U.S. Dollar

For Now, UNT's Willis Library Accepting Food Donations in Lieu of Some Overdue Book Fines

I'm writing a monstrous, toothless, heavy-breathing, drooling, hairy beast of a paper this year. And by "this year," I of course mean "for the rest of my life." It's called a thesis; I call it the reason Pfizer is having a good year. In order to bestow upon the research community a contribution that ... More >>

Southlake Legislator Wants Texas to Have its Own Fort Knox, Just in Case of a Global Collapse

The United States Bullion Depository was, according to Wikipedia, an unintended byproduct of a 1933 executive order banning the private ownership of large quantities of gold. Those who didn't move their gold to Switzerland sold it to the Federal Reserve, which found that it didn't really have any pl ... More >>

Checkmate

Prosecutors team with debt collectors to terrorize consumers in ways both highly profitable and usually illegal.

Texas' Biggest Power Supplier Wants to Blame the EPA for Future Blackouts

College Football's Fleecing of American Universities

How insiders use the bowl system to loot the colleges that support it.

Fear and Fracking in Southlake

In one of America's wealthiest suburbs, an unlikely band of drilling opponents helped drive away the world's biggest energy companies. Did they save the town or ruin it?

Two Years After Addison-Based Debt Relief USA Went Bankrupt, the Feds Take an Interest

​No doubt you heard the radio spots in which they promised to "settle your credit card debt for pennies on the dollar without filing for bankruptcy"; no doubt you saw the TV ads in which they claimed you would "truly be debt free in less than 36 months." From 2005 till '09, Addison-based Debt Reli ... More >>

Nude Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez Statue's Sculptor Tells Us The Motivation For His Piece

"Justin and Selena as One."​The announcement yesterday from 46-year-old Connecticut-based sculptor Daniel Edwards -- that he'd created a (mostly) nude sculpture of teenage music superstars Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez, and that it would soon be put on public display in an adult store right here ... More >>

Top Chef To Cost Texas Taxpayers $400,000, Give Or Take the Bacon Budget

"Mmm. Taxpayer-funded chocolate is delicious."​For several weeks now, as Top Chef crews have bounced around the state shooting next season's Texas-centric version of the popular Bravo reality show, journalists and food bloggers have wondered: How much, if anything, did the state pay for the sh ... More >>

Bill Fisher handed the FBI a chance to clean up City Hall. Does that make Fisher Mr. Clean?

Slowly, But Not Quite Surely, Dallas ISD Backs Off Efforts to Seize, Raze Jubilee Park Homes

Daniel RodrigueShawn Busari and her family grew up in this house, which DISD wanted to take for a mere $50,000.​It's been almost six months now since Jubilee Park residents began protesting the Dallas Independent School District's plans to seize their businesses and homes by any means necessary to ... More >>

Mary Suhm Would Love to Sell Some Old, Empty Libraries. Just Not Yet.

​Speaking of library branches ...Let's return for a moment to the subject of vacant city buildings, chief among them the branches that have been replaced by new-and-improveds (like, say, boarded-up Walnut Hill and that canvas Casa View). Because when last we spoke with City Manager Mary Suhm about ... More >>

Spend 30 Minutes in Jubilee Park

​A long while ago I made mention of a forthcoming doc about St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church's efforts in cleaning up and rebuilding Jubilee Park near Fair Park. Then I forgot all about it, till a Friend of Unfair Park sent along this reminder: The 30-minute feature has since been poste ... More >>

Read a penetrating chapter from former Phoenix New Times investigative reporter Terry Greene Sterling's book: ILLEGAL: Life and Death in Arizona's Immigration War Zone

Yo, Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes. Niko Celentano of the Bronx Would Like a Word. And An Emergency Shareholders Meeting.

​One week ago today I received an e-mail from a "large stockholder" in Blockbuster -- a gentleman high on the movie-studio food chain, as a matter of fact. He copied me on a missive he sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission in which he asked what in the wide, wide world of sports he could ... More >>

Dallas Theater Center's Kevin Moriarty rescues a singing Man of Steel from his Fortress of Solitude.

Is Blockbuster Headed for Prepackaged Bankruptcy? One Analyst Thinks So.

Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes​A few weeks ago, L.A.-based analyst Stan Manoukian told Bloomberg News that downtown-based Blockbuster "will cease to exist by 2013 for sure," for the most part because its bondholders think the debt-ridden company's worth pennies on the dollar. Now, according to Manoukia ... More >>

Genroku Sushi Makes Our Taste Buds Very Happy

Bloomberg, Yet Again, Comes Bearing Grim News About What Lies Ahead For Blockbuster

​A little more than one year ago, Bloomberg News sent Blockbuster's stock price tumbling, from 77 cents to 22 cents, with a report that the Renaissance Tower-based company had hired outside counsel to "explore a possible bankruptcy filing," which Blockbuster quickly dismissed. This morning, Bloomb ... More >>

Doc About Jubilee Park to Premiere at Episcopal Church Conference This Week

​Daniel's on top of the Dallas Independent School District's efforts to pay pennies on the dollar to Jubilee Park residents and businesses in order to make way for a new O.M. Roberts Elementary School building. He hopes, before the day's out, to get some kind of response -- any kind of response -- ... More >>

Return to Sushi Yama: Enough with the Sushi--Bring on the Chicken Gizzards

​I look back in regret at the first time I ever tried sushi.During one of my visits to Taiwan as a teenager, my part-Japanese auntie took us to a sushi restaurant. Taiwan was a Japanese colony for 50 years, and when the Japanese left, they left behind much of their culture, including a food influe ... More >>

Coach Lawsuit Says Sam Moon Sells Knock-Offs. You Mean Those Aren't Real?

​Noticed on the KTVT last night that Coach, the maker of luxury handbags and not Craig T. Nelson, has sued Best of Dallas winner Sam Moon in Dallas federal court. You can see where this is headed: trademark infringement, copyright infringement and false advertising allegations, for starters. And t ... More >>

As Roky Erickson Preps Brand-New Album, a Federal Lawsuit Over His First Solo Record

​As Pete mentioned a few weeks back, Roky Erickson's got a brand-new album forthcoming -- True Love Cast Out All Evil, due in April and featuring as his backing band Okkervil River. Hard to keep track of Roky's comebacks at this late date, but this one appears ready to stick -- thank God. And yet, ... More >>

Governor Rick Perry 's Lame Statement About Child Support Tells Us All We Need To Know About Republican Ally Greg Abbott

Danny Fulgencio​In the current paper version of Unfair Park, we detail the lengthy battle between Robert O'Donnell and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who extinguished O'Donnell's child support collection business after several courtroom victories. Despite the efforts of Abbott and his off ... More >>

This Decade Saw Dallas Evolve Into A Major Player On The National Dining Scene

Why Some Books At Half-Price Books These Days Aren't Exactly Half Price

Some of the collectables under glass at the Half Price Books location on Northwest Highway​The reason I called Steve Leach, the so-called "buy guy" at Half Price Books, yesterday was because I was wondering: What's up with the expensive assortment of signed tomes sitting under glass at the Northwe ... More >>

A Blockbuster Sale In Time for Christmas

​NCR, the same company responsible for those SD-card kiosks Blockbuster recently debuted at a couple of local locations, sent word this morning that it acquired DVDPlay, which has about 1,300 DVD-rental kiosks scattered about the U.S. and Canada. Said the note, NCR's going to rebrand the stations ... More >>

Westfork: Chicken-Fried Life

Fort Worth is a chicken fried steak town.​When the Seven Deadly Sins were conceived, I'm quite certain there was a specific dish in mind for gluttony: chicken fried steak. Despite my Fort Worth roots, with a northern bred mother at the stove, chicken fried steak was not on the menu at our house. ... More >>

No Justice: We've Bailed Out the Banks. When Do We Go After the Crooks Behind Our Financial Collapse?

Tea Thyme & Tisane offers a taste of ’70s small-town Texas--and a big helping of 2009 Internet promotion

Is there Natural Gas Beneath Dallas County?

Drillers—and cities—are betting Barnett Shale riches are headed Dallas' way.

Blood Money

Teenage and Transgendered

Liz and Amber were just friends until Liz became Jay

Cosmo Cosmos

The Cosmopolitan Bistro has some redeeming qualities

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

For Hal Samples, who uses photos to help the homeless, nothing—and everything