Several minor political brush fires sent up smoke at the Dallas public school system after a tough new reform-minded superintendent took over the reins last July. But in two months the whole woods will be on fire, with Superintendent Mike Miles in the middle of it. Does he survive? I…
Scott K. Parks has a pretty good OK story in The Dallas Morning News today. It’s the good-enough-for-Belo version of a story we brought you two weeks ago about the city’s use of eminent domain to seize a privately owned parcel of land near the Trinity River, sandwiched between the…
Welcome to Alice Column, in which Alice Laussade writes stories about things on (roughly) the same day of (roughly) every week, making it (roughly) a column. Got an idea for a column? Start your own blog and write it up, you lazy shit. The Farmers Market is going to be…
And here we go with the discussion of cheap housing for artists in that triumphal and glitzy array of Mussoliniano mausoleums that we insist on calling our “arts district,” even though art has the same chance of surviving there as a cockroach in a microwave oven. Say this for the…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist, and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
Wanted to go ahead and let you know, since apparently nobody else is going to do the story, that Robert Groden, the Kennedy assassination author, has won yet another legal victory in his fight against the city’s years-long efforts to muzzle him. And, sorry, certain commenters here, but that’s what…
Welcome to Alice Column, in which Alice Laussade writes stories about things on (roughly) the same day of (roughly) every week, making it (roughly) a column. Got an idea for a column? Start your own blog and write it up, you lazy shit. Dearest The Klyde Warren, It’s my hope…
Tale of two dailies today, I guess. Our own Dallas daily, the Morning News, takes a kind of hey-why-not approach to a bill introduced by Houston GOP state Senator Dan Patrick that would divert more money from state funding for public schools to charters. The Austin American Statesman, meanwhile, gives…
Meet Wes McIntyre. Yeah, he works at Granada…for years now. You’ve probably seen him. He’s been gaining a reputation around the venue as being a pretty awesome human being in general. Exemplified in his nice-guy style of security work, and cornerstoned by his recent role as Santa at a Libertine-organized…
It looks like Okon Metals, a fourth-generation-owned scrap recycling company, may have found safe haven after all. If nothing else, at least Okon’s proposed move to a site even more isolated than its current address on an island between downtown and the river will put it out of the prying…
Dear Mexican: You have defended illegal immigrants by arguing that they will do the jobs gabachos won’t do for the same wages. I agree. I have a white-collar job, so I’m totally content to benefit from the low prices brought about by an uneducated underclass unprotected by American labor laws,…
Wait. Take five. That’s all I’m asking. As we approach mosquito season in Dallas, the conversation about aerial spraying for West Nile once again begins to sound like free beer day at the ballpark. Last week The Dallas Morning News published a story with a triumphal tone saying, “Aerial spraying…
A new court order in the federal corruption probe into John Wiley Price tilts the case in the county commissioner’s favor, maybe just a little, maybe quite a lot. We all recall that in 2011 the FBI seized $229,590 from a safe in the Dallas County Commissioner’s Oak Cliff home…
She worked the room with a certain kind of magic. A blonde, tiny slip of a thing, she walked from table to table greeting each guest. Sometimes offering a small token, sometimes complimenting a patron, and generally just being effusively charming. I knew she didn’t own the place because she…
Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins started out with one question to answer. Now that he has defied a subpoena, he’s got at least a couple more. Last week Watkins was ordered to appear in the court of state District Judge Lena Levario to answer an accusation that he brought…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist, and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
Over the weekend I have been chatting with people who were all counting on their fingers. Does City Manager Mary Suhm take a powder over this month’s gas drilling revelations? No. They were counting their fingers secretly and spoke to me only off the record, because they know they can’t…
Every once in while I can’t resist inflaming the tri-cornered hat don’t-tread-on-me set out there by saying nice things about Detroit. Whenever I sing praises to my hometown of many yesteryears, I get such a nice bounce out of the people who need Detroit to serve as their 21st century…
If you recognize Kaia Bellanca Beggs, it’s most likely been from walking through the door at recent Deep Ellum casualty La Grange. Handling the door, and other La Grange duties, was just one of her jobs. Kaia is quite immersed in the local music community and has her own small…
Dear Mexican: I’m 39. My stepdad — who raised me — just died. This freed my mother to tell me (Stepdad always forbade it) that the man I thought was my biological father all this time was not. The man who IS my biological father is Mexican. What does finding…
Welcome to Alice Column, in which Alice Laussade writes stories about things on the same day of every week, making it a column. Got an idea for a column? Start your own blog and write it up, you lazy shit. Whoa, Valley View Mall. What happened? When I was a…
Who says wishes don’t come true? Last year, as I thought what could I do more of in this town in the new year, a few things came to mind. A Riff Raff live performance. Check, thank to March’s South by So What bill. A late-night coffee option where I…
