Articles for September, 2009
Kurt Eichenwald Gives His Take on The Informant!
These are exciting times for Kurt Eichenwald. The Steven Soderbergh movie The Informant!, based on Eichenwald’s book The Informant: A True Story, had its Dallas premiere on Thursday, and the flick is getting rave reviews nationally. I asked Kurt what he thought of Soderbergh’s adaptation of his book. His reply:
I thought the movie was great. What I’ve found really funny about it is everybody who says, “Oh, it’s funny, not serious like the book.” Apparently, people don’t need to read the book to comment.
Every scene in the movie was in the book. Probably 80 percent of the dialogue is in the book. Everything that makes the movie funny makes the book funny. Sure, the book had a lot of other things going on, but the choice of style was dictated by the story.
So, that said…great movie. I was shocked at how much it was like the book.
WSJ Takes a Look at Perot Family Finances
Yesterday, I snarkily drew connections between the sale of Perot Systems and some financial rough spots the Perot family has hit recently. Shame on me. Except the Wall Street Journal today traces over those same lines. Does this mean I’m a genius? Yes. Yes, it does.
THE Magazine Hits the Skids
Speaking of Jerome Weeks, a finger-gun-shooting FBvian points us to this post in which Weeks wonders whether THE Magazine is long for this world. Seems the mag that covers galleries and the like hasn’t paid its freelancers in some time, which is never a good sign.
Leading Off (9/22/09)
1. It rained. Again. To mix it up a bit this time, there was hail and wind gusts of up to 72 mph. In Cleburne, a tractor trailer rig was knocked over. Which, since no one was seriously injured, I can say that I BET THAT WAS AWESOME.
2. An 83-year-old Cleburne man was stung by bees more than 100 times while mowing the lawn. To add insult to injury, they were his bees, from a hive he kept on his property to harvest honey. This is neither here nor there, but Cleburne seems to come up a lot in the news lately. Just looking through the tags we use here, I notice “Cleburne earthquakes,” “Cleburne beer store bikini girls,” “Cleburne High School,” and now all this. Feels more like it should be Gun Barrel City.
3. Here is a scenario. I am able to fashion a portal leading directly to Niagara Falls. When I open it, it will dump every last drop of water directly onto the levees protecting the city from the Trinity River. I decide to do so, but because I don’t think that will be destructive enough, I also rig the levees with a large amount of C4. Enough, as Keanu Reeves once said in Speed, to “put a hole in the world.” Also, because now I’m a comic-book super villain, I shower the immediate vicinity with radioactive material, hoping a sort of reverse Superman-meets-Swamp Thing emerges from the contaminated river and becomes my war machine. Just for fun, I buy all the nails and broken glass in North America and I scatter all of it around the site during my downtime. Anyway, I do all that — and the city would still decide to go ahead with the Trinity River project.
Ross Perot Jr. on the Dell-Perot Systems Deal
In an interview tonight with KRLD’s David Johnson, Perot Systems chairman Ross Perot Jr. calls today’s announced merger of Perot Systems and Dell Inc. an “historic marriage” between two Texas business titans–his father Ross Sr. and Michael Dell.
Staubach: Romo Needs to ‘Feel the Pain’
Everybody else is weighing in on Tony Romo and the ‘Boys, so how about Captain Comeback? We asked ex-Dallas Cowboys QB Roger Staubach today if he had any advice for the current Cowboys quarterback after last night’s loss to the Giants. “He’s gotta feel the pain today, and he’s gotta feel the pain tomorrow–and then he’s gotta get back to it on Wednesday,” replied Staubach (pictured). Staubach believes the Cowboys are a “good team,” predicting that–if it stays healthy–Dallas will be one of four or five teams in the hunt for the Super Bowl come the season’s second half.
Cowboys, Fireworks, and W Tout Big Thought, Ctd.
I also was at Cowboys Stadium this morning. My favorite moment came unexpectedly, at the end of former Dallas Cowboys great Daryl Johnston’s speech that otherwise contained all the fun of a corporate mission statement.
Right at the end, he acknowledged the hundreds of elementary school students on hand, who sat Indian-style right in front of the stage. As he did that, the giant video screen above the field switched to a shot of the kids. As soon as they saw themselves, they began doing what any bunch of children would do — they waved their arms wildly in the air.
Without missing a beat, Johnston said to the crowd, “That’s the issue when you come to this amazing venue: Are you gonna watch the game or watch the screen?”
Right then, the tightly controlled choreography of the presentation was forgotten. We relaxed and shared a laugh. We felt human. And soon it was back to business again.
