The coolest kinds of nerds are the ones that keep themselves preoccupied on so many levels that it’s impossible not to be impressed. Anita Riot is, by this definition, a cool nerd. Far from being the reclusive, atrophied nerd-type, cross-eyed from spending too much time in front of a computer…
Even D Magazine, which for years operated as a kind of billboard for the Trinity River toll road project, has given up on it. The Dallas Morning News has admitted it got conned. But the thing doesn’t die. It’s the Dracula of local public works projects. Hammer a stake in…
Get your rubber boots out and put a clothespin on your nose. Large numbers of chickens will be coming home to roost in Dallas in the weeks ahead, as homeowners in Dallas come to grips with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s new flood maps for most of Dallas. The maps…
[jump] *No matter what you think of the Rangers planned Stone Monument, the tribulations of Shannon Stone and his family are gut-wrenching. *I’d like soccer better if goalies couldn’t use their hands. I’d like dogs better if they didn’t have tongues. *Excited about UFC 134 Saturday night from Rio de Janeiro,…
When Dallas City Hall decides to compete with you in your business, watch out, because they don’t really have to compete. They just pass laws. The controversy over so-called “flow control” is a great example. Flow control is a move to force trash-haulers to stop taking trash to commercial landfills…
Dear Mexican: This is going to sound absolutely and totally Caucasian. Lately, we have been trying to lighten the mood around the office with delicate bits of international confections. With all that’s going on in the world, who needs one more worry? With that said, we are struck with yet…
The current issue of Texas Monthly takes on the Dallas FBI corruption probe, sort of, in a “Behind the Lines” essay by deputy editor Brian D. Sweany. His central thesis is that we have a lot of corruption in Dallas, because “The old racist order presented few pathways to power…
I was of little faith. I freely admit. I thought Mike Rawlings was bailing on us. But he said no. We spoke yesterday, shortly before he released his list of council committee appointments, and our new mayor reiterated his commitment to a ban on City Hall lobbying by political consultants…
Welcome to Local Music ‘Mericans, where we meet the people in the local music scene that you don’t see on stages. Justin Press was, for many years, one of the key people running what is now known as Verizon Theatre. Back then, it was simply known as NextStage. See, when…
So, pretend I’m the jury pool consultant. Pretend ace white-collar criminal lawyer Billy Ravkind hired me to advise him on the mood and mindset of potential jurors in the eventual and inevitable federal corruption trial of his client, Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price, currently the target of a metastasizing…
What I like to say is I told you so. What I do not like to say is I’m full of it. I am not saying I am full of it. But I guess I might be at about a quarter tank. Possibly a third. Yesterday I talked about how…
[jump] A&M to the SEC? To me it’s a joke. Notre Dame to the Big 12? You heard it first right here last week … and it’s gaining momentum. Had my first experience with a red-light camera last week. Got a ticket in the mail from the city of Plano…
The current issue of Texas Monthly takes on the Dallas FBI corruption investigation, sort of, in a “Behind the Lines” essay by deputy editor Brian D. Sweany. He invokes Dallas, the TV show, and another TV show, The Wire, to conclude that, “Like any good drama, it may take a…
Who else but Dallas City Hall could take a simple thing like kayaking and turn it into snaggle-clawed sulfurous lawsuit hell? But that’s what I smell ahead for the Dallas Wave, the fake whitewater thing the city has created in the Trinity River. For two weeks I have been trying…
I hate to say I told you so … no, wait, that’s a lie. I love to say I told you so. A week ago I said in column that we were about to see a lot of high opera in the John Wiley Price FBI corruption investigation. The season…
I wince. I wish. I need to give up reading. Nature writer Diane Ackerman (The Zookeeper’s Wife, 2008 Orion Award for nonfiction) has an op-ed piece in The New York Times today telling a wonderful story about cities that have turned wastewater treatment operations into nature preserves. I read it…
Welcome to Local Music ‘Mericans, where we meet the people in the local music scene that you don’t see on stages. Melissa Kirkendall is a filmmaker. It wasn’t always this way. In her younger years, Kirkendall spent a good chuck of her time immersed in the local music scene –…
I have been dealing with both the city and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in recent weeks seeking answers to questions about the “Dallas Wave” or “Standing Wave” man-made rapids that the city has installed in the Trinity River just downriver from downtown. It was intended to be a…
If you start reading the lead editorial today in The Dallas Morning News, you’re going to think at first that the editorial writers have done a good job explaining what has gone wrong with minority subcontracting in Dallas — a central theme in the ongoing FBI Dallas political corruption probe…
Here is my problem: I was raised in a typical gabacho family. My siblings and I all enjoyed a typical gabacho relationship. We are close as cats. I phoned my brother year-before-last and was gratified to learn that he was still alive. That call went so well I may phone…
This is all high opera from here on out. Every single thing anybody does on any side of the ongoing FBI investigation of political corruption in Dallas will be calculated with trials in mind. Everything — the timing of FBI raids, the way the U.S. attorney releases or does not…
Digging back through old files, I can see some patterns emerging that I missed back in the day. For example, the connection between Willis Johnson, the luckiest radio host in the world, and Ross Perot Jr. Johnson is a close personal and political associate of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley…
