You needed to be there. Last week, moments after Dallas Mayor Dwaine Caraway lost his attempt to suppress an embarrassing police voice recording, he strode out into the courthouse corridor loaded for bear. A large crowd of press had been waiting, meek as scolded third-graders in the principal’s outer office…
All of the candidates for mayor say the city’s falling apart but we can’t raise taxes. If both of these things are true, something’s got to give, and I think I know what it will be. Me. First, I’m downtown in the Allen courts building covering a case about a…
Who says the four Dallas mayoral candidates haven’t distinguished themselves from one another? Last night at that forum at Thomas Jefferson High School, the first question they had to answer (and the best question of the night) was why they wanted to be mayor. Dallas city council member and entrepreneur…
Welcome to Local Music ‘Mericans, where we meet some of the people behind the local music scene — those who aren’t necessarily members of local bands, but more the people who make the scene move.The thing with beautiful “rock chicks” that dance onstage is that most of them stop far…
Two experiences over the weekend have given me hope. One was watching a documentary on the catastrophic 1911 Triangle Waist Factory Fire in New York, and the other was a seminar I attended on the state budget crisis. Debacles can be good for us. The documentary made an argument that…
So-called regionalism is a rip-off, a scam and a hoax designed to neuter cities and sell them down the river to the damned suburbs. A few weeks from now the Dallas City Council will take up the issue of fracking, the kind of natural gas drilling in which drillers pump…
The Reverend Gerald Britt Jr. of Central Dallas Ministries (now called “CitySquare” for some unfathomable reason) had an op-ed in The Dallas Morning News yesterday that made my heart ache. Britt, a good guy deeply dedicated to southern Dallas, recited all the recent population numbers that show an immense outflow…
Whether you’ve reached the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt’s End: *Like me, do you think the Texas Rangers are kinda getting caught with their pants on the ground with their pitching staff exposed? The time to go get a reliable closer…
I’m just curious. You tell me. Is public service automatically a bad thing? I’m serious. Is any and every kind of experience in government automatically a black mark on your résumé? At Tuesday night’s Dallas mayoral forum, candidate Mike Rawlings, a former corporate chief executive officer, described his rival, former…
Dear Mexican: I often pick up the Albuquerque Alibi to read your babosadas. Now, let me get this straight: You appear to be a bright guy who claims to have the Mexican people all figured out, right? To you, we are all 5 feet 6 inches tall, medium-complexioned and we…
The city of Dallas website has a “frequently asked questions” thing about gas well drilling. It reminds me a lot of TEPCO, the company whose nuclear reactors are melting in Japan. Like TEPCO, the city believes that good news is better than the truth. Here is a sampling. A frequently…
“Jump Around” was more than just a flash-in-the-pan radio hit — it’s been included on pretty much every “best hip-hop songs of all time” list. And who could disagree? It was a hell of a song. Plus, due to its constant usage in every sports arena on the planet, the song…
Welcome to Local Music ‘Mericans, where we meet some of the people behind the local music scene — those who aren’t necessarily members of local bands, but more the people who make the scene move. Back in 2004, Mike Schoder took over ownership of Greenville Avenue’s Granada Theater. But, unlike…
We had a nice little chat here yesterday, didn’t we, about South by Southwest in Austin and all the attention Austin got and all the attention Dallas didn’t? I thought it sparked some really interesting comments about what is and isn’t and ought to be in our fair city. The…
Last night the SMU Mustangs quietly tip-toed into the semifinals of something called the CollegeInsider.com Tournament (CIT) with a seven-point win at Northern Iowa. It’s not exactly March Madness – more like March Mediocrity – but considering the Mustangs and head coach Matt Doherty haven’t had a lot of success they’ll take it…
A couple weeks ago in my guise as Jim Schutze, really cool hipster (instead of crazy old man with gun), I wrote a post for DC9 At Night about Michael Seman, a research associate and doctoral candidate at University of North Texas’ Center for Economic Development and Research, who is…
I’m really worried about what the Reverend Robert Jeffress is going to say at Dallas First Baptist Church Sunday about the quake in Japan. I live within a three-mile radius of First Baptist, and I’m afraid I won’t be far enough away. The ad for his sermon that appeared here…
Whether you’ve reached the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt’s End: *Couple weeks ago I circled tonight’s Mavs-Spurs game at American Airlines Center in anticipation. Now? No biggie. After dropping games it should’ve won to Memphis, New Orleans and Portland, suddenly Dallas…
Those images of the out-of-control nuclear plants in Japan are hard-wired to our own situation in Dallas. Their tragedy is our challenge. The question is whether we see the wire in time. City council member Angela Hunt has succeeded in forcing Mayor Dwaine Caraway to put the issue of natural…
Dear Mexican: Why is it que cada vez that I talk to a Hispanic (not many Mexicans in New York, yet), it seems that they have a fantasma that they think lives in their house? I know that Carlos Mencia has used this in his material, but I wonder if…
In the media business, we get paid to keep up with all of this government political stuff. Other people have lives. But I am starting to see signs that the Big Thing is finally hitting home with other folks, or, as we sometimes call them in the news business, real…
OK, let me ask you about something else, while we’re on the subject. And first of all, I am not going to say anything negative or critical about rich people, because I don’t want to offend anybody’s religion. Today. But what about people who are super-duper chickenshit about the homeless?…
