Email Author Leslie Minora

2011 Stories by Leslie Minora

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  FEATURED STORY

  Ken Robinson, the Man with the $16 House, Took SMU Law Students to School This Week

  published Nov 11, 2011

  The property rights law of adverse possession is normally a dry topic, a chapter covered in law school to be forgotten immediately after final exams. This will not be the case for about 100 SMU law st... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Local Anti-Gas Drilling Activist Catches Execs Pushing PSYOP to Deal With "Insurgency"

  published Nov 10, 2011

  Last week, during an oil-and-gas drilling confab at the Hyatt Regency in Houston, execs turned their attention to a very touchy subject: how to get folks decidedly against gas drilling on their side. ... More >>

• Top Chef: Texas Episode 2: Painful Moments, Best Dishes, and Other Highlights

  published Nov 10, 2011

  Last night's episode of Top Chef: Texas should have come with a five-minute bonus Colicchio-lead meditation at the end -- it was INTENSE. I get it, the show's in Texas where everything's bigger, and h... More >>

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  COVER STORY

  Big Hair. Big Boots. Big D. This is Reality?

  published November 10, 2011

  Relax for a moment and imagine a place where women's curly locks bounce on their shoulders like perfectly spiraled ribbons atop... More >>

• Gas Drilling Task Force Begins Deliberations, Opts to Stick with Current Approval Process

  published Nov 09, 2011

  The city council-appointed gas drilling task force stopped listening to The Experts yesterday and got down to the business of discussing just what it'll suggest the council do about the business of fr... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Surprisingly, DISD Trustees Aren't Ruling Out Keeping (Some) Students in School Till July 26

  published Nov 04, 2011

  At yesterday's Dallas ISD board meeting, trustee Mike Morath had a fairly novel idea regarding the school calendar. Long story short, he said: Let's consider testing the merits of a radical school cal... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  After 14 Years in Prison, Dale Duke Is Cleared of Sexual Abuse Conviction and Free At Last

  published Nov 04, 2011

  As a free man for the first time in 14 years, Dale Duke tightly embraced his tearful mother. His every move followed by a swarm of cameras, the wrongfully imprisoned man, now 60, exited the packed cou... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Top Chef Texas Recap: Highlights, Superlatives, and the Three Best Dishes

  published Nov 03, 2011

  Last night at La Grange, City of Aters had good beer, better tacos, and an hour of fantastic television on an enormous projector screen. It was the first City of Ate Top Chef Texas viewing party, and ... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  The Best Little Iraqi Bakery in Plano

  published Nov 03, 2011

  Inside Sherwani Bakery (2040 West Spring Creek Parkway) in Plano, Salah Hassan, the Iraqi baker and proprietor, greets me by extending his forearm for a handshake. Caked dough and flour generously coa... More >>

• Habitat's $100 Million "Dream Dallas" Initiative Will Uplift Neighborhoods, Not Just Houses

  published Nov 02, 2011

  Dallas Habitat for Humanity, which already claims to be the biggest single-family home builder in the city, will knock down and build more than 500 more homes in a $100 million blitz on the city's bli... More >>

• Dallas ISD Trustees Want Superintendent Who's a Team Player "Here For The Right Reasons"

  published Nov 02, 2011

  At last night's called meeting of the Dallas Independent School District's board of trustees, representatives from PROACT Search, the matchmaking firm hired to help select a superintendent for the dis... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  "Frack is Whack" and Other Highlights From Gas Drilling Task Force's Public Hearing

  published Oct 28, 2011

  At last night's Gas Drilling Task Force public hearing at Dallas City, citizens' outcries ranged from polite thank-yous to pleas for tighter restrictions all the way to full-on verbal assaults that ma... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Latest Red Light Camera Study Questions the System's Financial and Safety Perks

  published Oct 27, 2011

  Let's talk (some more) about red light cameras, the subject of a report released today by the Texas Public Interest Research Group (TexPIRG), a watchdog organization that researches various subjects o... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  There's Another Gas Drilling Public Hearing Tomorrow. So Where Is City Heading, Anywayr

  published Oct 26, 2011

  As chair of the city's gas drilling task force, Lois Finkelman has a pretty tough job, directing task force meetings, guiding discussions, fielding calls and emails from concerned citizens. (Did we me... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Glass Kiosks, Mobile Vendors, Music, Art And Pedestrians: Your "New Look" Downtownr

  published Oct 25, 2011

  Last night was a bit of a tease. Just after 5:30 p.m., Browder Plaza (outside the Dallas Power and Light Flats on Commerce Street) was packed with pedestrians mingling, snacking on street vendor food ... More >>

• DISD Will Buy Out "Excess" Teachers & Other Highlights from Testy, Tear-Stained Meeting

  published Oct 21, 2011

  Thursday evening, Dallas Independent School District trustees approved resignation incentives for the 209 "unassigned" employees who are under contract but lack permanent positions after personnel cut... More >>

• Poof! A Rundown South Dallas Building Crumbles, Making Way For a Habitat Home.

  published Oct 20, 2011

  As a bulldozer chipped away at the sides of a hideously blighted cinder-block building in South Dallas this morning -- forward, reverse, forward, reverse -- a crowd of community members and Dallas Are... More >>

• "That Could Have Been Me:" An Evening With Five Innocent Men Nearly Executed

  published Oct 17, 2011

  Imagine spending five years in a Nebraska prison for having brutally murdered a teenage honor student but knowing that the real killer is at large. Or rolling over in the middle of the night to put yo... More >>

• And Now, Even More Events Tied to Opening of Margarat Hunt Hill: "Bridge-o-Rama," Rama

  published Oct 14, 2011

  Today was supposed to mark the grand opening of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge -- today, October 14, 2011. Alas, wind, rain, ice and other long-ago weather issues pushed back the date till March 2, whe... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  At Feel-Good Hearing, City and Occupy Dallas Hash Out Deal to Move Downtown Campsite

  published Oct 14, 2011

  A hearing this morning at the Earle Cabell could have been a First Amendment showdown over Occupy Dallas's right to remain in Pioneer Park in downtown. Instead, it became a simple formality after prot... More >>

• Dallas EPA Investigator Would Do Anything For Love. Yes, Even That.

  published Oct 14, 2011

  For Dallas-based EPA investigator Keith Phillips, the visits to a Louisiana oil refinery started in the late '90s, and came, it seems, with dual purposes: business and pleasure. It started as an inve... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  What the Frack: Task Force Isn't Done, But City Moves Closer to Issuing First Drilling Permit

  published Oct 12, 2011

  XTO and Trinity East, two of the companies that have paid the city big money and signed leases to drill for gas within the city limits, have agreed to wait 30 months while the city rewrites its gas dr... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Think Red Light Camera Tickets Are Junk Mailr Guess Again, as City Considers Crackdown.

  published Oct 11, 2011

  If you've received one (or several) of the 125,000 citations issued to those who've run red lights under the watchful eye of those cameras perched over 66 intersections, you've faced two choices: Pay ... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  The Creatures Haunting Hellmouth Hostel Might Be Following You Right Now

  published Oct 10, 2011

  [Editor's note: This post is best when read with the music from the haunted house's website playing in the background.] A nimble devil beat-boxes from behind a fiery face at the Ross Avenue entrance ... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Infowars Host Alex Jones and His Followers Occupy the Dallas Fed Friday

  published Oct 08, 2011

  Friday evening, two groups of protesters, Occupy Dallas and Occupy the Federal Reserve, lined opposite side of N. Pearl Street at Woodall Rodgers in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. "We go... More >>