Jim Bryant is 75 years old, walks with a cane, sometimes suffers a dry throat from medication. He gets tired. But Jim Bryant is stubborn about principle. Today he has taken his cane in hand and come downtown to City Hall yet again to continue his quarter-century-long battle with the…
Wouldn’t you know. All the time I criticize the Dallas City Council and say they’ve screwed up, and they get mad at me because they think they’re doing such a damn stellar job. So last week I walk out of a city council session thinking for once they really did…
Wow. Does anybody at Dallas City Hall ever look out back? There are so many homeless people picnicking, camping and taking leaks back there, it looks like the building was designed by I.M. Pee, not I.M. Pei. All of the homeless people who used to employ the public library and…
At the end of July, flooding in this part of Texas killed four people and destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses. Joe Tillotson is mayor of Lancaster, once a countrified farming community in Southern Dallas County, now a suburban boomtown. He was quick to place blame where he believed it…
A couple of years ago the New York Daily News published a powerful editorial about the New York City public school system. The paper said the biggest thing the city’s huge staff of school administrators needed was more middle-class parents to tell them what to do. “They need squeaky-wheel parents…
You. You better step over here and get a program. Once the city council gets back from summer vacation and the game starts up again, you’re never going to keep track without one. Major play ahead. Mayor Laura Miller and the old downtown business boys have come to a deal…
Everybody wants the new Dallas police chief to fix everything. Obviously. Sure. When he’s done with that, I wish he’d come over to my house and fix my computer. The problem is fix what? Fix it how? That’s where we get into trouble. Some of these problems are older than…
All the time, I rag on people, I criticize, I say negative stuff. For a change, I want to do something positive. Problem with that: my skill set. After so long as a reporter, what else am I qualified to do? Great idea: debt collector. A lot of it’s the…
So here’s what I’m wondering. Guy calls up the Dallas Area Rapid Transit agency and tells them one of their tow-truck drivers just went bananas and pulled a gun on him in traffic. What does DART do? They call in their guy, right? Grill him. Then they call the citizen…
I’m all for Wizard of Oz voyages of self-discovery. I’m just not sure it’s fair to do them when you’re the mayor. But say this for Dallas Mayor Laura Miller. In recent weeks she has been candid about her change of heart since getting elected to her first full term…
Dallas school Superintendent Mike Moses, such a success for four years, has misstepped seriously in handling the inflammatory issue of school attendance zone re-mapping. It’s bad enough that some people–by no means all, but some–are whispering that Dr. Moses may have reached the city limits of his gifts. This is…
So by now you already know City Hall is a magic show, where all the tricks are based on misdirection. Misdirection is when they get you to focus on the pretty girl in a harem suit so you won’t see the trap door. We’re about to get a good example…
We have a new police chief in Dallas. That’s scary for us. If you haven’t been in town long, you wonder why. Here’s what you have to understand: We’ve been through a series of high-level local officials who have behaved in very disturbing fashions on television. We were watching. We…
The Dallas Morning News special section a week ago, “Dallas at the Tipping Point,” was really strong stuff. I know, I know. You’re just waiting for me to find fault with it. After all, the News, such a booster these years, finally presented statistical evidence to show that Dallas is…
The news coverage of Dallas’ public hospital is always operatic. In a gleaming castle high above Stemmons Freeway, hundreds of Dr. Schweitzer clones in white coats practice noble healing arts on the poor. But the castle is under ceaseless attack from an army of right-wing Nazi meatballs screaming, “Die, poor…
Imagine it this way. You own a vacant building. A guy wants to rent it for a business. You rent it to him for a percentage of his business revenue. But you never ask to see his business’ books, cash register tapes, anything. You never even stroll by to see…
Talk about a really bad scene. Senior Corporal Ron Iscaro has been called to the podium to address the members of the Dallas Citizens Police Review Board. They are debating a resolution on pay for police officers and firemen injured in the line of duty. He’s been up there 10…
Two weeks ago the mayor and the city council held a news conference slapping themselves on the back for a new law to fight apartment crime. They passed an ordinance putting more of the responsibility for crime-fighting on the backs of apartment owners. I wonder if it occurred to the…
Screenplay: Toiling for years deep in his political laboratory, Dr. Lipscombstein’s dream has been to bring his revenge to life. An experiment with an ethics complaint against Mayor Laura Miller was a dismal failure. But now, with lightning crackling above his mountain lair, former city Councilman Al Lipscomb finally sees…
You’re a photo buff. You like to walk around your neighborhood playing with your new digital camera. Some bubba in coveralls with a handgun in his pocket runs out of his house yelling at you that you “could get your ass shot” if you take any more pictures. So you…
OK, time out, is it just me? Or is anybody else getting tired of the Scrubbing Bubbles routine from the mayor? Mayor Miller, here’s a page from your organizer: Get rid of roosters. Check. Pass a law against smoking. Check. Pass a law against people taking shopping carts home with…
We don’t want to build a concentration camp. Right? Not even for ugly, smelly people. We wouldn’t want to live in a city with a sign on the gate that says “Reinlichkeit macht frei” (Cleanliness makes you free). In order to keep our heads on straight, let’s just be frank…
