Last week, a woman waking her dog in the Ash Creek neighborhood of northeast Dallas noticed something amiss — all of the books were missing from the curbside Little Free Library box. The neighborhood quickly rallied. “She called another neighbor who drove around to check the other LFLs in our neighborhood,” says…
On Wednesday, the Dallas City Council granted landmark status to the iconic Lakewood Theater. It wasn’t exactly a fight. Everyone, from neighbors to the theater’s owners to city officials, wanted the theater, its marquee and phallic purple tower to stick around, so it was a sense of relief that greeted the 15-0…
First Baptist Church of Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress wants to repeal the Johnson Amendment. The mega-church pastor, leader of a flock of more than 12,000 parishioners, is pushing for America’s churches to be allowed to make political donations and endorsements. “I want to say this very clearly, I am for…
Friday afternoon, Dallas County Health and Human Services confirmed the county’s second 2016 death from the West Nile Virus. The victim, whom the county did not name, was in their late 50s and lived in the 75248 zip code in far North Dallas. Forty-two Dallas County residents have contracted the…
Politicians and social media have opened up a new low in the art of political discourse. Late Thursday night and early Friday morning, Dallas Republican state Representative Jason Villalba took to Twitter — something he does often with inconsistent results — to say that he plans to push for an…
After nearly ten years of marriage, Marlena’s husband left her. This would not be the first time he had left her and their two young children — many times he had disappeared for days with no explanation. He was always in and out of jail. But this time, it would…
The city of Dallas got poured out of court again yesterday in its decades long extra-legal persecution of Kennedy assassination expert Robert Groden, making the 82nd time the city has lost against Groden in its own municipal courts, not counting a major slap-down suffered by the city in the 5th…
I’ve given up proposing that we kill the homeless. No one ever takes me seriously. Some wag like Tim Rogers at D Magazine always chimes in saying I’m copying Jonathan Swift (“A Modest Proposal,” 1729) – in other words, it’s satire – in spite of my very best efforts to speak…
The entire dilemma faced by the national Republican Party – all of it, top to bottom, start to finish – can be explained through the prism of one small news item: Former Texas Governor Rick Perry will appear on the upcoming season of the television show Dancing with the Stars…
Dallas Police Chief David Brown is retiring from the Dallas Police Department. His last day on the job will be October 22, according to letter from Brown posted on DPD’s DPDBeat.com blog. “After much prayer, I am announcing my retirement from the Dallas Police Department after 33 years as a…
One good indication an institution is up to no good and probably guilty of the sin you suspect it of is an extremely thin-skinned response to your complaint. If they’re not feeling guilty, they wouldn’t be thin-skinned. With thin skin as my scale, I don’t know who measures up as…
There are a lot of the recommendations contained in the report the Boston Consulting Group regarding the loose dog problem in southern Dallas. To a member, the city council members at Tuesday’s specially called meeting voiced approval for all seven of the recommendations made in the BCG report. What became…
Maybe this is all moot. Letters and emails are flying around all over town, one side accusing or attacking the other in the debate about privatizing Fair Park, but I think the deal is done already anyway. No matter what anybody says about it, Mayor Mike Rawlings probably has the…
On Monday, the battle for the future of Fair Park began in earnest. Dallas’ fight over handing the park over to the Walt Humann-led foundation had been a proxy battle at the park board level. Those skirmishes ended earlier this month when the board signed off on the proposed management…
Did anybody else notice that Inclusive Communities Project just got its hat handed to it on its big lawsuit against the state over placement of subsidized housing in already segregated neighborhoods in Dallas? No, I didn’t think so. Welcome to Weirdtown. After yesterday’s City Council briefing on a new city…
This is like two weeks before Christmas when I was 7 years old. I’m so excited. I know it’s going to be something very good. There is no way the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development would devote this much energy to keeping something away from little old me…
The lawsuit filed this week against Dallas City Council member Tiffinni Young accusing her of barratry in the death of a woman by dog attack will provide us all with an opportunity to learn what barratry is. I know one thing already. This is going to be all about gray…
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is not going to quit fighting against Texas’ transgender community. Tuesday, Paxton filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Franciscan Alliance, a religious hospital network, against the Obama administration and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in an attempt to block HHS from…
Dallas is waiting for the seemingly inevitable local transmission of the Zika virus, but in the meantime there is preparation to be done. When someone in the city of Dallas contracts the birth defect-causing disease from a local mosquito, Dallas County — home to 30 residents so far who’ve caught…
Do you know what a carbuncle is? It’s something awful, swollen, painful and pus-filled under the skin. Oh, sorry. But I think of the fake kayak rapids that the city built five years ago in the Trinity River – closed for use the same week it opened because it’s too…
Wildebeest-gate. Please let me say that to my knowledge the Dallas Police Association (DPA), the main police union, is not responsible for the placement of a photo of a dead wildebeest on the mayor’s desk to intimidate him in labor talks like the scene in The Godfather where the guy wakes…
When Mark Montgomery beat incumbent Wade Emmert to become the chair of the Dallas County Republican Party, it was widely viewed as a fluke. Montgomery’s short stint at the head of the local party drove the point home. The unknown Tea Partier proved unable to raise money and resigned earlier…
