Things have to fall into place a certain way. The right cards must be dealt. But the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination in Dallas on November 22, 2013, could become a hallmark event in a long tradition of popular street actions stretching back to the nation’s beginnings. From Occupy…

All right, I’ve got my lanyard whistle around my neck, and I’m set for a session here. Let’s hustle up out there, Lawners. Time for today’s knee-jerk calisthenics. Remember our interim motto: A knee-jerk reaction is better than not being able to feel your feet. (I’m working on shortening that.)…

Maybe it’s late in the day for this, but is there any chance the city could rescind its bizarre special ordinance ordering the preservation of the old Crozier Tech high school building at the east end of downtown and just let the poor bastards who bought the place knock it…

Oh, this is going to be painful. I’ve been trying to prepare myself all weekend by eating a diet of prunes and flax seed, riding a stationary bicycle, doing somewhat Yoga-like stretches according to what I’ve seen in the movies and giving myself drill-sergeant pep talks in the mirror, also…

James Galbraith has a new book out, Inequality and Instability, arguing that … well, you know he’s an economist at the LBJ School at UT Austin, so it’s pretty complicated … I’m trying to boil down what I got out of it … I need to put this into Get-Off-My-Lawn…

On June 13, 2010, Dallas police arrested and jailed Robert Groden, author of best-selling books on the Kennedy assassination and a consultant to the Oliver Stone movie, JFK. The police accused Groden of violating a city law against selling books in Dealey Plaza, where the assassination happened almost a half-century…

Someone with a lot of clout in this town thinks Dallas should clamp down on free speech at Dealey Plaza for the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination coming up next year. There’s only one right way for free Americans to deal with that kind of thinking. Clamp down on…

Want to give yourself a good case of the climate-change willies? Go to climatecentral.org, click on their report on sea level rise and look for Texas. We could be in for it worse than California, depending on how you measure. When national media talk about sea-level rises, they tend to…

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings is allowed to ramble on at some length about public schools in a blog piece by Robert Wilonsky on today’s Dallas Morning News web page. It’s a Q&A. Rawlings comes across, as usual, as a smart decent man who cares. But is he the right smart…

You wait. When this whole presidential election gets rolling in earnest, pensions are going to be a whole lot sexier issue than condoms. People just haven’t figured it out yet. Josh Gotbaum, director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., is quoted in a Q&A in The Dallas Morning News today…

Not much sleep last night. Wide awake at 4 a.m., hiding beneath the sheets. A pretty sad state of affairs when a fellow of my years has to hide under his own bedding to avoid being bitten in the face by a dog. But there you have it. Rescue dogs…

Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. A huge idea turned up at City Hall yesterday. Huge. This is like a Blue whale beaching itself on the banks of the Trinity River. I’m afraid City Hall is going to send a crew out there and chop it into…

This is a very Harry Potter-like story, and, even though as a writer I shouldn’t telegraph my punches, I’ll go ahead and tell you that it has a happy ending. In fact, I’m so happy about it I’ll go ahead and tell you what the ending is. I obtained a…

Two stories in the news just now offer encouragement on the bullying front. In today’s New York Times is an account of a new policy adopted by a big suburban school district north of Minneapolis. Christian conservatives there had been fighting against an effort to protect gay students from beatings…

Yeah, OK, OK, I get that GCB is going to be a send-up of drunk bitchy Christian women in the Park Cities. I’m all for that. I just hope the comedic voice of the TV series doesn’t serve to obscure the fact that it’s true. Alan Peppard had a funny…

Oh, ouch. That was a liberal ouch, by the way. Even as a liberal, I can see this as the Next Bad Idea snouting its way up over the far horizon: telling the suburbs they have to bail out the cities. Ain’t … gonna … happen. David Firestone, a young…

Today on The Dallas Morning News op-ed page we find a piece by Ethnic Tidying Kompaniechef Tod Robberson demanding that the Bulldozers of Compassion take down a car wash in southern Dallas, putting some poor son of a bitch out of business. And that would be why? The business needs…

Here we are, with the biggest Medicare fraud in history going — so we are told — and The New York Times devotes its front page today to a story about Medicare fraud carried out by organized Russian gangs in … oh, guess where! … New York City! What can…

Last Sunday The Dallas Morning News published a special section designed as a program/brochure for all the parties planned next weekend, anchored by a Lyle Lovett concert, to celebrate the opening of the city’s new Santiago Calatrava bridge over the Trinity River. But the bridge won’t open Friday. It isn’t…

If I were a male cowboy-boot-wearing Republican in Texas, I might feel pretty chapped right now by all the attention paid over the last week to the Virginia ultrasound bill. Talk about some limp legislation. Yesterday those wimps in Virginia voted up a pared-down version that will allow women undergoing…

Work has started on the Fort Worth JFK tribute, a memorial plaza to be dominated by a larger-than-life statue of President John F. Kennedy with his hand extended for a friendly shake. What a difference a half-hour drive makes. When complete, the Fort Worth memorial will serve as stark contrast…