So, Lakewood is in southern Dallas now. Either that, or all black Dallasites are residents of southern Dallas, no matter where they live. Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price tells The Dallas Morning News in a story today that the proposed appointment of Matrice Ellis-Kirk to serve on the board…

Here are some things I never ever thought I would hear myself saying. In fact, I’m having a hard time spitting it out. But truth is truth. Sometimes even I have to face that. Of all the people in this country who live in cities where per capita water-consumption is…

Hey, one last shout out here for the Occupy Dallas people who camped at City Hall. I know you took a lot of grief from people who didn’t understand why you were doing what you were doing, including me a little bit at one point. I hope you took note…

This is Day Two of Trinity River levee stories from me, which I realize is Day Too Many, but … well, sorry. I’m just sorry about it, but I cannot let this moment pass without making an observation. Possibly an observation and a half. It’ll be over quickly. First, half…

Buried between the lines in a 246-page document released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers today is a significant national story about the future of flood control in American cities. I doubt very many reporters will dig it out. I’ll give you the thumbnail sketch. You may wish I…

Today, a commenter on a previous blog item of mine about GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain suggested it was mighty mysterious that President Obama doesn’t have any sexual peccadilloes in his closet when so many Republican presidential contenders seem to. “Joshua,” the commenter, suggested the “Chicago mob of politicos” probably…

The 50th anniversary of the murder of President John F. Kennedy in Dealey Plaza is still two years off, but somebody is already trying to shut down the plaza for the entire week of November 22, 2013. I’m not sure who yet. It’s either the Sixth Floor Museum or City…

I am in contact with a woman whose identity I have agreed not to divulge, a middle-aged affluent Republican homemaker in the snooty Park Cities portion of Dallas, who says that she has not had an affair with Herman Cain. Of course I found her story difficult to believe at…

I have been thinking a lot lately about dog shit. It seems to be the answer to one of my more persistent inner puzzles. Dog shit is a surprisingly deep topic. Dallas enacted a so-called pooper-scooper law in 1997, a moment in local history I remember well, because I got…

Oh, no. The ice-driving season is about to come back to Dallas for its annual reign of terror. We’re all going to die. When I moved to Texas from Michigan about 100 years ago, the common wisdom was that people from the North knew how to drive on ice and…

Riddle: What does the city of Dallas have in common with Westchester County, New York? This is a hard one. They’re a county. We’re a city. They’re Yankees. We’re not. Their median home value is $559,800, according to the census. Ours is $128,800. Getting tired of this? OK, I’ll tell…

Wolf Blitzer of CNN takes on the Republican candidates tonight for the second foreign policy debate. This is the do-or-die moment for our homeboy: Either Rick Perry repairs his fortunes and escapes the back-bench or he’s toast. Perry’s people know that, so our governor is going to be all-in tonight,…

Excuse me. Pardon me. Sorry to bother you. Got a second? Hey, I’m not asking for money. I just need a favor. Do you know this guy, Frank Librio? Would you be able to get in touch with him for me? He’s the spokesman for the city of Dallas. Very…

Star-Telegram Washington bureau reporter Maria Recio has a story today asking various Texas politicos how much Governor Rick Perry has embarrassed the Lone Star State. The answers don’t vary a lot. If this were a story about fishing, some people would have their hands out about shoulder width apart and…

On November 10 I wrote a column for the paper about documents leaked to me from within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers indicating that the corps has no faith in repairs to the Trinity River levees being proposed by the City of Dallas. I can show the documents to…

Last week the city council shot down a six-lane bowling alley on Lower Greenville Avenue next to Good Records, denying zoning for a $1.5 million project there because activists told the council the bowling alley and attached bar would draw hordes of loud drunken outsiders to the neighborhood. Really? We…

Wait. The “occupy” part of Occupy may be over, but that’s not the story. The story is what the movement has accomplished already. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has evicted Occupy from Zuccotti Park. Our own mayor is making it plain that the Occupy Dallas camp behind City Hall is…

I wasn’t going to write about Penn State, because I’m some guy in Dallas and who cares what I think? But Dallas Morning News columnist Jacquielynn Floyd has written about it in today’s paper, so in my book that gives me permission. Most of the people writing interesting things about…

All right, class, today our lesson is: “Logical Wormholes and Semantic Corkscrews: Translating the Language of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Into More or Less Plain English, or, You Know, Spanish. Whatever. Language How People Talk.” But first an ironclad guarantee. This is not a homework assignment. There will…

I have a column in the paper this week about the Trinity River levees, and I had a please-respect-my-lawn thing here yesterday about plastic bottles and White Rock Creek. Even I didn’t get the connection between the two before the comments started rolling in from the idiot, free-market, libertarian, government-hating,…

Here is where this libertarian bullshit — the propaganda foisted on us by Koch-brothers, Harold-Simmons-style polluter robber barons — just makes suckers, fools and chumps out of us if we believe it. A story in today’s New York Times reports that the top national park system official killed a plan…