Articles for August 30th, 2011
Ron Anderson’s Role at Parkland is Changing
The Morning News is reporting that Ron Anderson’s 29-year stay as Parkland Memorial Hospital’s president/CEO is ending, but the board wants to keep him on in some capacity. Anderson’s current position officially ends Saturday, Dec. 31, 2011.
According to Parkland’s board chairwoman Lauren McDonald, Anderson is not being fired. Rather, he will be given a newly created position in January.
Big Rich Texas, Episode 6 Recap and the Plans For Season 2
What do you get when you mix a local tribute to Amy Winehouse, a really bad dress and snippets from the Spanish Inquisition of Collin County? Episode 6 of Style Network’s Big Rich Texas. You can catch up on the drama with this week’s recap while you celebrate the confirmation of season 2, set to begin filming in October.Â
Want a chance to join the cast a strikingly similar show with the same premise? Audition away. E-mail your name, age, contact info, current photos and a blurb about you and your life to dfwtxcasting@gmail.com.
Daughters should be teen to twenties.
Exxon Mobil Goes to Russia With Love
From the AP comes news a multibillion deal between Russia’s state-owned Rosneft and Exxon Mobil Corp. to develop offshore oil fields in the Russian Arctic. A Russian news outlet quoted Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as calling the amount of money at stake “scary.” (Not making that up.) When asked for a single word to describe the deal, Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson called it “bananas.” (Am making that up.)
Rais Bhuiyan Wants Your Hate Crime Stories
You might remember Rais Bhuiyan, the man who sued Rick Perry and the state of Texas to stop the execution of the guy who shot him in the face. Bhuiyan’s efforts to stop Mark Stroman’s execution failed, but his campaign against hate continues. In the next two weeks, Bhuiyan’s organization, World Without Hate, will be launching a web site. On it, he wants to share stories from people who were personally affected by 9/11 or hate crimes, and how those people have learned to heal. You can contribute by emailing: contact@WorldWithoutHate.org. Bhuiyan says he’ll try to publish as many stories as possible.
Going to the Dentist May Kill You
… or at least maim you. Or at least make you soil your britches.
A emailing FrontBurnervian points to this WFAA story, which points out that for the second time in two days, someone has made a dental office a drive-through. You may want to reschedule that cleaning, or ask for an interior room.
Things To Do In Dallas Tonight: Aug. 30
As a pack rat incapable of throwing away middle school math papers, I’ve taken a particular interest in the stuff coming out of Qaddafi’s many luxurious compounds. It’s alternately reminiscent of a mild episode of Hoarders and a reminder that no one is exempt from hideous family photos. Dictators! They’re just like us, because I know at least one of you has an album dedicated to Condeleezza Rice under your mattress, too.
Speaking of quirky things, there’s the Scholium wine dinner over at Bailey’s Prime Plus in Park Lane. I get a lot of emails about a lot of wine dinners. And frankly, they all start to sound the same after awhile. A multi-course (probably delicious) meal, a visit from someone connected to whatever vineyard. I liked this one because guest Abe Schoener, of The Scholium Project, is legitimately fascinating. The project produces only a handful of wines which in turn are found in only a handful of restaurants around the country, and they get their grapes from forgotten or ignored vineyards (“unconvential fruit sources,” per their website). The results range from awesome to strange to undrinkable. Eric Asimov of the New York Times wrote about the project and Schoener on The Pour blog back in 2008. It makes a great primer for what should be a really interesting evening. You can still get reservations, so give the restaurant a call.
And as August winds down, so does the TAP Uptown music series/community service project. The O’s play the final free concert at St. John’s Wood, and the drink specials include $3 wells and drafts. There’s also required music reading this early afternoon, courtesy of FrontRow’s Christopher Mosley.
For more to do this evening, go here. Make it a happy Tuesday, everyone.
Kinky Likes Perry, But Not Pantyhose
Must be time to take Rick Perry’s presidential candidacy seriously. Even Kinky Friedman, who once ran against Perry for governor, is banging the drum for the GOP hopeful, saying “there’s a lot of good” in him. The Texas Jewboy adds that Perry can’t be worse for the economy than President Obama, who’s “done for the economy what pantyhose did for foreplay.”
Parkland’s Woes Not as Bad as Morning News Wants You To Believe
Update: Right here.
