Last week I attended a community meeting in East Dallas where an angry crowd of middle-class homeowners denounced community gardeners as a dangerous, invasive horde of “foreigners” and “maids” seeking to destroy the tranquility of their peaceful neighborhood. Gardeners. Who knew? So, City Hall was right. Community gardening is as…
Last night I’m in my car, sitting at a light in McKinney. I’m third back in the right lane. Minding my own business, pondering Cowboys-Vikings, wondering where is the best place to buy bulk 5-hour Energy drinks, convincing myself that the “thud” back up the road was a box and not…
The Paddy CristoWhich Wich Monte Cristo sandwich with avocado, mayonnaise and Cheez WhizThe ordering system at Which Wich — you build your sandwich one ingredient at a time on a multiple-choice form — is clever and efficient. It’s an impressive way to empower customers. It’s also an invitation for disaster,…
Environment Texas, an Austin-based research group, made available today a report on Texas rivers that lists the state’s most dangerously polluted waterways, particularly those fouled by chemicals that cause cancer and birth defects. And to mark the report’s release, at 1 p.m. the group will gather media types and local…
Maybe nobody else cares, but my wife and I got curious over the weekend why the city’s water mains break in cold weather, since we were left without water for several hours Saturday night. We live in a neighborhood of old houses with poorly insulated pipes. Most people leave their…
I covered a community meeting last night at Winfrey Point on White Rock Lake to discuss plans for a community garden off Fisher Road in East Dallas, and … what can I say? It was pretty much a total rout for the gardeners, portrayed as an ominous invading horde by…
Whether you’re at the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt’s End: *Texas Stadium’s last breath will be taken as nothing more than some tween’s mac-‘n-cheese, push-‘n-pulverize, real-life video game? As a whole, we suck. *Alabama > Texas. Toldja. *I will never watch Colt McCoy’s “I…
Dear Readers: The Mexican is still trying to shake off the Herradura from the previous year, so I’m reprinting this week a favorite column of mine from el pásado. To make up for my siesta, though, I’m bringing back the YouTube edition of this column, where I’ll take the questions…
Apparently on the TV news tonight we will see a story I can only describe as the Dallas’s First Truly Awkward Moment of 2010. Dallas Police Lieutenant Regina Smith will lead a cortege of a dozen uniformed officers and several television news crews to strew rose petals at the apartment…
Speaking of Craig James, here goes a big mistake. I’m going to invade Richie’s territory and offer an opinion on a sports story. I was actually prohibited from writing about sports once when I was a daily newspaper reporter because of my appalling lack of knowledge. Maybe I’m about to…
Okay, so I did a little experiment. I was waiting for my computer to start up yesterday morning and I thought “Damn, I hate waiting.” You’re familiar with that feeling I assume. I’m not necessarily an impatient person. Traffic doesn’t ruin my day. I’ll let folks with just a few…
Dallas City Auditor Craig D. Kinton just published his department’s audit of maintenance of city-owned buildings, which makes for some mildly amusing reading this morning. It’s after the jump, but what would you imagine the biggest problem might be, in terms of gauging how well the city maintains its buildings?…
Whether you’re at the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt’s End: *Let me get this year/decade started off right with some spiritual advice: I before E except after C and sometimes Y? Weird. *Happy Hot New Year. *I’ll start 2010 exactly when…
Normally what newspaper writers do at the end of year is fulminate—rant and rave. But I do that all year long. So for me the end of the year ought to be time to get a grip. You know what really does calm me down and cheer me up this…
Dear Mexican: Why in the hell does everything have to be in English and Spanish? I ride the bus/train to work (not because I must, but because it’s more efficient), and every time someone requests to stop, you hear “Stop Requested,” then this parrar bullshit! Not to mention the schools…
Reading The Dallas Morning News is easy. I don’t know why people complain. I had at least three conversations Sunday with grumpy people all upset and confused about the Gromer Jeffers story in the Sunday paper: “Issue of Dallas’ next mayor isn’t so clear cut.” “Where does this come from?”…
Whether you’re at the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt’s End: It’s Christmas. I’m on vacation. But, alas, I gotcha three gifts. *It was a better day when the Cowboys and Redskins hated each other. Right? *Hot. *Not…
This may or may not be our last post before we call it quits (I’ve got to prep for my Christmas Day job, besides). Still, I meant to mention this yesterday: On his way out the door to West Conshohocken, PA, Dallas News columnist Rod Dreher discovered that Schutze is,…
Dear Mexican: Can you recommend a solid, accessible history of California and Arizona so I can learn what really happened when the U.S. gobbled Aztlán? —La Chica Confundida Dear Wabette: The holistic classic in this genre is Rodolfu Acuña’s Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, but it’s a bit pricey,…
How many people in Dallas know that our downtown farmers market is outclassed and out-performed by the farmers market in Detroit? Or that Dallas, which thinks of itself as a kind of capital of free enterprise, is way deeper into government control and regulation of farmers markets than Detroit? Irony…
I want to confess in advance. I, Jim Schutze, am a party to the KwanzaaFest scandal. It’s all going to come out now. I knew this would happen. I’m ready for my hands-over-the-face paddy wagon shot now. Rudy Bush has posted excerpts from the findings of Danny Defenbaugh, the private…
Whether you’re at the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt’s End: *Dallas Cowboys’ fans left training camp convinced they had three above-average running backs, each of which could start for most NFL teams. But, in retrospect, is the “three-headed monster” actually a liability?…
