Re: Precinct 3549: Sandra Crenshaw Goes Berserk

At long last, here are the photos taken last night at Precinct 3549 of Sandra Crenshaw allegedly and supposedly trying to “take the sheets home to correct them.” The photos were taken by New Mexico attorney Laura E. Sanchez.

Re: Precinct 3549: Sandra Crenshaw Goes Berserk

Here’s everything I know about the Crenshaw matter: the voicemail on her cell phone is full. I can’t leave her a message, and she isn’t picking up. Meanwhile, I’m told by someone who works in the media that the fellow who has shot the video that supposedly shows Crenshaw trying to hijack her precinct and the ensuing brouhaha — that fellow is weighing offers, trying to figure out how best to use this video as leverage. He’s a student. He wants to meet Obama. He thinks Obama might give him a job. Something along those lines. Reminds me of the South Park episode where the Underpants Gnomes reveal their genius business plan:

Step 1: collect underpants
Step 2: ???
Step 3: profit

Developing? Not Really

Sam Merten has a solid piece in this week’s Dallas Observer about Fairfield Residential’s fight to tear down the dilapidated, crime-infested Signature Pointe Apartments and replace the complex with a mixed-use development (with retail, restaurants, and residential). Trey wrote about the dust-up in our March issue. City councilwoman Angela Hunt, apparently, was not a fan:

“The developer is well-represented by PR people who can contact folks in the media, can frame this a certain way, and can get photos and stories in D magazine. Neighbors with concerns about it aren’t represented by anybody.”

That is Angela’s reasoning as to why it’s not a big deal that she met with the opposition, but hasn’t yet met with supporters of the necessary zoning change. Let’s go ahead and jump, because this is long and about to get longer.

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What Willa Ford’s Been Working On

No. 9’s no. 1 girl will portray the late Anna Nicole Smith in an upcoming biopic, set for release (on TV, far as I can tell) later this year. A preview has hit the Web. Does she pull it off? Judge for yourself.

David Mamet to Keynote Hiett Prize Presentation

The winner of the $50,000 Hiett Prize will be announced March 15, but we learned today who’ll be speaking at the awards dinner April 8 at the DMA: the aforementioned Mamet. See you there.

Staubach Co. Featured In Best-selling Book

A best-selling new book by Keith R. McFarland called The Breakthrough Company puts a spotlight on Addison’s The Staubach Co., which was founded of course by the great Dallas Cowboys QB. A key tenet of the book, which profiles nine companies that have grown to $1 billion in sales or more, is that such firms spend more time building corporate character than fretting about corporate culture. And few, McFarland says, do it as well as Roger Staubach’s commercial real estate company. Jump to find out why.

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Charlize Theron Coming to Dallas

Esquire’s reigning Sexiest Woman Alive will attend this year’s AFI Dallas International Film Festival, being held March 27-April 6. She’s just one of several big names who will be in attendance (including Robert De Niro, Mickey Rooney, Helen Hunt, and Woody Harrelson), but I know who you guys really care about. Not so fast though, fellas, her boyfriend—who directed her in the set-to-be-screened, rhymingly titled Battle in Seattle—will be there, too.

Eric Celeste to Get All Excited, Then Have Soul Crushed When He Loses Big-Time Media Award

The finalists for the annual City and Regional Magazine Awards have been announced. Eric’s fine piece on “The Trinity War” is one of three finalists in the “reporting category” (the other two entries come from Atlanta and Philadelphia magazines). Congrats to Eric. And my condolences.

Talk-Show Shenanigans And The Dupes That Follow Them

Even though exit polls show that cross-over Republicans went 52-48 for Obama, David Weigel over at Reason digs deeper to show that so-called conservatives bolstered Clinton enough to keep her from losing Texas. If the Clintons do manage the almost mathematically impossible task of winning the nomination, FrontBurnervians should remember this remarkable piece of political stupidity when Hillary beats McCain on November 4.  Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan over at the Atlantic has thoughts on why Rush and Hillary need each other.

FrontBurner Primary Night Post Of The Year

The winner is of the 2008 Bill Brasky Award for Primary Night Post Of The Year And Maybe The Century goes to — the music stops, the crowd leans forward, cameras roll –

Eric Celeste

for this.

American Eagle: We’ll Lose Your Luggage And Make You Late

To add to their growing list of distinctions, American Eagle was ranked as the third-worst airline in the country in terms of on-time arrivals and second-worst when it comes to canceled flights. Which just reaffirms why I prefer to travel by hot air balloon.

Even Neiman’s Gets the Blues

For the first time in five years, Neiman Marcus’ same-store sales fell in the month of February, by 7.3 percent. Company Chairman and CEO Burt Tansky admitted that “the environment had turned somewhat challenging” recently. OK, Hillary. Fix it.

Lorlee Bartos: The Luckiest Precinct Chair in Town

Bartos is a long-suffering FrontBurnervian and an East Dallas activist. Good people. She tells us a great story about something funny that happened to her on the way to Whole Foods:

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Jack Ruby’s Gun Owner Has High Hopes

On Monday, Zac told us about the Pugliese auction, where a bunch of cool stuff will be for sale, including Jack Ruby’s gun. Now comes word of the seller’s intentions. Anthony Pugliese III says he wants to use the proceeds (estimated at more than a million dollars) to “build a 64-square-mile bio-sustainable city called Destiny in central Florida.” True story.

Wheels Up At 10:20

See you next week, FB nation.

More Than Anything Else, I Want A Magic Wall

More info on John King’s  “multi-touch collaboration wall.”

How the Caucus Coverage Affected FrontBurner Traffic

For Those Who Care: according to Google Analytics, our efforts yesterday produced — drum roll — almost no change in our traffic. We got 6,429 visits from 3,370 unique visitors. Both numbers are about average for us on a weekday. We did, however, generate 17,807 pageviews yesterday, where our average might be only 11,000 or so. Basically that means the same number of people came to see us, but they refreshed the site a bit more frequently than they otherwise might have.

Anyway, we don’t do it for the numbers. We do it for the love of the game. And the troops.

Precinct 3549: Sandra Crenshaw Goes Berserk

With help from FBvian Maggie, we told you last night about the disaster at 3549, which is Singing Hills Rec Center. Now we have confirmation that it went down just as described. The precinct chair is Sandra Crenshaw, the former City Council member. The videotape does exist, and I expect we’ll soon enough be seeing it in one medium or another.

Leading Off (Day After Edition)

1. McCain wins the Republican nomination, and Hillary Clinton defeats Barack Obama in Texas, as well as in other states that don’t matter because they’re not Texas. The delegate count didn’t change much for the Dems, however, as Obama still leads.

2. The Caucuses provided fewer bad jokes on FrontBurner than expected, but just as many fireworks locally as predicted. Stories will trickle in throughout the day of more caucus craziness. Bring it.

3.  Final vote tallies in Dallas County show Barack getting 61 percent of the Democratic vote, Hillary 38 percent, and Joe Biden pulling in just a few more than 250 votes, which was the magic number that triggered his victory in the $20 bet he had with Bill Richardson.