Dear Mexican: I was wondering about the Spanish going into Mexico and taking the gold and artifacts away from the Indians. Could the Mexican government ask for the gold back? Raider of the Lost Chonis Why doesn’t Mexico’s president demand that all nations and/or entities return stolen artifacts taken from…
The question I hear more frequently now from people in Texas with functioning brains is, “When do we finally have to get out of Texas?” Or is it functioning hearts? There can only be one answer: Never. If anybody has to leave Texas, make it the heartless idiots. Give them…
Once again, D Magazine Editor Tim Rogers demonstrates that he struggles with severe intellectual and ethical challenges. Or something. In mid-April D Magazine published a cover story called “Towering Inferno,” written by Rogers, about claims by the Nasher Sculpture Center downtown that it is being damaged by reflected light from…
See also: Deep Ellum On Air’s Veronica Navarro holds down your Sunday hangover Jantzen Ray, a one-time a producer for Jagger’s radio show on 105.3 The Fan, now resides at Deep Ellum On Air, where he maintains his own Internet broadcast facility in the neighborhood by Murray Street Coffee. Ray…
OK, look: if I predict the future, and the future turns out to be exactly what I predicted, I have a right to point that out, right? It’s not bragging. C’mon. It’s more like pointing out that I wasn’t being a total nutcase. So last week in my column in…
“If you are here tonight, it’s because you know somebody. You came here with a friend. And don’t go put this on Facebook, don’t Instagram this. Just put your phone away and have a good time.” A trip to The Stoneleigh Hotel is always a pleasure. The art deco grandeur…
The Joe Paterno/Jerry Sandusky story is like a coffee table puzzle I can solve most of the way but never completely. Maybe you can show me the last moves. The first move is this. Beginning in 1998, according to the Freeh inquiry released yesterday, Paterno, Penn State President Graham B…
Every time City Hall sets about reforming its own court system through the judicial appointments process, I see that same old bad penny coming around again. They want municipal court judges who will do what a bunch of 23-year-old city prosecutors tell them to do. Been there myself. Let me…
Dear Mexican: Magdalena has worked for me many years. She came over as a mojada with her two little girls when they were 4 and 6. The girls went to school but only until middle school because they are undocumented; they can’t get a job or a bank account or…
From the beginning of the Trinity River toll road debate 14 years ago, one of the biggest hurdles faced by critics of the road has been the unwillingness of urban planners and other so-called experts to publicly speak ill of a project with so much money and power behind it…
Want to know what’s really going on in Dallas? Keep an eye on Krymsk. Last Saturday more than 170 people died in flash floods in this southern Russia city. Today The New York Times reports that angry survivors think the Putin government is lying to them about a big release…
Never ever thought I would hear myself saying this — ever never ever. But there may be something to say for certain kinds of all boys schools. Well, that is, if there is anything good at all to say about boys, and there may not be, then maybe it’s a…
See also: Girls Rock Dallas gets some help from Amanda Palmer You might have seen a little blurb here or there on DC9 about Girls Rock Dallas, a new non-profit summer camp for girls, in which they learn how to play, write, record and market their own songs. The first…
Update/Correction/Apology/Literary Forehead Slap: The premise of this column is a stupid mistake on my part. For some time I have labored under the impression that Lucy Crow Billingsley, a daughter of Trammell Crow, was an early partner with John Sughrue in the development of Museum Tower. That’s wrong. She wasn’t…
Generally, I take my muses in the form of flappers, gypsies and Dolly Parton. I also heed the advice of Emily Post. Her regard for manners and civility may swing square to some, but I find her devoted involvement to the enjoyment of others helps conquer narcissism and ensures a…
Over at The Dallas Morning News uniblog, my former colleague Robert Wilonsky has an item keeping us up to date on plans to turn Fair Park in South Dallas into a year-round commercial amusement park, an idea about which I have no personal objections or, for that matter, especially strong…
This morning I found a story in my copy of The Dallas Morning News called “Dallas Police & Fire Pension System looks to reduce its real estate exposure.” Translated into ordinary English, that headline would be: “Boson Six Pineapple Hiccup-Hiccup Do Not Read This Story.” Of course I rushed into…
DEAR MEXICAN: Suppose the United States were as progressive and conscious of our country’s true self-interest as are, for example, many European countries; and suppose this had been true in the decades immediately following World War II, when Northern and Western Europe subsidized the development of southern European nations. If…
Let’s go back to hell first, see how things are going down there. Then we’ll visit heaven. Promise. We are trudging in together, you and I, one very hot recent afternoon. If you think back, we have actually visited hell several times. But today, for some reason, as we hike…
So I’m doing a this-hand versus that-hand thing in my head on Obamacare. Everybody says the Republicans are going to make this year’s presidential election a referendum on the Affordable Care Act. I just want to be ready. On the one hand, Affordable Care will encourage tons of poor people…
Freelance photographer (and Observer contributor) Mike Brooks grew up in Hawaii. Pretty easy to fall in love with the visual arts there, but he didn’t start out as a music photographer. Since his days at the Punahou School in Honolulu, and two colleges in Northern California, he’s built a rep…
Sometimes I think the dumbest people to talk to about the newspaper business are newspaper people, of which I am one, obviously. Is it possible to scream blindness? David Carr, The New York Times’s media columnist — one of the few media reporters on whose word I truly hang, often…
