As Robert points out a couple clicks down, there's plenty blame to go around for the Cotton Bowl leaving Dallas, which became official this afternoon. But there shouldn't be one iota of surprise that it has come to this: The stadium is old, the game is tired, and lethargic city...
There is a moment early on in "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers," the 14th episode of the brilliant but canceled television series Freaks and Geeks, in which gangly, bespectacled, picked-last-in-gym-class high school freshman Bill Haverchuck (Martin Starr) arrives home from school, makes himself a grilled cheese sandwich, and sits down...
SHREVEPORT, Louisiana—Signs your grand plans have gone slightly askew: You toke your way out of a job as quarterback of America's Team, shepherded from Dallas Cowboys training camp by the notorious Bishop Terry Hornbuckle. You file a "wrongful termination" grievance against the Cowboys which, when you lose, makes nary a...
The Dallas Morning News has a story today in the Metro section headlined, "Review sought in judge's recusal in double slayings." It's about the contretemps in Ellis County that erupted when Dallas lawyer David Finn got on the wrong side of District Judge Gene Knize. The whole thing is very...
After more than a decade and eight albums, everyone should understand and appreciate the underlying equation of Philadelphia hip-hop group the Roots' Game Theory: Black Thought delivers socially conscious and soulful lyricism, old-school-style, the charismatic 'froed one Questlove bangs some of the best beats in the game, while Hub, F...
Because Dallas County boasts the highest number of falsely convicted men exonerated with DNA evidence since post-conviction testing began, the news that Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins has agreed to cooperate with the Innocence Project of Texas is momentous. As we reported in early January, so far 12 people...
Don't judge SMU's basketball season by what happened on the court. Rather, go by what's happening a couple hundred feet below it. "That hole in the ground," says first-year coach Matt Doherty, "is the future of our program." No, smartass, it's not a mass grave reserved for the latest crop...
On Monday, a case goes to trial in Denton County that might answer a question brought up last year: Can a crime against a homosexual be successfully prosecuted there? The case involves Christopher McKee, a mental health caseworker who, on December 3, 2005, was badly beaten outside a Denton club...
Darrell Jordan, one of many who would be mayor, wants to chime in on the Cotton Bowl moving to Arlington. And since Jordan's probably the only candidate with intimate knowledge of the Fair Park stadium -- he wanted to dome the damn thing, which wasn't a totally dumb idea --...
My son is white. Which makes sense, since his parents are white. But see, my son is really white. His skin is virtually translucent, to the point where you can see the web of green, pink and purple veins between skin and skull. Now my son was the sole white...
A marked improvement over 2003's overpraised World Without Tears, West finds Williams at perhaps her most lyrical and deeply poetic. She calls it her "most revealing" record to date. That means this is not a disc you throw on when friends are over on a Friday night playing quarters, but...
Wu Tang & Friends: Unreleased is almost exactly what it presents itself to be, though a more accurate title might be Friends & Wu Tang. Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, Raekwon, U-God, RZA, GZA, Masta Killa and Method Man all turn out in some shape or form in this collection of...
An even dozen: That's how many innocent people in Dallas County have been sent to prison in the last two or three decades, at least based on DNA tests. That's more than any other county in the country. Last week, James Waller was the latest convicted sex offender in Dallas...
Doctors took Rudy Jaramillo's cancer. They couldn't touch his charisma. On a glorious spring training afternoon in Mesa, Arizona, baseball's best hitting coach walks into Hohokam Stadium and is immediately mobbed. Chicago Cubs and former Texas Rangers slugger Alfonso Soriano, who last year hit 46 homers and 41 doubles, dances...
If nothing else, Tom Leppert's a front-runner in the mayoral mailings, of which we've received more than a few. Sunday saw a major effort by Gromer Jeffers in The Dallas Morning News to slice and dice the very confusing mayoral race in Dallas. Of course, Jeffers neglected to raise the...
Black Dallas' Powerbroker Proud Democratic judge: In his article "Go West" (March 15), Dallas Observer writer Matt Pulle describes many members of the Dallas County Judiciary as (i) "a gaggle of anonymous and thinly qualified Democrats"; (ii) "a crew of unheralded neophytes learning every day on the job"; and (iii)...
A couple of weeks back, we mentioned that Brad Pitt was finally going to produce and probably star in The Dallas Buyer's Club, a true-life tale about Ron Woodroof -- the heterosexual, homophobic electrician who contracted HIV in 1980, was diagnosed with AIDS in 1986 and eventually went on to...
In the summer of 2005, an IMAX film crew descended on southern Louisiana to film a documentary on the state's rapidly shrinking wetlands. The film was to serve as a warning, depicting the destruction a large hurricane could wreak on New Orleans if something wasn't done to restore its natural...
I have to admit, I'm a little miffed with the Pawn Gallery in Deep Ellum. The other day I went to check my office mailbox and noticed all these cool, slick postcards (mailed in clear Mylar envelopes) in everyone's slot. I was excited when I reached into mine but found...
Back in the early to mid-'90s, I had the biggest crush on my friend Jon. When we hung out there was always this undercurrent between us that said we were a good match...in my mind anyway. Unfortunately, youth on both our sides and naïvete on mine resulted in nothing happening...
Law and Order taught us to question lie-detector tests. Since we know polygraph results can be unreliable, scientists are digging deeper (thanks to brain imaging and neurotechnology) to show us the truth. Cool, right? Not so much—now we have to deal with the ethical problems of tapping into people's brains...
On a rainy night in a North Dallas classroom, 40 voices speaking simultaneously create a mid-level hum, punctuated by the occasional high-five or revelatory "Yes!" Teachers and students sit side by side or across from each other, books open on the folding tables before them. They've come here for a...
