Articles for January, 2010
A.H. Belo Donates Corporate Money to GOP
The Riverside (CA) Press-Enterprise seems to think that the big news here is that the local GOP re-hired a sleazy operator to collect party registrations. The bigger news to me is that the P-E’s owner, A.H. Belo, was one of the donors that financed the GOP’s hiring of the sleazy operator. Four hundred dollars is peanuts to a company the size of Belo, so maybe it was given without much thought to please an advertiser or a golfing buddy. A second’s hesitation might have reminded whichever executive made the bone-headed move that a newspaper’s non-partisan standing is one of its most valuable assets. Or is that too old school in the new media world?
UPDATE: The PE is now reporting that the $400 was an advertising rebate, not a contribution. It was misidentified on the GOP’s books. Never mind.
Leading Off (1/11/10)
1. Sometimes losing your pants is harmless fun, like on a cold Sunday afternoon on a DART train because, well, there wasn’t “anything better to do.”
2. It get’s trickier when you allegedly lose your pants. That’s the situation Van Morrison is in, and because he may have lost his pants in Dallas, the local gossip-teers are bristling with excitement as the legend makes his way to North Texas later this month.
3. But whatever you do, don’t talk about pants-less things. That’s what Tom Hicks Jr. did in an email to a Liverpool supporter. Hicks Sr. and Jr. were probably already the most hated people in Liverpool. Now, after Hicks Jr.’s rant, Liverpool supporters are all calling for resignations. (Good thing that boy from Nacogdoches is over there making Americans look good despite the ongoing Hicks soap opera.)
Bella Reopening — Beaut Or Bust For Fashionistas?
RE: The Bella reopening last night benefiting The Fashionistas. Any survivors willing to spill the bella beans? Why? Check SweetCharity.
Star-T Reveals List of Top Texas Football Moments
Told you earlier this week that the Super Bowl XLV Host Committee announced it will reveal its list of the top 250 moments in the last century of North Texas football at a star-studded presentation on Tuesday at Woodrow Wilson High School.
Well, the Star-Telegram has seen fit to go ahead and publish the list.
The earliest nominees are the first Texas-OU game in Dallas, in 1912, and TCU’s first conference title (1920). The last moment on the list hasn’t even happened yet — the anticipated February 2010 selection of Emmitt Smith to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Fans will determine the top 100, and the results will be revealed this fall.
Brad Sham, who was on the Century in the Making sub-committee of the Host Committee (which picked determined the nominated moments), talks a little about their process.
So no need for the big to-do at Woodrow?
UPDATE: The Star-T jumped the gun on sharing the moments with the world. I e-mailed the Host Committee spokesman and here’s his explanation:
The Star-Telegram is printing our paper ballots… they had a “glitch in their system” and the thing went live. They are taking them down right now.
Those links above may already be dead. I’m no football expert, but it looks like a comprehensive list. Light perhaps on high schools? All will be revealed Tuesday.
Give It Up for Liz Mikel
Dallas theater-goers know and love Liz Mikel. Others might recognize her from her role on Friday Night Lights. We gave her a “Best of Big D” nod in 2004. More recently, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the DTC, she was captivating. Well, her condo burned down yesterday, and she lost nearly everything. So on Friday, January 15, the Dallas Theater Center is turning its premiere of Give It Up! into a benefit for Mikel. The 8 p.m. show will be a “pay what you can” performance. Every seat in the house is available for whatever you can pay for it. You decide. One hundred percent of proceeds will go to Mikel, who will play the role of Hetaira. Tickets go on sale Monday. 214-880-0202. You can learn more about the play here. Given the circumstances, this should be a pretty special performance.
“The Great White Hope” Eyes Kay Bailey Hutchison’s Seat
By now you’ve heard that Craig James yesterday said he’d be interested in Kay Bailey Hutchison’s Senate seat. We’ll see what happens come March 2. Maybe there will be a seat for him; maybe not. And you know about his involvement with Mike Leach at Texas Tech. Well, I heard today from someone who would know that as a result of the latter, James has had to change his home and cell phone numbers to avoid hearing from angry Red Raiders. (I hasten to add that this is an unconfirmed rumor. If anyone has James’ cell, pass it along, and I’ll confirm it.) Guns up.
