BEHNAZ IN THE HOUSE

Some of you may know who Behnaz Sarafpour is. If you do, you will be excited to know that the petite fashion designer is making a personal appearance at Stanley Korshak today along with her Fall 2006 collection. I sat down and chatted with her this morning. Click below to see what she thinks about Dallas, designing, and what every woman should have in her closet.
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FASHIONABLE FUN

Looking for something to do this week? Support local fashion designers, artists, dj’s, and models at the launch party for the March Fashion Market this Thursday at Splashlight Studios. Sip cocktails, dance, see a live runway show, and mingle with some of Dallas’ most stylish. A portion of the $25 admission fee will go towards supporting The Dallas Fashion Incubator, which is a non-profit organization that helps local designers get started. Click below for more details.
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PROTESTERS CONTINUE TO PROTEST

Rod called from City Hall. He guesses there are about 1,000 students down there, protesting again. For the most part, they are well-behaved, though some have gotten into the pond, which is a no-no. Developing.

Update: An alert FBvian lets us know that Drudge has linked to this. Apparently some of the protestors down at City Hall were injured.

DALLAS: WE’RE IN THE TOP 20! ER, MAKE THAT BOTTOM 20

According to a new poll by Sperling’s Best Places that rates the best cities in America, one of the biggest factors pulling Dallas down the list is our woeful crime rate. In fact, check out this list of the 100 best Major Cities for crime and you’ll see us sitting at no. 80 — below crime havens like Baltimore, Newark, and Detroit. Who’s No. 1? Nassau/Suffolk, NY.

TRINI FEGGETT’S VERY BAD HORRIBLE NO GOOD DAY

I’m late in coming to this. But it’s just too good not to mention. The Star-T brings us the wonderful story of Trini Feggett, the cop who was fired for–well, for many things. On one day, his squad car camera caught him:

–Running a stop sign on his way to conduct personal business, which was watching a football game.

–Leaving his patrol area to go meet a friend at a restaurant.

–Yelling to a man sitting in the bed of a truck, “Why you selling weed from the truck, n—–?”

–Challenging another officer to a race, reaching speeds of 102 mph.

–Speeding just for the heck of it, while not racing anyone in particular, reaching speeds of 117 mph.

–Telling a stranded female motorist to lock her car, promising her he’d return, then leaving the scene to conduct personal business and never returning.

You know what Feggett’s attorney, Richard Carter, had to say about his client’s behavior? “Few, if any, law enforcement officers are perfect, and just about all of them have a bad day occasionally.”

Awe. Some.

NO SCHOOL FOREVER!!!

On my way to work, I saw an unusual number of kids in school uniform loitering on street corners. Another day of immigration protests, you ask? Apparently so.

SIGN UP TO SLEEP DOWNTOWN

An alert FBvian lets us know that 263 have signed up to walk to downtown Dallas on April 29 and sleep in a parking lot, as part of a silent protest for the Invisible Children of Uganda. Of course, sleeping in public is against the law, so I say we turn the fire hoses on em.

SHAME ON YOU, FORT WORTH!

I have just returned from the Nasher Sculpture Center, where the North Texas Business for Culture and the Arts presented its 2006 economic impact study of the arts and cultural organizations in North Texas. Got all that? My very brief notes:
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RE: DALLAS’ SKYLINE

A self-identified native Texan FBvian shares his thoughts on Dallas skyline after yesterday’s discussion:

I’m always amused when I see photos of Dallas’ skyline that makes it look like it’s riverfront (NO, the Trinity Toiletway does NOT count… MAYbe someday after billions of $$ in tax money is spent developing the Trinity, but not in my lifetime.) Equally humorous are the photos with a herd of longhorns in foreground and Big D rising up out of the prairies. His description of DFW was so bogus that I took the next step to read just WHO it was that had named Bog D’s skyline as one of the top 20 in the WORLD!

Did you read Luigi’s bio? I only hope his ad hoc writing is NOT in English. PLEASE tell me that English is not his native tongue. I humbly admit that I have yet to master ONE language.

RE: NEXT PERSON TO HEAR FROM OUR ATTORNEY’S

Sorry Timmy, I’m late getting around to (our) FrontBurner today. I just read your bit on Andrew Zimmern. FrontBurner knockoff issue aside, this guy’s content is insulting. “Everyone thinks ravioli is hard to make at home, but nothing is easier, or more fun to make” Huh? He glosses over the important (read: hard) part—making your own pasta. His recipe calls for six wonton wrappers. Oh, this makes me so tired. I’m calling for Chinese food. (P.S. He looks like Dr. Phyllo, I mean Phil.)

RE: NANCY DOES JIMMY’S

Rod, thanks (I think) for the mention. It’s nice to know that my byline has graduated from the men’s bathroom wall to the only scale I would care to read. That Cuban sandwich is better than ever.

EDDIE DEEN: BUSTED!

Nancy just called from the street with this report: two Highland Park SUV squad cars have an Eddie Deen catering van (No. 16) pulled over in a parking lot on Lemmon Ave., near Mahana. The van’s driver is cuffed. And he’s crying.

