There's no science to this choice. This is as subjective as "Best of" gets. Here's the story: Many, many years ago, in a time known as "the '80s," there was an amazingly handsome young man who had a crush on the eighth-grade bad girl. She smoked, she had big, wild hair, she cussed a lot. And she liked to rock. She loved Kiss, Judas Priest, Ozzy, anything that qualified as metal-rock back in the day. She wore nothing but black concert T-shirts to school, and she always got backstage. She was also extremely smart, one of the top graduates at her high school who got a full scholarship to college. But she dropped out to become a DJ at the rock-and-roll radio station she grew up listening to. Years later, her secret crush, this handsome young man, would become a famously successful writer, so successful that he now writes "Best of" items for a weekly alternative newspaper. Is that bad little girl Cindy Scull, the whiskey-voiced DJ who spins hard rock from 3 to 7 p.m. every day and puts up shots of herself in bikinis on the Eagle's Web site? No. But she sounds just like her.

Here's yet another reason to feel guilty about not pledging, or not paying your pledge, to public radio. Glenn Mitchell's noon-to-2 p.m. show on Dallas' public radio station, KERA-FM, is not only wildly entertaining, dastardly informative and harpooningly to the point, it's the local intelligentsia's preferred manner of intercourse. It's conveniently scheduled as well, while we're mad-dashing around town at lunchtime trying to find any parking space on Commerce or Elm. Content of the show defies categorization or even adequate description, but Mitchell's first hour is usually programmed for audience call-in or e-mail participation with a celebrity, notable, topical or otherwise interesting guest in the Dallas studio. The second hour is often one-on-one interviews he conducts with authors, poets, politicos, historians and others with something to share. The variety of the guests and topics makes Mitchell's show the best; and we like the soft, Jimmy Stewart-like Everyman quality of his voice, too.

Readers' Pick

Kidd Kraddick

Back-alley cockfighting is deplorable. Good can come from it only if it's out in the open, broadcast even. And without using roosters. In fact, the best cockfights involve no cock at all. We prefer head-to-head combat between two new songs, instead of poultry, and each weeknight at 9, 102.1 the Edge provides that battle and right on our FM dial. Now hosted by Ayo (he took over for Josh Venable in August), the competition is decided by phone-in and e-mail votes from listeners. No throwing down crumpled fivers, no feathers flying. It's good, clean radio fun inspiring rabid debate among listeners. And no cocks are harmed on any of the broadcasts.

This is not a slight to Mitchell, who conducts sometimes-thoughtful, sometimes-whimsical on-air chats with a wide array of guests every weekday from noon to 1 p.m., but can we get a little competition here, please? This is such a no-brainer even we couldn't screw it up. Dallas-Fort Worth is such a barren wasteland for talk radio, we've actually had to start listening to music stations again. With the glaring exception of Mitchell, if it ain't sports talk, it's bad talk. (For proof, see KLIF-AM 570 or, if you must, KYNG-FM 105.3 "The Talk...that Rocks"...shudder.) Mitchell is a natural interviewer, curious but focused, a serious talent who doesn't take himself too seriously. It's the one hour in our day we feel there's hope for talk radio outside of the sports realm.

Public art in Dallas often falls prey to being overlooked or hard to find, which is why the city's newest addition is also the best. Sitting at the intersection of Young and Akard near City Hall, the Dallas Police Memorial is a breathtaking edifice that effortlessly blends Dallas' best assets--our reluctant postmodernist slant and ample sky. Forged of stainless steel, this deceptively simple yet elegant design features the badge numbers of fallen officers etched into its canopy, such that their shadows are cast on the ground during North Texas' many sun-filled days. We're hopeful that it represents the first step to beautify our city with works that intelligently and seamlessly complement Dallas, though the threat to litter the streets with Pegasus statues may stop that effort before it even begins.

We hope that KLIF's perpetually dismal ratings are a good sign people have grown tired of the elitist, moralistic, free-market-at-all-costs bullshit masquerading as anti-government populism that talk radio regularly spews out. And the brief reign of puny führer Tom Kamb, a self-described "homo" who pushed himself to ever-lower levels of provocation to presumably outdo his straight-boy colleagues, makes us positively giddy--mostly because Kamb's relentless race- and gay-baiting never succeeded in provoking anyone. He'd taken talk-show conservatism into the caricature it often threatens to become. He returned to San Francisco, reportedly because of a personal tragedy, although his low-even-by-KLIF-standards numbers gave him little impetus to grieve here. We say auf Wiedersehen to Kamb because, to paraphrase Molly Ivins, his rhetoric always sounded better in the original German.

Ask anyone in town for the name of the premier political consultant in Dallas and you'll get two names: Carol Reed and Rob Allyn. Since their offices are on separate floors of the same building on McKinney Avenue, and since they often find themselves in competition, you might assume that there's a war going on in the stairwell. Your assumption would prove false, at least most of the time.

We've all heard much about political consultants, but what do they actually do? "I consider myself a general contractor," Reed says. "I help design the blueprint and then take that blueprint and make sure that everything gets done on time and according to plan. I set the budget, hire the subcontractors and then make sure that they do their jobs well and according to budget.

"I may be the one who makes the trains run on time, but Rob's great gift is his ability to translate a plan into a message and then deliver that message in the most effective and motivating way."

