Dear Readers, Mucho comments about my February 1 column regarding the metamorphosis of Mexican names into seemingly wacky nicknames—Nini from Alejandrina, for instance, or Chely from Araceli. I argued such changes occurred thanks to linguistic laws; some of you had other theories. Here are the best. Here’s what a Chicano…
Sorry, but I feel like Thomas Alva Edison the first time his light bulb lit. I must share. In the last year and a half I have written five columns—count ’em, five, and this one makes an even half-dozen—about the strange case of Jim’s Car Wash on MLK. Six too…
This may not be Jim Schutze, but we’re so wishing we were as high as this guy right about now. On The Dallas Morning News editorial-section blog today, Rod Dreher attacks my rebuttal of his attack in Sunday’s Points section on my recent cover story, “Good-bye, Groovy East Dallas.” Dreher…
This still isn’t Jim Schutze, but if it’ll make you happier to think so, feel free. Oh, man, if there is one thing I really really hate to do, it’s explain myself. But The Dallas Morning News devoted an entire page of its editorial section Sunday to a deconstruction of…
This is Veletta Lill as we know her, though not as Jim imagines her. Oh, Jim. I just got back from a huge luncheon at Fair Park at which former city councilman and longtime Friends of Fair Park director Craig Holcomb was presented with the 2007 Spirit of the Centennial…
Dear Mexican, Why is it that from my personal, thoroughly unscientific observations it seems blue-collar, illiterate Mexicans are more prone to cheating on their wives than other races? Almost every other Mexican I have known seems to brag about how they got it on with their mamacitas while their wife…
If we had the equivalent of a national sport just for Dallas, it would be “Tip-toe ‘Round the Elephant.” I do get why everybody debating the Bush library at SMU does it. The people against the library don’t want to get drawn off their base into an argument they can’t…
Writing about Molly is harder than I thought it would be, and not for the reasons you think. She and I were not close friends. We both wrote columns for the Metro page of the Dallas Times Herald. We were drinking buddies, which is not the same as buddies. We…
Dear Mexican, How do Mexicans get such ridiculous nicknames from seemingly normal names? For instance, José becomes Chepe, Eduardo is Lalo, Gabriel becomes Gabi, and Guillermo devolves into Memo. —It’s Marcela, Not Chela I want to know why Mexicans have such incongruous nicknames. In English, people have nicknames that have…
You don’t really have to get too deep into the parts-per-million debate about coal-fired power plants to see the sea change. The really revolutionary shift here is not about the coal. It’s the people opposed to the coal. The roster of people fighting against TXU Corp. on its application to…
Dear Mexican, This November, a trusted employee of mine came out about his status as an illegal immigrant. Our big-box retail conglomerate’s policy clearly spells out the termination of my employment should I fail to report such an offense, but I love the mojado to death. He’s loyal, punctual and…
Rod, Jim Schutze would like a few words with you concerning your love affair with a certain movie actor. Rod, I read your epistle in Points yesterday with equal parts interest and dismay. You’re halfway there, which, for most people, would be plenty, but I always think you’re smart enough…
Laugh or scream, you tell me which. I don’t know what to do as I watch Southern Methodist University and the city of Dallas drift inexorably toward the Niagara of All Humiliation that will be the George W. Bush Presidential Library at SMU. The Dallas Morning News editorial page today…
Dear Mexican, I’m a 60-year-old Chicano and proud. Why do young Chicanos keep imitating blacks? They dress like blacks, talk like blacks, listen to black music and hang with blacks. Aren’t they proud of their own culture? Why don’t they embrace Hispanic ways and learn about Hispanic history? —Say It…
So for a week the weather geniuses at WFAA-Channel 8 keep bludgeoning me with these Biblical invocations of the Winter Weather End Times, haranguing me with promises of frigid death and icy desolation until my house is now bursting at the seams with emergency pork and beans, flashlight batteries, firewood…
The last briefing item on today’s city council agenda is described innocuously as “rezoning of the Trinity River.” My understanding is that this is, in fact, the first step in a plan to completely remove zoning questions along the Trinity River from the typical zoning process, at least as far…
Who do you think Lupe Valdez called back last night: Sarah Dodd or Sarah Kunkle? Because Schutze thinks he too needs a new last name. Sarah Dodd had a good piece last night on KTVT-Channel 11 about “runaway” overtime pay for Dallas County jailers. County Commisiosner John Wiley Price weighed…
Dear Mexican, Why do non-Mexicans consider it a compliment when they tell Mexicans they don’t look Mexican? I am 100 percent Mexican—5-foot-7, with black hair, brown eyes and olive skin—and ever since I left my hometown of El Paso, I’ve been subject to this backhanded compliment. —No Soy Italiana, Pendejo…
If there’s one thing that gets Jim Schutze going, it’s the Trinity River Project — oh, and being called a liar by Wick Allison. Not fond of that either. Wick Allison posted a little essay this morning on FrontBurner about how wrong-headed and unfair Jim Schutze has been in his…
In the minutely Balkanized geosphere of Old East Dallas, the announced migration of Whole Foods from Lower Greenville to the Lakewood Shopping Center is an earthquake — a death and the impossible dream come true. And that’s for a move of .97 miles. I wrote recently about the boom in…
On Tuesday, D magazine editor and publisher Wick Allison made invidious comparisons between Los Angeles police chief William Bratton and our own chief, David Kunkle. Based on his belief that L.A. crime rates have been plummeting while ours have not, Allison wrote on FrontBurner: “David Kunkle may be a nice…
Dear Mexican, How did the patron saint of México get a name derived from Arabic? —El Moro Judío Dear Jewish Moor, You’re referring to the Virgin of Guadalupe, the brown-skinned apparition of the Virgin Mary whom tradition says appeared before the Aztec peasant Juan Diego in December 1531 just outside…
