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…
It was unusual when Jakadrien Turner’s grades in high school began to falter after the death of her grandfather nearly two years ago. She was typically a good student and didn’t look for trouble. But after her grandfather’s death, she began acting out, according to legal documents, and in this…
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…
Politics is politics, and incumbents running for re-election in conservative Parker County, Texas, where the local economy is fueled entirely by shale-gas production, want to look like champions of the industry. But what if you’re a judge? And what if, at the very moment you put up fliers of Rush…
In addition to being smutty and un-hip, the DFW area is now ranking way down at number 47 on the American College of Sports Medicine’s Fitness Index. And the bad news is that unlike some of the other lists we’ve been bitching about lately (looking at you, perv index) this…
Tricky work deciding who gets the protections of a journalist in court. In the case of a natural gas production company suing a Parker County man who blames it for contaminating his water well, state district Judge Trey Loftin attempted to suss it out in a recent order compelling fracking…
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…
If you order a hoagie in Philly, there’s a good chance it will come on a Sarcone’s roll. Sure, other bakeries supply bread for some shops around town, but Sarcone’s has built a legacy out of its sesame-seed-studded bread and that chewy texture that’s a workout for your jaw. Order…
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…
So. This happened yesterday: Hi, I hope all is well with you! I wanted to let you know that GSN (Game Show Network) is coming to Vista Ridge Mall in Dallas next Saturday, June 2nd looking for Dallas’ best and brightest contestants to cast in our upcoming series, “THE AMERICAN…
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…
Every week writers for Dallas Observer and our parent company, Village Voice Media, produce elegant magazine-style feature writing — a gritty portion of which comes in the form of true-crime stories. Now VVM has collected some of its best recent true-crime yarns into an ebook: Seven Sins: A True Crime…
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…
Teach for America, the teacher pipeline founded by Highland Parker Wendy Kopp, is often tossed into the bucket with the rest of the tools in the reform movement’s toolbox, from charter schools to performance-based pay and the like. For that, and for its place outside the labor movement, it’s often…
Billy Frederick Allen served 26 years in prison for two drug-related murders in University Park. In February 2009, the Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin freed him, citing ineffective lawyering and “newly discovered evidence” that gave them “no confidence in the outcome of the trial.” In March 2010, Allen filed…
Darius Ewing, the 18-year-old black man who surrendered to Dallas Police after the death of the stray lab-terrier puppy Justice, saw his bail dropped from $100,000 to $50,000 at a hearing last week. Justice died on April 13, a little more than a week after the puppy was unsuccessfully hanged…