How Much Did SMU Really Pay Gary Vodicka?
Gary Vodicka brags that he could live off the interest of his settlement with SMU. Really? REALLY really? I don’t think so. I asked someone who’s better with numbers than I to do the math. His back-of-envelope figuring:
The settlement is taxable — either as a capital gain (if it relates to damages to a capital asset, such as a house) or ordinary income (if it relates to, say, loss of income). Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that it’s taxable at the most favorable long-term capital gains rate of 15%. But first, we have to figure in the attorneys’ fees — of 40% of the recovery (after expenses). I believe that most people could live comfortably on $120,000 after taxes ($10,000 per month to spend), meaning that they would have to earn around $160,000 in interest (assuming an effective tax rate of 25%, figuring in the graduated rates), because interest is taxable as ordinary income. Finally, you have to calculate what the yield is on your super-safe, retirement-protected investment that produces your interest. The 10-year Treasury bond is yielding 3.8%. So working backward:
1. $160,000 / .038 = $4,210,526 in 10-year Treasury bonds.
2. $4,210,526 / .85 (the inverse of the long-term capital gains rate) = $4,953,560 in pre-tax, after-legal-fee recovery
3. $4,953,560 / .60 (the inverse of Friedman’s legal fee cut) = $8,255,934
I would be willing to bet $8,255,934 that he did not recover $8,255,934 from SMU in a settlement. Ergo, he can live on a whole lot less than $120,000 per year after tax — or he has no clue how much he’s going to have left after Larry Friedman and Uncle Sam take their cut, and he doesn’t understand how fixed-income-producing assets work.
Derrty Boi Montana Shops for Watches at deBoulle
DeBoulle, as you know, is a very high-end jewelry store in Highland Park. Derrty Boi Montana, as you might not know, is a recording artists from St. Louis. You can familiarize yourself with his musical stylings here (warning: you will see some booty). What brings Mr. Montana to our attention today is the below video that was posted to YouTube on Tuesday. In it, Mr. Montana and his associate PJ take a tour of deBoulle with what appears to be a concealed camera. Two things of note about the video: Mr. Montana doesn’t know how to pronounce several of the watches that he’s shopping for. And, two, I doubt Denis Boulle, owner of the shop, wants people videotaping inside his store, lest thieves use the video to case the joint.
Provocateur Lawyer Set for Life
SMU finally paid condo owner Gary Vodicka an undisclosed sum to go away and make way for the George W. Bush presidential library. It is the last act in a legal battle that seems to have been rumbling on since forever. Back when I was covering the case for Park Cities People, I got to witness Vodicka call himself to the stand during a court appearance, and then feed questions to his assistant who asked them back so he could give his canned, expressive answers. It was probably more entertaining than anything I’ve seen in a television courtroom. At the time I wondered if Vodicka was pursuing SMU for the drama of it, his Warhol-ian 15-minutes. I also wondered if he was fighting SMU so hard just for the mischievous pleasure of being able to potentially stick big names on his witness stand: Ray Hunt, Gerald Turner, George W. Today his motives are much clearer. Like Mark Ingram, Vodicka saw a hole in the defense and ran at it. From the DMN:
“It was a fair settlement, and I can retire if I want to,” Vodicka said. “I could live off the interest for the rest of my life.”
Now I just wonder how the condo owners who played nice and sold out early feel today. What have we learned kiddos?
Leading Off (1/8/10)
1. Former SMU football star and ESPN analyst Craig James wants to run for the U.S. Senate when (if?) Kay Bailey Hutchison gives up her seat. Question: how much support can he count on from Lubbock?
2. Texas performed its first execution of 2010 last night, of a convicted cop killer who opted for an array of fried foods as his final meal: three pieces of chicken, two pork chops, a cheeseburger, 10 pieces of bacon, french fries, okra, green tomatoes, and apple cobbler.
3. If the Dallas Cowboys defeat the Philadelphia Eagles tomorrow, Mayor Tom gets cheesesteaks, but we all get Dunkin’ Donuts.
