DISD HR director Kimberly Olson I’ve been trading e-mails since yesterday with Dallas Independent School District’s spokesman extraordinaire Jon Dahlander on the subject of retired Air Force colonel Kimberly Olson, head of personnel for the district. She’s the person who approved all the unfunded teacher hirings that supposedly put Dallas…
Something I never envisioned typing along my life’s journey: Thank you, Martellus Bennett. But because of the backup tight end’s athletic, dramatic touchdown grab in Washington last week I’m still in bidness. Barely. Down a cool $7,500 this season, but in better shape than the poor schmucks who got hosed…
Dear Mexican: I recently received the biography of Rolling Stones bassist Ronnie Woods. While reading about his friendship with Jimi Hendrix, Ronnie described him as part black, Cherokee and Mexican. I’ve always read about Jimi’s grandmother being Cherokee, but this was the first I read about him being Mexican. I…
Go ahead and say it. Sometimes you think I make things up. I know you do. I don’t blame you. I can’t even believe this stuff half the time myself. This is an example. If somebody else told me this, I would chalk it up to urban legend. Bad urban…
Interesting how these things go. Yesterday I posted an item about DART. The comments thread turned into a discussion of DISD. Did people just get confused about the acronyms? I don’t think so. I think the school system is very much on people’s minds now, mainly for bad reasons. The…
Everybody needs to watch the ongoing KTVT-Channel 11 series by Bennett Cunningham on over-the-top spending at Dallas Area Rapid Transit. People also should go look at the incredible Web presentation 11 has put up. The thing that comes across so powerfully in Channel 11’s hidden-camera pieces is the overall culture…
Lee Trevino always says pressure isn’t trying to make a putt to win The Masters. “Pressure,” he maintains, “is trying to make a putt for a $10 bet with only $5 in your pocket.” I feel ya, Merry Mex. Unfortunately, I feel ya loud and clear. With my gas tank…
Look, let me take one specific portion of the D special issue about the Dallas Independent School District that came out this week and use it to explain why I don’t think much of this stuff is worth reading. This was a sidebar under the byline of our former colleague,…
Dear Mexican: In a column some time ago, you mentioned the Aztec prophecy claiming that “their descendants would reclaim ancestral lands in the southwest U.S., and guess what.” I’d appreciate it if you shed a little light on this statement. This is the mythical state of Aztlán you’re referring to,…
This is a bad story about our city. I am going to tell you that our mayor and other people at City Hall are in the process of screwing around in a potentially damaging way with the biggest, most astonishing opportunity for prosperity ever to come to South Dallas. In…
Give me Bye over the Cowboys. Check that. Thanks to last week’s pin-point analysis and this week’s void in the schedule, I’m guaranteed to go two weeks without a loser on Dallas. Haven’t done that since, oh, August. With the Cowboys resting up for the stretch run, let’s shove our…
Dear Readers: So your presidential candidate lost (congratulations; McBama! Our condolences, O’Cain. Damn early deadlines…), and you can’t bear the thought of living under his opponent’s reign for the next cuatro years. Fear not: The other side of America’s bullshit sandwich will save you! The Mexican hereby turns this column…
Uh-oh. Have I been here before? It’s the day before Halloween. I am at Dallas Independent School District headquarters, and I am already seeing ghosts. One is in a real short skirt, and her name is Yvonne. The other one, Waldemar, is holding a tin cup and chortling insanely. They’re…
Plenty of good seats available. Been watching some CNN today and was a tad alarmed by the headlines: “Problems at polling stations!” “Record voter turnout!” “New York’s ‘Naked Cowboy’ endorses McCain!” Frightening stuff. So I scurried down to my local polling place at McKinney’s Valley Creek Elementary School and found…
Okay, who had 6 months in the office pool? Pay up, sucka. Forgive me for growing a little misty-eyed nostalgic today. It’s because 368 posts and 3,554 comments after debuting with this lil’ diddy, your friendly Sportatorium is suddenly 6 months old. Funny, I don’t feel a day over 2…
1-7 on Cowboys’ games this season. That’s 1 win. That’s 7 losses. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Heads or tails? It’s heads. Gimme the New York Giants, minus the 9…
Dear Mexican: I know you’ve been asked variations of this before, but I’m going to ask you again anyway. I’m a gay white guy, and I’ve had three relationships with Mexican men in the last seven years. Each lasted from three to six months. This past relationship actually lasted a…
There’s a reason I like Annie, but I don’t like to watch it. I can never remember what the reason is, so I keep making the mistake of watching it again, because I like it so much. I’m sitting here alone in my half-darkened office with the shades drawn, having…
If I were God of Sports, these guys would render kickers extinct. God for a day? Me? Thanks, don’t mind if I do. Richie Almighty. I like the sound of that. Okay, first, bye-bye cancer. Hurricanes = gone. No more wasted money on explorations to the Moon. Resources once pegged…
Shun the 11-year-olds if you want. But someday they’ll be college freshmen. I had really high hopes for June Jones and SMU. But as far as first impressions go, this year sucks. First, on the field, the offensive guru turned talented quarterback Justin Willis into one of David Copperfield’s assistants,…
What’s the only thing less reliable than my picks? Wade Phillips’ 3-4 defense. For a couple years now some smartass has been referring to Dallas’ unit as “Dumbsday.” Last week in coughing up 34 points to the Rams it was abysmal. And this week, despite Phillips taking over the defensive…
Dear Mexican: One of our Arizona politicians once said on the PBS show Horizonte that the “crime” of being undocumented in this country is equivalent legally to that of a parking ticket. Do you know where I can verify this statement? So often in the argument over immigration the bottom…
