Did you see – you couldn’t miss it – the video over the weekend of a white jeep getting swept down a creek by a flash flood near Beorne, northwest of San Antonio? San Antonio TV says the guy in the jeep made it out OK, which is amazing. In…
Last week President Obama banned certain types of equipment from federal grants to local police agencies, ruling that the federal government would no longer provide cops with tanks, bayonets, grenade launchers, ammunition of .50 caliber or higher and some types of camouflage uniforms. The president said: “We’ve seen how militarized…
You spent Memorial Day weekend doing your holiday thing, whatever. I spent it doing mine – watching the flood levels on the Trinity River downtown. Takes all kinds, right? Most of my flood watching – the more gripping part, in fact – was online, although I did spend some time…
In a private session yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court considered whether to allow a new appeal against the University of Texas in the Abigail Fisher reverse discrimination case. We should hear what they decided next Tuesday. The Wall Street Journal suggested a couple days ago that a decision by the court…
Learned an interesting thing the other day. Apparently this City Council election just behind us, on May 9, was the first occasion in anybody’s memory when several candidates did not bother to fill out or return the candidate questionnaire from the Dallas Citizens Council. Don’t know what the Dallas Citizens…
Sometimes it’s almost funny to sit out here in the boondocks watching federal fair housing programs in actual operation and then compare that with the view from New York or Washington. Notice I said almost. An editorial in my Sunday New York Times presented more or less the view I…
You’ve heard about the Dad Bod, right? AKA the Regular-Dude Bod, the “I work out once in a while, but I also chug pizza and beers whenever I want” Bod. If you don’t feel like your definition is complete, watch this video, featuring Dallas-born Clayton Farris, which is quickly gaining…
Recently I came across an attachment to some emails inviting people to take a tour of the new Parkland Hospital, consisting of two graphics showing guests what kind of shoes they could wear. I reached out to Parkland to ask why they cared about people’s shoes, and spokesperson Katrina Keyes…
Two recent conversations put the Trinity toll road debate into a certain perspective for me. The first, after dinner with friends, came while saying good-bye. One friend, a person of the Park Cities persuasion, said while waving good-night, “Hey, Jim, when are we going to get Town Lake?” Does anybody…
University of Texas Regent Wallace Hall wins again. This week Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an opinion upholding every single claim Hall made to him in defense of Hall’s right to information from the university, shooting down all of the university’s arguments for muzzling Hall. You know what? Whenever…
First thing I need to tell you right off the bat, I am not obsessed with the flood levels on the Trinity River in downtown Dallas this week because I want the river to overtop and destroy the flood-control levees and wreak havoc on lives and property. That would be…
The other weekend I, along with my equally-stupid friend and fellow Dallas Observer contributor Matt Wood, decided to clear all the furniture out of my house near the University of North Texas, buy about six cases of Lone Star and have four bands play in my living room. Okay, so…
It’s like the mom who smacked her kid and dragged him out of a riot in Baltimore a couple weeks ago. When life gets complex we yearn for simple. So I guess it was inevitable that people, especially parents, would get all ape-crazy a year ago for Admiral William McRaven,…
What was Saturday’s City Council election about? It’s a tale of two candidates, both of whom won election. In his most recent campaign finance report filed May 9 and covering his last month of fundraising, District 5 southeast Dallas candidate Rick Callahan, an incumbent, took in just over 30 grand…
Ah, watercolors. They are just so great. Yesterday, two days before the Saturday City Council elections, a slick campaign mailer hit select households (not my own) with some wonderful watercolors of the Trinity River project, courtesy of our mayor, Mike Rawlings. As people (not many) head to the polls Saturday,…
The Dallas Morning News does so much better about telling the truth on thorny local stories when it’s easy, when we’re in a news lull. But when the rubber meets the Trinity toll road, they revert to character, and watch out. Days before the Saturday election in which the toll…
Which would you consider more horrible? Drowning in the White Water Feature or going permanently nuts in the Water Maze? The most vicious form of bullshit in this world is the kind that wears a necktie, shines its shoes and masquerades as calm, cool and collected. Beware the knife from…
During last week’s failed attempt to fire the Dallas superintendent of schools — at a school board meeting so depressing it made me think of Thanksgiving Day dinner at psycho prison — Superintendent Mike Miles made a speech. See also: Mike Miles Doesn’t Get Fired at Special Dallas ISD Board…
Count on everybody to be too clever by half in this one — trying to figure out why Dallas cops brought felony charges last week against a City Council member because he got into it with a city employee about whether she doing her job properly. And, yeah, they say…
Two stories flew across my path yesterday like wobbly arrows tipped with suction cups. One was about the mayor’s campaign to stoke economic fires in poverty-blighted southern Dallas with a team of privately paid cheerleaders. The other was about City Hall putting a belated bullet in the head of the…
The greatest thing on Dallas radio (that’s not something on the Ticket) is when you’re cruising through town late at night, and the sounds of Houston start to come from your speakers. The slow synth beat emitting from the Third Coast is the work of Fat Pat, and if you’re…
Bunch of things could happen at tonight’s Dallas school board meeting, topmost that Dallas may wind up firing its reform school superintendent, Mike Miles. And that will be a real whodunnit. Miles, hired with fanfare three years ago as a reformer, drew kudos and support early on for battling the…
