There’s a reason I like Annie, but I don’t like to watch it. I can never remember what the reason is, so I keep making the mistake of watching it again, because I like it so much. I’m sitting here alone in my half-darkened office with the shades drawn, having…
If Obama can be president, is it OK for white people to be assholes again? And, of course, I don’t mean it exactly the way it sounds. I’m worried about the Dallas school system. What I really mean is that it may be time for upwardly mobile middle-class and working-class…
Cafe Press People are high on anxiety about this election already. And it’s not the election. It’s the deselection. That’s what’s got everybody crazy. I got a call this morning from a gentlemen who’d just early-voted at Harry Stone Montessori. He said his voting machine tried to con him into…
Flickr photo: i am indisposed My takeaway from the final presidential debate last night was a deep sense of concern, even anxiety, over what John McCain is doing to the public perception of old white guys. People already treat us as if we’re all goofy. They use euphemisms like “irascible,”…
The Dallas Morning News’ DISD Blog has the severance agreement governing the departure of former Dallas Independent School Distirct chief operating officer Eric Anderson. The surprise for me was that Anderson accepted so little, a mere 15 grand, for taking such a terrible licking. Anderson agreed not to speak ill…
The Dallas school system is in the ditch financially. No question. But stepping up to save the day, we have a volunteer group of Dallas business executives—guys like John Scovell, John Ware, Pedro Aguirre and Joe Alcantar—who are going to come down to school headquarters and help watch over the…
If you’ve always wondered what it’d be like to listen to Jim “The Great Optimist” Schutze talk to WFAA-Channel 8’s John McCaa for, like, 12 uninterrupted minutes, today is your lucky day. –Robert Wilonsky…
A greeting, passed along in a coffee shop: “Hey, I haven’t seen you in a long time.” “How are you?” “Just like you—waiting to see if I’ll still have a job.” A long silence followed by a laugh that sticks in the throat and sounds like a last gasp. Those…
Two weeks ago I was on vacation, sitting in an airport diddling around with my “smart” phone (yeah, right), when I came across an online story about the Dallas Independent School District: DISD had suddenly “discovered” that its annual operating budget this year will be $64 million in the red…
Allison V. Smith’s Hall Pass, a show of color photographs to debut at Barry Whistler Gallery on Friday, is an excavation of Texas schools that still look, smell and feel like schools. The water fountain, the teacher’s globe, the roll-down map: In these iconic images Smith’s camera channels all that…
On November 6, 2007, a referendum to kill the Trinity River toll road failed at the polls. I was for the referendum. The side I was on lost. I think I was fairly open about what my attitude would be from then forward. Sour grapes. What’s wrong with sour grapes?…
You may or may not read blogs. I’m not sure which way to advise you. Some local politics, news and sports blogs do provide a better window on the city than what you get from mainstream media. But you may need to keep a clothespin handy for your nose. For…
I know. We’ll just do this as an IQ test. Here’s the situation: You’re a builder. The law says you can only build a new condo building on Oram Street in East Dallas 36 feet or three stories up from the ground. You want to go up four stories, so…
Aha. Finally got my documents from Dallas Area Regional Transit. Think I may be on to something. Last November DART announced it was suddenly almost a billion dollars short in its budget for new rail line construction. DART gets its money from you. It is committed to building new lines…
By any chance, were you ever one of those people from a church or synagogue or mosque or some other outfit that used to come downtown in a van and feed the homeless? I say, “used to,” because, as you know, feeding the homeless is all taken care of now…
One of the names nominated for the renaming of Industrial Boulevard recently was Stanley Marcus Boulevard. Walk a quarter-mile in my shoes on this, will you? Marcus’ name was one of several put forward by the public in a recent competition run by City Hall to find a new name…
Maybe it’s Obama. Something is going on, something bubbling up. I feel it all around me. Don’t you? Not just nationally but locally. Some kind of touchiness. Not touchy-feely. Touch-pokey. Things are complicated all of a sudden. When Russell Fish and I had lunch last week, the first thing we…
The announcer is a little girl. In the clear airspace of Sunday morning radio, her voice is sweet, but the message is heavy. As if introducing story time for the kiddies, she tells listeners, “This is the show that exposes the chemical pushers, the environmental thugs and the certified organophobes.”…
Hitting where it hurts: Not that black people ever were thrilled with the Dallas public school system, but in the last year unhappy has become unhappier. Two main reasons. First, a sense that white people and Latinos are ganging up. Second, a suspicion that somebody wants to pull the rug…
Sometimes people look at the wrong thing when they look at Dallas. They want to find what makes Dallas unique, so they look for something unique. But the thing that makes this region unique is its perfect, flawless, seamless lack of uniqueness. OK, I know, it needs a little explaining…
Want to see an odd, possibly interesting 1962 movie about circus life, based on a play by Ben Hecht, who wrote Front Page and played a role in the creation of Israel? Sure you do. Billy Rose’s Jumbo, which was Doris Day’s last musical movie, will be shown Monday from…
For one brief shining moment last week my man Roscoe Betz was in tall cotton. Dallas County Justice of the Peace Albert B. Cercone handed him a victory on every score. I wrote about Betz two weeks ago (“Hardballs,” June 12, 2008). He’s an 89-year-old retiree and World War II…
