Domingo, Domingo, Domingo. You were named after the day of worship. Why do you always wind up using names against other people? Yesterday, state Representative Rafael Anchia jumped on Dallas congressional candidate Domingo Garcia for calling a black opponent an “errand boy.” In a press release, Anchia said, “Calling a…
Last week’s big battle over a plan to use parkland by White Rock lake as overflow car-parking for the Dallas Arboretum sort of came out of nowhere. I’m sure somebody out there had to be thinking, “What’s an arboretum?” Please. You don’t have to put your hands up. But there…
Wow. I wonder how many other ancient mariners of the Dallas public school situation put down their daily newspapers this morning, nodded as I did, and thought to themselves, “So they’re messing with Ison-Newsome.” That’s serious. It could mean somebody’s smart. Or stupid. I’m leaning toward somebody’s smart. I’m leaning…
Tried to get past these two very irritating issues but couldn’t pull it off. Woke up in middle of night last night reaching for the shotgun. Please indulge. Eye and ear protection recommended. First clay pigeon I’d like to try a couple 12-gauge shells on: a throw-away line in an…
WFAA Channel 8 aired a story last night, reprised in this morning’s Dallas Morning News, about a series of armed robberies on and around the Katy trail — three over the weekend and five more during the previous month. Both stories said Dallas Police had refused to comment on the…
Several of you have asked me to explain a point in my column in this week’s newspaper about the Trinity River toll road and why it may be unstoppable. Sorry. Should have done it in the column. And as it turns out, I had this wrong on two scores, one…
Dallas City Hall. Enough to drive a sane person crazy on any given day. What is it they don’t get — other than everything? In today’s Dallas Morning News, Paul Dyer, the very decent man who is director of the Park Department, gives an absolutely honest and totally infuriating explanation…
Three things. The Trinity River toll road doesn’t have to happen. But it can happen. And stopping it will take money. Those are the three big practicalities looming over the debate about building a big highway through what was supposed to be our downtown urban park perched against the Trinity…
At some point during last evening’s North Texas Tollway Authority/Texas Department of Transportation Incredibly Boring Event, I realized I was having almost as much fun seeing all the same old pro-toll road partisans again as I was running into my fellow usual-suspect road-haters. These things have become high school reunions…
Of course I can’t read about the ugly mess at the Dallas Arboretum without remembering Bobby Scott, my weird brilliant friend and enemy who patrolled in front of my house for a year muttering that he wanted to kill me. Then at the very end I visited him in the…
In his speech last week endorsing a new highway in the Trinity River flood zone, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings threw down a gauntlet. It was sort of a buried line. I guess not everybody heard it. I did. He said at one point, “I’m a regionalist,” and then he said…
Hey, Dallas Arboretum: Do you really not see how this is shaping up? You have one of two things staring you in the face. A great opportunity. Or a well-deserved black eye. You are in court this very moment, hauled there by citizens trying to stop your plans to decimate…
I sat in the front row of the folding chairs yesterday and gazed around the ceremonial “flag room” at City Hall. Mayor Mike Rawlings and a majority of the Dallas city council were ganged up around the podium endorsing a plan to build a two-billion-dollar toll road next to the…
Eminent domain, the principle that allows government to force a landowner to sell, is usually thought of as serving public purposes, like building new highways. But in the last two years Dallas County’s public hospital district has been adventuring in a new version — eminent domain for profit. Acting on…
Something happened to me at City Hall today, where I went in hopes of chronicling the mayor’s Trinity Toll Road speech. I have really debated with myself about going public with it. But my hope is that if I tell my story, other men who have been through the same…
All right, I missed on one thing this morning in my predictive imaginary report on Mayor Rawlings’ Toll Road press conference at City Hall. I predicted that former city councilman Dave Neumann would bound around the room like a kangaroo shouting “Pickles and applesauce.” That did not happen. I think…
Yesterday Joe told you that Mike Rawlings, our mayor, is having a press conference today to announce how he feels about the Trinity River Toll Road. So guess who’s got to go to the damn thing at 12:30? OK, OK, I’m doin’ it. Wow, everybody doesn’t just need to get…
Damn! They almost got me to fall off the wagon again this morning. I came within a pubic hair’s breadth of reading an entire story about John Edwards’ sex life. That’s actually closer than just a hair’s breadth. Today’s story mentioned Lisa Blue, the Dallas lawyer and widow of Fred…
There was a day when I might have come up laughing at the big investigative package in yesterday’s Dallas Morning News on University of Texas Southwestern Medical School ex-president Kern Wildenthal and his expense account madness. It’s not just that the News “buried the lede,” as we say in the…
Alex Jones, host of Infowars and national guru of conspiracy theorists, recently took up the cudgel for free speech at Dealey Plaza on the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination. Vowing to bring “tens of thousands” to Dealey Plaza next year, Jones said on today’s broadcast he hopes Dallas enjoys…
Wonderful story for an old Detroit homeboy in today’s New York Times chronicling the incredible comeback and stunning success of Chrysler. Since emerging from bankruptcy and repaying all of its government loans, Chrysler Group LLC has leaped ahead of global competitors, according to the Times: “On Thursday, Chrysler reported that…
Whenever the immigration issue comes up, as it has now with the ongoing Supreme Court review of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, so does Joe Arpaio. The famous Phoenix sheriff is in the national news again this week over a recording surfaced by The Associated Press in which Arpaio can be heard…
