One of my most vivid junior high memories from Mansfield’s Worley Middle School comes from seventh-grade health class, wherein it was Coach T.’s job to teach us about the birds and bees — without mentioning trees, hives, wings, honey, feathers, queens or anything else related to birds and/or bees. The…
The headline reads “4 in 10 Texas teachers moonlight to make ends meet.” But based upon the results of a survey of Texas teachers by Sam Houston State University, commissioned and released today by the Texas State Teachers Association, it could just as likely read, “Only 28.8 percent of Texas…
The answer to the headline is, obviously, yes. But how much better? Since their collapse in the 2006 NBA Finals, the Mavericks have won one playoff series. After last spring’s first-round loss to the San Antonio Spurs, another 55-win regular season amounted to nil. And now, another off-season has prompted…
At this very moment in a Fort Worth courtroom, all those involved in the bankruptcy and sale proceedings of Your First-Place Texas Rangers are trying to convince Judge Michael Lynn to auction off the team — or not — on August 4. Sam’s there too, and during this lunch break…
A release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office just arrived with the following subject header: “Two Plead Guilty in Pill ‘Smurfing’ Case.” Oh, right. That kind of smurfing. To the feds’ more formal definition: “the unlawful practice of making numerous purchases of over-the-counter medication containing pseudoephedrine so that it can be…
So say creative-classicist Richard Florida and UCLA demographer Gary Gates over on The Daily Beast, where this morning they tout their Gay/Lesbian Index’s metro-area rankings culled from a 2008 U.S. Census Bureau survey. And while Florida notes a handful of caveats that come with crunching the numbers, he also notes…
Their manager was in the clubhouse, ejected. Their pitcher was in the hospital, knocked woozy. Their future was in the courtroom, bankrupt. And, worst of all, their 5-hour, 14-inning game was in Detroit, at the House of Horrors known as Comerica Park. But in a season that feels more special by…
Perhaps you’ve heard: WFAA-Channel 8 and KRLD-AM reported this morning that a few folks spotted tigers in downtown Dallas last night — two, specifically, near Union Station. Which prompted Dallas police spokesman Senior Corporal Kevin Janse to send the following missive moments ago, accompanied by the subject heading “Bobcat sightings.”Last…
The sad news came yesterday, via a tweet from Ken Stringfellow of The Posies: “Another sad loss for Big Star fans as Andy Hummel passes away after long illness.” Over on DC9, in a morning must-read, our own Jesse Hughey confirms it: Hummel, founding bassist of the band that influenced…
On a whim this morning I visited the Woodall Rodgers Deck Park’s Web site, where I found the video above: a nearly 7-minute-long Quin Mathews-made tribute to Willis Winters, the assistant director of City of Dallas Park and Recreation Department. Winters is far more than just another City Hall bureaucrat…
A year ago former Dallas Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith shoved aside his diamonds and poo-pooed all over the team, predicting a 7-9 record because, in part, they lacked leadership. Yet there was Smith last January, sitting in owner Jerry Jones’ suite at Cowboys Stadium and leading the towel-waving during…
It was just one month ago that Dallas Police Officer Jeffrey Thorn was arrested for an alleged sexual assault not far from DPD HQ in the Cedars. Today, the department sends word that yet another officer is behind bars: Isac De La Rosa, a 3-year veteran assigned to the Southwest…
Back in early June, Andrea liveblogged a council committee meeting during which there was a brief discussion of paying sanitation workers a “living wage” of $8.88 per hour, which would up residential fees by some 30 cents a billing cycle. From the liveblog: “‘I disagree that $8.88 is a living…
Like I said last week, NBC’s Chase, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, has started shooting in and around town — which is why, between 9 and 11 a.m. tomorrow (though it could run till 2 p.m., fair warning), you’ll notice a helicopter hovering over the West End. Per a Downtown Emergency…
Blockbuster continues to insist it ain’t going nowhere — even as 24/7 Wall Street puts the downtown-based company on its death-watch list (one of three locals to make the list, actually, and not the first time someone has predicted Blockbuster’s inevitable demise). But just in case it goes, my long-ago…
For a few minutes just a few minutes ago, Allen and Cynthia Salzman Mondell’s 17-minute doc about the history of Jews in Dallas appeared on Vimeo — only to get yanked, since it’s a $20-per-copy fund-raiser for the Dallas Jewish Historical Society. I’d never seen the movie before (and it’s…
Can we quit being surprised about Deep Ellum being kind of awesome yet? Because between the group of excellent new bars and restaurants opening in the neighborhood, last Saturday’s downright packed Dallas Observer Music Awards showcase and the first-ever Deep Ellum Outdoor Market, it appears as though the ‘Ellum is…
This just in from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: The agency, along with the Office of Homeland Security Investigations National Gang Unit and an alphabet’s soup worth of local law enforcement agencies, spent the last five days sweeping Dallas-Fort Worth for gang members and their associates, and when all…
Beckett Media, HQ’d off Welch Road and LBJ Freeway, publishes monthly price guides for damned near everything you can buy, sell, trade and collect — from sports cards to Beanie Babies. And though business ain’t what it used to be — myriad titles have been dropped over the years as…
Hope Mark Cuban enjoyed his love, because now comes a dose of reality. As much as I was excited by the Texas Rangers’ trade for pitching ace Cliff Lee, I was disappointed by the Dallas Mavericks’ big summer shocker: Erick Dampier and his long-coveted expiring contract for … A backup center?…
What was it Tom Hicks said Tom Hicks said Saturday night? Ah, yes: The sale of Your Texas Rangers — to Chuck Greenberg, Jim Crane, Mark Cuban or The Still-Living Ghost of Brad Corbett — is a “complex proceeding.” (What’s wrong with the family-friendly “clusterfudge”?) But those needing some summing…
Five weeks ago the fate of Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa’s proposed over-age high school was in question, as trustee Bernadette Nutall took the $2-mil proposal from the fast track to the benches for a little look-see. But trustees finally gave it the okee-doke, and this morning the…
