There’s a meeting this week to see if Uptowners actually want to preserve the former church that, till next week, is the home of the Hard Rock Cafe. New Friend of Unfair Park John McKee called to let us know that on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at William B. Travis…
At 10:30 this morning, Environmental Defense’s president Fred Krupp and Austin-based regional director Jim Marston and Natural Resources Defense Council’s David Hawkins got on the phone with journalists from around the country to discuss their roles in TXU’s decision to withdraw permits for eight of the 11 coal-fired plants it…
We’re not sure what’s worse: getting traded to the 22-win Hawks or having to wear their godawful unis. A toss-up, seems like. One day you’re getting your finger sized for a championship ring; the next, you’re on a plane headed down the standings into the lottery. Anthony Johnson, traded from…
John Carmack, fourth from left, and his crew at the Oklahoma Spaceport, with the craft called Pixel So, Virgin Records’ Richard Branson wants to create the world’s first private spaceline by 2009, costing folks some $200,000 for two hours in space. And Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is out in West…
So, that was quick: From “first reported on Friday evening” to settled by Sunday afternoon, TXU yesterday was taken private after Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Texas Pacific Group forked over $45 billion for the Dallas-based energy provider. And eight of the 11 coal-fired plants TXU wanted to build throughout the…
Dunno if you saw this Saturday night — and I did, a sad admission — but Saturday Night Live’s latest “Digital Short,” starring The Office’s Rainn Wilson as a business exec trying to slash the budget, had a local tie. Granted, it was a very tenuous and accidental local tie…
Pastor Sherman Allen of Shiloh Institutional Church of God in Christ is accused of assaulting at least eight women. Eight women have now come forward alleging that Pastor Sherman Allen of Fort Worth beat them with a wooden paddle and, in several cases, sexually abused them, according to Stan Broome,…
Craig Watkins is apologizing to folks exonerated by DNA evidence. He might be very, very busy… New Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins is making it a practice to shake hands with and apologize to those folks who have been exonerated through DNA tests — which has happened twice since…
This ain’t no Craigslist (oh, how we wish), but after the jump, a British scribe writing a book about Manchester United has an intriguing request for help. And, amazingly, it concerns my favorite soccer team ever: the Dallas Tornado. (Side note: Former Manchester United goalkeeper, Alex Stepney, played for Dallas…
Hey, can somebody go out and pick up that Observer box? That’d be swell. Thanks. Oh, wait. That picture’s from November. Well, that’s very breaking news. (This joke has an expiration date. Someone let me know when the News changes the photo on its home page? ‘Preciate that.) –Robert Wilonsky…
We Americans are be ob-freaking-cessed with winning awards. There are the obvious accolades: Oscars, Heismans, Super Bowl trophies, Grammys. And then there are the less obvious ones that, amazingly enough, we strive for just the same. Like the “I have the grossest, messiest, most junked-up room in the history of…
Former county treasurer Lisa Hembry’s now in charge of local cable access TV. Party on. Pretty much every day since last Friday, The Harrell Group’s David Dunnigan has been on my ass — by which I mean, asking very nicely, actually — to post something about the changes at Dallas…
Zac Crain has some thoughts about Deep Ellum. Any other mayoral candidates wanna play? Yesterday’s Deep Ellum posting (the 426th in a series, I believe) stirred quite the conversation concerning the fate of the neighborhood. Buried beneath the torrent of comments (56 and counting), a Friend of Unfair Park directed…
Assorted notes, quotes and anecdotes from a Thursday night at American Airlines Center that ended in a Mavs blowout win over the Miami Heat, an effortless season sweep and this sobering thought: How the hell did we lose to that team in The Finals? Playing against a marquee opponent in…
The crew at the first Pig Stand, built in 1921 on the highway between Dallas and Fort Worth During a little late-night GooTube browsing I stumbled across a documentary called Carhops, which was filmed here in the early 1970s. It was posted only yesterday by its maker, Don Pasquella. (Who,…
That National Public Radio story about Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, which we mentioned Wednesday evening, ran this morning on Morning Edition. You can hear it here. Already a couple of Friends of Unfair Park have e-mailed with some unhappy comments (they’re not thrilled with the portrayal of Dallas…
The Huffington Post’s Melinda Henneberger accompanied her old pal, The Mayor, to Austin yesterday for the TXU coal-plant permit hearings that weren’t, and she filed this report for the Web site. Henneberger, a former Dallas Morning News’er, also brings something new to the table, a quote not found in Dallas’…
Well, that probably oversells it and then some — shoulda read, “Most Obvious Press Release Ever” or something — but this just arrived in Unfair Park’s e-mail inbox: WHEN BAD WEATHER THREATENS, BE READY TO LEAVE TRAILER BEAUMONT, Texas—-Governor Rick Perry recently declared March 4-10 Severe Weather Awareness Week in…
Roger Herrera’s the only Latino running for mayor. But even that won’t get Domingo or Elba Garcia to run. With all the recent talk of a nascent Latino and immigrant political movement, we thought we’d ask advocate, lawyer and former state representative Domingo Garcia why his name isn’t on the…
Sam Coats is running for mayor. You knew that, right? Because I totally forgot. Well, we just got the press release from Sam Coats’ folks informing us who’s going to be running his mayoral campaign, and top o’ the list is Jason Stanford, who used to call us all the…
I just saw the March issue of Texas Monthly, and I guess you have two options: You can pay to read Katy Vines’ story on the 1937 New London gas explosion, which killed more than 300 school children and teachers and remains the third deadliest disaster in the state’s history…
UT-Dallas professor and Nobel Prize-winner Alan MacDiarmid, who died earlier this month On February 8, we mentioned the passing of 2000 Nobel Prize-winning chemist and University of Texas at Dallas professor Alan G. MacDiarmid, who received a lengthy obit in The New York Times. MacDiarmid was 79 and died at…
