The Giving Tree: Dallas Urban Forest Chair Gets Bush Volunteer Award

Steve Houser’s the chair of the Dallas Urban Forest Advisory Committee, as well as the founder and former president of the Dallas Historic Tree Coalition, which is “a local citizens’ group advocating protection and preservation of irreplaceable trees in urban landscapes.” In other words, the dude’s a tree-hugger — as…

News Publishes DISD’s RIF List

Brandon Thibodeaux Kent Fischer at The Dallas Morning News writes that late yesterday, he received “a copy of a document titled ‘RIF worksheet’ dated 10/14 at 8 a.m.” The district, of course, was to begin its layoffs today, but pushed back the so-called reduction in workforce till tomorrow — creating…

A Fountain of Genius

Ben Fountain First Texas Monthly calls him the next big thing, and now the New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell (of Blink and Tipping Point fame) is calling Best of Dallas novelist Ben Fountain a new kind of genius. Some geniuses are born more or less fully formed, Gladwell writes, and others,…

Toasting Dallas’s Wine Curmudgeon

Scattered among the local news and notes found on The Advocate’s blog, you’ll also find Jeff Siegel’s wine reviews — like, from today, this item about the Domain du Tariquet Côtes de Gascogne 2007. But Jeff’s true affections lie with the more locally grown flavors of vino, as evidenced by…

In Newsweek, a Dallas Teacher Explains Why She Loves Her Profession

On the eve of Dallas Independent School District’s 460 teacher layoffs, delayed till tomorrow, the latest issue of Newsweek features an essay by Dallas teacher Heather Robinson, who proclaims, “I Am Not A Babysitter.” Below is a highlight among many from a teacher who clearly likes her gig, which was…

The Road to Broad Runs Through Texas, Just Not the Dallas ISD

Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa’s been very clear about this one thing: He desperately wants the district to win The Broad Prize for Urban Education, given out annually “to honor urban school districts making the greatest overall improvement in student achievement while at the same time reducing achievement…

Today, Mayor Tom to Deal With Downtown’s Empty Buildings

View Larger Map Two weeks ago, we posted to Unfair Park a list of some three dozen vacant buildings downtown, as identified by city economic development staffers. Mayor Tom Leppert told us in mid-September he was going to use every means available — including City Attorney Tom Perkins — to…

Bingo Gossip, or: Why Your Nana Is the Future of Journalism

In case you missed it this a.m., David Flick had a piece in The News about Bingo Gossip and Missy Mouser, the 26-year-old one-woman show running the pub that caters to the 80-and-up crowd for whom the phrase “ball lifter” refers to “the mechanism used to raise the ball from…