Articles for March, 2010
W. Kicks Off Natural Gas Conference
New drilling technologies used to extract natural gas are making the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil, former President George W. Bush said today at SMU. Just back from Haiti, W. delivered the opening remarks at Natural Gas Nation, a day-long confab presented by his George W. Bush Institute and SMU’s Maguire Energy Institute.
I know all this because my old friend and colleague Kerry Curry is tweeting and live-blogging about the conference all day for Bruce Bullock, the Maguire Institute director. You can go here to find Kerry’s tweets, and you can find her live-blog here on the Houston Chronicle web site.
Frisco Square Getting New High-Tech Movie Theater
A half-block from Frisco City Hall will be the new site of the Cinemark 12-screen filmwatcherie. From the press release, it sounds pretty sweet:
[The theater] will offer digital and 3-D capabilities, stadium seating, online “print at home” ticketing, and a self-serve concession stand. The theatre also will contain a new Cinemark XD: Extreme Digital Cinema auditorium. This new XD entertainment environment will offer a large, wall-to-wall and ceiling-to-floor silver screen, plush seating and a custom JBL sound system featuring more than 30 speakers that produce crisp, clear digital sound. The digital images will be delivered by the use of a Doremi server and a Barco digital projector.
I don’t know what any of that means, other than I”ll bet this would look and sound kick-a** on that system.
Pam Kripke on the New York Times Magazine Parenting Blog
Readers of the “print product” know Pam Kripke’s name from her contributions thereto. She’s good people. If you have a few minutes, you might want to point your browser to the New York Times Magazine parenting blog called Motherlode, where you’ll find an essay she wrote about her father and raising two girls without one around the house. Good stuff.
Comerica Says Recession Over in Texas
Good news, eh? So everybody go out and buy some advertising!
Ms. Charity Beaver Poised to Win “Name of the Year” Contest
You remember Charity Beaver, right? Awhile back, when we discovered that the Dallas Country Club had hired a woman by that name to be a trainer, she became a folk hero on FrontBurner. She had a pretty good run in our 10 Most Beautiful Women in Dallas contest. Well, an alert FrontBurnervian lets us know that Beaver is trying her luck in another contest — a contest she didn’t even really enter. It’s called the Name of Year contest. Real names go head to head in an NCAA-style, single-elimination tourney. They’ve been doing it since 1994. Beaver is the 16th seed (shocking!) in the Crotchtangle Region. Her first match-up is a tough one. She faces Just-In’Love Smith. If she wins, Beaver will take on the winner of the Dr. Festus Dada-vs.-Karma Sherpa match-up. Voting begins soon. Don’t let Beaver down.
The Colony Gives Frisco “The Finger”
Did I link to this story just so I could write that headline? Yes. Yes, I did. Welcome to third grade.
Leading Off (3/25/10)
1. Being “half Amish,” I had to link to this story about certain religious groups being able to opt out of that new health care bill that recently passed (not sure if you’ve heard of it). It’s not an easy thing to prove (your religious affiliation, not the bill). But if you can, you won’t have to pay any of those penalties.
2. Being “half Amish,” I’m obviously against guns (although, I did win a skeet shooting tournament recently). So I really don’t like what approximately a half dozen policemen did to a mother and her daughters at a shopping center recently. The police claim one of the daughters matched a description of a suspect who stole more than $2,000 of merchandise from Victoria’s Secret. Her daughter was working at the time. And was wearing different clothing. And the mom merely had keys on her when the policemen drew the guns. Overkill much?
3. In September 2008, regulators gave Parkland Hospital a surprise visit. They found that the hospital was “deficient,” but a month later, the officials had a change of heart and gave the hospital an “all-clear.” If you’re keeping track at home, you realize that a short time later, voters agreed to spend $1.3 billion for a new Parkland Hospital. I haven’t done the story justice here. Read it. (Also. I fail. I couldn’t find a way to work in that I’m half Amish.)
Neighborhood Services Tavern: A Biased Review
We have these blogs. They pop up. They die. There is crossover readership at times, but who really knows? It’s the Internet. It can’t be measured. So for those who’d like to know about Nick Badovinus’ new joint on Henderson, Neighborhood Services Tavern, I offer this report on SideDish.
There’s a Hidden Cost to ‘Burb Living (Not Another Post About Joel Kotkin)
We’ve heard a lot of suburb vs. city talk lately, seen the back of Eric’s head, and had an all-around Kotkinriffic week, so how about one more post about cities versus suburbs and the like?
