The Dallas Police Association would like it known that you, the civilian outraged by recent police shootings and/or the proposal to legislate where someone can stand to film cops, are wrong. Policing, they want to make clear, is a tough job occupied by human beings who must make split-second, life-and-death…
On Wednesday, the Texas House overwhelmingly approved a statewide ban on texting while driving, the third session in a row where this has happened. In 2013, the measure died in the Senate. In 2011, it was killed by Governor Rick Perry, who vetoed it on the grounds that it was…
One night in August 2011, a half dozen cows escaped their pasture and wandered onto a semi-rural stretch of road in Amarillo. The driver of an approaching pickup slamed on the brakes, but not quite soon enough to keep the truck from entering a terrifying barrel roll. Bobby Tunnell, the…
The presumption that court proceedings should be open to the public has been a feature of the American judiciary since around the time Englishmen in funny hats stepped off the Mayflower. It’s not directly addressed in the U.S. Constitution but it is enshrined in the founding documents of many states,…
When Mayor Mike Rawlings and sundry other dignitaries gathered in Pleasant Grove last month to unveil the almost-open Texas Horse Park’s enormous new sculpture, there was much self-congratulatory gushing, multiple allusions to an imagined horse/cowboy culture, even a laughable pitch by Councilman Tennell Atkins for the Trinity toll road (“We’ll…
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them with firearms, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it. I have given you every ammo-bearing…
In a rather unsurprising turn of events, Dallas’ rich are getting richer while its poor are getting poorer. According to census data crunched by the Brookings Institution this week, the income of the top 5 percent of earners rose by a impressive 12.2 percent between 2012 and 2013, jumping from…
On Tuesday morning last week, while most visitors to Klyde Warren Park were batting oversize foam tennis balls back and forth on the main lawn as part of some U.S. Tennis Association promotion, a handful of anti-circumcision protesters (aka “intactivists”) clustered on the park’s far eastern fringe. Clad in all…
Yiliana Perez was midway through her shift at the Southwestern Women’s Surgery Center when her boyfriend showed up. It was a surprise visit. He had dropped her off at the Greenville Avenue abortion clinic, where she works as a medical assistant, at 6:45 that morning, and he wasn’t scheduled to…
The following is a non-exhaustive list of the pros and cons of building the skybridge Crow Holdings wants to put in Preston Center: Pro: Preston Center is essentially frozen in the 1980s. See also: Preston Center Is Getting a Skybridge, and Maybe a Tom Thumb Con: So are skybridges!…
We’ve previously noted that ex-Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins — former political wunderkind, a crusader for the innocent and the scourge of the guilty — had sunk to trolling for DWI clients using a Hotmail (?!?) account. That’s no longer the case; as of 1:32 a.m. today, he is…
State Representative Jason Villalba, a Dallas Republican, is close to a lot of cops. The best man in his wedding was a police officer. So is his uncle and various other friends and family members. So when his friends in the law enforcement community suggested the creation of a 25-foot…
We have glimpsed a vision of Dallas’ future, and it is bleak. By 2050, according to the Dallas Business Journal’s read of new data from the Texas Office of the State Demographer, Collin County will have ballooned to 3.8 million people. Dallas County, once upon a time the “urb” in…
The Dallas Morning News’ real estate reporter Steve Brown published a piece over the weekend blaming millennials for declining homeownership rates in the Dallas area. This is true. Homeownership rates among the under-35 set — i.e. the age range currently occupied by millennials — has declined markedly since peaking around…
In October 2012, seven men in white jumpsuits — immaculate save for an unsettling crimson stain spreading from their crotches — gathered outside the convention center in New Orleans as the American Academy of Pediatrics was having its annual meeting. The body had just issued a policy statement endorsing newborn…
Texas has some of the worst civil forfeiture laws in the country. In 2010, the Institute for Justice gave the state a grade of D- in terms of how easy it is for police to take property allegedly linked to criminal activity, and how hard it is for the property…
Anecdotes of civil forfeiture abuse in Texas abound. The most egregious example from recent years probably comes from the tiny East Texas town of Tenaha (population 1,160), where the district attorney and local police teamed up to shake down innocent out-of-town motorists for cash and other valuables worth millions. Near…
Natalie Degraffenreid and Cory Teague’s wedding is in 37 days, and, according to the couple’s website on TheKnot.com, it’s going to be perfect. She’s a nurse, he’s a firefighter; the Hallmark Channel couldn’t have cast it better. The ceremony will be at The Milestone, an idyllic plantation-style house outside Denton…
It’s only natural for Texas’ urban/suburbanites to assume that the choice of agriculture commissioner has little bearing on their lives. This is false. City dwellers eat food, which is grown on farms. They fill their cars at gas pumps and weigh their produce on grocery scales, both of which the…
Rowlett Mayor Todd Gottel, like all decent human beings, hates it when able-bodied individuals (read: assholes) park in handicap parking spots. “It really disgusts me,” he says, “because the handicapped deserve the same rights as we have. Those folks that violate that should be ashamed of themselves and should be…
The sky over the Texas Horse Park on Thursday morning was clear and blue, unblemished by even a wisp of cloud; weather would not be dampening the morning’s ribbon-cutting celebration, which has been nearly two decades in the making. On the ground, the forecast was equally sunny. All the gathered…
Unless you are wagering on horses, within the boundaries of the Kickapoo Indian reservation or placing bets directly with the state, gambling is illegal in Texas; after all, vice cops need to have something to do when they’re not busting hookers, and besides, the lottery functions much better without private…
