The big buzz word now at City Hall is “walkable.” They want to develop new neighborhoods that are “walkable.” Meaning you walk. But I have a question: walk to what? Walk to crap? Do I want to leave my crappy apartment complex and walk around the corner so I can…
Walking along, you find a gigantic bone. Is it a dinosaur? A cow? Do you need to call 911? Learning how to tell is just one thing you can do at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History “Dinosaur Round-up” through September 27. You can also make rubbings from…
Sorry, but every once in a while life just hits you over the head. Dallas Area Rapid Transit finds out it’s short a billion dollars on its construction budget. No big deal. Don’t sweat it. But let DART owe a few bucks to some humble taxpayer, and, wow, it’s a…
Peter Lesser, the lawyer, does this abbreviated history of Dallas’ image in the world. It goes something like this: “Bump on a log, assassination. Bump on a log, Dallas Cowboys. Bump on a log, TV show. Bump on a log, Dallas Cowboys again.” Now we can add, “Bump on a…
Wait a minute. Can we just talk here? I don’t get the thing about how the city has a $50 million budget shortfall, but we can afford to build a $500 million hotel. Can we be so poor that we can’t fix our streets, but we can still afford to…
Wow. This is starting to feel like a real city. Now we’ve got real estate mogul Harlan Crow hurling brickbats at media mogul Robert Decherd’s plan for a city-owned downtown convention hotel. We’ve got the rich people behind the Dallas Summer Musicals throwing rocks at the rich people behind the…
Look at this way: I’m not trying to get you to vote against the school bond in the May 10 election. And even if I were, so what? I’m against everything, right? I’d hate to be on a jury deciding my own fate. But I do have issues. Like that…
Mayor Tom Leppert is still the pilot, but the plane is in stall. No rudder. No engine. Leppert and the whole city council gaze out at the silence of the clouds. He could pull it up. He probably will pull it up. But this is a ragged moment, and I…
Look, if you’re like me you don’t wake up in the morning thinking, “I can’t wait to find out what happened overnight in regional rail policy.” I could wait a lifetime. But I also don’t want to wake up two years from now in a nightmare where downtown Dallas is…
As I hike down from the high embankment of the levee and out of the Great Trinity Forest, rain and dusk pushing me on, not to mention mosquitoes, I find two cop cars waiting for me on the tarmac below—a discovery that does not surprise. In fact it warms my…
My last few dog-walking tours over the weekend have revealed to me that Rod Dreher, editorial writer at The Dallas Morning News, is the New Great Satan of Old East Dallas and Lakewood. I think I’m jealous. Lord. I had people coming off their porches at me to complain about…
Somebody always says, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” Sure. But I have a motto too. Make sure you can tell a gift horse from a damn wolf. I’m talking about the way the city council handles zoning issues and about those idiots over at The Dallas Morning…
On Friday, the 40th anniversary of the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a commemorative peace concert will be presented at Munger Place United Methodist Church in East Dallas. Called “I’ve been to the mountaintop,” the concert will include performances by the choirs of the Booker T. Washington High…
Zoning Out: Wait a minute. Buzz thought Laura Miller was the mayor who couldn’t count to eight. Now it’s Tom Leppert—the new guy. Twice recently he has had his hat handed to him on key issues because he didn’t have the votes. How hard is it? The mayor plus the…
It’s a little after 8 a.m. on February 14, and already Dallas Deputy Mayor Pro Tem/District 4 City Council Representative Dwaine Caraway is knee-deep in saggy pants and homophobia. Another day in the life. Outside, a chilly drizzle slides down the glass walls of the WFAA television studios. The downtown…
OK. Let’s do this. Colleen McCain Nelson of The Dallas Morning News editorial board has suggested it was tasteless of me to publish former DART chair Lynn Flint Shaw’s personal e-mails on our blog, Unfair Park, on March 11, the day after Shaw and her husband, Rufus, were found dead…
Afterimage Gallery in the Routh Street Quadrangle is showing (and selling) the work of revered LIFE magazine photographer and editor John Loengard. Loengard, who began shooting for LIFE in 1961, has produced a broad range of work from esoteric landscapes to breaking news journalism, all of which is on the…
Prominent Dallas political activists Lynn Flint Shaw and her husband, Rufus Shaw, dead Tuesday in an apparent murder-suicide by gun, were players in a tight-knit circle of advisors to Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert—a group keenly interested in city and Dallas Area Rapid Transit contracts. According to e-mails provided to the…
All of the unmistakable and depressing signs are gathering over my neck of the woods in Old East Dallas. We seem to be in for another spike in crime, and I’m wondering again what I can do about it. The choices run the gamut. Do absolutely nothing—ignore it like a…
How much do I know about hip? Extremely little. If I found a dead guy by the side of the road, I might say, “This man is not hip.” That’s how bad it has to be for me to notice. I just came from a luncheon where I saw something…
Here is what you need to know about DART, the regional transit agency whose recently resigned chairwoman turned herself over to the cops recently on document-tampering charges: You don’t know nuthin’. And you’re not going to know. For instance, after news broke of the charges against DART chair Lynn Flint…
In this world anybody can propose ethics reform. Jeffrey Dahmer can propose ethics reform. I can propose ethics reform. And everybody supports it. Duh. The big stop-the-presses headline for me will be the day somebody comes out publicly against ethics. Being for it is easy. The hard part is doing…