A Frontburnervian sent me this little item from the blogging editors of Good, which posits that when calculating the costs of living in the suburbs, you also need to factor in transportation costs, and then points to a handy-dandy tool from the Center for Neighborhood Technology to help gauge how affordable (or not) a particular area is, once you add transportation costs and housing costs together.
How does the Dallas area look? A little like this.
George Bush Cleverly Avoids Cootie Infection
Just check out what he does to Bill Clinton at about the :12 mark. That’s the move of a pro.
Richard Patterson on Michael Craig-Martin’s Goss-Michael Show
One of the new contributors to the D Empire I’m most excited about is the British painter Richard Patterson. I was talking recently to a guy who’s involved with the Dallas art scene, and he described Richard as effete. It struck me as an odd word choice. I’ve only met Richard once, but he strikes me as foul-mouthed, funny, and aggressively bearded.
In any case, one of Richard’s teachers when he was under instruction (or however the Brits say it) was a hyphen-loving man named Michael Craig-Martin. MCM has a show up at the equally hyphenated Goss-Michael Foundation. Even if you don’t plan to go see the work (or maybe especially if you don’t plan to), you ought to read Richard’s thoughts on it, brought to us by FrontRow. Good stuff.
Woot.com Publishes Some of the Best Writing in Dallas
I’ve extolled the greatness of Woot.com in this space previously. But until yesterday, I’d never bought anything from them. I checked in regularly just to read the product descriptions. As someone who has had to write such blurbs, I really appreciate how clever they are. Anyway, so yesterday I bought something and received an e-mail from Woot Member Services welcoming me. These sorts of e-mails don’t normally make for great reading. Which is why I was surprised when I read the entire thing — and actually enjoyed it. It begins: “Welcome to the warm embrace of Woot, the first, best, and most hygienic daily deal site! Sit still a minute because you need to know this stuff.” If you’ve got time to waste, jump to read the rest of it.
Woman Throws Baby in Attempt to Stop Repo Man
Times are hard, it’s true. And sometimes, you fall behind on your car payment and a repo man recovery agent shows up to take your car.
You will probably be upset. But you should probably not do what Krystal Gardner allegedly did when she saw repo man recovery agent Luke Ross, keys in hand, getting ready to repossess her Ford Expedition.
Gardner, according to Dallas Police, tossed her one-year-old son in the backseat as Ross began to drive away. “I put the key in and start it,” Ross told reporters. “I look out of the corner of my eye and I see a baby fly through the window.”
Because law prevents someone from repossessing a vehicle with a person still inside it, Ross stopped and got out. Then a 15-year-old came out of the house with a gun and commenced firing.
Gardner was charged with endangering a child, and the 15-year-old was arrested, too. I think we can take away three lessons from this: If your car is being repossessed, hop in; If you are a repo man recovery agent, roll up the windows before you leave and lock all the doors; and there’s really no acceptable place to baby toss anymore.
A Whole Lotta Kotkin
Today Joel Kotkin, author of The Next Hundred Million, will speak at a Regional Dallas Chamber luncheon at the Fairmont. To get warmed up, he’s having breakfast with us at D Magazine, talking shop with Trinity Trust mistress Gail Thomas. That’s the two of them you see seated in front of our other guests. (That spherical object you see in the foreground is either a yard art globe or the back of Eric Celeste’s head.) We’ll have some more notes after Kotkin’s luncheon speech, but I can tell you he knows how to play to his audience. He just cracked a Nancy Pelosi joke that went over well with our crowd of real estate and business types.
Leading Off (3/24/10): Lousy With Questions Edition
1. Zac, what’s up with your boy Dirk getting ejected from the game last night?
2. David Leininger, DART CFO, are you serious? With sales-tax receipts down, you really expect us to wait possibly a decade before we get that rail line to DFW Airport?
3. Op-ed columnist Mark Davis, you really worked yourself into a lather over the health-care law, didn’t you? I mean, “the most odious single example of government invasiveness in generations”? Does this mean you side with Joe Biden, and you think this is a big effing deal?
4. Can I buy you a drink, anonymous DMN editorial writer? How can I thank you for supporting Progress Dallas and its petition drive to put on the November ballot a measure to repeal our crazy-ass patchwork of wet and dry zones in Dallas?
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