In Jim Schutze’s latest column, he tackles the hot-button topic of the day, renaming Ross Avenue for Cesar Chavez. Somehow, our beloved commenter community found itself staring up at the undercarriage of the JS Express:
Many of the comments on the Dallas Observer blog, Unfair Park, have been straight-up racist and vile. One commenter asked, “Why don’t we just rename the city of Dallas ‘Puffy Taco City’? That should make everyone happy.”
The comments on the D magazine blog, Frontburner, have been worse:
“Great! Now I know where to pick up all the day laborers!”
That is what we call in the business “cherry-picking.” Maybe in terms of the quotes he chose to use from the respective blogs, ours was worse. Sure, I could see that–exclamation points are certainly more confrontational. But overall, there doesn’t seem to be much need for that “have been worse” remark aimed at our commenters. (You could absolutely call them nerdy, since one post degenerated into a full-on grammar war.)
I’ve looked at all the comments left on Cesar Chavez-related posts on both sites. If anything, it’s a tie, though I feel like I saw more “go back to Mexico” chatter around Unfair Park.
68 comments
**** Jim Schutze.
Frankly, that’s a kinder sentiment about him than one often reads on Unfair Park.
And so goes the city. While we bicker about who offended who first and grammar wars, the city metaphorically gives the citizens the shaft. In the end, we get stuck with the bill and the heartache…
I hate white people. They should go back from whence they came.
@El Rey: Point taken.
I enjoy reading Schutze, but he’s a “cherry-picker” if I ever saw one. He is extremely adept at wordplay in which he takes a particular argument someone puts forth and then twists it ever-so-gently to meet his “everything is wrong, it’s all a conspiracy” agenda – or in some cases grabs it and beats you over the head with it until you’re on the floor, recoiling in submission.
said it before, say it again: much ado about nothing
unsure how we get the shaft, as who really gives a flying fluck what the street name is? sure the Ross family has a valid beef, but otherwise, who truly cares? i mean, is there someone out there that’s going to stop driving on Ross once it become Chavez? and if so, WTF is that about?
and people that gripe about the crudeness of blog comments need to join the rest of us in the 21st century, man, grow some thicker skin, grab a keyboard, and start yammering away
If there’s nothing to care about, why change it?
Zac: We also call “cherry-picking” something else but such words aren’t suitable for print.
Schutze’s writing used to be more interesting from a city perspective but it’s really isn’t right now.
I subscribe to D, I wouldn’t subscribe to the Observer. I get more insightful stuff about the hood & uptown in one issue of D than I do in a months worth of the Observer.
Ex: The Jubilee Park article, Rawlins’ street food article, Trey’s article on Brett Landes, etc.
Do not be too hard on Señor Schutze. It is clear from his frightened leaps and starts on this issue that the hand of El Decherd Grande has descended heavy upon his knee and has begun its evil tickle.
Retirement looms, and lo! comes ¡Señor Steve!, loping and grinning, bearing the temptation of his lucrative JennyBurger franchises.
It is a difficult time when El Diablo takes a man up high upon the mount.
Now, where are our cabras?
Emilio
I do kind of like Puffy Taco City! Can you imagine Jerry changing the name to the Puffy Taco Cowboys and the Puffy Taco Cowboy Cheerleaders!
And if there was already a restaurant called Puffy Taco of Dallas- would they change the name to Puffy Taco of Puffy Taco?
Jim Schutze is a teapot desperately searching for a tempest.
Oh, come on now. Jim Schutze is a Dallas treasure. For really vile and racist comments, go to Dallasblog.
didn’t Puffy change his name to Diddy or ****ty or something else useless like that?
Puffy Taco Cowboys, I love it!
I bet you can get a puffy taco AND day laborers on any given Sunday down at Our Lady on Ross. The parishioner’s are selling all kinds of things down there these days.
Sh*t, every time I drive by there I feel like I’m in Saltillo!
Cherry picking? It would be cherry picking to find anything that remootely resembles
something of a liberal view on this blog.
