Over the weekend I have been chatting with people who were all counting on their fingers. Does City Manager Mary Suhm take a powder over this month’s gas drilling revelations? No. They were counting their fingers secretly and spoke to me only off the record, because they know they can’t…
If there is one thing I hate, it’s talking about morality with people who agree with me. But this has been one of those weeks. I’m your basic anti-gas-and-oil-fracking-in-parks type of guy. Call me soft. I’ve just always been against major petro-chemical operations where the children play. So generally speaking…
Every once in while I can’t resist inflaming the tri-cornered hat don’t-tread-on-me set out there by saying nice things about Detroit. Whenever I sing praises to my hometown of many yesteryears, I get such a nice bounce out of the people who need Detroit to serve as their 21st century…
Those of us who were not born rich — and those who were born rich but cursed with a work ethic anyway — have a sort of ongoing assumption about what it takes to survive. We may believe that if our resources ever dip below a certain line, we may…
Last night the city held a shmooze event for people who live near a proposed exclusive private golf course and horse park in a poor part of Southern Dallas, but the shmooze blew up. A carefully choreographed scene of friendly information booths and party favors turned into an angry shouting…
Don’t scramble the county air force just yet. We need to do some serious reading and talking before the Dallas County does a repeat of last year’s aerial spraying for West Nile disease. I have a copy of the final Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on last year’s…
Don’t think about this: your city manager, the CEO of Dallas City Hall, signed a secret deal five years ago promising to help a gas company set up drilling rigs and processing plants in city parks. Think about this instead: the city manager did not sign a secret agreement with…
Some stuff won’t spin. Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm is trying desperately to spin the story of her side-deal with Trinity East Energy. But that story is stuck in the ground like a tree. The Observer reported yesterday that Suhm signed an agreement five years ago with a gas drilling…
Documents released yesterday evening by the city reveal that Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm signed a side deal with a gas-drilling company five years ago to help the company win drilling rights on city parkland, even though she had assured the City Council and park board that drilling on parkland…
The Trinity toll road is undead. It walks in the night. Forget garlic. It is coming. It’s a fundamentally crazy idea. But it lives. If anything, the idea is protected by its basic craziness. It’s so crazy, it never quite comes together in people’s heads, and that’s how the powers…
Maybe Dallas has a shot at stepping out from under the redneck yoke of Austin after all. In today’s news we see that a Dallas judge, Eric Moye, has tossed out a lawsuit by the usury industry in which payday lenders claimed the city had no right to protect its…
The killing Saturday of former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle at a gun range near Fort Worth prompted a call to my office phone from a retired Dallas police officer. He was upset by use of the word “sniper” to describe Kyle’s specialty as a soldier, pointing out that “sniper” was…
Sometime, just as a study of American photo journalism in print media today, go to the web site of the Dallas Morning News and take a good gander at the pictures they have published recently of anybody having anything at all to do with the Nasher Sculpture Center, and compare…
This whole thing is my fault. I blame only myself, not so much because I really believe it’s entirely my fault, but because I know trying to blame anybody else will not do me any good. I just need to go get my water bill paid. Yesterday City Council members…
Wait a minute. We here in Dallas know all about people who have used cancer research to promote themselves. Nancy, Lance, Rick, for three. But when do we ask questions about the research itself? The Dallas-founded Komen Foundation blew up last year after founder Nancy Brinker allowed it to be…
Democracy in action last night. Never a pretty picture. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is in charge of flood control in this country, held a meeting at City Hall to update the public on the Trinity River Project, a massive campaign of public works that has dragged on…
When I made a call yesterday about John Hargrove, owner of Orr-reed Wrecking who was beaten to death in a Dallas bar over the weekend, I told the person I called I was calling only for personal reasons and not working on a story. I guess I’m going back on…
There’s a big Associated Press story making the rounds now, based on work at MIT and elsewhere, all about the permanent loss of many high and better paid jobs like meter reader and travel agent, gone forever because those posts have been filled by robots and software. Good jobs are…
So, back to the new fake suspension bridge we’re building at enormous cost over the Trinity River, and, in fact, let’s go back and review the whole Trinity River project. In fact, let’s go back and review everything. Here is my question: Why are huge, obviously stupid projects the best…
The Dallas City Council yesterday voted to spend some $7 million of your money to cover the latest cost overruns for the second Calatrava suspension bridge over the Trinity River. The city already had to cheap down the first Calatrava suspension bridge so much that now it’s not even a…
What will Ron Kirk do when he returns to Dallas after leaving the Obama cabinet next month? If I had to bet, I’d say he won’t return to Dallas, which will be a shame. If he did come home, maybe he could do something about these local Democrats. Former Dallas…
Tons of talk on the interwebs yesterday about the inauguration and what it all meant (racism is undead, Obama won’t have a waltz, presidents can’t change the weather, other unexciting true facts). But, look. It did mean something. This is not 2008. We can debate what road we’re down, but…
