It’s possible that there exists, somewhere, a human being manlier than former Cowboy Darryl Johnston. Maybe some real-world version of the Old Spice guy. But Johnston, a legendary fullback with a square jaw, three Super Bowl rings and the uber-masculine nickname “Moose,” is certainly a close second. Johnston all but…
Congressman Steve Stockman represents what the evidence tells us is an especially crazy swath of Texas in the suburbs of Houston. There’s really no other way to explain why voting-age Americans could choose to send such an individual to Washington as their duly elected representative. Last month, it was the…
Early this morning, around 3:30 a.m., a 22-year-old SMU marketing student was returning to his apartment complex in the 5900 block of University Boulevard when, just inside the gate, he was approached by two women. They were both in their mid-20s, he said, had bleached blond hair, black shirts and…
The Mexican cartels, never ones to rest on their ingenuity, are always coming up with new and inventive ways to smuggle large quantities of drugs into the United States. Take the drug cannon, modeled on the T-shirt launching devices used at NBA games, or the brilliant drive-a-Jeep-over-a-border-fence gambit. Now, Wired…
The future of affirmative action in American universities could be decided within weeks, in a Supreme Court case with Texas roots. But a new report from the investigative journalists at ProPublica suggests that the story of Abigail Noel Fisher’s fight against the University of Texas ultimately has very little to…
It was way back in December 2011, in the wake of a seemingly endless series of public hearings and community meetings, that the Dallas City Council gave its blessing to the Sylvan Thirty development in West Dallas and Mayor Mike Rawlings gave the command: “Let’s let the dirt fly.” Finally,…
Austin’s plastic bag ban has been in effect for three weeks now, and the city has so far managed to avoid economic Armageddon. Austinites, it seems, are still able to buy groceries, go shopping, and order restaurant takeout. They just have to carry their purchases in reusable bags. It’s an…
Plans for the Trinity Forest Golf Course, the much-touted game-changer for southern Dallas, are taking shape as the project marches toward an expected groundbreaking this fall. All that remains, really, is figuring out how to pay for it. To get the city’s buy-in, not to mention the $12 million it’s…
The Electronic Communications Privacy Act was first passed in 1986, when the thought of storing an electronic message online for any length of time must have seemed absurd. So Congress, in its foresight, gave law enforcement incredibly easy access to emails older than 180 days old. No search warrant is…
Back in January, a grand jury declined to indict 19-year-old Ryan Romo, the former Highland Park High School student accused of rape by a younger classmate. The girl alleged that Romo raped her in the back seat of his car following an October Ghostland Observatory concert at the Palladium Ballroom…
Aurelius Capital Management, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund and perpetual pain-in-the-ass for distressed companies like Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, sued the massive utility in federal court Tuesday for $725 million. It claims Energy Future made some sweetheart intra-company loans even as it was technically insolvent. Aurelius, by the way, has a…
The Federal Trade Commission, among its other duties, is charged with enforcing what is known as the Fur Products Labeling Act. That law, passed by Congress in 1951, requires that fur garments be accurately labeled with the species of animal and country of origin so customers don’t get fooled by…
Speaking to reporters yesterday afternoon, Dallas Police Chief David Brown expressed confidence that the department had already solved the first of a string of three Lake Highlands rapes. The suspect was Fernando Munoz, 33, who police believed had broken into a Ferndale Road home in the early hours of February…
Texas’ Senate Health and Human Services committee approved another measure late yesterday straight out of the anti-abortion playbook: a bill that would require all medical facilities that perform abortions to meet the standards of an “ambulatory surgical center.” Opponents of the bill are calling it a “back-door abortion ban,” mostly…
As the U.S. men’s hockey team prepared to take the ice before its improbable win over the Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Olympics, head coach Herb Brooks said a few words. His speech, or, more accurately, a Hollywood writer’s imagining of it, was dramatized by Kurt Russell in the…
After leaving the Mavericks as the club’s all-time leading scorer, pre-Dirk of course, Rolando Blackman has bounced around a bit. He spent a couple of seasons with the Knicks and a couple more playing in Europe before finally retiring to the sidelines. Some of those sidelines were at the American…
Head over to Klyde Warren Park at noon today and you’ll be treated to a lunchtime piano recital. This evening, you can stop by for a zumba class, if that’s your thing. Tomorrow it’s a stroller boot camp and yoga, all in addition, of course, to the park’s myriad other…
A new bill introduced in the Texas Senate would allow counties to open their own holding centers for juvenile law-breakers. Teenage offenders are currently held in lockups operated by the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. Senate bill 511, authored by state Senator John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat, would give counties the…
Greg Abbott’s acting strangely. It wasn’t even two weeks ago that the Attorney General seemed to have given up his day job suing the Obama administration and just started trolling liberals full-time. But then, in a turn that was completely unexpected, Abbott was seized by an bout of reasonableness The…
Policymakers in Austin, having finally come to terms immensity of the state’s water challenges, are about to throw some serious cash at the issue. But the vast majority of this, more than 96 percent, is going toward building new reservoirs and pipelines. Trammell S. Crow, among others, has a problem…
Ghassan Hitto, the man elected early Tuesday morning to become the opposition Syrian National Coalition’s first prime minister, also happens to be a North Texan. The Damascus-born activist was educated in the United States, worked as director of operations at a Collin County telecom and, according to the dean of…
When a Lake Highlands woman was raped last month by an attacker who climbed through the window of her Ferndale Road home, it seemed like an aberration in a generally quiet and well-kept neighborhood. It seemed like somewhat less of a fluke when the same thing happened three weeks later…
