As we mentioned in March 2007, two days before Michael Cain’s Sundance Film Festival award-winning documentary TV Junkie made its debut on HBO, Tammie Kirkham filed a temporary restraining order to keep the doc off the network. The documentary, as you may recall, was compiled from nearly 3,000 hours of…
Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd’s big-league career ended, where else, in Arlington. About halfway through 1991 season, the Texas Rangers acquired the pitcher from the Montreal Expos — only to see the righty go 2-7 in 12 starts and toss out a 6.68 ERA, highest in his career. After that, he…
This recently shot mid-week palate-cleanser comes courtesy Trey Ratcliff at Stuck in Customs, who also offers a poster-sized version of Your Downtown Dallas skyline. Pardon me while I stare at it for an hour…
Yesterday afternoon, the council’s Trinity River Corridor Project Committee learned about the inner workings of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from their newly appointed liaison, Kevin Craig. Described by Assistant City Manager Jill Jordan as the No. 2 civilian at the corps’ district office in Fort Worth, Craig previously…
Dallas is now home of the Twinkie. Interstate Bakeries Corporation, the Wonder Bread and Hostess host that had been in Chapter 11 since September 2004, is no longer in bankruptcy — or, for that matter, its longtime home of Kansas City, where IBC started baking in 1930. It’s moving its…
After almost two months of squirming in relative silence and anonymity, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones poked his head out, saw his shadow, freaked out and decided to give votes of confidence to has-beens George Strait and Terrell Owens and then, just for fun, strip from his head coach the remaining smidge…
We’ve been hearing for some time that the Citizens Against the Taxpayer-Owned Hotel would be seeking a temporary restraining order sooner than later to keep the city from proceeding with the convention center hotel without a proper vote. Turns out, sooner was yesterday: Citizens Against the Taxpayer Owned Hotel, et…
The city council’s Economic Development Committee spent most of the morning in executive session discussing an operator agreement with Omni Hotels and a developer agreement with Matthews Southwest for the convention center hotel, emerging shortly after 11:30 to recommend a full council vote on both during tomorrow’s briefing. The developer…
Few weeks back, we directed you to an online survey Dallas City Council candidate Ann Margolin was taking as she vies for Mitchell Rasansky’s District 13 seat at the horseshoe. Well, the results are in, and Margolin writes in a mass e-mail sent to her would-be constituency today that the…
Comes this 11-minute film courtesy the North Central Texas Council of Governments and the North Texas Grease Abatement Council (band name alert!) concerning the proper disposal of fats, oils and grease. Highly recommended. Poor, poor Chad…
Mission Accomplished Impossible. In honor of February’s Black History Month, I set out to pinpoint a pristine list of the world’s all-time greatest black athletes. But using what criteria? Sheer athleticism? Popularity? Accomplishment? Social activism? Transcendence? All of the above? Nothing of the sort? The task, in and of itself, is as absurd as…
Various news accounts in recent days have portrayed fifth-generation Texan Robert Allen Stanford, whose Stanford Financial Group is based in Houston, as the second coming of Bernie Madoff. Which is why the Securities and Exchange Commission today filed this complaint against Stanford in Dallas federal court, alleging “massive, ongoing fraud.”…
Merten, my favorite Hobbit, is spending his morning at the city council’s Trinity River Corridor Project Committee meeting just under way — lucky! And among the topics of conversation we haven’t already covered is the 450-foot-long Belleview Pedestrian Connector, which is supposed to connect the Cedars DART Station “with a…
In January 2008, Matt Pulle profiled Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Sharon Keller, the former Dallas County prosecutor and hamburger heiress who attracted national attention in September 2007 when she closed up shop and went home promptly at 5 p.m. even as condemned inmate Michael Richard’s attorneys were on…
Dallas school board trustee Ron Price made it official at 3:44 p.m. on January 30, when he turned into the City Secretary’s Office paperwork announcing that he’s running for Carolyn Davis’s District 7 seat on the Dallas City Council. (Ex-City Manager Richard Knight Jr., now in the waste disposal business,…
There has been no shortage of stories about John Bramblitt in recent years, as evidenced by the “news” page on the Denton artist’s Web site. Four years ago, Mika Ferris even made a documentary titled, simply, Bramblitt. After all, his is an extraordinary tale: The 37-year-old El Paso native and…
In the wake of A.H. Belo’s recent announcement that it’s laying off yet another 500 employees — no later than March 28 — the question is: How much money did The Dallas Morning News’s parent company make in 2008, the first year it operated as a spin-off of Belo Corp.?…
Well, that’s my idea anyway. And it’s a damn good one. Think about it. In this crappy economic climate even Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is having trouble luring a 9-figure naming-rights partner out to Arlington. So I say – just for the stadium’s first year, mind you – Jerry…
“Attention to detail delays Army Corps of Engineers, frustrates Trinity Parkway supporters.” The headline of Michael Lindenberger’s latest story on the Trinity Turnpike in The News serves as a powerful reminder of the fundamental difference between supporters and opponents of the toll road. The opposition views the U.S. Army Corps…
Out of nowhere today, Stephanie Hastings, spokesperson for Silver City Cabaret on Stemmons Freeway, called to talk about the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission’s decision to strip the strip club of its liquor license over the weekend. No doubt, she had but one goal in mind: to remind folks that despite…
As he took the podium before more than 100 fans and aspiring writers at the University of North Texas on Saturday, the author of Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel was surprised by the turnout. “Wow,” said Guillermo Arriaga, surveying the packed room at UNT’s Gateway Center. “When they told…
At Wednesday’s Dallas City Council briefing, there will be yet another Budget Workshop — the fourth of many in advance of the September 23 due date for next fiscal year’s budget. In the doc prepared for the council, City Manager Mary Suhm describes the process of “Setting the ‘Price’ of…
