First, on this Inauguration Day afternoon, a mention of drink specials in honor not only of our new president, but the former one who will make Dallas his home, oh, any day now. A few days back, Simon McDonald at The Libertine Bar forwarded us a handful of welcome-home signs,…
From the monolithic high-definition screens at Victory Park this morning, Rick Warren prayed; Aretha Franklin belted out “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” from beneath a killer hat; and Joe Biden became VP. The crowd of locals — a few hundred gathered in the sunshine at one end of the square,…
As mentioned last week, Dallas’s T.D. Jakes did indeed deliver the pre-inaugural sermon from the St. John’s Episcopal Church pulpit. The pool report contains the entirety of his sermon, delivered in front of 200 invited guests. Jakes, captured here by Patrick Michels at the Dallas premiere of Seven Pounds, quoted…
Last night from the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in D.C., site of the Texas State Society’s 2009 Black Tie & Boots Inaugural Ball, a good Friend of Unfair Park sent the following message: “The Texas ball is not only a celebration of a new president, but a display…
A traffic heads-up for tomorrow: Unless you’re planning on protesting George W. Bush’s move to the ‘229, you may want to avoid Mockingbird Lane at N. Central Expressway between the hours of 4 and 7 p.m. That’s when Code Pink of Greater Dallas is planning on celebrating Inauguration Day by…
Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, the first full-time executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King’s chief of staff, is in Dallas tonight to speak at the Belo Mansion as part of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture’s Fourth Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Symposium. Arrested…
A good Friend of Unfair Park, up in D.C. for Barack Obama’s inauguration, was on Capitol Hill this a.m. to pick up her tickets for tomorrow. Alas, all did not go as planned:Hundreds of people are standing outside capitol offices to get tickets. Many were turned away from congressional offices…
Dallas mayors former and current were in D.C. over the weekend for the U.S. Conference of Mayors annual winter meeting: Tom Leppert, to once more make Dallas’s case for stimulus dough-re-mi; Ron Kirk, to calm mayors’ fears concerning his unpopular position on free trade. Leppert, like every other in mayor…
Two days before Christmas, while addressing the controversy surrounding President-elect Barack Obama’s decision to have Rick Warren deliver the inaugural invocation, John McWhorter wrote in The New Republic, “Suppose Obama had invited black megastar preacher T.D. Jakes instead.” Turns out, Obama has given Jakes a speaking slot on Inauguration Day…
I know, I know — we have a music blog. But on this frigid morning, I wanted to direct your attention to this download, warm and well-meaning, courtesy National Public Radio, songwriter Christian Kiefer and a singer named Will Johnson. It’s a song called “Someone to Wake,” the final installment…
As we mentioned a while back, District 13 city council candidate Ann Margolin appeared to be the heir apparent to Mitchell Rasansky with a long list of notable supporters and a strong résumé. And as the 5 p.m. deadline approaches for candidates and committees to file their finance reports, Margolin’s…
On Tuesday, Governor Rick Perry told the Associated Press he seriously doubted Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison was going to challenge him come 2010. Because, look, “there’s plenty of time for the senator to think that it’s not in her best interest, Texas’ best interest or the country’s best interest to…
The council won’t be voting today on final arrangements for the convention center hotel project, which includes approval of the development agreement and Guaranteed Maximum Price with Matthews Southwest and the operator agreement with Omni Hotels, leading us to believe the final vote on this boondoggle will take place January…
When I saw that Jane McGarry had posted a comment to Unfair Park yesterday, I felt a tingling sensation in my Carly box. And with that, we present, in its entirety, the KXAS-Channel 5 anchor’s interview with Lady Bush.Update: Since, yet again, some Friends of Unfair Park are having issues…
Three weeks ago, we briefly mentioned Tiffinni Young’s name in a story about Mayor Tom’s potential bid to replace Kay Bailey Hutchison if she decides to run for governor. If Leppert leaves office early, the mayor pro tem would take his place, with either Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway…
Of no surprise to us, former council member Al Lipscomb’s grandson, LeVar “LD” Thomas, became the first challenger to battle freshman Tennell Atkins for his District 8 council seat when Thomas held a press conference at the E Zee Shop parking lot in South Dallas Friday morning. He was joined…
A decade ago, I interviewed Kevin Sullivan on his last day as the Dallas Mavericks’ vice president of communications, a job he’d held for 18 years — since the team’s inception in 1980. It seemed like a good idea to do another exit interview today, because Sullivan, pictured above with…
(Helping Dallas secure a convention center hotel earned DCVB President and CEO Phillip Jones a bonus larger than most people’s paychecks./Sam Merten) When Harlan Crow launched a petition drive to give Dallas voters a say in publicly financing a $525 million convention center hotel, proponents of the project cried foul,…
During this morning’s White House press briefing, press secretary Dana Perino laid out George Bush’s plans for January 20, which don’t involve heading directly to Dallas:President Bush will depart from Andrews Air Force Base and head to Midland, Texas, where he will participate in a welcome home event in Centennial…
With the exception of strolling over to Schutze’s office, it’s hard to find anyone in the media willing to criticize Mayor Tom, but Advocate publisher Rick Wamre is quickly rising up Leppert’s naughty list, and his blog yesterday on Back Talk might vault him up to the top spot. While…
Congress gets back to business on Tuesday, and if Texas Republican John Cornyn has anything to say about it, Minnesota will only have one senator seated. That’s because Cornyn, about to be installed as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, vowed today to keep Al Franken out of the…
So, one of those “Welcome Home, George & Laura” signs popped up in my neighborhood this week — because, right, he will totally see it and appreciate the awesome gesture. And since we are days away from George and Laura’s move to the ‘229, I thought it best to see…
