On Friday, the Dallas Independent School District unveiled its line-up for the first-ever Citizens Budget Review Commission, a trustee-appointed group charged with helping the school district find ways to cut the budget — without, it would appear, trimming teachers. Channel 11 was on the scene for last night’s first meeting…
A few weeks ago, Leobardo Trevino — the man who bought the Statler Hilton and the adjacent library — led Sam and me on a tour of the Statler. I’d also wanted to see the library, which opened in ’55 and shuttered in ’83, never to be used again; at…
Sorry, Jack, but Mayor Dwaine Caraway did not appear on last night’s CBS Evening News With Katie Couric, which, as advertised, did indeed run an “Assignment America” story about Dallas’s deep ties to earthquake- and tsunami-ravaged Sendai, one of our International Friendship Cities. Instead, the piece was about Mark Berry’s…
Sure Sign No. 4,928 that a celebrity’s “breakdown” is a bit: He interrupts a celebrity guest’s late-night chat-show appearance to shine the spotlight on himself for a while by acting “crazy” while simultaneously hawking an entire catalog’s worth of product and upcoming appearances on the concert-tour circuit. Which is what…
Pete and Nick did a bang-up job covering South by Southwest’s music fest over on DC9 at Night. But Friend of Unfair Park Big Jon Daniel directs our attention to this holy-effing-ess moment: Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears’ Friday-afternoon lunchtime treat at the Austin Convention Center featuring none other…
If nothing else, Mayor Dwaine Caraway’s letters to and from Sendai following the earthquake and tsunami served to remind us of the long, deep connection shared between the International Friendship Cities. So too does a video posted on the other side that comes from the Dallas Independent School District, which…
At this very moment, President Obama’s chief of staff, William Daley, is looking for someone to replace Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, who Obama tapped on March 9 to become the next ambassador to China. An afternoon Wall Street Journal item reminds: “Ron Kirk, the U.S. trade representative, is widely considered…
I went over to The Hilltop’s website this afternoon to look for something unrelated and espied this announcement: “SMU announces the newest inductees into its Athletics Hall of Fame.” At the top of the pops: running back Craig James of the Pony ExcessExpress. No word whether his former agent, Sherwood…
Dallas Area Rapid Transit sends word today: The old Monroe Shops building, near the Blue Line’s Illinois Station on Corinth Road, was officially rebirthed today as the DART police department’s HQ after close to 20 years on the drawing board. For preservationists, this qualifies as Big News: It was originally…
Since last week’s piece in The News about David Kunkle, Ron Natinsky and Mike Rawlings’s thoughts on the Trinity River toll road is behind the pay levee, allow me to summarize: Natinsky’s still very much for it; Kunkle’s ain’t at all interested, and Rawlings is taking the ol’ wait-n-see. But,…
Over the weekend news broke that Doug Havard is back in the country — nine years after the former SMU student was arrested on charges of counterfeiting, selling GHB and armed robbery, but bullet points on a longer laundry list of crimes of which he’s been accused. Havard was extradited…
It’s been a year, more or less, since we last heard Tim Headington talk about his plans to expand The Joule in downtown, which began with his purchase of five properties along Main and Commerce in September 2009. And since we haven’t heard much more since May, when the hotel…
Since he quit being nonpartisan mayor to run as a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Tom Leppert has certainly made his politics very clear: He’s for drilling in the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge and a balanced-budget amendment, and against National Public Radio and gay marriage and cap-and-trade. Brian Bolduc, a…
Woke up this morning to find in the in-box a series of photos Danny Hurley took yesterday at the Crowne Plaza North Dallas on Midway, site of this weekend’s Dallas All-Con, which wraps this evening for those still in need of weekend plans. Though it doesn’t draw the guest list…
Aaron “T-Bone” Walker died 36 years ago, almost to the day; the 7-year-old who lives in my house notified me of this over breakfast Wednesday as he read from the this-day-in-history section of the morning paper. He asked, “Who was T-Bone Walker?” I gave him the short answer: the greatest…
For those who do not recall the name Jesse William McGraw, a brief refresher: He’s the 26-year-old Arlington man Formerly Known as GhostExodus of the Electronik Tribulation Army who was arrested in June 2009 for hacking into 14 computers at the W.B. Carrell Memorial Clinic on N. Central Expressway, where…
Once or twice a week for the past couple of months, an e-mail will pop up in the in-box about a proposal to put a gas station and convenience store in the Lowe’s parking lot on Inwood Road just off of Forest Lane. It’s no small development, either: According to…
Yesterday, a Friend of Unfair Park wondered if there were any gigs available on Good Christian Bitches (which is now set to feature this JAG) or Dallas’s pilots, both of which are set to start shooting here in coming weeks — the former in early April now; the latter, late…
Two weeks back we noted that at least one person had already been appointed to the Dallas Independent School District’s first-ever Citizens Budget Review Commission: Dallas Friends of Public Education’s Mike MacNaughton. The commission, made up of trustee appointees, was a board brainstorm in an effort to find fresh eyes…
Forthcoming in moments, Sam’s recap of this morning’s ballot-place-picking procedure at Dallas City Hall. But two days ago we listened in as the four candidates for Dallas mayor — Mike Rawlings and David Kunkle especially — debated the root cause of domestic violence at the North Texas Food Bank’s forum…
Apparently, Charlie Sheen’s not going anywhere. Matter of fact, according to The Hollywood Reporter, he’s coming to Dallas on April 27 at part of his Charlie Sheen’s Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat Is Not an Option tour — tickets for which go on sale tomorrow at 10 a.m., says Ticketmaster. And…
At the end of last month, Patrick Michels was at City Hall for that Complete Streets-Bike Plan-Better Block jam session, where Jason Roberts and Andrew Howard were greeted with “great acclaim” by council members no doubt eager to implement and then claim the pair’s restorative ideas as their own. But…
