It makes sense that a 212-year-old agency with a $50 billion annual budget would know how to talk. One of many sharp insights in the new Katrina documentary, The Big Uneasy, is that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has got its line down cold. Again and again in the…
Yesterday a commenter wrote in to Unfair Park in reference to an item about Dallas Mayor Dwaine Caraway and the legal action he has brought against his own city to prevent the release of an embarrassing police tape. The commenter said, “It’s hard to imagine the tape shows anything other…
Two things. The first is serious business. The second, not so much. As you know by now, a Dallas judge today granted lawyers for Mayor Dwaine Caraway their request for a temporary restraining order forbidding the Dallas City Attorney from releasing an embarrassing police investigative tape of the mayor. The…
Welcome to Local Music ‘Mericans, where we meet some of the people behind the local music scene — those who aren’t necessarily members of local bands, but more the people who make the scene move. Kris Youmans has one of those jobs that looks cushy from the outside, but, from…
Guess what. Maybe it has started. The great gray horse may be rising to her feet at last. Maybe the sane middle class of America isn’t dead in its tracks after all. I have a column in this week’s paper talking about a real Tea Party movement in the UK…
The New York Times ran a story yesterday about all the hate the right-wingers are expressing for school teachers. In the opening they quoted placards from Madison, Wisconsin, saying, “You are glorified babysitters who leave school at 3:30 pm. You deserve minimum wage.” They interviewed a 30-year-old second-year teacher who…
Whether you’ve reached the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt’s End: *Apparently Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones misunderstood. The NFL lockout hasn’t yet commenced. While the Washington Redskins signed O.J.Atogwe and Bob Sanders landed with the San Diego Chargers, the…
Here’s what I don’t get. The right-wingers are always sneering about the “nanny state” — government trampling their sacred rights as individuals by telling them what kind of light bulb they can screw in their lamps. But the same right-wingers want government to guilt-trip women getting abortions by forcing them…
Dear Mexican: I am a mocha-skinned woman with long, curly hair and dark-brown eyes. Puerto Ricans always ask if I am Puerto Rican, Dominicans just come and start speaking Spanish, Cubans ask if my abuelita made good arroz con leche, but Mexicans know I’m black. What gives? —La Morena Dear…
So we can hear the wolves howling in the forest now. They begin to circle. The deliberate devastation by Rick Perry Republicans of public school funding in Texas is probably going to spell the end of the magnet school system and bring horrendous classroom overcrowding to Dallas public schools, along…
Rick Perry keeps telling me that I shouldn’t worry about dumping all the kids out of school or putting Grandma out of the nursing home. Texas has the nation’s fastest-growing economy, he says, so don’t sweat it. What does that mean — fastest-growing economy? I took a look around yesterday…
Welcome to Local Music ‘Mericans, where we’ll be meeting some people behind the local music scene — those who aren’t necessarily musicians, but more the behind-the-scenes people who make the scene move. Chad Lovell played drums for Course of Empire. Along with fellow percussionist MIke Jerome, he was half of…
The Gromer Jeffers story in The Dallas Morning News Saturday reporting that Tom Leppert now opposes federal earmark money for the Trinity River project put me in mind of an old newspaper friend. He had struggled mightily with temptation during his younger married years. I should say, he struggled mightily…
The shoe hanging over the Dallas mayoral election right now is Angela Hunt’s endorsement. Depending on which way she goes, Hunt will either give David Kunkle a serious shot at winning or hand Michael Rawlings a cakewalk. Several weeks ago, before Hunt announced she was not going to run for…
Dear Opposition Researchers working for U.S. Senate campaigns other than that of former-after-midnight Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert: Please contact me about the following things Leppert is going to say about himself in a campaign. First, he is going to say he led two successful referendum campaigns, one for the Trinity…
New York Times columnist David Brooks, who usually writes from a perspective anyone outside of Texas would consider conservative, has a fascinating column today about Indiana Gov. Mitchell Daniels and why Brooks thinks he should run for president. It’s a catalog of small miracles — some not too teensy –…
*I still don’t fully understand Michael Young leaving Rangers spring training for two days. The team announced it was a “family matter.” Manager Ron Washington said Young “has a family thing.” And Young, as he left, told reporters in Surprise, Arizona that “Everything’s great.” But yesterday on 105.3 The Fan outfielder…
Oh, my gosh, Tom Leppert has made Dwaine Caraway the new mayor — thank you so much for that, Tom — and I just realized I never finished the fictional saga I was writing for you, my cherished readers, about The Adventures of Arthur and Archie. So sorry about that…
How come everything Mexican jumps? They got jumping cars, they jump the fence, and Mexican jumping beans. —Confused Gabacho Dear Gabacho: You forgot the Mexican hat dance, lucha libre, the voladores of Papantla that fling themselves from 100-foot poles, Acapulco’s cliff divers and our preferred way to deal with schoolyard…
Oh, man. You guys call that a protest? You went down there yesterday to tell the Dallas County Commissioners Court what you think of them, and they slapped the spit out of your mouths. Told you to sit down and be quiet. And you did. People, that’s just embarrassing. It’s…
Welcome to Local Music’ Mericans, where we meet some people behind the local music scene — the folks who aren’t necessarily members of a local band, but who still make the scene move. Jonathan Swinnea’s passions are music and social media. Some would say he’s an element of the “new…
Yet another slavishly uncritical fan of Get Off My lawn (I get so bored with their love) — this one with the on-line moniker of Enrique de la Fuente (I assume he is not really the Spanish volleyball Olympian) — wrote yesterday to ask, “What’s your take on Dallas’ poor…
