The Next Editor of the Observer

…should not be Laura Miller, despite what TexMo editor Evan Smith suggests. Why not? Oh, for information like that, I’m afraid we’re going to have to jump.

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St. Mark’s: Mo’ Money, Mo’ Money

I feel the need to dispel the rumor that I am the anonymous donor who gave St. Mark’s School of Texas $10 million. For the last time, I am not the donor.

Jerry Jones Wants You to Go with the Dish

The Cowboys owners told CNBC today that he doesn’t like the big cable companies’ push to “tier” the NFL coverage. Specifically, that means cable companies won’t carry the NFL Network. Allan Kreda at Portfolio doesn’t look past the irony:

“The larger cable companies want to tier us,” Jones said today during an interview with CNBC’s Darren Rovell. “That won’t work. Our fans have to cancel the Time Warners and the Comcasts and go with competing satellite or telcom products.”
That’s easy for Jones to say. His league for years has put games out of reach of the average fan who doesn’t have satellite service. The NFL’s’ “Sunday Ticket” package of all out-of-market games is only available through the DirecTV satellite network.

Me, I’m a DirecTV fan. I like can’t live without my receiver + Tivo. But I hear tell of On Demand that makes one reconsider one’s allegiance.

ESPN Says Aggies Discussing Buyout With Coach Fran

And there was much singing and rejoicing in Aggieland.

Let me be the first to say that A&M should go after this guy, and not this guy.

Open Letter to the Driver of the Black Lexus Smog Machine on Coit

[coughs] Get your car fixed. [coughs]

Can We Get the DMN a Subscription to People Newspapers?

It might help the paper avoid giving out “news tip” awards for stories that appeared three months earlier in the Park Cities People.

A Light Discussion About Light Rail

So this story in Saturday’s paper from Bruce Tomaso seems to make sense, and it addressed a side issue we keep hearing from people who want to push more mass transit which, I’m sorry, more often than not looks like an answer to a question very few ask. Most people like to drive; more rail isn’t going to change that. At least as far as I can tell. I’ve been fooled before. Being as the story and the implied conclusion appear reasonably sound, I anxiously await having someone explain why it’s all wrong and polemic propaganda and the devil. Or better yet, do you really think more light rail would significantly change people’s commuting habits? Discuss.

Honcho at Star-Telegram Leaving

Breaking news at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where president and publisher Wesley R. Turner has announced he’s stepping down.

Re: DMN To Cellphone Users

A thoughtful FrontBurnervian doesn’t agree that Highland Park’s proposed cellphone ban in school zones, endorsed by a Dallas Morning News editorial, is a dumb idea:

I am no fan of the DMN editorial board, but as a driver on our roads, I DO have very “little regard for the people’s ability to exercise judgment and common sense.” There are a bunch of crazies out there, and while a cell phone ban probably won’t stop the crazies, it may stop the soccer mom in her Tahoe from running someone over while planning her tennis date.

I cut down on my cell phone use when New Jersey enacted their state law while I was living there a couple of years ago. Having a patchwork of laws from town to town is what motivates some states to enact a statewide law. We’re just a little behind the trend, as usual.

Interesting point, though I hate to think of Texas jumping on any bandwagon just because New Jersey did it first.

Does the iPhone Make You iRate?

It does one FBvian, who twisted my ear this weekend about how his wife’s new iPhone doesn’t work properly. To prove himself right, he sent along a link to Dave Lieber’s column in the Star-T today, saying that it’s next-to-impossible to get a faulty iPhone replaced.

There are two reasons I don’t care:

1. When I went into the Apple Store at Knox-Henderson with an iPhone that had stopped working, they promptly handed me a new one, no questions asked.
2. I’m sure I’ll get a phone that runs Android the minute they’re available, anyway, cuz iPhones are so July ‘07.

President or Preacher?

I like Mike Huckabee. I like him so much I sent him a check. But his sermonizing this weekend at two Dallas churches confuses me. Is he running for president of the United States or president of the Southern Baptist Convention? I thought we had settled this in 1960 when JFK spoke to the Protestant ministers in Houston. Heck, I thought we had settled it in 1787. If the sole qualification for president is that one “loves Jesus,” the question is open whether George Washington would have made it.

Leading Off

1. Texas’ abstinence-only teaching programs sure are working! In unrelated news, Texas leads the nation in teen birth rates.

2. It sounds like the songs on the iPods given to kids in Grand Prairie schools are more educational than the ones you’ll find on mine. Although is any song really more thought-provoking than Pink’s “U + Ur Hand”?

3. Texas A&M is the best university in the country, according to Washington Monthly, the best city magazine in the universe.