Chesapeake Energy and Rolling Stone writer Jeff Goodell are battling over his March feature. The abridged version of the lengthy piece, unpacked further by Brantley, goes like this: Drilling appears to be a Ponzi scheme with Chesapeake’s founder, Aubrey McClendon, as its leader. Neither McClendon nor Goodell are the type…
Back in January, Robert watched as the DISD board, which has the amazing skill of stretching out any conversation to 10 times its natural length, debated the qualities they’d like to see in a new superintendent. Last night, Resource Center Dallas CEO Cece Cox sent the board an open letter,…
The Mavericks currently live in the murky cloud that makes up the bulk of the Western Conference: Their credentials are decidedly less than those of the conference-leading Oklahoma City Thunder, but beyond that their prospects remain a mystery. We know now that Dallas is a good team – as evidenced…
A senator from New Mexico has proposed a bill that could change the face of Texas electric generation. And it has another interesting side-effect: It could reinvigorate a shale gas play depressed by tanking prices. U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman, chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, envisions a…
On February 2, 2011, the lights in the operating rooms of Dallas’ chief trauma center flickered briefly as diesel generators began to drone. Elective surgeries — even emergency transfers from other hospitals — were halted until further notice. All nonessential operations went dark. The walk-in clinics, even certain hallways, were…
It was a hold-up. If any of Tim Moore’s 16 coworkers at Oshman’s Sporting Goods in Irving made a wrong move on Christmas Eve of 2000, someone would die. The group of men posing as ADT security personnel ordered employees to line up with their hands on the counter. They…
A picture is worth 6,700 words. If you look around on our home page, you’ll find “Blackout Blues,” a story by Brantley Hargrove about North Texas’ biggest electricity company, the EPA, money and lies. It’s a good read. The gist of the story is simple: We’re screwed. How screwed? Well,…
The Dallas Police Department’s downtown patrol is about to get a whole lot more, well, motorized. That much we can safely say. DPD announced yesterday that 7-Eleven was donating four new T3’s to the department, bringing the total to eight. They were so excited about the whole thing that we…
If you’ve been hiding under an especially sturdy and soundproof rock for the past month, perhaps you missed out on the increasingly bitter national debate over contraception coverage. Lucky for you, U.S. Representative Ralph Hall has taken a break from doubting global warming and talking about how incredibly safe fracking…
The protests outside Tommy Pak’s Diamond Shamrock Kwik Stop in South Dallas have dwindled, but the battle pitting black activists against the Korean store owner continues online at the Don’t Stop Don’t Shop Facebook page. There are still promises to continue the fight to shut down Pak’s store, there are…
Make no mistake: The achievement gap is still a seemingly uncrossable gorge, and minority students in Dallas and across the country are still pretty much hosed. But in a few key areas at least, black and Latino students are slightly less hosed here than they are in other large, urban…
It was about four seconds after I arrived at the American Airlines Center last night that I saw my first Jeremy Lin jersey, on an Asian reporter in the media parking lot. A journalistic sin, sure, but one you’ve gotta let slide on Jeremy Lin Appreciation Night. Mavericks games on…
Texas’s pasture-desiccating, road-warping devil heat last summer has earned a spot alongside hot spells in Moscow (2010) and France (2003) as one of the wild outliers of a climate pushed to extremes. A study from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Columbia Earth Institute say global warming…
The city stopped dancing around how to handle Municipal Judge Phyllis Lister Brown’s employment and sent her a clear message on Friday: It’s over. The city stopped paying her and denied her access to her computer and her office, effectively ending her employment because she filed her candidacy for the…
This definitely is navel-gazing, but screw it. This deserves it. You guys deserve it. Plus, it will help these folks sleep. First off: We’re gonna miss the hell out of Robert, both personally and professionally. He is as unique a spirit as I’ve ever met, let alone worked with, and…
Tests reveal that substances sold as MDMA (Ecstasy) frequently contain methamphetamine, caffeine, or other stimulant compounds
I thought for a moment about making the item just below this one my Unfair Park farewell — just a few drops of pigs blood, then adios. But, no, not when I’ve been saving this: Radiohead at the Music Hall at Fair Park on March 29, 1998. For those who…
Speaking of the council’s Wednesday briefing and sewers and so forth …There are a few things council will actually vote mid-week, seeing as how they’re on spring break next week. Among ’em: a resolution tsk-tsk’ing the Columbia Packing Company in Oak Cliff, infamous for having been caught turning the Trinity…
And I was so looking forward to this Wednesday council briefing: Overview of Floodplain Management and Drainage Needs in the City of Dallas. Oh, well; guess it’s all Jim’s now. After all, he certainly knows a thing or two about a thing or two when it comes to gettin’ in…
A company that supplies electricity to Texans called American Electric Power filed to renew its application to export electricity to Mexico with the U.S. Department of Energy back in December. It operates a 720-megawatt coal-fired power plant near Vernon, and apparently it has been supplying our southern neighbor with electricity…
One month ago, City Manager Mary Suhm warned the city council: It’s early, very early, but it’s looking like the city could be short anywhere from $49 million to $87 million when it comes to putting together the FY2012-13 budget. And one month before that, Suhm warned the city council:…
Mighty kind of Dallas City Hall to offer all these briefings wrapping up a few loose ends before I get up outta here. First Sylvan Thirty, then the old Dallas High School, then the Cotton Bowl, and now Old Dallas City Hall, which one day should become the University of…
