Merrie Spaeth This morning, Salon, like every one else, is offering Joe Biden and Sarah Palin advice about how to conduct themselves during tonight’s vice-presidential candidate debate. Only, Salon’s quoting a local with substantial experience: longtime Republican operative Merrie Spaeth. As Salon notes today, the Dallas-based GOP strategist helped prep…
Every once in a while we’re reminded how slimy it is to be forced to root for this guy. This week, for example. Couple observations after a wacky Wednesday at Valley Ranch: *T.O. is a self-absorbed, petulant punk. *Dallas’ Only Daily’s “scoop” about him, however, appears flat out wrong. *Keyshawn…
A study released today by Austin-based Sheshunoff and Co. Investment Banking reveals that the state of the banking industry in Texas is strong — except in Dallas-Fort Worth, where the assets-to-loans ratio is on par with the woeful national average. Notes a managing partner in the banking industry advisory firm,…
The Portable People Meter is listening to everything you listen to. So, like, beware? For years, this is how Arbitron measured radio ratings rather crudely, but also quite simply: Participants, selected at random, would fill out diaries in which they listed what they were listening to and when for a…
Never, ever volunteer: If there’s a lawyer or, say, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives out there reading this, could you lend Nicholas Zimmerman a hand before the electric company turns out his lights? Zimmerman is a local guy who joined the Army in 2004. In April 2005…
“Checkout Time,” by Sam Merten, September 25 Room Service I’m all for this. I just moved downtown and see little life, but a brother who lives in Houston has seen Houston jump to life since the convention center hotel was built. Dallas is following the same plan with a larger…
September 26, 2007. Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington: “We made it real tough on ourselves with our start. But we weathered the storm. We never gave up. We played hard every game, and we’ll be better next year for having gone through this adversity.” The Rangers, en route to a…
As mourners trickled out of Lubbock’s Resthaven Memorial Park in the gray chill, Andrew Velez stayed behind. He stood among the gravestones and watched his brother’s coffin laid low in the winter ground. Cutting a sharp figure in his Army uniform, his dark eyes and soft-featured baby face set hard…
Because it’s brilliant. Not that No. 81’s whining. Because he never whines, especially not after losses to NFC East rivals during which his number was called a little too often. Never ever. And Keyshawn Johnson will never get tired of being called “Sheshawn” after today. A smackdown in two parts…
A hundred bucks for a hookah pipe? Please. The Gas Pipe’s much, much cheaper — and closer! The new King Tut exhibit, Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, opens Friday at the Dallas Museum of Art. To give the show a little kick in the hype department, because…
For dang sure, it doesn’t involve listening to this moron’s sports picks. In between explaining how “close to seven” players expressed their intentions not to play for Dallas if coach Avery Johnson returned this season, promising to be even more hands-on this season and revealing that he’ll this week go…
Lara Solt, a Dallas Morning News staff photographer, just won an online-photography award from the Military Reporters & Editors Association for a collection of images that chronicled a U.S. Marine’s recovery after a bridge exploded beneath him in Iraq. Corporal Eric Morante lost a leg, underwent extensive surgeries and endured…
A mustache-loving Friend of Unfair Park sends along this note upon his return from lunch: I just sat near Karl Malone at Houlihan’s in Addison for lunch. Trying to figure out why he’s here, I came across this article about a possible comeback in Boston. With training camp ramping up,…
Over at AskMen.com, where new Dallas Star and soon-to-be movie subject Sean Avery is some kind of a “style correspondent,” the former Vogue intern’s taking your fashion questions. And while most are practical Q’s with helpful A’s — among them, if you must, “What’s the simplest way to update your…
Rep. Jeb Hensarling The Senate will vote tonight on an altered version of President Bush’s $700-billion bailout bill. And, far as Rep. Jeb Hensarling figures, the Senate will give it the okey-dokey before bailing out of Washington, “putting the House in a take-it-or-leave-it position on Thursday.” And that isn’t sitting…
John Danks was once a can’t-miss prospect for the Rangers. Now he’s all growed up, for the White Sox. If you’re a Rangers fan that watched the Chicago White Sox win the American League Central Division with a 1-0 victory over the Minnesota Twins last night, my deepest sympathies. You…
The State Fair of Texas is on. So where is everybody? On Monday afternoon the midway was empty. Nobody was throwing too-big basketballs at too-small hoops to win a stuffed critter. There was no line for chicken-fried bacon. No line for Fletcher’s corny dogs. And that’s weird. Maybe it’s gas…
Flickr photo: Lost Tulsa In the wake of the news of CD World’s shuttering, a Friend of Unfair Park who swears we’ve never met but who clearly shares my love of Dallas nostalgia sends along this link to a year-old piece about Dallas’s long-lost record stores. Among those name-checked: Hit…
This morning, I was bitten, then infected, by this City of Dallas-provided public service announcement about how to prevent the West Nile, which is sweeping the land! This pilot episode has tremendous potential, and I look forward to future episodes: “What Do I Do With This Syringe?,” “How Do I…
The Los Angeles Times this morning heaps piles of praise upon Jerry Jones’ under-construction EnormoDome in Arlington, which Sam Farmer coins the “Y’all Mahal,” a nickname that will never, ever stick. Still, the piece does contain two classic Jerry quotes, the first one concerning the $1.2 billion price tag: “The…
What if the Cowboys would have taken this guy over Troy Aikman. Cringe at the thought, I tell ya. Cringe. So there I was, a snotty-nosed lil’ 24-year-old. Couple years out of college, cutting my journalistic teeth at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. On this particular Sunday – Dec. 18, 1988…
You say this is not Sarah Palin? Hunh, coulda sworn. This time around, the Canadians have asked SMU political science prof Cal Jillson — the print journalist’s go-to guy for all things political — for his preview of Thursday night’s veep debate, wherein Joe Biden will try not to say…
