Captain Chestey Sullenberger’s story will be published by a division of HarperCollins, thanks to the work of Dallas book agent Jan Miller. No proposal was necessary. All she had to do was send around this article by the pilot in the Feb. 23 issue of Newsweek — and, of course, ask publishers how high they wanted to fly.
Come visit, if you’re so inclined. Freeze, this means you.
Composer Jake Heggie is working on an operatic adaptation of Moby-Dick for the opening of the Winspear in spring 2010. Initially, the Dallas Opera’s artistic director didn’t think that was a swell idea. Our Peter Simek talked to Heggie about how it all went down and about how Heggie plans to bring the book to the stage. You, dear opera lover, can read Simek’s tale right here. (See what I did there? Tale? Whale? Rogers!)
Under new president Jim Oberwetter, the Dallas Regional Chamber has come out against the loopy and dishonestly named “Employee Free Choice Act.” That’s great news; it looks like the local business group has taken a turn and may finally start standing for something.
The AA pilots aren’t happy about the state of their (non-ish) negotiations with headquarters, so they’re threatening to delay flights as a sign of protest. The great Mitch “Schnur ‘Nuff” Schnurman of the Star-T makes the following WTF point:
Talking up the strategy now — when the economy is in the tank, the airline is struggling and any job actions are at least a year away — is the kind of move that gives organized labor a bad name.
Agreed (and that’s coming from the grandson and son-in-law of former shop foreman). Because, as Schnurman notes, pilots at American earn, on average, more than $130,000 annually (second only to Southwest Airlines), and they have a rich retirement package. Last year, 517 American pilots took early retirement, and their average lump-sum payout was $1.8 million, according to the company’s 10-K and my IJS.
Make your own decision about how much credence to put into this new Moody’s ranking. It looked to me like Emmis Communications had gotten ahead of the game with giant write-offs last year. Here’s what I know: TxMo president Evan Smith and I did a conference last week for Professor Dave Garlock’s famous class at UT, and exchanging numbers as publishers do, Smith shared the magazine’s profit ratios, which remain solid. So even if parent Emmis is in trouble, TxMo should weather the storm just fine.
Yes, we’re aware that the site isn’t loading as quickly as we’d all like it to. I could tell you our server is under attack from Turkmenistan this time. (It wouldn’t be true. But I could tell you that.) Instead, just know this: we’re working on it. We’re aiming to have the problem solved soon. Thank you for your patience.
The DA isn’t giving up on the budget fight. He called me yesterday about the brouhaha over his referendum idea, we engaged in a genial debate that went nowhere, and then he made a salient point. The Commissioners Court has ordered a 10 percent cut across the board to meet a $58 million shortfall. That’s a lazy way of downsizing. Any business — such as ours, for example — that has to downsize works from a set of priorities. Most governments, such as the City of Dallas, do, too. (Can anyone imagine City Manager Mary Suhm ordering an across-the-board cut to meet her $100 million deficit?) Are the DA’s office and the Sheriff’s Department in the same league as the District Clerk’s office or the commissioners’ own road-and-bridge allocations? Shouldn’t the commissioners have rolled up their sleeves and put pencil to paper?
Yes, the DA went off the reservation. (He did meet his deadline for cuts, by the way.) But when he settled down — and in our conversation he was reasonable and self-deprecating — his argument made sense.
You may know Chuck Norris as an 8th-degree black belt, star of The Octagon, and gay rights anti-enthusiast. But he’s also a guvment hater who says he wants to be president of Texas, after it secedes. Bud Kennedy points out that, as an Okie, he’s probably not qualified. I think it would be great, though. Have you seen The Delta Force? Three words: natural born leader.
1. A New York-style deli called Zinsky’s is set to open in Preston Royal in early summer. Look for Eric Celeste to have some strong opinions on the place. With one visit to New York City in his lifetime, he loves to promote himself as an expert on authentic delicatessens.
2. Neiman Marcus is reporting its first loss ever during a holiday season. The operating loss in the quarter ended January 31 was $592.7 million. But Neiman’s took non-cash impairment charges of $560.1 million, including $291.1 million to write down goodwill and $242.2 million to write down to fair value its trade names of Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, and Horchow. Hey, Zac Crain, can you explain to me how a company arrives at a precise figure for writing down the fair value of its trade names, or are you too busy growing your beard?
3. Steel for the first Calatrava bridge is right now on a ship crossing the Atlantic, but all the sand in the levees makes it unclear how access ramps to that bridge will be built. Which brings me to this joke: how are Nancy Nichols and the Trinity River levees alike? They both have engineers crawling all over them, drilling for core samples!