Dear Mexican, I welcome the inclusion of a nice big scoop of chopped habaneros in the bland casserole that is America. Must admit, however, it gave me pause the other day when I saw an all-too-typical familia of recent arrivals at K-Mart: mom, pop and four kids less than 5...
One of the best things about films that aren't made in Hollywood—and this is particularly true of Asian films—is that literally anything can happen to any of the characters. The result of this freedom can be movies that are intense, breathtaking, brutal and powerful. The Korean movie Oldboy is all...
"Strip mall" used to mean a massive parking lot, a grocery store, a nail place (with some obvious name like "Nails Here"), a wacky wing place and a Blockbuster Video. Then there might be some labor-of-love restaurant that went under in three months, unless it was a buffet, and then...
When the Levee Breaks The Corps' fault: Jim Schutze's July 5 article, "Go With Your Gut," holds the Corps of Engineers blameless for its faulty design of the levees that failed after Katrina. Mr. Schutze goes on to swear that had the Corps been left alone, there would have been...
Finally. At last. The case concerning The Dallas Morning News' phony circulation numbers is no longer in legal limbo, where it's resided for the past three years. Because today, a federal judge refused to dismiss the lawsuit, despite Belo Corp.'s best efforts to get the case tossed. So what does...
Pardon, but what's the big deal here? So Ed Oakley and a majority of his fellow council members voted on Wednesday to give $583,360 in tax abatements to Crow Holdings so Harlan Crow and his team could renovate the former Parkland Hospital on the corner of Maple and Oak Lawn...
Either Gary Griffith is more popular than we think he is, or he has three interns who figured out how to cast 1,638 votes for him. The results of The Highly Unofficial Unfair Park Mayoral Poll are in, and the new mayor of Dallas is...Gary Griffith. Seriously? Yes, 6,723 of...
It does not get any easier than this. You have until 5 p.m. Friday, when the polls close and retire to Lithuania, to tell us who you think ought to be the mayor of our city. You can vote only once, and when you do, the results will be visible...
The North Dallas apartment is tiny and as dim as a titty bar at noon. Only one light bulb burns in the ceiling fan fixture, so for the sake of a visitor, Russell Hamilton Fish III screws in the other three bulbs. "My parents said they bought a house with...
Transformers twiddles its big, fat, stupid robotic thumbs for the better part of two hours before jabbing them into your eye sockets and finger-fucking your brain in the last 20 minutes. Yes! It's torture enough waiting for the iPhone and the second coming of Jesus without wondering when, exactly, this...
Two weeks ago, a pretty Irish lady who also happens to be the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize winner was in Dallas to talk about a city she is opening in Italy. There, hundreds, maybe thousands, of orphaned, abused and otherwise displaced refugee children will come to live in safety and...
News that some abused and neglected children have ended up sleeping in offices at Child Protective Services highlights the need for a kind of care that most consider a relic of Dickens' time: residential care facilities, or orphanages, if you will. Since January 1, when CPS adopted new regulations for...
TXU this morning issued a statement that the company's done shopping for takers: "No proposal was received that could reasonably be expected to result in a proposal superior to the definitive merger agreement announced February 26, 2007 with an investor group led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Texas...
Dear Mexican, A friend asked me years ago to come up with a Spanish word or phrase that contains fewer syllables than its English counterpart. After years of thinking about this, the only one I could come up with is "Tengo sed" (three syllables) compared to "I am thirsty" (four...
The first sentence of the press release we just received got us very, very excited: "U.S. Attorney Richard B. Roper and FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert E. Casey will hold a press conference TODAY, Tuesday, May 29, at 11:00 a.m. to announce an indictment in a public corruption case."...
In the movie The Untouchables, Kevin Costner's Eliot Ness quickly discovers just how difficult it will be to bring down the infamous Al Capone, whose bloody bootlegging operation terrorized a city and made a mockery of the law. Capone has bought off the cops, judges and the mayor and has...
Late last week, lawmakers in Austin briefly considered seven bills relating to stem cell research, which could result in treatments for diseases such as Parkinson's or juvenile diabetes—and voted to table all but one of them. The one bill that could still find its way to the House floor this...
On the front page of this morning's New York Times is a piece about how "clinical depression among retired National Football League players is strongly correlated with the number of concussions they sustained." The story's based on a study conducted by the University of North Carolina’s Center for the Study...
The Dallas Morning News just got around to writing about the weekend poker-room raids conducted by the Dallas Police Department -- the result of "an investigation and a citizen complaint," as DPD Deputy Chief J.A. Bernal told our old Friend Dan Michalski immediately following the raid on the Audie Murphy...
Last week, when news broke that a violent drug dealer out on bail allegedly killed a man in an Oak Cliff drug den, Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins largely blamed the murder on his office's lack of resources. In fact, there's a more accurate explanation of why Michael Wyatt,...
When Jerry Jones acts, we all react. He flies to Lubbock, and next thing you know the Texas Tech-Oklahoma State game isn't relocating to Dallas after all. He builds a $1 billion shrine to himself under the guise of football, and next thing you know Arlington is hosting the 2011...
Watch out for amateur video crews running around town on Saturday when the sixth annual 24-Hour Video Race unleashes packs of over-caffeinated cinematic auteurs trying to prove their celluloid mettle. Registration's ended, so if you missed out, stop by the judging screenings and take notes so you can get a...
