Articles for June, 2009
TV With Laura: The Bachelorette Recap Episode VII
Have you ever tried to break the news to a friend that her special someone is cheating on her? Doesn’t go so well, does it? Unfortunately, our friend Jake has to board a plane from Dallas to Austin, book a room at what appears to be a Holidome or Hyatt (what happened with The Bachelorette discount at the Fairmount?), and learns that lesson the hard way–in a chambray shirt, no less. But we’ll get to all that and more from last night’s dramatic painful episode after the jump.
Dispatch From an Intern
Loyal FrontBurnervians will remember my new favorite intern, Bonathan. Remember? The guy who described his financial situation as “comfortable”? Yeah, that’s him.
Anyway, Nancy sent him on an errand, and Bonathan filed a report on it. If you have a few minutes, you should read it:
Nancy Update: If you’d like to respond to Bonathon’s review, we offer all-the-comments-you- can-type here.
D CEO Contributor John Browning Wins Big at Houston Press Club’s Lone Star Awards
A big congratulations to D CEO columnist and contributing editor John G. Browning for cleaning up at the Houston Press Club’s statewide Lone Star Awards on Friday. Browning, who holds a day job as attorney/partner in Gordon & Rees’ Dallas office, won best magazine article for his May 2008 D CEO cover story (pictured at left).
He also won print journalist of the year in the newspapers under 100,000 circulation category for “Legally Speaking,” his syndicated column. (”Legally Speaking” won first place in the newspaper commentary/criticism category, and his D CEO “Legalities” column won third in its category.)
A full list of the winning entries—which came from Fort Worth, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston—is available on the Houston Press Club site.
Wick Allison Turns to Sock Puppetry on Unfair Park
I can only assume that Wick has too much time on his hands and has taken to praising himself in the comments section of Unfair Park. Right now, Jim Schutze is live-blogging the City Hall corruption trial. He’s using the comments section of a single post to accomplish this task. In the comments, he uses the handle JimS. But at 11:43 today, JimS wrote the following:
Wick Allison is a very smart man who has devoted a lot of his life to this city. Disagreements about public works projects are not moral. I have made mistakes in writing about the Trinity project. Dallas is lucky to have people like Allison who give a damn about he city instead of decamping to some Hamptons-like refuge and writing about rare lettuces.
So that’s a sock puppet, right? That’s Wick. Either that, or the sheer insanity of the trial (defense lawyer: “The FBI is racist!”) has seeped into Schutze’s brain and driven him crazy. Either way, Schutze’s live blog is a must-read.
Leading Off (Trinity Tollroad), Ctd.
Having followed Jim Schutze’s live-blogging from the corruption trial yesterday (and I hope, today), I’m sure he is employing all ten fingers and can’t spare two right now to express his opinion of me.
Can The Hispanic Chamber Clean Up Its Act?
Look for some hoopla today from Mayor Tom and others about Dallas landing next September’s annual convention of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. It is a pretty big deal; the group’s ‘09 meeting in Denver this September could attract up to 5,000 visitors and pump $10 million into the economy there. One caveat: It sure would be nice if, before the big group arrives in Big D, the Greater Dallas Hispanic Chamber of Commerce resolves the issues that have split it into (at least ) two warring factions. Definitely not the sort of image you want as a host chamber.
Mario Tarradell, Ctd.
A few follow-ups on yesterday’s Mario Tarradell item from FB Nation, after the jump.
Leading Off (6/30/09)
1. The Federal Highway Administration may not build the Trinity toll road inside the levees because of concerns that they won’t, you know, do what levees are supposed to do. That cackling sound is coming from Jim Schutze, who is sitting in a chair next to me, wearing nothing but a “Told Ya So” placard and a smile, waving two middle fingers in the general direction of Wick’s office.
2. Dallas County commish-types will vote today on whether to “take part in a regional planning effort” for the proposed inland port. Any time you got a chance to be part of something that special — I mean, good grief, this planning effort is regional — well, yeah, you’ve gotta lock that down.
3. After yesterday’s high-speed chase, there was another one this morning about 4 a.m. that lasted almost two hours, ending with a woman’s capture near White Rock Lake. Now, I’m not saying there’s a trend here, but if you see two priests driving a Ferrari doing 150-plus, I think I know what’s going on.
Here’s the Video of the High-Speed Chase
The link I posted earlier is now dead. Here’s NBC Channel 5’s video of the crash:
E&Y Anoints 11 Entrepreneurs
The joint was jammed Saturday night when Ernst & Young announced the winners of its regional Entrepreneur of the Year awards competition at Dallas’ Majestic Theater. E&Y’s 11 winners, who were among 34 finalists profiled in the July issue of D CEO magazine, now become eligible for consideration for E&Y’s Entrepreneur of the Year 2009 national awards,which will be announced in November at a gala in Palm Springs, Calif. Then, if they win there, they’ll be eligible for the World Entrepreneur of the Year awards in Monaco. (No word yet who will represent the other planets in the Solar System awards.) Jump for a list of the locals who made the cut.
Why the DMN’s Mario Tarradell is No Good
I’m not going to mince words here. As long as Mario Tarradell is the lead music critic for the Dallas Morning News, the paper’s music coverage will be an absolute joke. I pretty much stopped reading what Tarradell had to say after his 2008 year-in-music coverage, which was so openly bizarre I assumed he must be playing some elaborate prank on his bosses.
But after Michael Jackson died, I was intrigued as to how he (and the paper) would handle it. The overall piece was mostly perfunctory boilerplate-type stuff. What caught my eye, though, was Tarradell’s accompanying top-five list of Jackson’s “best hit songs” — awkward phrasing, to be sure, but that isn’t the problem.
High-Speed Chase Ends Poorly for Bad Guy
Five of us here at the office just watched the high-speed cop chase on WFAA.com. The chase ended when a full-size pickup slammed into the perp. At which point we all yelled like we’d just seen a great tackle. “Oooowwwwwh! That HAD to hurt.” Except now, watching the video, I can’t imagine how the guy survived. I feel icky for having been entertained by the whole thing.
Update: Out came the jaws of life as firemen and emergency responders tried to get the driver out of his/her car. That took about 10 minutes. Just as they were about to pull the person out, Channel 8 cut the live feed from its helicopter.
Update: WFAA reports the driver survived.
Another Sign of the Times
Remember this guy standing on the corner, looking for a job? Another alert FBvian sends along a similar picture. /freejobprospectingonFB
Malcolm Gladwell to Jim Moroney: “You Don’t Know What You’re Talking About”
An alert FBvian points us to Malcolm Gladwell’s most recent piece in the New Yorker. In the lead, he makes an example of News publisher Jim Moroney, who, in Gladwell’s estimation, doesn’t quite understand the business in which he works. Ouch. (And that goes for all of us who produce for the printed page. Because the transition to free — if that’s where we’re headed — won’t be an easy one.)
Update: Another ouch. Mea culpa. Let’s jump.
Southwest Foodservice Expo: Report From Day One
Yesterday, the Southwest Foodservice Expo opened for a three-day run at the Dallas Convention Center. I spent most of the day wandering the halls with InsideCorner’s Evan Grant. We bumped into this dude. He begged me to put him on the cover of D Magazine. Why? “Because I’m only 25 and already a marketing director,” said Robert E. Drenner, the marketing director of a company that sells giant mixers. Here you go Robert, this is as close as you’re going to get. Details and pictures, including one of Herschel Walker, from yesterday over on SideDish. Comments are complimentary.
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