Eminent domain — where the government takes your property — sounds so neat and clean when the government describes how it’s done. We only see the down and dirty when the government actually does it. Assistant Dallas City Attorney Christopher J. Caso, testifying Monday before the Texas Senate Committee on…
We’ve all heard of the FOMO, that is, the Fear of Missing Out. In Aziz Ansari’s new special, Live at Madison Square Garden, he sharply criticizes the millennial generation’s anxiety in regards to missing out on something better happening right now. Woe unto the person at the thing, who checks…
One big number the Trinity toll road hustlers don’t want us to see before the May City Council elections: How much it would cost to drive on that dog. You saw the story about the new North Texas toll road where they jumped the rate to $7 to drive four…
Just after noon on July 4, 2005, I was sitting under a blazing sun in a dusty, wide-open field behind Billy Bob’s Texas in the Fort Worth Stockyards. I had just unpacked my folding chair and settled in for the first of what would be over a dozen performances during…
You already know how Greg Abbott rolls. Our brand-new so-called conservative (small government, close to the people) governor wants to make it illegal for Texans to pass their own local close-to-the-people laws on fracking, plastic bags or tree cutting — matters he thinks are better left in the hands of…
David Jensen is the guy I wrote about a few weeks ago who owns and occupies a warehouse in West Dallas in the path of a major new real estate development heavily favored by City Hall. His main point in talking to me was to tell the city to tell…
There are plenty of places in Dallas to go get drunk, but some neighborhoods have more charm and community than others. That’s what makes us flock to them and to then keep coming back. This week, Dallas lost one of its best watering holes in Exposition Park’s Amsterdam Bar. For…
The Wobble is a song written by V.I.C. that plays everywhere from clubs to bars to weddings to school dances. It’s a line dance. A dance craze abomination brought here by the Line Dance Devil himself. If you are unfamiliar with the dance, here is one of thousands of instructional…
If the lasso tightens around Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly’s neck after all, it will be the Dallas connection that does it. O’Reilly has improbably wriggled out of other whoppers, like saying he covered a war from 1200 miles away, for example, but so far he hasn’t had the balls…
Who you sue is who’s got the right pockets. The contention at the heart of nurse Nina Pham’s lawsuit against Texas Health Resources, owners of Dallas Presbyterian Hospital, is that her bosses at Presby told her her hazmat suit “was safe and that she was at ‘no risk’ of having…
I view of our story from yesterday — about Dallas ISD trustee Joyce Foreman’s troubling voting record and internet ranting — I present the video below, from the late-night wind-up of last week’s school board meeting. It shows Foreman giving her views on “modern education.” They’re telling. I know Foreman…
Last week the Dallas school system saw the most appalling example yet of Scandalgate — the scandalous scandal of skimpy school scandals. Three board members said they wanted to fire the superintendent over a teacher-hiring scandal. But by the end of the week the teacher-hiring scandal had already turned to…
Wait a minute. The story you’re getting from The Dallas Morning News this morning about last night’s Dallas school board meeting is flat not what happened. It may be some deft ass-covering by the News’ lead DISD beat reporters, but it’s not the news. The paper this morning makes it…
A story in The New York Times yesterday about New York’s only Ebola patient and how he doesn’t want to be a hero got me thinking about hero narratives in the news. For every flood, fire, earthquake, mudslide and measles outbreak, there must be a hero. Dr. Craig Spencer caught…
As I angled for a good spot at Trees’ stellar “local music revue” with Sarah Jaffe, Sam Lao and Blue, The Misfit at Trees a couple weeks back, an elbow descended from on high at dizzying speed, only to directly and sharply make contact with my boobs. I hollered, “Hey,…
New York state’s wage board wants the state to hike the base wage for tipped employees to $7.50 an hour by the end of the year, part of an almost nationwide push to help servers, bartenders and other employees who count on tips for a significant portion of their income…
For fans of most genres of music, it takes but only a few moments scrolling down our Concert Calendar, a Twitter feed or your Facebook page activity to stumble upon a local concert that interests you. Chances are you have a small handful of favorite venues that more often than…
By now it’s clear that Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly lied in his 2012 book, Killing Kennedy, about his own connection to the suicide of a key figure in a JFK conspiracy theory. The evidence is irrefutable. Maybe the more interesting question at this point is why. Who lies to…
Yesterday was another day when apparently I was the villain all the way around. Or, as I think of it, another dollar. Robert Wilonsky, a journalist at The Dallas Morning News, had a piece in which he explained that the mayor never said what I said he said about never…
To be completely honest, Aaron Watson has never been one of my favorite Texas country artists. He’s recorded solid songs in his 15-year career (“Lonely Lubbock Nights” comes to mind) but has generally been surpassed by contemporaries like Pat Green and Charlie Robison in terms of commercial and critical success…
Dallas is throttled by an icy winter blast, and we have video of the disaster. Dogs run wild.
This game is called Fantasy Downtown: The Dallas Daydream. Imagine first that you live in a really nice downtown apartment, and the rent is substantially below going rates today. Up and down the block from your building’s front door are grocery stores, drug stores, housewares shops, coffee shops, small restaurants,…
