Opinion & Commentary

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. Kyle Thomas has been the drummer for Reverend Horton Heat, Shallow Reign, The Daylights and,…

Here’s another thing. Have you read all this crap about how the city is going to plug up the tunnel system downtown because some waffle-brow bow-tie city planner told them that’s why nobody’s on the sidewalks? Downtown has pedestrian tunnels between many of the buildings. Originally they were truck tunnels…

I covered part of last week’s school board meeting on the budget crisis. I was way back in back of the room gossiping with other reporters, which is really the only thing I like about news events any more, and nobody wanted to talk about the school board crisis. We…

Whether you’ve reached the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt’s Merten’s End: *Well, that was quick. Chuck Greenberg formed the current Rangers ownership group, and less than seven months after the sale was complete, he’s out. No longer managing partner. No longer…

Talk about a disconnect. On Wednesday night I see Governor Rick Perry on television, with that little cowboy sneer he gets, saying, “The lieutenant governor, the speaker and their colleagues are not going to hire or fire one teacher, as best as I can tell.” Kind of like he’s saying…

Sure, it’s not the death penalty, but the NCAA just released a statement saying it has accepted self-imposed sanctions by Southern Methodist University on its basketball program. SMU’s recommendations included two years probation (March 10, 2011, through March 9, 2013), a reduction of 15 recruiting days and a two-week ban…

Today the Dallas school board meets to hear the possible “good news” from the superintendent — that the district may only have to fire a quarter of its teachers instead of a third, depending on how badly the Rick Perry Banana Republicans and the TeeTee Party in Austin underfund public…

Dear Mexican: When the Second World War ended, the Germans and Japanese had to return all territories they had acquired by force. The United States acquired most of the West by force from Mexico, due to the war with Mexico. Agreed the United States won the war with Mexico, but…

It makes sense that a 212-year-old agency with a $50 billion annual budget would know how to talk. One of many sharp insights in the new Katrina documentary, The Big Uneasy, is that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has got its line down cold. Again and again in the…

Yesterday a commenter wrote in to Unfair Park in reference to an item about Dallas Mayor Dwaine Caraway and the legal action he has brought against his own city to prevent the release of an embarrassing police tape. The commenter said, “It’s hard to imagine the tape shows anything other…

Two things. The first is serious business. The second, not so much. As you know by now, a Dallas judge today granted lawyers for Mayor Dwaine Caraway their request for a temporary restraining order forbidding the Dallas City Attorney from releasing an embarrassing police investigative tape of the mayor. The…

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. Kris Youmans has one of those jobs that looks cushy from the outside, but, from…

Guess what. Maybe it has started. The great gray horse may be rising to her feet at last. Maybe the sane middle class of America isn’t dead in its tracks after all. I have a column in this week’s paper talking about a real Tea Party movement in the UK…

The New York Times ran a story yesterday about all the hate the right-wingers are expressing for school teachers. In the opening they quoted placards from Madison, Wisconsin, saying, “You are glorified babysitters who leave school at 3:30 pm. You deserve minimum wage.” They interviewed a 30-year-old second-year teacher who…

Whether you’ve reached the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt’s End: *Apparently Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones misunderstood. The NFL lockout hasn’t yet commenced. While the Washington Redskins signed O.J.Atogwe and Bob Sanders landed with the San Diego Chargers, the…

Here’s what I don’t get. The right-wingers are always sneering about the “nanny state” — government trampling their sacred rights as individuals by telling them what kind of light bulb they can screw in their lamps. But the same right-wingers want government to guilt-trip women getting abortions by forcing them…

Dear Mexican: I am a mocha-skinned woman with long, curly hair and dark-brown eyes. Puerto Ricans always ask if I am Puerto Rican, Dominicans just come and start speaking Spanish, Cubans ask if my abuelita made good arroz con leche, but Mexicans know I’m black. What gives? —La Morena Dear…

So we can hear the wolves howling in the forest now. They begin to circle. The deliberate devastation by Rick Perry Republicans of public school funding in Texas is probably going to spell the end of the magnet school system and bring horrendous classroom overcrowding to Dallas public schools, along…

Rick Perry keeps telling me that I shouldn’t worry about dumping all the kids out of school or putting Grandma out of the nursing home. Texas has the nation’s fastest-growing economy, he says, so don’t sweat it. What does that mean — fastest-growing economy? I took a look around yesterday…

Welcome to Local Music ‘Mericans, where we’ll be meeting some people behind the local music scene — those who aren’t necessarily musicians, but more the behind-the-scenes people who make the scene move. Chad Lovell played drums for Course of Empire. Along with fellow percussionist MIke Jerome, he was half of…

The Gromer Jeffers story in The Dallas Morning News Saturday reporting that Tom Leppert now opposes federal earmark money for the Trinity River project put me in mind of an old newspaper friend. He had struggled mightily with temptation during his younger married years. I should say, he struggled mightily…