RE: WALKOUT DALLAS

A Sapphist FrontBurnervian who you’d never guess is a Republican–I mean, never–shares a quote from Teddy Roosevelt that came to her when she read Rod’s post:
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FAKE TEXAS HISTORY FOR SALE

As TV producers debate whether or not to shoot the Dallas movie in Dallas, lovers of everything Lone Star now have the chance to buy Texas’ most revered landmark — The Alamo. Okay, not the real Alamo in San Antonio, but the movie set Alamo used in the 1960 epic directed by and starring John Wayne. The fake Alamo is in Bracketville, near Del Rio, about 120 miles due west of San Antonio. Asking price? $13 million.

WALKOUT DALLAS: D IS THERE

City Hall plaza had almost as many police as it did high school kids at mid-afternoon today, as the crowds protesting immigration bills pending in Congress began to disperse and the students–from Skyline, Samuell, Woodrow Wilson, North Dallas, Sunset and Duncanville high schools, and probably from others, including Florence Middle School–headed back for home. Many were transported by Dallas school buses brought in especially for that purpose.
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MARGO JONES

No need to rehash what the Morning News has already done, but I do have a story about Kay Cattarulla and Rob Tranchin’s documentary airing tonight on KERA.
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CHURCH, MEET STATE

Good for the American Marketing Association, the first folks to take advantage of our very affordable program whereby press releases can be released as they should be, in the column at right.

PROTEST AT CITY HALL

Watch out, elected officials. They’re coming your way, and they want to be heard. From a FBvian:

A thousand or more students in cars and on foot just came through Main Street on their way to City Hall. Protesting immigration reform, the kids said they were from Skyline and other East Dallas schools. Waving banners and the Mexican flag, the students were loaded in pickups and hanging on cars. Accompanied by Dallas police, DISD police and paramedics. Although taking up both lanes of traffic on Main, they were organized spirited and polite.

Update: The protest is going down in Kiest Park in Oak Cliff.

RE: DALLAS CRACKDOWN

A FBvian floats his own theory:

As someone who occasionally employs the fine folks who wait outside Otra Parte, I certainly hope that The Man wasn’t cracking down on something that’s just part of the economy of East Dallas.

However, I suspect something less than sinister was going on. One of the unfortunate by products of sitting around all day waiting for work is the lure of having a beer or two while you’re waiting. From time to time, the day laborers will have a bit too much Bud Light and will get rolled for the contents of their pockets. The police aware of this, and the infractions that come along with having a lot of beer and time on your hands. Hopefully they were just keeping order. That said, I’d probably go somewhere else for day laborers if two squad cars were posting up in the labor pool.

NANCY DOES JIMMY’S

It would sound weird the other way, no?

But I digress. Not that our dining critic and woman-about-town ordinarily would go in for meat markets these days, but her story on the Cuban sandwich at Jimmy’s Food Store, on the opening page (125) of “Taste” in the latest issue of D Magazine, is taped to the big scale above the store’s meat case.

The sandwich that launched a thousand lips.

DALLAS INVESTOR TAKES OUT AFTER EXECUTIVE PAY

Shad Rowe, a Dallas investor, sometime D Magazine contributor, and chairman of the Texas Pension Review Board was featured yesterday in the NYTimes [the article, if you feel like paying, is here] for his role in founding Investors for Director Accountability, a new foundation that will track executive compensation. He is quoted as saying he launched the new watchdog because in his role on the pension board “he has seen the sacrifices that firefighters, police officers and other municipal workers have had to make as their pensions’ returns have fallen.” The major reason for that decline, in his mind, is the “ever-expanding share” that management is grabbing.

DALLAS CRACKDOWN ON DAY LABORERS?

I’ve decided we don’t live in America. Not anymore. Restaurants can’t let people smoke. It’s a crime to sleep in public. You can’t stink at the library. You can’t get drunk in a bar. And now you can’t pick up some day work. To wit, from an alert FBvian (as all FBvians are):

I drive to work on Ross Avenue every morning on the way downtown. The parking lot of the Otra Parte nightclub, at the corner of Carroll and Ross, is a long-time gathering spot for Hispanics trying to find work as day laborers. At least 30 to 40 are there every morning, no matter the weather.

This morning, for the first time I have seen, two Dallas police cars (one unmarked) were parked conspicuously in the parking lot, with two officers standing and chatting beside them. Not surprisingly, there were no aspiring workers to be found.

I was wondering if this was intended as some type of response to the anti-immigration protests over the weekend or if it was merely coincidence.

Update: Another FBvian notes that Fort Worth has a more enlightened approach.

DAVID E. DANIEL IS A BUSY MAN

Not only is he the president of UTD, but Dr. Daniel recently chaired a review panel that looked at the Army Corps of Engineers’ levee work in New Orleans. His assessment? “Simply restoring levees to pre-Katrina levels does not address the question of whether the design was adequate in the first place.”

He then added, “When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.”

DALLAS’ SKYLINE = NOT TERRIBLE

A blog-surfing FrontBurnervian found this list of the 15 best skylines in the world. Dallas gets an honorable mention at 18th, but, hey, it’s an honor just to be nominated. Check it out, if for no other reason than the cool photos.

THE NEXT PERSON TO HEAR FROM OUR ATTORNEYS

Andrew Zimmern is a restaurant critic for Mpls. St. Paul Magazine. He’s also a trademark violator. Tsk, tsk.