We began this holiday tradition three years ago: auctioning off a hard-to-get-hold-of local trinket, with every last cent made going toward the North Texas Food Bank. This year’s offering is a particularly special one — a collection of offerings from the Texas Theatre, graciously and generously donated by Adam Donaghey,…
On the first day of Hanukkah (that is to say, Tuesday) my city gave to me its response to the federally filed lawsuit in which the National Solid Wastes Management Association insists the city’s new ordinance driving all trash to the McCommas Bluff Landfill is “extraordinarily anti-free-enterprise.” Catchy, no? And,…
When I told someone I was off to a screening of We Bought a Zoo the other day, the response was an eye-roll. The reaction is understandable: Save for two music docs — an Elton John-Leon Russell album making-of and that Pearl Jam anniversary infomercial — Cameron Crowe has been…
Janet Mefferd hosts a radio show on The Word, which sits at 100.7 on your FM dial. Per her program’s description, she “takes a Christ-centered look at the news and events of the day,” and on this day that includes former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, who, of course, is vying…
Speaking of local sports venues …A Friend of Unfair Park sends this dispatch concerning FC Dallas’s Pizza Hut Park in Frisco, which will no longer be called Pizza Hut Park. Leigh Anne Gullett, director of public relations for the MLS franchise, confirms: After North Dakota State and Sam Houston State…
Were this a normal Wednesday, we’d be a couple of hours into a thrilling city council meeting, at which there’d be, oh, 20 or 30 people in the audience, a few just to get warm. But as we noted yesterday, this is not a normal Wednesday: Any moment now Khloe…
It’s possible we’re not yet done with issues concerning the city of Dallas’s new council-districts map. Lawsuits, after all, have been threatened by Hispanic leaders demanding five majority Latino districts. But some two weeks after several city officials went to D.C. to visit with Department of Justice officials about the…
Speaking of the Texas League, or, at least, teams once affiliated with the mighty Texas League …The Star-Telegram notes today that come January 3, LaGrave Field and the land around the Fort Worth Cats’ ballpark — valuable land too, as it sits between downtown and the Fort Worth Stockyards –…
Late yesterday, friend of the show and Observer contributor Dylan Hollingsworth posted to Facebook the photo you see above; a second followed a little later, and it’s after the jump. He offered no explanation for either, only a title: “Oh, Christmas Tree.” And the date: December 2011.But the site of…
StateImpact Texas is a National Public Radio-KUT Austin-KUHF Houston joint dedicated to environmental issues. This morning, reporter Dave Fehling out of Houston looked at the water coming out of his tap and wondered: Where’s it coming from? The answer: “It’s the roar of many showers and toilets using water in…
Several Friends of Unfair Park have chimed in with the results of Travel+ Leisure’s Top New Landmarks readers’ poll. And while we’re no doubt just one year away from making the Top New Bridges list … sorry, Schutze is saying, “No.” Anyway. Like I was saying, while we’re no doubt…
Ten months ago, Mark Cuban dismissed Bob Ortegel as the Dallas Mavericks’ color commentator, insisting, “Sometimes you’ve just got to freshen things up and try some different things.” Ortegel, who had more or less been the voice of the team for the past 23 years, handled his firing with great…
Whilst perusing the eBay for some gifts on this here first day of Hanukkah, I came across the portrait you see above — significant for two reasons, I should think. First, of course, is the subject: Dick Burnett, for whom the late, great Burnett Field was named. As I’ve noted,…
You wanna talk about a living Dallas City Hall Plaza, dig this: Several Friends of Unfair Park have dispatched this item from the blog of one Khloe Kardashian, now a Dallas resident courtesy her husband’s trade to the Mavericks. And, yes, city officials confirm: Kardashian will indeed be holding a…
I seem to recall there was some discussion in October about West Dallasites famous enough to include in that parade of giant puppets scheduled to march across the Margaret Hunt Hill during opening-weekend festivities planned for early March — ah, yes, there it is. So happens the West Dallas Chamber…
Earlier this month we noted that the city hopes to use $13 million in federal funds to turn 70 acres at Walnut Hill and Skillman into, you know, the Lake Highlands Town Center, where ground was broken way back in November 2007. Behold: On the city’s website you’ll find a…
If, by some chance, you have not seen Dale Hansen’s annual “Thank God for Kids” segment that aired last on Channel 8, it’s above. It began making the rounds early this morning, in large part because of what Hansen acknowledged a few minutes into his essay about how children who…
This morning, a Friend of Unfair Park sent me this press release, which, on the surface at least, appears to reveal the mystery behind that real estate deal known only as “Project Wall-E” the council chatted about behind closed doors two months ago. The release is a bit inscrutable but…
Like I said one long month ago, the kick-off to CityLights 2011 was quite the spectacular-spectacular — though till I saw the freshly minted video above, I had no idea how spectacular. (Like, Vegas spectacular — like everything else of late in this town.) We arrived shortly after Santa zipped…
The real reason I wanted to talk to Dallas Independent School District board president Lew Blackburn last week was about the district’s search for a superintendent — specifically, why it’s expected to take so long and why the district appears to be behind its own schedule. Because according to a…
I got the word late Friday: the long-disputed Jose “Joe” May Elementary School, which the Dallas Independent School District had planned to build on Webb Chapel between Royal and Walnut Hill as part of its 2008 bond program, is dead. Far as the neighbors are concerned, it’s an early Christmas…
Colleen McCain Nelson’s doing her part to keep South Dallas clean, going so far as to take Mayor Mike out to an illegal trash dump and getting him to call it in after 10 days’ worth of morning-paper tsk-tsks couldn’t get the jobs done. To which Dallas City Hall says:…