The Most Bizarre, Gruesome Crime of 2010 (So Far)
I’ll give you the lead of the story from the Dallas Morning News:
One of the first crimes committed in Dallas in 2010 was a particularly gruesome act of family violence, according to police.
About midnight on New Year’s Eve, Kerri Lyn Smith, 41, was kissing her boyfriend of four years in Far North Dallas when Smith bit the man’s bottom lip and tore it off his face, according to police documents.
Want to know the most insane part? The victim said he didn’t want to press charges.
Are Dallasites Still Living Large?
A lot has happened since the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau rolled out its “Dallas–Live Large. Think Big” tagline back in 2004, the result of a rebranding effort by The Richards Group. In the intervening years local boom turned to bust as the city laid off hundreds, Hummers were traded in for hybrids, multimillion-dollar mansions went into foreclosure and paychecks were slashed everywhere .
So, any second thoughts about the “live large” theme in a downsized, small-is-beautiful time when Dallasites are into shabby chic and raising chickens in their backyards?
Not at all, says John Beitter, who helped craft the city slogan at Richards’ Pyro Brand Development. “We see it as a metaphor,” one that makes sense “over a long period of time, rather than just this short economic crisis we’re facing,” he says. “We still like it and support it.”
So, that’s settled; Dallasites are still livin’ huge. And don’t let anybody tell you different.
Texas ‘Orgy of Executions’ May Reduce Murders
There’s no consensus among studies that have sought to determine how effective the death penalty is as a deterrent. But the latest look at the numbers, focused on our own state of Texas, suggests that there’s a slight decline in the number of murders: a reduction of 0.5 to 2.5 homicides in a month following an execution.
Among the states, only Texas executes enough people in a year to be studied this way, according to the sociologists. I trust that they properly controlled for any number of other variables that may have affected the data, which came from the years 1994 to 2005. But I pay a reasonable amount of attention to the daily news, and I don’t think I’m aware of every time there’s an execution.
We put criminals to death so frequently in our state (looks like we average more than two a month) that it’s not really treated as big news, is it? Unless the person was convicted for some notorious local crime? I hate to sound crass about the government taking the life of a human being, but news of executions is lost like white noise in our media reports.
Do potential murderers pay much closer attention to the news than I do? If the study is to be believed, I guess they do.
Business Travelers Favor American’s JAL Bid
Or, to be more accurate, the Business Travel Coalition says that travelers should prefer American Airlines, not Delta Airlines, invest in Japan Airlines. American reportedly just added several hundred millions to its bid, increasing the offer to about $1.4 billion.
The coalition says that fares would increase if Delta wins out because the number of major airline alliances would effectively be decreased from three to two. The lobbying group also thinks that regulators wouldn’t approve any Delta-JAL anyway.
Southwest on Top, American Airlines at Bottom
The Wall Street Journal’s Scott McCartney put together a scorecard of airline performance for 2009 and Dallas’ own Southwest Airlines came out on top, while Fort Worth’s own American Airlines brought up the rear among nine major airlines. He factored in on-time punctuality, flight cancellations, baggage handling, complaints, and bumping.
He said the gap seems to have closed somewhat between the best and the worst on the list, but he still sang the praises of Southwest:
It’s worth noting what an accomplishment the on-time crown in particular is for Southwest. Other airlines used to dismiss Southwest’s on-time prowess as artificial because the airline didn’t have automatic reporting of arrival times and instead had pilots writing down times on paper napkins, allowing fudging. But Southwest added automatic reporting devices to its jets years ago. Southwest’s record was downplayed because the airline didn’t fly to the congested Northeast for many years or congested hub airports. And now it does. It does have the advantage of a diverse route network where problems in one city won’t bog down most of the airline. But Southwest’s system is a lot more complex in many ways than other airlines. It operates far more flights each day than any other U.S. airline, and keeps a frenetic schedule with quick turns at each stop, requiring timing and hustle. It’s dependable transportation. Not much muss. Not much fuss. Sit down and go.
Sometimes, that is what you look for in an airline.
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