For the last few days, you may have been busy warding off a flurry eager people with clipboards. This weekend marked Dallas County voter registration days, and volunteers from both sides of the aisle were hustling to try to get your vote in November. They had good reason to be…
Texas, the most gung-ho gun state in the country, may be getting just a little bit less infatuated with firearms. This year, the percentage of gun purchase requests submitted in Texas is significantly lower than last year. The Houston Chronicle reports that 1.1 million gun purchase requests were submitted last…
It’s really easy to recycle in Dallas if you live in a house. Just dump that unsorted mass of old newspapers, empty soda cans and milk cartons into a cavernous blue bin, drag it to the curb and let one the city’s lumbering dump trucks haul it away. For those…
The last time Unfair Park mentioned that the Rangers were looking a little too competitive, the team proceeded to lose 14 of 20, so we decided we should speak up again. Under the temporary — for now at least — leadership of Tim Bogar, the Rangers have won 9 of…
Arlington City Council member Robert Rivera can rattle off scores of reasons why his constituents think the city should pull the plug on its red-light cameras. They worry about Big Brother’s growing omniscience and the privatization of policing, or object to the government making a revenue grab while cloaking it…
Tim Headington, the oil billionaire behind the Joule Hotel, has a weird relationship with local preservationists. On the one hand, Preservation Dallas honored him with an achievement award last May for his work on the hotel, which sits in a restored 1927 building. On the other hand, Preservation Dallas Executive…
Two weeks ago, County Judge Clay Jenkins led a successful effort to change a contract that would have ended in-person visits with jail inmates while the county collected a share of the money a private company made from charging for the video visitation that was to replace it. See also:…
After being inundated with images of poverty stricken unaccompanied Central American children this summer, you might be surprised to learn that the stereotype of the poor working class immigrant is rapidly changing in Texas. The growing demographic, it turns out, are educated and highly skilled — and the Texas economy…
After last week’s trading of contemptuous memos, Unfair Park was pretty excited about a potential confrontation between Vonciel Jones Hill and Scott Griggs at Monday’s meeting of the city’s Transportation and Trinity River Committee. As far as city hall showdowns go, this one was likely to be pretty good, pitting…
Highland Park High School announced it would be suspending seven books from the high school reading list, just in time for Banned Books Week. So what’s wrong with the books? Each of the seven, award-winning texts feature themes about sexuality or include passages that some parents find too racy. See…
The offer comes as a surprise. “Now that I have your contact info,” a nice woman from the Northeast Tarrant County Tea Party emails me after I ask a question for a different story, “I will forward to you a press invite to interview Sheriff Joe Arpaio, if you’re interested.”…
One of Downtown Dallas’ oldest buildings, a 129-year-old Romanesque Revival structure at 1611 Main St., was razed on Sunday to make way for an expansion of The Joule hotel, the latest in a line of historic Dallas structures sacrificed on the altar of progress. A few blocks to the southeast,…
Last week, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals received a letter signed by more than 50 Texas law enforcement officials who support same-sex marriage, according to the Texas Tribune. Among them was Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, the county’s first Hispanic, first female and first lesbian sheriff. When we…
The Texas Department of Transportation’s sign regulations are so strict that the agency once said that even the commandments of the Lord would require a permit. But the woman who owned the Ten Commandments sign in question fought back, and it seems that TxDOT is finally putting its rules into…
Since allegations surfaced that NFL star Adrian Peterson abused multiple children at his Texas home, debate has swirled between pro- and anti-spanking parents. For the majority of North Texas schools, though, there’s no question: Spare the rod, spoil the child is official district disciplinary policy in all but a handful…
An SMU freshman who accused a well-known fraternity brother of sexually assaulted him is now suing the school, saying it violated Title IX by acting “deliberately indifferent” to his report of sexual assault and to prior sexual harassment by his alleged assailant, John David Mahaffey. See also: Another SMU Student…
If the city won’t give money to Dallas libraries, maybe the community will. Thursday was North Texas Giving Day, which means Friends of the Dallas Public Libraries, along with other north Texas do-gooder groups, were busy rattling their tin cans for spare change to raise money that, in the library’s…
It’s been a banner week for the DFW sports media brain trust. First, the Star-Telegram’s Mac Engel told us why we were stupid for thinking Vikings running back Adrian Peterson was a child abuser just because he gone a little too far. Now we have Shan Shariff, a radio host…
Adults in Texas briefly thought they had won the lottery. Now they are struggling with disappointment, an unpleasant emotion. The Dallas Morning News reported about the plight of an Ellis County woman who felt “cautiously optimistic” that she was in possession of a winning ticket from the Fun 5’s game…
It’s been a rough week for State Board of Education members, who have upheld their loyalty to TEKS social studies requirements despite bipartisan opposition (although for different reasons, of course). On Tuesday, the board heard public commentary against proposed social studies textbooks. The publishers, required to conform outrageously biased state…
Vice magazine posted a video expose of crisis pregnancy centers to its YouTube channel earlier this week. Beyond the standard stuff — like anti-abortion activists admitting that the best crisis centers are ones that women think are abortion clinics — the video includes undercover footage from White Rose Women’s Center…
Opposition to the Trinity Toll Road hasn’t quite reached the torrential flood that will be needed to sweep it into oblivion, but there’s at least a decent-sized stream that’s been growing, drop by drop as former supporters realize it’s a terrible idea. This morning, the Texas Public Interest Research Group…