Parkland is far from perfect. No question that organization needs to make some changes in how it does business. But is Parkland as horribly mismanaged and dangerous to its patients as the Dallas Morning News would lead you to believe? More specifically, is the ongoing Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) review of the hospital as monumental and unprecedented as the paper has made it out to be? I don’t think so.
Surely by now you’ve heard about the survey of the facilities conducted by the Texas Department of State Health Services, which led CMS (no idea why it’s not called CMMS) to issue a report saying the hospital was putting the health of its patients in “immediate jeopardy.” Fix the problems, said CMS, or we’ll withdraw your funding. Effectively, the hospital would be shuttered.
Sounds pretty bad, right? In a big front-page story (sub. req.) about the CMS report two Sundays ago, the News drove home the direness of conditions at Parkland with this money quote:
“It appears safety was routinely relegated to a lower priority by other pressures,” said Vanderbilt University professor Ranga Ramanujam, a national expert in health care safety. “The CMS action is extraordinary. I am hard-pressed to think of an example of a similarly high-profile hospital facing the very real possibility of losing their CMS funding as a result of safety violations.”
Ramanujam was the sole expert quoted in the story as to the singularity of the CMS report. You read his quote, and you think, “Parkland is the most awful hospital in America. It’s extraordinarily awful. I mean, a national expert can’t even think of another hospital that’s as awful as Parkland. That’s pretty awful.”
But hang on just a second. (more…)
First Baptist Dallas Says America is Dying Soon
This is happening across the street from where I sit:
And their ranks are, apparently, growing.
Collin County District Attorney Wants to Trump Texas Attorney General
The new Collin County District Attorney has asked a visiting judge to remove the Texas General Attorney from prosecuting District Judge Suzanne Wooten on bribery and money laundering charges.
John Roach Sr. was the previous district attorney. He and the state attorney general investigated Judge Wooten after she beat Judge Charles Sandoval. The DA and AG took almost two years and four grand juries before they indicted Wooten and three other “co-conspirators.” Â DA Roach recused his office and asked the AG to act as a special prosecutor.
In a motion filed yesterday, Willis wrote, “This matter has been mired in politics, speculation, and allegations of conflicts of interest since its inception. Regardless of the existence of actual conflicts of interest, this prosecution is cloaked in the appearance of impropriety and should not continue on its present course.”
Willis says that only Roach was recused, but the Willis administration can and will object to the special prosecutors. After Willis blasted Roach and the AG prosecutors, he stated, “The citizens of Collin County deserve to have an impartial and disinterested attorney appointed by this Court to assess and determine how this prosecution should move forward.”
Muslims Converge at Convention Center
The DART trains this morning were the most crowded I’ve seen them since the Mavericks’ victory parade. And today’s extra people were dressed quite differently than the masses of Mavs fans. That’s because today is the last day of Ramadan, and the Islamic Association of North Texas is hosting a Eid prayer event at the Dallas Convention Center. The prayers were scheduled to begin sharply at 9:30, so everyone on my train is probably going to be late.
Leading Off (8/30/11)
Methodist Dallas Gets the Parkland Treatment. The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has sent Methodist Hospital a letter much like the one it recently sent Parkland, saying the agency inspected the hospital and found serious problems. Methodist either fixes the problems or it loses its Medicare and Medicaid funding. Soon as I get into the office, I’m going to write about 5,000 words on this deal (sub. req.) and how it shows that the Morning News has a bias against Parkland. So start getting excited now.
Dallas To Fulfill George Orwell’s Vision. Got unpaid traffic tickets? Watch out (sub. req.). The law firm that serves as the collection agency for the city of Dallas is enlisting the help of an outfit called the Municipal Intelligence Group, a Texas-based corporation that “offers revenue capture services to units of government by combining technology and data analytics with a network of over 1,800 field agents in 27 metropolitan statistical areas across the nation.” In English: they drive around and take pictures of license plates on parked cars. A computer matches plates to a scofflaw database. If you’re guilty, your car winds up sporting a bright orange sticker telling you to pay up or else. Privacy advocates, understandably, are all, like, “That stinks, man.”
Cowboys Cut Andre Gurode. He was a Pro Bowler. Now he’s gone. The move makes sense to me. If the Cowboys want to be good this year, they shouldn’t have an offensive line staffed with guys who play other professional sports, whether it’s bowling or golf or what have you. (Sorry about that.) Now let’s look at a USA Today photo gallery of Tony Romo.
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