The two may be competitors, but they often hire each other for big projects, and while their relationship stops well short of that of James Carville and Mary Matalin, there appears to be a genuine friendship behind the scheming, bare-knuckle intensity that attends big-time politics. There's also mutual respect, collegiality and, at times, just the faintest whiff of Oedipal drama between the one-time mentor and her former protégé.

"In politics, truth is always one of the alternatives," Allyn deadpans. "And one of the things that I admire most about Carol is that she tells the truth to her clients." Here's what Reed has to say about Allyn: "As gifted and creative a writer as Rob may be, his biggest strength is his focus, his ability to stay on message for his clients."

Most of these clients are Republicans, and the same can be said of most of Reed's clients as well. Two notable exceptions: Reed handled Democrat Ron Kirk's mayoral campaigns as well as his run for the U.S. Senate, while Allyn helped Laura Miller become and remain mayor, defeating Reed's client Tom Dunning in the race to complete Kirk's term. Allyn also helped the mayor best Mary Poss (not Reed's client) in the election for a full term in the nominally non-partisan office. Aside from these walks on the political wild side, the two consultants have, between them over the last 20 years, worked for virtually every major Republican office holder in the state, as well as the two Presidents Bush and President Reagan.

Reed and Allyn are now working together to help pass the bond issue that would move the Dallas Cowboys to Arlington, a campaign spearheaded by Allyn. "I fought as long and as hard as I could to bring the Cowboys to the Cotton Bowl," says Reed, a former president of Friends of Fair Park. "After we lost that fight, I decided that I might as well take the money." Both predictably but probably accurately express optimism that the bond issue will pass.

The Dallas Cowboys campaign is emblematic of the consultants' involvement with lucrative clients and causes that are political but only quasi-governmental in nature: bond issues. The two have worked together successfully on referendum campaigns for the American Airlines Center and DART. Reed's solo victories include the Trinity River project, the 2002 DISD bond campaign and many bond campaigns for Dallas County, while Allyn's résumé boasts of successful campaigns on behalf of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts and the Houston Metro.

One distinction between the two is that while Reed does business in other cities, her heart seems to be in Dallas, while Allyn casts a broader net, with offices in Austin, Phoenix and Mexico City. Allyn's international clients have included Mexican President Vicente Fox and Prime Minister Perry Christie of the Bahamas, as well as political parties and causes in Asia and the Middle East. Reed, on the other hand, has been extremely active in Dallas civic affairs, serving, among many other offices, as chair of the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau, president of the Dallas Rotary Club and on more than two dozen civic and charitable boards.

"A genuine difference between us is that while I certainly do work outside of Dallas, my community involvement keeps me focused here, while Rob actively seeks more national and international projects," Reed says.

Allyn, who sold his company in 2002 to Fleishman-Hillard, a public relations firm with offices in more than 100 countries, agrees. "We've always treated politics like a business," he says. "By definition, this approach also works for corporate clients. Our new affiliation gives us leverage and support to pursue business all over the world."

Meanwhile and for both, as long as there are elections, they plan to plan them.

"Corporate clients offer a challenge and pay the bills, but once politics is in your blood it remains your passion," Reed says. "You can go to rehab, but you're hooked forever."

Burns is everything we want in a biz-columnist: concise, easy to understand, helpful to the average Joe and Jane living paycheck to paycheck as well as the CEO. Burns doesnt care about trying to make you comprehend how the GNP affects the Whatzis Dow and Whozis Index of Parameters; he just wants to tell you the best way to save your money. As journalists, we need all the help we can get, and we suspect you do, too.

A little folksy, occasionally philosophical and always entertaining, Caussey is one of Dallas journalism's best-kept secrets. Schoolteacher by day, his column appears weekly and earned him an invitation to the annual Dallas Press Club Katie Awards banquet a couple of years back. Now he's even syndicated in several other small Texas papers. His column alone is worth a subscription.

There is a formula to writing for publications, and each one is unique. If you want to write for D Magazine, sound breezy and scolding at the same time. ("North Dallas' courage is apparent in the winning smiles of Highland Village shoppers whose Saturday-afternoon purchases prove wrong the liberal naysayers on the City Council.") If you want to write for the Dallas Observer, learn the art of the dramatic one-sentence ender. ("James thought the good times would go on forever, his power and wealth and fame accruing year after year, until the heavens opened and he ascended to his rightful place as king of all he surveyed. [New paragraph.] He could not have been more wrong.") And if you want to write for The Dallas Morning News, learn how to combine a random lead anecdote with a forced transition in fewer than 25 words. This is most apparent in sports stories ("For luck, Dirk Nowitzki always wears three pairs of socks during games. Against the Chicago Bulls, three was indeed his lucky number."), but you can find it in any section ("Mayor Ron Kirk says he likes to swim. But yesterday, he recoiled after sticking his toe in political hot water."). Finding good writers, then, means finding the ones who buck the trend, who avoid clichés like the plague, who sound not like their publication but like themselves. Beatriz Terrazas, the photographer-turned-feature writer at the News, is perhaps the best writer the paper has ever employed. She writes in pictures, creating stark images that linger and affect. For proof, you need look no further than her story "The Voice of Memory," from June 11, 2000. It's still one of the most moving essays we've ever read in that newspaper. For a more recent example, last month's story on Esther and Leoncio Puentes and how they helped redefine their northwest Dallas neighborhood was wonderful, the sort of simple, touching tale the paper too often fails to bring to life. No such problem for Terrazas, though.