RE: BECK PLAYING SURPRISE GIG

Not much of a surprise now, is it?

BECK PLAYING SURPRISE GIG IN DALLAS

Texas Gigs breaks the news.

HOMESICK FOR HERRING

German astronaut Thomas Reiter is hard at work at the International Space Station. After a rough day (night?) of walking in space and fixing robotic arms, he craves a little more than Tang and some freeze-dried fettuccine Alfredo. So he sends a message to Houston requesting some comfort food. NASA nutritionists put in a call to Germandeli.com, a huge all-things-German store and warehouse in Southlake. Kein problem! Last Monday a Progress cargo craft filled with Mestemacher whole grain breads, Salzstangen (pretzel sticks), Bahlsen and Hanuta cookies, Alstertor herring, Milka chocolate candy bars, Thomy & Hengstenberg mustards, and European liver pâté took off for the ISS. Now that’s service.

THE GAME WILL BE TELEVISED

An aware, albeit self-interested, FrontBurnervian reminds us traffic will be a touch heavier than usual around Mockingbird Lane and Central Expressway tonight. Why? Because SMU plays UAB in a nationally televised football contest. Kickoff is at 6:30. Tickets are undoubtedly still available.

RACE MATTERS

Why did LaTrese Adkins attack Michael Phillips’ White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001 last week? He thinks he might know why.
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RE: TIME WARNER

A tech-savvy FrontBurnervian has some advice for sufferers:

I had the same problem with receiving my email last night, and the activation process was a total joke. Still is to my knowledge. I eventually worked around the issue by manually changing my mail software settings on my own. I get duplicates of emails, but at least I get them in my program without having to log on the server.

RE: TIME WARNER

A glass-is-half-full FrontBurnervian writes,

The upside to Time Warner (if they operate in Dallas like they do in Austin) is that their billing department is just as slow. You can go for months without paying your bill and they won’t cut you off. I like to think that I am on a quarterly payment plan.

TIME WARNER TRIES CUSTOMERS’ PATIENCE

A disgruntled FrontBurnervian says Time Warner’s introduction to this market has been less than smooth:

Time Warner Cable is having a major meltdown during the transition in Dallas. Customers using Outlook Express or any other mail program are unable to send or receive E-mail. You have to log onto your server is order to do so. One of the problems is that during the activation program , Dallas isn’t listed as one of the locales (Houston, Austin, El Paso etc.) At 2:00 AM this morning I was 64th in waiting for a on-line help/chat. At 2:30 PM , I was 764th. Needless to say, they also aren’t answering their phones.

Yikes.

START PLANNING THE PARADE

Your Dallas Mavericks will win the 2006-07 NBA title defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers in six games. That’s according to the computer simulation of EA Sports’ NBA Live 07. Sweet.

RE: WHITE METROPOLIS STRIKES BACK

When I posted last week about Dr. Latrese Adkins’ response to Michael Phillips’s book, I didn’t hear a thing for several days. Then I got an email from someone who recorded the lectures and put them on YouTube. Today, Michael Phillips himself answered, saying that he thought I had created a misimpression of his remarks. Here’s what he said:
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CHET EDWARDS LOOKS SAFE

The Texas 17th Congressional district stretches from Burleson down through College Station. Democrat Chet Edwards is always considered vulnerable in such a conservative district (President Bush still garners a 51% approval rating from his neighbors around Crawford), but this year the political gods are with him. The latest polls show him leading Republican Van Taylor 55-38.

GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE

Or at least disgusted conservatives do. Here’s Rod Dreher’s take today on Red Ink Republicans.

RE: DALE HANSEN AIN’T HAPPY WITH JOHN McCAA

Hansen would like to set the record straight on that awkward exchange between him and John McCaa. He’s heard from a bunch of people who thought it sounded like he was mad at McCaa. Not true. In an e-mail, Hansen writes:

Good audio maybe, but like all good stories, it’s a little bit off. They didn’t bring me in to do the World Series story. They were having John do it all along, just before sports. I was mad at some decisions being made behind the scenes. But I was NEVER upset at or with John.

I have a tendancy to let my real emotions show through sometimes, and this was certainly one of those times. Childish on my part. But just for the record: there is no problem between John and me.

RE: MEGAFEST

Two points worth considering about MegaFest, according to that article: 1) “During MegaFest 2004, at least 560,000 people attended the four-day event.” 2) “The MegaFest festival … will return to an undetermined location in 2008, said officials with Jakes’ ministry.”

