There is no question that Al Lipscomb was ethically challenged. When Wilonsky called me Saturday to tell me Lipscomb had died, I remembered a story the Reverend Peter Johnson told me years ago. Johnson, who had campaigned across the Old South with Martin Luther King Jr., came to Dallas afterward…

I’m sure at some moment in history, all of the people who had insisted the earth was flat went very quiet. After some centuries of debate, burnings at the stake and loud dinner-table arguments, the jury was in. Everybody knew it was round. The exponents of flat were suddenly extremely…

Two things I could have done to make my dad really happy with me would have been to become religious and to care about baseball. I failed him in both. Let’s not talk about the religion thing and say we did. But professional sports: I can’t even tell you why…

Think of it this way. It’s Saturday morning. You could sleep some more. Oh, wait, you’re awake. That’s why you’re lying here thinking. So you need something to do. You could go to NorthPark Center and buy a monogrammed mother-of-pearl hairbrush that’s also an antique music box that plays “God…

I’m doing an informal poll. Is there anyone left out there who gives a rat’s ass what former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert did or did not say about the safety of the Trinity River toll road project? Wait. Wait. I’m looking. I’ve got my binoculars on. A-ha! I do spy…

If you want to know how Dallas winds up with crazy stuff that no normal citizen in his or her right mind would ever approve, take a good long look at the North Texas Tollway Authority, a $420 million-a-year fiefdom run by a bunch of mopes nobody has ever heard…

Oh, no, this can’t be. The plan to bring together all of the city’s disparate and independent small arts organizations under a central government ministry in the new “arts district” has hit a snag. According to a recent story in The Dallas Morning News, the independent arts organizations are failing…

Before we put the Trinity River toll road story down for another much-needed nap, we have two very important items of laundry to attend to. One is called Tom Leppert. The other is named Mike Rawlings. First, did former Dallas mayor Tom Leppert, now a candidate for the U.S. Senate,…

Oh, well, who the hell knows? Who will ever know why The Dallas Morning News turned into an Iron Curtain-style propagandist Pravda sheet in 2007 when it was so eager to see Angela Hunt’s Trinity River referendum defeated? Now they say they were seduced: “This newspaper — and likely plenty…

Let’s talk about sincerity. It’s awfully easy to take a certain position on an issue and be sincere about it when that position happens to coincide with the interests of your boss. We speak here of The Dallas Morning News editorial page and its campaign against scrap yards near mainly…

Went to NorthPark Center in fancy North Dallas a few afternoons ago. Don’t go often. Already have all the monogrammed Kleenex I need. But let me ask you something. What is it with the triple baby carts? You know I’m not making this up. You’ve seen it. There are people…

The only real obscenity in this whole business about Congressman Anthony Weiner is the idea that his sex life is a public issue. He’s not George Alan Rekers, the Baptist minister who made his own sex life an issue by campaigning against gay sex and then taking a male prostitute…

Michael Lindenberger had a great piece in The Dallas Morning News yesterday about public distortions of fact by former mayor Tom Leppert and backers of the Trinity Toll Road like the Trinity Commons Foundation before the 2007 toll road alignment referendum. The main thing the story got across was that…

Not sure what’s going on in the trial of Charles Payne, 29, accused of murdering of Dallas Police Senior Corporal Norm Smith during a botched attempt to serve a warrant at Payne’s east Oak Cliff in January 2009, but it looks like somebody on the prosecution side is worried. Alex…

My poor son is the child of two writers. When he was still preadolescent, his mother wrote something about him for a newspaper or magazine article, I forget which. His teacher saw it and showed it to the class. He came home and said to us in a very grave…

People all over America should watch the special session of the Texas Legislature, just now beginning, if they want to see what Republicans are really up to. Among other things, they’re out to kill Medicare and Medicaid. The regular session was stymied at the last minute when Democratic state Senator…

Thank the Lord every once in a while the American political system churns out a Wendy Davis, the 48-year-old Senate freshman from Fort Worth who filibustered Rick Perry’s legislative session to a soggy grave in the wee small hours of Monday night. The Perrypublican fury over Davis’ act isn’t merely…

On May 12 I wrote a column quoting Dallas City Attorney Tom Perkins on why he had decided to write a proposed new ethics law for the city council. The new law he wrote was adopted unanimously by the council. It greatly relaxed restrictions on how soon after a city…

For the elite few among you allowed entrance to The Dallas Morning News behind-the-pay-wall pages, I recommend a piece in today’s paper by Roy Appleton about Oak Cliff. He quotes neighborhood activist Jason Roberts, pushing for bike lanes and stuff, as saying North Oak Cliff really isn’t asking for big…