It is by far, the most racist, homophobic,
bigoted, and right wing blog in the city. Hands down. To deny it would cause you to loose readers and advertisers. You should wear it like a badge of honor. This is the way to keep your gig. Try to have a sense of humor about it as you require of those you bash. You might be amazed at the emails that I get in response to my postings on this blog. It really shows how powerful your organization is and how fearful people are to express any opposition to your views.
Any liberal view on this blog will be followed with a long series of bashing that commenter. The great thing about a blog is that it is all there in black and white with the exception of censored comments.
Really Zac, to claim otherwise is a little silly when it is all there, right in front of you. If you can’t see it, then perhaps you should have been mayor.
You should embrace your wealthy right wing followers just as Fox News and your other media outlet counter parts.
Only a publication that thinks it has been given the gift to say what is BEST in the city of Dallas would have the arrogance to deny any sort of critique no matter how minimal.
If you serve Snark, then you should be willing and able to eat it too.
Don’t deny what has brought you to this level of success. Wear it as a badge of honor as I do.
Now get busy because I heard they are going to rename Maple Ave after Barney Frank.
Front Burner is also the most anti-pachyderm blog of all the blogs in Dallas.
“who really gives a flying fluck what the street name is?” all the business that have to spend thousands of dollars redoing business cards, stationery, websites, etc. care a lot. For a small business, that cost can take a pretty fair chunk of profits.
Well, dammit, the day laborers really do congregate at Ross — er, Cesar Chavez — and Carroll.
Schutze has not been doing his best work lately. He’s degenerated to unsubstantiated innuendo (”I’m not saying 3, I’m just saying 1 and 1, which sure makes it look like there’s another 1 out there somewhere, which I’m not saying there is and everybody tells me there isn’t, but if there were, and it sure seems like there might be, then that would then make 3, but I’m not saying 3″) and the occasional phoned-in screed. He rattles on when it’s clear he has no real inkling of what he speaks. He’s a talented man, but he’s coasting.
But we love dogs!
Ask Nancy.
@Jack Jett: You’re right about only one thing in that rambling string of words. I should have been mayor.
Zac
Thank you. Case made.
Cue Bethany for grammer.
Bring on your cheerleaders and the best of D wannabes.
Thank you Jack, for once again pointing out that it’s always the overly-gay voice that yells the loudest to drown out dissenting opinions!
good point, JS, wasn’t thinking along those lines
Thanks SB, for further proof of my point.
I assume that is difference from the overly-straight voice that you are use to.
Keep speaking, keep reading, then go back to the original post. If you are going to cook it, then eat it dude.
I know this has been said before – but why Ross? It doesn’t even make sense. Why not Live Oak, where the Latino Cultural Center is? THAT would make sense.
I’m sorry if cutting through all your jargon boils your argument down to a very simple point: you’re an angry gay man. Us common folks aren’t gay enough for your liking. I’d apologize, but I really don’t care enough to.
Now don’t you have a very low-rated tv show to go prepare for?
Anyone who thinks frontburner is vile, or racist, or even right wing has clearly never perused eleventybillionthblog.blogspot.com
That’s right. It’s the most vile, racist, right wing blog out there. When I read it, I won’t even hold the computer near my ovaries, for fear my unborn children will be tainted.
SB
I never claimed you weren’t gay enough.
No need to apologize. I love you. Jesus loves you. So you are loved.
Don’t let it stick in your crawl.
If by TV Show, you mean meatloaf, then yes.
Complaining that some of the comments on a blogsite — any blogsite, including Schutze’s very own — are “vile and racist” is kind of like complaining that some snakes are poisonous.
Jett has a TV show? And why is he wearing dishwashing gloves?
@Bethany – Thank god. I have to admit, I was in some fear regarding the safety of your reproductive system.
@Jack – Craw. Just to clarify. Don’t let it stick in your craw.
Carry on.
Jesus loves puffy tacos and day laborers too so why can’t we all be gay and get along?
Doesn’t the Observer also have a “Best of”? IJS
Bethany said taint.
@ mm – I know – I almost had to go to my storage building.
Schutze used to make me laugh. Now Eric Celeste makes me laugh. What does that say about me? Oh dear.