If Phillip Jones, Mary Suhm, and Laura Miller haven’t already had a meeting with Jakes to figure out how to bring the event to the bishop’s hometown (I know he lives in Fort Worth now, whatever), then they should. Dammit.

RE: YES, THAT’S MY CHURCH

A wiseacre FBvian writes:

Dare I say that religion makes for strange bedfellows?

But seriously folks:

As a man raised a lifelong Episcopalian, the church founded upon ‘live and let live’ and now cannibalizing its own: Viva la UCC!

YES, THAT’S MY CHURCH

Fingers of Fury reports something I heard over the weekend: the United Church of Christ accepted into its ranks the Cathedral of Hope, the self-proclaimed largest gay and lesbian church in the world.

As a lifelong UCC member, and in light of the recent Episcopalian row, let me say, simply, welcome. Good to have you aboard.

MEGAFEST CANCELLED FOR 2007

Bishop T.D. Jakes recently announced MegaFest will take a year-long sabbatical and will not take place in Atlanta in 2007. Update your travel plans accordingly.

POLITICAL ADVERTISING

As long as we’re on the subject… CBS News reposts The Nation’s profile of Scott Howell, the creator of controversial political ads. Notable among them, of course, is the recent anti-Harold Ford ad that was eventually pulled. Nowhere in the profile is it mentioned that the commercial wasn’t even shot in Tennessee.

EARLY VOTING–USE IT OR LOSE IT

Texas has more political problems than I care to enumerate while sober, but one thing we do have is a very wide early voting window. The idea is to increase turnout by making a hard-won democratic privilege as convenient as picking up a fifth of milk on the way home. Early voting started Oct. 23 but you still have until Nov. 3–that would be this Friday–to take advantage of a truly progressive election-friendly idea.

Of course, if you’re like some of the folks in this tiny slice of the FB Nation, you whine, “But I don’t know where to go to vote early.” Sure, you can find myspace and youtube, but you can’t find the Dallas County election department website? No problem. I live to serve. Just go here, and find out where you can do the right thing any time the rest of the week.
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LONE STAR PARK CUTS BACK

While gearing up for the Breeder’s Cup this weekend, I stumbled across this story of battling racetracks in California. In it, there’s mention of something I did not know: Lone Star Park is cutting back to four days of racing per week in 2007. That’s a good thing for race fans in the long run. Fewer races means bigger fields. Bigger fields means better racing. Giddyup.

MORE ON DISHONESTY IN ADVERTISING

If Pete Sessions hasn’t read Dick Armey’s piece yesterday in the Washington Post, his constituents should. Notable recent achievements of Pete’s Republican Congress?

Rather than rolling back government, we have a new $1.2 trillion Medicare prescription drug benefit, and non-defense discretionary spending is growing twice as fast as it had in the Clinton administration. Meanwhile, Social Security is collapsing while rogue nations are going nuclear and the Middle East is more combustible than ever. Yet Republican lawmakers have taken up such issues as flag burning, Terri Schiavo and same-sex marriage.

Come to think of it, Armey’s replacement in the House, Michael Burgess, and our newest representative from Dallas, Kenny Marchant–both of whose voting records are much worse than Pete’s–should read it too.

DMN TO LAUNCH NEW WEB SITE

Dallasnews.com will launch a top-to-bottom redesign Thursday night. Let’s hope one of the new features is no popup ads.

PICKENS OFFSPRING PLEADS GUILTY

Michael Pickens, son of T. Boone, pleaded guilty yesterday to securities fraud. Pickens the Younger described his scheme to the court: He’d send stock tips via faxes to unwitting investors, letting them think they were in on a secret. He’d hype stocks he owned and sold ‘em high. Pickens netted $300,000 with the gambit.

Now, if only he had an asterisk on those faxes that identified himself and his portfolio, then he’d have something.

DISHONESTY IN ADVERTISING

Dontcha just love the last-minute campaign fliers that arrive in the mail in the
final weeks? Expect more every day between now and next Tuesday. My favorite by far is from Pete Sessions, with a line on the first flap asking:

“Who is causing all of the red ink coming out of Washington?”

The answer is, surprise: the Democrats!

According to a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, “Here’s the depressing fact [about GOP leadership of Congress]. Domestic discretionary nondefense spending is up 70% since 1994.”

Pete’s little flier reveals what he thinks about Republican voters in one of the most affluent, best-educated districts in the country. He thinks we haven’t been watching.

TRAMMELL CROW SELLS OUT

Breaking news over on Dallasnews.com. The world’s largest commercial real estate broker, CB Richard Ellis Group, is buying Trammell Crow in a deal worth $2.2 billion ($1.8 billion of which is cash).