell Shoes for Mr. Bush show at Decorazon Gallery in Oak Cliff was a great success last night. Across the street from Hattie’s in Bishop Arts, the gallery was wall-to-wall, cheek by jowl and elbows with artists, lookers, glancers and general voyeurs. I was there, of course.But I came…
I guess I read The Dallas Morning News every morning just to make sure my bile ducts are still working. Today we have a story by Michael Lindenberger proving that, with the right editors, you can make even a good reporter look like a fool.I am talking about Lindenberger’s story…
