End of the day Friday I posted that photo of the enormous Santa Claus sitting atop Porter Chevrolet, taken some time in December 1953 and for sale, for one more day, on eBay. It was, I thought at the time, a curiously forgotten image of Dallas Christmas past; my father,…
Andrea — and, from the sound of it, every other DFW media member in need of a midweek field trip to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport — is out on the tarmac at this very moment awaiting a chitchat with Richard Branson upon Virgin America’s DFW debut today. The wingding at…
Via Gawker, this ghoulish gift suggestion (?): Lee Harvey Oswald’s Original Pine Coffin, currently up for grabs courtesy the Los Angeles auction house Nate D. Sanders, Inc. This is the pine box in which Oswald was buried on November 25, 1963, at the Shannon Rose Hill Funeral Chapel & Cemetery…
You have some four hours left to submit your proposal to run the Dallas Farmers Market. Might as well — there’s not a lot of competition. I spoke with Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm last night, and despite the fact the deadline’s been extended several times, there may be but…
At least, that’s what the Brookings Institution says in its 52-page report Global Metro Monitor: The Path to Economic Recovery, which took a long, hard look at “data on economic output and employment in 150 of the world’s largest metropolitan economies, located in 53 countries, from 1993 to 2010.” The…
Right there, on the front page of Charley Pride’s website, is the old, old news that “Charley Pride Film Expected to Shoot in 2009/10.” But it’s almost 2011, and that piece dates back to October 4, 2006, when Craig Brewer — maker of Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan…
Back in July, the London-based owner of The Metropolitan on Main Street auctioned off 35 condos in the one-time downtown office tower, rehabbed a few years back at the cost of $50 millionish. Fifty-five more went on the auction block only weeks ago. In two weeks, it’s time to sell…
The Department of Defense today released its 247-page Report of the Comprehensive Review of the Issues Associated with a Repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which you can read in its entirety here should you have the spare time. But long story short, says the report, there’s a “widespread attitude…
This morning we received this photo and the accompanying press release, which announced: “Godless Ads Go on Ft. Worth Buses December 1.” That’s per the Dallas-Fort Worth Coalition of Reason, which says the campaign is “designed to raise awareness about people who don’t believe in a god.” Maybe you’ll recognize…
I’ve been listening to Mark Elfenbein longer than I care to remember, dating way back to his days as a Bottle Rocket on KERA-FM (90.1) with co-host Steve Shapiro. For the last 17 years, of course, he’s been a Sunday-morning staple on The Ticket and co-hosts the Dallas Mavericks post-game…
This just in from Parkland: Bank of America Charitable Foundation is contributing $1 million toward the $1.27-billion new Parkland Hospital, which held its groundbreaking, oh, about a month ago. Which is nice, but it reminds me: Yesterday the mailman delivered the Winter 2010 issue of Columns, AIA Dallas’s quarterly arts-and-architecture…
Two weeks ago today, state Rep. Leo Berman of Tyler filed H.B. 295, which says: “The secretary of state may not certify the name of a candidate for president or vice-president unless the candidate has presented the candidate’s original birth certificate indicating that the person is a natural-born United States…
Patrick Michels, seizing any opportunity to get out of the office, is heading to Fair Park at 2 p.m. for some mayoral announcement in advance of Saturday’s throwing of the Fair Park Holiday in advance of Sunday’s running of the Metro PCS Dallas White Rock Marathon (got that?). Which isn’t…
No doubt you’ve heard about the shooting last night at a Pleasant Grove apartment complex that left one Dallas Police officer and a bystander wounded and the gunman, Kenneth Horton, dead. Moments ago, the DPD sent along this statement from Dallas Police Chief David Brown: Last night Dallas officers responded…
While we await some return phone calls, this recommendation: Over the weekend I took the 7-year-old who lives in my house to the downtown Neimans so he could crawl through its so-called “Big Encounters of the Little Kind” holiday window display — more or less a blown-out version of last…
Back in February 2009, then-Observer-er Alexa Schirtzinger wrote about how General Electric was burying millions of cubic yards of Hudson River carcinogens out at the West Texas dumping ground owned by Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, the wizard behind Waste Control Specialists. Which I was reminded of this afternoon when I…
Last week, just as city officials were heading out the door for their extended, city manager-ordered vacation, Assistant City Attorney Charles Estee filed The City’s Official Response to that suit contesting the vote that paved the way for the off-premise sale of beer and wine citywide. It’s brief — but…
Got a most curious e-mail over the weekend from a publicist wanting to invite the Unfair Park-ers to a press preview on December 11, when “former Starck Club reopens as Zouk.” Say wha? But, sure enough: Zouk has a website (ish) and Facebook page (announcing a Friday-night “sneak preview,” matter…
Last week we noted: Tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. at Dallas Independent School District HQ, the school board’s set to hear how the public feels about extending trustees’ terms from three to four years. You got something to say on the subject, now’s the time to sign up — deadline’s 5…
So report both AOL FanHouse and the New York Daily News this morning, in advance of what’s expected to be a 1 p.m. press conference here. The undefeated No. 3 Horned Frogs, of course, are the team on the outside looking in at the BCS standings; right now, everything’s coming…
Bobbie Wygant reviews The Empire Strikes Back from Atombomb.tv on Vimeo.I went to The Bobbie Wygant Archive first thing this morning hoping to find an interview with the now-late, great Leslie Nielsen; no such luck, sadly. At which point news broke that Irvin Kershner had died — and right there,…
Patrick Michels has been all over XTO Energy’s efforts to sink some gas drills in and around Dallas, a piece of which may or may not wind up on the council’s year-ending agenda on December 8 following the City Plan Commission’s decision last month to deny the wastewater-spilling Exxon subsidiary…