Cowboys, Fireworks and W Tout Big Thought Program
Big Thought honcho Gigi Antoni explained everything you wanted to know about SLANT 45, the nonprofit’s Super Bowl XLV “service learning initiative,” in this morning’s Dallas Morning News. But that didn’t stop her group and the Super Bowl host committee from staging a knockout “announcement ceremony” today at Cowboys Stadium. The extravaganza featured 600 local schoolkids; 2,000 business and civic leaders–including George W. and Laura Bush; a raft of former Dallas Cowboys greats; an orchestra; fireworks; and a performance by American Idol winner Jordin Sparks. Bankrolled by Bank of America and philanthropists Ted and Shannon Skokos, SLANT 45 will send more than 20,000 local students into the community to perform at least 45,000 hours worth of good works, starting early next year. Addressing the kids in attendance, former President Bush explained: “It’s an opportunity to learn and love a neighbor just like you love yourself.” One ironic note in today’s big bash came at the end, when Sparks (pictured) performed her new single Battlefield with W just behind her, bobbing his head to the beat. Sang Jordin: “I didn’t mean to start a war …”
Jerome Weeks Reads Our October Issue So You Don’t Have To
McKinney Man Busted by Feds in $80 Million Ponzi Scheme
A hedging FrontBurnervian points us to the news that the feds have busted a big Ponzi scheme. One of the alleged perps is a guy from McKinney by the name of Walter Netschi. The same Walter Netschi who enjoys the essence of beautiful views from his lovely home on Lake Balboa? Mayhap.
Dallas Mavericks Unveil New Uniforms and, Very Casually, Starting Lineup
Reigning Sixth Man of the Year Jet Terry came out to model the new duds, which will replace the Mavs’ previous alternate kit, the green-and-blue, designed-by-Diddy joints. I would have gotten a photo of that, but the little kid next to me was terrified of Mavs Man, and in the process of calming his son down, the dad ended up shot-blocking me. Anyway. After the jump, a shot of the jersey on a mannequin, as well as a few of the new HD video scoreboard.
Before you click through, the real news. While I expected the new unis and the scoreboard, as well as the introductions of the Mavs acquired in the offseason, what I didn’t see coming was GM Donnie Nelson sort of offhandedly mentioning that Erick Dampier would be coming off the bench this season (Drew Gooden is the new starting center). Damp strolled out a few minutes later, but no one asked him about it. He seemed to be too busy gawking at the new scoreboard, anyway.
Facebook Finds Dallas-Fort Worth Users Predictable
Sunday’s Boston Globe has an article discussing “Project Gaydar,” in which two MIT students used data from Facebook pages to predict sexual orientation. As the author says “The idea of making assumptions about people by looking at their relationships is not new, but the sudden availability of information online means the field’s powerful tools can now be applied to just about anyone.”
The piece also mentions a project by a local professor:
For example, Murat Kantarcioglu, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Dallas, found he could make decent predictions about a person’s political affiliation. He and a student – who later went to work for Facebook – took 167,000 profiles and 3 million links between people from the Dallas-Fort Worth network. They used three methods to predict a person’s political views. One prediction model used only the details in their profiles. Another used only friendship links. And the third combined the two sets of data.
The researchers found that certain traits, such as knowing what groups people belonged to or their favorite music, were quite predictive of political affiliation. But they also found that they did better than a random guess when only using friendship connections. The best results came from combining the two approaches.
So what does this Facebook photo tell us?
Perot Systems: “Dude, Let’s Sell to Dell”
Dell is set to buy Perot Systems in a deal valued at $3.6 billion. I’m sure this has nothing to do with Hillwood’s defaulting on its Victory loan. Or with the implosion of the Perot family’s Parkcentral Global Hub hedge fund.
Leading Off (09/21/09)
1. Last night’s Mad Men was all about crushed expectations–or as Joan put it, “One minute you’re on top of the world, the next some secretary is running you over with a lawnmower.” Cowboys fans experienced a similar story after the 33-31 loss to the Giants. And there was traffic.
2. Luckily, sports fans and television lovers can come together tonight for something a little more uplifting: Michael Irvin’s debut on Dancing with the Stars. Not only does the former Dallas Cowboys wide reciever promise some fancy footwork, he also designed the costumes he and his partner sport tonight. So, there’s that.
3. We can’t really talk about television, costumes, and crushing blows without mentioning the Emmy’s last night. This list will make it easy for you to see who was nominated and who won in each categoy (as well as who was robbed), just in case it comes up at the water cooler. (As for the Dallas connection? More than a few local folks have appeared on every single show nominated for Best Reality-Competition Program, including award-snagging The Amazing Race.)
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