Opinion & Commentary

The one thing they say about federal time: You do have to do it. The feds won’t give you a get-out-of-jail-free card. But in 1998 when notorious Dallas real estate swindler Danny Faulkner talked his way out of the pen after serving only four years of a 20-year sentence, nobody…

Oh, boy. We all get to go see the Chihuly fake flower show at the Dallas Arboretum for free! I just saw the press release. The Arboretum is throwing open its doors and letting us all in to see the fake flower show as a holiday gift to the City of…

Is it just me, or is there a great big hole in the Lance Armstrong story? When do we start talking about him as the one of the world’s biggest dope pushers? When does Lance Armstrong’s name get tied to child drug addiction? See also: Lance Armstrong Will Step Down…

Joe Kozera is the quiet, modest voice you often hear on KXT 91.7 FM. OK, so everyone on air sounds laid back there, but Kozera takes it a step further. He seems to sound at peace on the air at KXT. As the station takes more time to remain non-profit…

Yesterday the Dallas Park Board approved plans for a new rowing club boathouse on White Rock Lake. It’s going to be right in the way of my yacht when I’m trying to get in and out of there, and I’m worried about spilling my Champagne. See also: – Now We…

The lead editorial on The Dallas Morning News editorial page today is standard fare from the powers-that-be reminding all of us little people to vote in favor of the city’s $642 million bond program on the ballot November 6. The editorial ticks off all the stuff in the bond proposal…

OK, they’re finally getting down to the part of the last presidential debate I care about, accents and manners. So I have questions. The New York Times has a piece on its local page today about how New Yorky and Jewish the last debate was, because most of the people…

Dear Mexican: As a college educated Mexican-American, I had my fair share of Chicanas in college … all of whom my jefita considered putas. But now that I graduated, I’m going out with a gabacha for the first time. She’s nice, bilingual, tall, skinny, educated and a liberal with liberal…

Last year, D Magazine Editor Tim Rogers wrote a portrait of Barrett Brown, who claims to be a spokesman for the hacktivist group Anonymous. Rogers won a much-deserved National Magazine Award for the piece, from which emerged a bright, alternately charming and irritating, always interesting, profoundly screwed-up young man. My…

OK. Now I get why the FBI is taking so long with the investigation of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price. They actually have to figure out all the stuff I can just paint as colorful drama. And they’re doing it. I haven’t been keeping up with my John Wiley…

Lead editorial in The New York Times this morning — “If Roe v Wade Goes” — got me thinking: Let’s say the Romney/Ryan ticket wins. How long will it take for Texas to make abortion illegal? See also: Rambo Romney Should Call for Restarting the Draft Romney used to support…

There’s a briefing for council today on whether or not our public library system sucks. Looks like the verdict will be that it does not totally suck, but it should, because we do. The briefing is based on a nationwide bench-marking system Dallas participates in with most other second-tier cities…

Let’s say Abigail Noel Fisher wins her appeal now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. Let’s say a more conservative court backtracks on earlier opinions supporting the use of race as an admissions criterion at the University of Texas and tells the university to stop considering race altogether. So, what…

The Dallas-as-philanthropist social scene has become a little overstated in our new role as reality television’s home base. Still, drinking, dancing and spending for a purpose make sense to the Dallas personality, and seeing and being seen appeals to our boastful nature. The public competition of a live auction can…

There’s a danger in getting too invested in presidential debates and the whole national political saga, gripping as it may be. By turning our faces to bright lights far away, we risk forgetting just how dark things could get here at home in November. The Tea Party is poised to…

This weekend begins our annual North Texas exchange program, with dozens of you heading down to weird ol’ Austin for ACL, and roughly millions heading to DFW from Austin and surrounding cities for the Red River Rivalry on Saturday. Go sports! Look, the game is taken care of. You have…

Hey, by any chance did you catch Dale Hansen last night on Channel 8 talking about that poor kid at TCU who got kicked off the football team for misbehavior? Man, I’m telling you: sometimes Hansen is my mullah. He was talking about somebody who had written him saying we…

Dear Readers: The Mexican must take the week off because his home paper is publishing its annual Best Of issue. To honor our Best Of, here’s a doozy from 2006. This infamous edición got a man in Oregon suspended from work without pay for racism AND sexual harassment because he…

Do you have to be from Michigan to get what Mitt Romney’s really all about? He repeats that stand-up-to-China line over and over again on the campaign trail to make himself look tough, but meanwhile Bain Capital, his own company, makes hundreds of millions in profits buying up American car-parts…