I always figured Shutze’s “every white person is a racist but me” was projection but Bethany nailed it- Jim Schutze is a teapot desperately searching for a tempest.
Jett has a show that airs on 3 continents so says his website.
STICK IN ONE’S CRAW – “When you can’t swallow something, when it won’t go down, or you are loath to accept it, it sticks in your craw. The craw is the crop or preliminary stomach of a fowl, where food is predigested.
He shares an agent with Elizabeth Hasslebeck.
Something not right about that.
Thanks Bethany
Sometimes you play a pivotal role in my life.
This is one of those times.
Don’t let me stick in your craw. If you are with child, you should keep your craw clear.
Or so I’ve been told.
FYI:
[STICK IN ONE'S CRAW - "When you can't swallow something, when it won't go down, or you are loath to accept it, it sticks in your craw. The craw is the crop or preliminary stomach of a fowl, where food is predigested. Hunters centuries ago noticed that some birds swallowed bits of stone that were too large to pass through the craw and into the digestive tract. These stones, unlike the sand and pebbles needed by birds to help grind food in the pouch, literally stuck in the craw, couldn't go down any farther. This oddity became part of the language of hunters and the phrase was soon used figuratively." From the "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).]
Bethany: jinx
My show airs to three incontinents. I’m funny, too. How do I know, you ask? They pee their pants when I tell a joke!
I think it bears mentioning that this entire discussion has gone down a black hole.
@ WES: Ex-CUSE me? lol
Quoting my bud Chris-Chris, “I was aiming for the pink hole, I swear!”
Don’t you mean a pink hole?
or pink puffy taco….?
Can’t we all just go back to trashing me?
Eric-
Your man parts smell like stale puffy tacos.
Do I need better evidence than this?
Hey Jim! How long had you been waiting to you hit that Submit Comment button?
@Jim Schutze: Okay, that made me laugh out loud. Not backing off what I said, but I have to admit, well played.
(You could absolutely call them nerdy, since one post degenerated into a full-on grammar war.)
I guess when everyone agrees with one another then all you would have left to do is grade postings.
Someone has to, Jack. It’s not like DISD teachers will. Boo-yah.
@ Jim…well, some evididence would be a nice change of pace..
that’s awesome! I got quoted in a Schutze story!
So..speaking of cherry pickers, where could I find them?
Cesar Chavez, Texas, buddy.
Brett
Have you tried the mirror?
That doesn’t make any sense.
Yeah. Brett’s not a day laborer.
@ Bethany…actually i am.
@ Becky…is “the mirror” some type of hip new drug that causes you to senselessly propose changing the names of streets just for the sake of change? Because if it is, no, I have not tried it, but when i do, i propose naming 75 the “Brett Super Awesome Expressway to Awesomeness”.
Brett, we’re gonna need an entire weekend of tagging overpasses to accomplish that.
Bethany- follow me to Awesomeness
The issues in the change from the name Ross Avenue to Cesar Chavez Avenue are painfully simple.
Six months ago almost nobody, but probably fewer than 100 history teachers, knew who Ross Avenue was named for. Most normal citizens who had any idea of who it was named for thought it was named for an early Texas Governor.
The Ross Brothers are mentioned in almost none of the Texas History books. (I say almost because I presume they are mentioned somewhere, I just do not know where.) I regret that. What I have found about them is honorable and should be known, known in much more detail than a four letter street name. That is one reason why the Cesar Chavez Task Force is willing to pay for a Historical Marker in their honor, with more details than 99,99% of Dallas know, about our pioneers, the Ross Brothers!
In that process we will change the southeastern section of Ross Avenue, from Greenville Avenue southwest, for another great American, Cesar Chavez. Cesar Chavez worked for the rights of the common worker. He helped raise the farmworker using methods that he encouraged, and have been, applied to raising the working conditions of millions of other US citizens! Thousands in Dallas have benefited from his work. The march on 4-9-06 was a peaceful march following the methods he taught to us.
Cesar Chavez did not win the highest honors from both the Catholic Church and the United States of America by being less than the most honorable of leaders in our struggle for human dignity. Naming Ross Avenue in his honor is only to our benefit, and that of our children.