Opinion & Commentary

As we told you here already this morning, Mayor Mike Rawlings has declared that he will not debate the Trinity toll road issue — six- to 10-lane $1 to $2 billion expressway along the river through downtown — because … just won’t. Take a look at the document below, produced…

To: Mayoral Candidate Marcos Ronquillo From: Concerned Citizen Jim Schutze Concerning: Please don’t mention toll road. Marcos, I see here that you have a mayoral candidate forum coming up next week in Oak Cliff, where you are scheduled to debate Mayor Mike Rawlings on the issues. I know from our…

Finally: Garth Brooks is coming back to Dallas. After more than seven years and a snub of the entire state of Texas on his comeback tour, yesterday he — hey, wait a minute. This isn’t actually a concert he’s playing? He’s just hosting a pre-party for the American Country Music…

Things in Texas sure look better from inside Texas than from outside. Judging by the news coverage at home, a recently released report on an admissions controversy at the University of Texas found a few minor hickeys but a generally clean bill of health for the university. People looking at…

Yesterday morning I awoke early, and the hatcam mischief was upon me. Not long later I found myself lurking in a corridor at the Crescent, a fancy building, with the hatcam on my head. Just then, Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston got the big bounce-a-roo, the heave-ho from a…

This is “No Car Week” in Dallas, according to the American Institute of Architects’ Dallas branch. They should call it John Tatum week. Dallas developer John C. Tatum Jr. has been telling Dallas for more than 30 years that it is building its rail system entirely the wrong way, dooming…

It’s been six long years since Jack White last played Dallas, in a show at House of Blues with the Dead Weather. It’s about time he pay us another visit…

The city calls its plan for street improvements in West Dallas “The Three-Hole Punch.” But for David Jensen, who owns a warehouse on those streets, it’s a sucker punch. Three years ago Jensen, a 62-year-old Harley-riding semi-retired fine-art handler, started seeing plans for a major rebuilding of the streets all…

In a 15-minute press conference yesterday responding to an investigative report on sketchy back-door admissions practices, UT-Austin President Bill Powers said he was only doing what his predecessors did, that everybody at other universities does it, that everybody knows about it and that his main accuser, UT Regent Wallace Hall,…

We’ve heard endless talk in the last 10 years about the official admissions policies of public universities and whether those policies deprive certain applicants of a fair shot. But that’s all been based on the publicly acknowledged admissions policies of those schools. What about the secret off-the-books admissions system?…

A TRE is a way for the school district to get out from under the Texas Legislature and its Tea-Party-inspired animus against public education

So sad. Pathetic. Last Friday the bullet train people announced their two preferred sites for a station in Dallas, and none of the elected southern Dallas leadership seems even to have noticed that they just got screwed. See also: Sites Selected for Potential Dallas-to-Houston Bullet Train Station In fact, southern…

Of course the people opposed to school reform in Dallas hope to find scandals that will take down the reform superintendent, Mike Miles. But that takes a good scandal. For starters we need to see secret mansions paid for with cash, an office that looks like a whorehouse, fat guys…

Yesterday morning I had this weird stereophonic experience — reading Eric Nicholson’s piece on Unfair Park about the orthodox synagogue versus the homeowners group in Far North Dallas, while also watching and listening to President Obama’s remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on TV. See also: Liberty Institute…

Yesterday, mayoral candidate Marcos Ronquillo came out with his own take on a topic we discussed Monday — the number of political contributors who have given Mayor Mike Rawlings way more than the $5,000 limit per candidate per campaign. See also: Well-Heeled Donors Flood Mayor Rawlings with Money. Hey, Know…

We’ll say this much about Henderson Avenue Country Club: They’re not bashful. The new venue in the Knox-Henderson neighborhood opened just last month, but they’ve already bestowed themselves with the tag of “Best Honky Tonk and BBQ Bar in Texas.” Yeah, right. That’s stepping into some shoes that are almost…

Last weekend we saw Stagger Lee, the Will Power and Justin Ellington musical doing its world premiere at the Dallas Theater Center. All the way through it I was thinking about John Wiley Price. Elaine Liner has reviewed it for us already, and it wouldn’t occur to me anyway to…

A few weeks ago, there was actually a decent song playing on country radio during my drive for the first time in what might have been years. I didn’t recognize the track, but I quickly pulled up Shazam on my phone in the middle of traffic to save it for…

The Dallas school board is scheduled to take up the case of the Instant Messages from Hell today — the matter of a recently resigned personnel director who penned irreverent and even profane messages to colleagues and did so on a computer system owned and operated by the school system…

Over the past six weeks, Leon Bridges has been at the center of one of the biggest stories in Dallas music in recent memory. On Christmas Day, it was announced that the 25-year-old R&B singer from Fort Worth had been signed to Columbia Records. It was a huge accomplishment. But…

Why is Mayor Mike Rawlings so strong for the Trinity toll road? Several months ago he made sort of a show of thinking about it. Then he announced his support. But was there ever any doubt? As we move closer to the May elections, the focus of those elections is…