Roscoe Betz won his lawsuit. I have written about him before. He’s the 91-year-old man who sued DART, the transit agency, three years ago for damming up a creek and flooding his property. DART argued there was no creek. The guy just thinks there’s a creek. Two weeks ago a…
This morning’s daily newspaper provided a sad occasion to reflect on downtown Dallas. Tom Lardner, an early developer of Dallas’s Uptown district, died May 24. His classified-ad death notice is in The Dallas Morning News today but no editorial obituary has appeared yet. I had lunch with him about a…
Last night I joined my cover-story-mate Ed Spencer and his daughter, Amy Hammer, at White Rock Lake, where we poached on the Asleep at The Wheel concert at the Dallas Arboretum from our kayaks. First time we had ever done it, but a regular group gathers on the lake in…
Dear Mexican: I have a sister. I read your column each time it comes out in the Tucson Weekly. Once, we were talking about all the hatred against Mexicans in our state and my sister said, “Sis, why do they hate Mexicans so much in Arizona? Why do they hate…
Five years ago a fierce battle was fought to stop the demolition of a house on my block in Dallas’s first and oldest historic district (The Swiss Avenue Historic District). Blogista (and friend) Sharon Boyd called those of us who wanted to save the house “Preservation Nazis,” which I guess…
Someone has posted to YouTube a 1961 film about school desegregation in Dallas called Dallas at the Crossroads. (Parts Two and Three follow after the jump.) I forget what kind of hoops I had to jump through in order to see this thing back in the mid-1980s when I was…
For most people, Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert’s campaign to open up the bidding process for concessions at the city airport must seem open and shut. He wants the bidding to be open. But the door is shut because the concessions are in the hands of politically connected people. For insiders…
Whether you’re at the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt’s End: *Where’s Greggo? Be here Monday morning for the official announcement. As a bonus, I’ll also reveal another familiar local radio voice(s) returning to the air on 105.3 The Fan come June…
Dear Readers: Over the past couple of weeks, the Know Nothing nation has invaded my inbox with the question of why can’t the United States follow the stringent immigration laws of Mexico. They’re merely parroting a recent column by the reprehensible Michelle Malkin, who thought that bringing up the issue…
Whether you’re at the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt’s End: *This is why I thought Ron Washington should have been fired on the spot last summer when he first told Texas Rangers’ management about his cocaine use: He can’t be trusted…
This morning Rudy Bush and Tanya Eiserer posted a great story on The Dallas Morning News’s Web page about Dallas city council member Dwaine Caraway pressuring the Dallas Police department to lay off a gambling house where Caraway and his father play poker. The story includes a strong quote from…
Dear Readers: I was supposed to deliver this column to ustedes for Cinco de Drinko, but Arizona’s reprehensible S.B. 1070 bill had to rear its ugly head. I could devote this column to the issue again, but Mexican-hating is a national sport, and we must darle chingazos wherever it pops…
Yesterday The Dallas Morning News editorial page rolled out the big cannons and opened fire again on Oak Cliff Metals, a metal recycling yard on Pontiac Street in Oak Cliff that the paper wants moved, we know not why. The editorial, which I’m sure was written by editorialisto Tod Robberson,…
Curtis Lockey and Craig MacKenzie, erstwhile developers of the LTV Tower 1600 Pacific Building and subjects of my column in the current edition of the paper, have sent to Dallas City Council members and city staffers a letter alleging deliberate discrimination against low-income persons and families on the part of…
Whether you’re at the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt’s End: *Newy Scruggs is on vacation next week from 105.3 The Fan, which means two things: 1. I’ll miss my pawdnuh. 2. At least one of the days I’ll be joined by a…
Dear Readers: All together, now: A LA CHINGADA WITH ARIZONA’S SB1070! For those of ustedes too occupied with your Drinko por Cinco hangover, the initiative I mentioned (signed a couple of weeks ago into law by Arizona’s governor) gives immigration powers to the state’s police officers and sheriff’s deputies and…
Don Hill, the Dallas City Council member recently sent to federal prison for 18 years for bribery and corruption, didn’t use a baseball bat on people. He was a lawyer. He used parliamentary procedure. The table, I call it. Hill knew developers always have a clock ticking—money sifting away like…
If this Spring is any indication of where things are headed, SMU basketball’s March Madness drought is likely to hit 18 years next season. That’s because star point guard Paul McCoy – once thought of as the Mustangs’ light at the end of the tunnel – is transferring from SMU. In…
The contractor on the new headquarters of Dallas Black Dance Theatre is suing DBDT founder and artistic director Ann Williams and her daughter for 10 million bucks for “tortious interference” (messing with his money) and defamation. If it doesn’t settle early, this could be an intriguing window on DBDT, a…
Wow. Amazing discovery! I, Jim Schutze, have discovered how to resolve the whole battle over scrap metal yards and rendering plants in Oak Cliff near Cadillac heights. I have the answer! For the last several weeks I have been battling with the Texas Historical Commission and U.S Army Corps of…
I got a theory. Been working on it for a while, nurturing it from a fleeting thought to a flimsy premise all the way up to a working, rational theory. Here it is: There are no more aggressive, dangerous drivers on Metroplex highways than those in white pickups. I know,…
Just came back from an interesting chat with Wade Emmert, the 40-year-old lawyer who is the Republican candidate for Dallas County Judge in the November election. I asked him how a Republican can win in what everybody is now calling a Democratic county.”I don’t think it’s such a Democratic county,”…
