A couple of years ago the New York Daily News published a powerful editorial about the New York City public school system. The paper said the biggest thing the city’s huge staff of school administrators needed was more middle-class parents to tell them what to do. “They need squeaky-wheel parents…
You. You better step over here and get a program. Once the city council gets back from summer vacation and the game starts up again, you’re never going to keep track without one. Major play ahead. Mayor Laura Miller and the old downtown business boys have come to a deal…
Everybody wants the new Dallas police chief to fix everything. Obviously. Sure. When he’s done with that, I wish he’d come over to my house and fix my computer. The problem is fix what? Fix it how? That’s where we get into trouble. Some of these problems are older than…
All the time, I rag on people, I criticize, I say negative stuff. For a change, I want to do something positive. Problem with that: my skill set. After so long as a reporter, what else am I qualified to do? Great idea: debt collector. A lot of it’s the…
So here’s what I’m wondering. Guy calls up the Dallas Area Rapid Transit agency and tells them one of their tow-truck drivers just went bananas and pulled a gun on him in traffic. What does DART do? They call in their guy, right? Grill him. Then they call the citizen…
I’m all for Wizard of Oz voyages of self-discovery. I’m just not sure it’s fair to do them when you’re the mayor. But say this for Dallas Mayor Laura Miller. In recent weeks she has been candid about her change of heart since getting elected to her first full term…
Dallas school Superintendent Mike Moses, such a success for four years, has misstepped seriously in handling the inflammatory issue of school attendance zone re-mapping. It’s bad enough that some people–by no means all, but some–are whispering that Dr. Moses may have reached the city limits of his gifts. This is…
So by now you already know City Hall is a magic show, where all the tricks are based on misdirection. Misdirection is when they get you to focus on the pretty girl in a harem suit so you won’t see the trap door. We’re about to get a good example…
We have a new police chief in Dallas. That’s scary for us. If you haven’t been in town long, you wonder why. Here’s what you have to understand: We’ve been through a series of high-level local officials who have behaved in very disturbing fashions on television. We were watching. We…
The Dallas Morning News special section a week ago, “Dallas at the Tipping Point,” was really strong stuff. I know, I know. You’re just waiting for me to find fault with it. After all, the News, such a booster these years, finally presented statistical evidence to show that Dallas is…
The news coverage of Dallas’ public hospital is always operatic. In a gleaming castle high above Stemmons Freeway, hundreds of Dr. Schweitzer clones in white coats practice noble healing arts on the poor. But the castle is under ceaseless attack from an army of right-wing Nazi meatballs screaming, “Die, poor…
Imagine it this way. You own a vacant building. A guy wants to rent it for a business. You rent it to him for a percentage of his business revenue. But you never ask to see his business’ books, cash register tapes, anything. You never even stroll by to see…
Talk about a really bad scene. Senior Corporal Ron Iscaro has been called to the podium to address the members of the Dallas Citizens Police Review Board. They are debating a resolution on pay for police officers and firemen injured in the line of duty. He’s been up there 10…
Two weeks ago the mayor and the city council held a news conference slapping themselves on the back for a new law to fight apartment crime. They passed an ordinance putting more of the responsibility for crime-fighting on the backs of apartment owners. I wonder if it occurred to the…
Screenplay: Toiling for years deep in his political laboratory, Dr. Lipscombstein’s dream has been to bring his revenge to life. An experiment with an ethics complaint against Mayor Laura Miller was a dismal failure. But now, with lightning crackling above his mountain lair, former city Councilman Al Lipscomb finally sees…
You’re a photo buff. You like to walk around your neighborhood playing with your new digital camera. Some bubba in coveralls with a handgun in his pocket runs out of his house yelling at you that you “could get your ass shot” if you take any more pictures. So you…
OK, time out, is it just me? Or is anybody else getting tired of the Scrubbing Bubbles routine from the mayor? Mayor Miller, here’s a page from your organizer: Get rid of roosters. Check. Pass a law against smoking. Check. Pass a law against people taking shopping carts home with…
We don’t want to build a concentration camp. Right? Not even for ugly, smelly people. We wouldn’t want to live in a city with a sign on the gate that says “Reinlichkeit macht frei” (Cleanliness makes you free). In order to keep our heads on straight, let’s just be frank…
Dave Capps is the van rental guy campaigning against a $400 million tax subsidy for a new Dallas Cowboys football stadium. I’m sitting in his office at the van place. He’s been talking reasonably and seriously about alternative financing schemes for football stadiums. But, you know, reasonable and serious have…
Oh, wow. How very Dallas. A certain set of downtown leaders can’t get exactly what they want on the Trinity River project or on downtown development schemes, so now they want to set up their own private government. The same set of moguls who brought us that stupid Palladium project…
Once a Yankee, always a Yankee. Every once in a while, I get a certain error message in the eyes of native Dallasites too polite to tell me. “ERROR…ERROR…FATAL YANKEE-THINKING ERROR.” I got that look a lot last week when I was going to lunch with people, calling them up…
So I’m plugging away one day last week, and a helpful e-mail pops in from the city telling me Dallas Mayor Laura Miller will be available to the media at 4:15 p.m. in the little horseshoe off Independence Avenue just inside the Rayburn Office Building in Washington, D.C. I do…
