At 2:30 p.m. today 14th Civil District Judge Eric Moye put the Planet Earth back where it belongs, much to the relief of people clinging to its surface in one East Dallas neighborhood. In the infamous “dirt skirts” case, a zoning dispute over building heights, Moye ruled that city of…
Maybe Hopefully you remember Chandler Jackson. Quick refresher: Gifted 12-year-old Frisco boy tragically killed in a 2005 freak accident by a broken golf club in tiny-town Kentucky. After almost four years of misery and mystery, Chandler’s parents – Rick and Charmane – may this week get some closure. At the very least,…
Whether you’re at the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt’s End: *If I were I am a betting man, and I am plunking down $1 that 105.3 The Fan and the Dallas Cowboys officially announce their flagship radio station partnership next week. Trust…
Dear Mexican: In an earlier column, you mentioned that conservatives can’t have an argument against illegal immigration without it degenerating into a diatribe against culture. Here’s an argument that has nothing to do with culture: In California, we now have a severe water shortage. I work for a municipal water…
Angela Hunt has delivered a sound thwacking to fellow city council member Ron Natinsky and Assistant City Manager A.C. Gonzalez over some loose-lipped claims Natinsky and Gonzalez have been making about our upcoming referendum on a city-owned hotel downtown.She says Natinsky and Gonzalez, in their eagerness to get people to…
Whether you’re at the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt’s End: *What’s more obtuse: That Iowa is now a more progressively liberal state than California, or that the Texas Rangers woke up this morning as the only undefeated team in the American…
Yesterday Dallas Morning News managing editor George Rodrigue took issue with my April 1 column in which I took issue with his attack on the Dallas Observer last month. At this point, I’m sure it would be better for everybody if George and I were locked in a sound-proofed room…
Dear Mexican: For as long as I can remember, Mexicans have been known for doing three things: Drinking lots of cerveza, having lots of niños and saying “¡Ay, caramba!” While I can vouch for the first two, I’ve never, ever personally heard a Mexican utter those famous two words. Is…
The crisis over the Dallas levee system represents a total failure of the traditional leadership class in this city. We can and will argue for years about why this happened, but the important thing now is that it did. The mayor lied. City council members, with the exception of Angela…
Well, I think I got some interesting stuff here.The city keeps telling people they’re going to “fix” the Trinity River levees. Don’t much think so. Looks to me like a whole lot of the existing levee system along the Trinity is going to have be torn out and replaced.My column…
I’m already getting calls from my Republican friends (I have some! Swear!) who have seen the Todd Gillman story that just went up on The Dallas Morning News’s site. In it, former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk tells Gillman he’s really pissed that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bringing…
Whether you’re at the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt’s End: *Seems Highland Park-ex and potential No. 1 overall NFL Draft pick Matthew Stafford isn’t comfortable talking with teams – specifically a psychologist for the San Francisco 49ers – about his parents’…
Astute Friend of Unfair Park “Wylie H.” drilled into the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ report on the Trinity River levees yesterday evening and found the real horror story that goes almost unmentioned in this morning’s Dallas Morning News account of the report: the story of the day we almost…
Dear Mexican: Why are Mexicans so proud of the brutality of their police force? They seem to glamorize it in all their music and telenovelas. —Batons Are Bats, Or Super Oracles Dear BABOSO: I’ll let you know when Dirty Harry, Detective Sipowicz, Chief Wiggum and the producers of COPS get…
Let’s begin with the assumption that you, as reader and citizen, do give a damn what’s going to happen along the Trinity River through downtown, where the biggest public works campaign in the city’s history seems to have become a big mess. Let’s also assume you do not care too…
Month or so ago, Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price called me up and reamed me out for suggesting he may be carrying water for Ross Perot Jr. and the Perot-dominated Alliance freight airport in Fort Worth. The commissioner told me he barely knows Mr. Perot and said he couldn’t…
The following is a prime example of my curse here on Earth. A fleeting thought sprouts into a mild observation, only to bloom into a thesis that eventually flourishes into a blog item with sports branches. My apologies … Got a text the other day, the salutation of which was LOL. It struck…
Whether you’re at the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt’s End: *Dallas Police Chief David Kunkel can apologize all he wants for the indefensible actions of Robert Powell, but unless the officer is fired it will be a complete and utter injustice…
Dear Readers: In honor of April Fools’ Day, I’m turning over the column this week to those who think America can stop the Reconquista. Following are the winners of my challenge to Know Nothings a couple semanas back asking people to explain in 100 words or less how they can…
For 11 years the Dallas Observer has been reporting the existence of serious, fundamental life-and-death design errors in the Trinity River project, a huge public-works undertaking to rebuild the river through downtown Dallas alongside a new highway and parks. Above all else, this was to be a flood-safety project, but…
Steve Blow writes today on The Dallas Morning News’s Metro Blog about Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, the Trinity River toll road and Blow’s own support of Leppert in the past:Yet I don’t feel misled by the mayor. In thinking about it, I finally hit upon the pertinent word for me:…
By now I’m way way too deep into the story of the Trinity River Corridor Project. I have actually developed a kind of side interest — a hobby, maybe — involving the history of the Trinity River Project. I’ll know it’s time to see a doctor when I start collecting…
