Steve Blow Has a Black Friend

I’ve been trying to figure out this four-part conversation about race that Steve Blow is having with James Ragland. It took me awhile to get it. Then Eric sent me a link to No. 14 on the list of Stuff White People Like. NOW I understand.

H-P to Buy EDS?

The deal could be announced tomorrow. EDS shares jumped on the news. Congrats to Webster Dunbar, who was awarded 14,329 shares on May 1. Well played, sir.

Video of Man Contemplating Suicide

Spoiler alert: the guy doesn’t jump. But this video clip, without narration, is oddly powerful. I wonder what the DMN would have done with the video if the guy had gone over the edge.

Mayborn Conference Is A’Comin’

Attention those who fancy themselves writers of stuff that isn’t made up: Get your quills ready to dip into the inkwells of literary nonfiction ink. UNT’s Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference is still a couple of months away (the program runs July 18-20 in Grapevine). But aspiring writers should put pen to paper (or paper in the printer) for the first-ever Mayborn writers contest. Quoting from the site:

New this year…$3,000 cash prize and provisional book contract with UNT Press for 1st place manuscript. $12,000 cash prize awards to the top six article/essay submissions. For complete details and entry form, see Article/Essay Rules and Manuscript Rules.

Good luck, all.

Southwest Passenger Now On My List

Few things get me more riled up than airplane passengers who act like 5-year-olds. This story, about a Southwest Airlines passenger who refused to hang up his cell phone during a flight (and who was met on the ground by police), got me boiling, and I’m nowhere near an airplane. Seriously, if I’d been on that guy’s row, I’m sure I would be in jail right now for assault. Not even joking.

Let’s review a few of Eric’s simple rules for flying:

1. If you have a problem with authority, don’t fly.
2. If you have control issues, don’t fly.
3. If you don’t like to hear screaming babies, don’t fly, or bring headphones. Because they will be on your flight. Cost of doing business.
4. If you think you have to know why a flight attendant has asked you to do something, you’re wrong. Just do it.
5. If you think I care about the story you read that shows planes really aren’t affected by cell phone signals, or that you’ve never before been asked to store your overnight bag in the overhead compartment and you fly all the time, or that you haven’t felt any turbulence so why should you have to keep your seatbelt buckled, or that you need to prep for your big presentation and that’s why you had to get into the overhead bin when the seatbelt sign was fastened, well, guess what, you’re wrong. Shut up and do what you’re told.

SMU Is Better Than Duke

That’s what Forbes says. Dissatisfied with US News & World Report’s ranking methodology, Forbes has come up with another way to do it. While SMU falls at No. 67 on US News’ list, it hits No. 13 on Forbes’ list — beating Duke, Cornell, MIT, and, yes, Notre Dame.

I Hate Bulk Trash Scavengers

Yesterday, while I was working out in the yard, I saw somewhere around 20 trucks drive down the block, some carrying trailers, all loaded down with various odds and ends they had picked up from the piles of discarded lawn chairs, old lumber, and lawn trimmings left on the curb in preparation for bulk trash day. One of those trucks, at some point, took a couple of potted plants in our yard that were nowhere near our trash pile. I’m ticked. The plants were fairly cheap, but the pots weren’t. Anyway, that’s not the point. It’s the principle.

That’s just the latest run-in with these neighborhood raccoons. Last bulk trash day, someone ripped open every trash bag on my curb looking for something, and left the contents of said bags strewn out in the street. Something like that happens every month. I’m one more incident away from sitting on my porch with an air rifle full of rock salt, fulfilling my destiny of turning into my grandfather. OK, rant over.

Breaking: Denton is the New Austin

So says the New York Times. As a just-married FBvian says, “It’s a charming little piece, but written about a decade too late.”

UPDATE: We Shot JR has a funny, slightly profane response.

Richards Group Is Sooo Big

Comes news that the Richards Group has unseated Doner as the largest independent ad agency in the United States. Richards pulled $166 million in domestic revenue last year. A hearty huzzah (and not just because the missus works for the PR arm of the joint, called Richards Partners).

Bice Goes Buh-Bye

This makes me sad: Bice, the fancy-pants Italian restaurant in the Crescent Building closed yesterday. (Thanks to the hawk-like eyes and ears of “Our Own” Teresa Gubbins at Pegasus News for working on Mother’s Day when she could have been home nurturing her clutter of kitties.) So Dallas, you say you want fine Italian and when you get it–Il Mulino and Bice–you don’t eat it. I’m (kinda) sorry but I miss Il Mulino. I thought it was good. Sure it was expensive. Would (could) I pay for it during these troubled economic times? Prolly not as often as I’d like but would for sure if that guy on a white–OK, it can be black–horse with saddlebags full of economic stimulus checks rides into town this afternoon and whisks me away to N9NE for a $69 margarita. Until then, the fact remains little Big D-ers: you want red sauce with that pasta. Next.

About That Jenna Bush Wedding…

As Wick mentioned, local media coverage of the ceremony was lacking. Or was it? DallasDirt’s Candy Evan reports on the reports from her hairdresser, who was in Crawford for the “I do” ado.

Gird Yourself For the Jimjilbang

Dallas residents who do not read the Sunday New York Times probably a) pine for Paul Kix, and b) missed this story in yesterday’s Sunday Styles section. It’s about Inspa World, a Queens version of a jimjilbang. What’s a jimjilbang? “[A] traditional Korean 24-hour bathhouse where families soak, steam and eat together, and sometimes even sleep over.” The creator of Inspa World said he hopes to plop 19 more jimjilbangs all over the country, the next one being in Dallas. By now you may have guessed that I like the word “jimjilbang.”

Leading Off

1. Election weekend recap: DISD’s $1.35 billion bond issue was approved, as were significant (but smaller) bonds in Highland Park, Lewisville, and Plano; Tim O’Hare won the Farmers Branch mayor’s race in a whitewashlandslide…I meant landslide; Becky Miller lied her way out of a job in Carrollton; a college student beat a closed captioning editor for a seat at Bedford’s horseshoe; and thanks to spoilsport Kip Bledsoe, I won’t be drinking in Frisco anytime soon.

2. An experimental medical treatment looks like it has saved Andre Lampkin’s arms and legs. I’ll be honest: I didn’t understand much of that story.

3. A six-week pilot program at Bryan Adams High School is using GPS tracking devices to cut down on truancy. Two notes: 1) I hope Wick doesn’t get any ideas and 2) what up, Gretel Kovach?