Opinion & Commentary

What do you think? Should Dallas Judge of Criminal District Court #6 Jeanine Howard, now at least nationally famous if not internationally for her “You Ignorant Slut” ruling in a rape case, think about returning to private law practice? Or run for president? It’s so hard to know these days…

Last week somebody called me and asked me to go back and listen to Krys Boyd’s April 29 Think program on KERA radio, in which Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and Dallas school trustee Bernadette Nutall debated “home rule,” a proposal that could radically change the way we govern Dallas public…

Confession: I have not only attended Scarborough Fair, but I have shown up in costume. Multiple times. Sober. Not on a dare. During college. With a choir group, and we totally sang period-appropriate tunes without being asked to and without being paid for it. Because we were nerd rebels. I…

You know what the one good thing is about a bad school system? It’s a great excuse for everything else. Mayor Mike Rawlings stirred the pot earlier this week by telling KERA that Dallas lost out on a recent huge corporate relocation, Toyota’s American headquarters, because of our bad school…

Dear Mexican: Is there a pecking order at the places where day laborers wait to be hired? Are all those dudes Mexican or are some Central and South American, and if so who has priority? Also, after they make a bunch of loot, do they go back to Mexico and…

In recent weeks we have seen repeated serious indications that the bitterly divided camps on school reform may be getting a tad less bitter and a smidgeon more inclined to engage in semi-civilized conversation than whop each other in the head with 2-by-4s. A couple weeks ago when Dallas Superintendent…

There was an op-ed in The Dallas Morning News this week talking about the damage Republicans suffered when Cliven Bundy, the racist rancher from Nevada, “wandered off script.” Off script?…

Over the weekend I received a long, thoughtful email from Susan Cantrell Holloway, a downtown resident worried about a recent story in The Dallas Morning News by Robert Wilonsky. He was waxing rhapsodic about plans to tear down an old tower and eliminate a city park at the north end…

D Magazine’s Tim Rogers covered last week’s Trinity toll road public hearing for Frontburner, which is more than I did for my own newspaper, so maybe it’s my guilt tilting me toward his favor. I found myself feeling sorry for him when his boss, Wick Allison, commented below his item…

Alliance-AFT, a Dallas teachers union that was making robo-calls a year ago to get Dallas school Superintendent Mike Miles fired, is about to endorse one of his strongest supporters for re-election to the school board. The union will inform members Friday that it has endorsed Miguel Solis for the Place…

Can’t let this pass without at least pointing out the irony. Last Sunday Dallas City Council member Tennell Atkins was all over The Dallas Morning News opinion pages with an essay on the importance of public incentives for private developers in under-served areas of the city. He wrote: “Evidence of…

Oakland resident Kimchi Truong was 24. She passed out on the Coachella grounds last weekend, likely due to an overdose. Her death, Thursday, was shocking. But what’s really shocking is that this kind of thing doesn’t happen more often.  This story is about very young people doing a shit-ton of drugs, but…

I don’t like Mad Men. Maybe it’s because I used to be a copywriter in an ad agency. Hearing ad people love on Mad Men is grosser than watching your parents make out. “As an art director, I love the art direction.” “I really feel like Peggy and I are…

Dear Mexican: Our grandparents came from Mexico. The entire next generation spoke Spanish. However, what my cousins and I and most of our kids know of Spanish is what we learn in Spanish classes. It’s clear we lost our language treasure. What do you know of this loss on a…

A family chore last night prevented me from attending a big community meeting about a proposed restaurant at White Rock Lake, but stories on Channel 8 and in the daily paper this morning gave the flavor. The community is looking at the idea of building a commercial restaurant on parkland…

Some forms of Dallas City Council recusal may even be based on the ancient naval art of semaphore. Everybody’s an expert on something. I happen to be an expert on Dallas City Council recusing styles. One of my favorite all-time recusers quite a few years back was the late James…

It’s a long way from here to Minneapolis. About 14 hours, in fact. I know because I made the trip myself last weekend, having packed everything I own into a U-Haul and hopping on Interstate 35, which I followed virtually from one end of the country to the other. When…

Dear Mexican: One thing I find a little antagonizing is the use of the term “Latino” as a synonym only for “Hispanic.” I’ve noticed that you tend to favor Hispanic quite a bit more than Latino; thank you. The Latins as a people, a culture, a language, a tribe, came…

In preschool, they decide when school happens because they have you by the toddler balls. They don’t follow a regular school calendar, because fuck you, they do what they want, this isn’t real education yet. The “pre” in “preschool” does stand for “pretend,” after all. This isn’t to say that…

The Pulitzer Prizes just came out. Once again I scan the list, searching for yours truly. Not a mention. But next year it will be different. Next year my early work on the Trinity River toll road is going to win me the Pulitzer and possibly also the Nobel and…