Articles for November, 2011
Leading Off (11/23/11)
DISD Board Discusses Discussions. I attended my first school board meeting last week. It went from 7 to 10:30 p.m. A very large percentage of that time was given to speakers of nonagenda items. I didn’t count exactly how many people spoke, but it had to be above 20. It was enthralling. Yet, the speakers were there for three items, and often repeated themselves. DISD trustee Mike Morath would like to fix that. He wants to nix speakers at the board meeting and have them at a separate public comment meeting. Speakers would be given two, instead of three, minutes to talk. Trustees could respond to the speakers (something they can’t do now). The number of speakers would be limited, and it would be based on a first-come, first-serve basis. A former trustee says the plan is stupid. There are times for the board to be quiet. But I do agree there has to be a more efficient way to handle the speakers.
Reunion Tower To Change Colors. Growing up, I always hated that my mom would use only the yellow lights on the Christmas tree. Where was the green, red, and blue lights that blink and flash and evoke the true Christmas spirit? Every year, I’d harass her. But she never changed it. Now I get it. The yellow lights are classy and beautiful. I like the way they look. They say, “I’m here.” But they’re not screaming it. Anyway, Reunion Tower is changing its lights. We know how Patrick Kennedy will feel about this.
UNT Students Charged With Making Fake $20s and $1s. Allegedly, they were creating the counterfeit bills in their dorm rooms. What I really like about this story, though, is the girl’s mugshot. She’s got a slight smile. Right before the shot, it looks like she asked the photographer to wait a sec so she could put her hair over her shoulders and make sure her bangs were swooping just right. I think in this day and age of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and blog profile pics, everybody knows how to take a good picture. I’m glad we’re finally starting to see this come across in mugshots.
A Special Apology to All Our Imprisoned Subscribers
Sorry, guys. (And girls?)
Target Stops Using Egg Supplier Accused of Animal Cruelty
If you tried and failed to get eggs at Target recently, as I did when I encountered the oddly redundant sign pictured here, here is why you couldn’t.
Things To Do In Dallas Tonight: Nov. 22
As Tim mentioned earlier, today is the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. It is also the day, of course, that Lee Harvey Oswald made the Texas Theatre famous after a store owner saw him ducking inside without buying a ticket. When one is wanted for murder, I’m not sure petty crime is the way to go.
To commemorate the tragedy that has continued to define Dallas, the aforementioned, neatly restored movie house hosts JFK Day, starting this afternoon and continuing well into tonight. They’ve recreated, down to the minute, everything that screened on November 22, 1963—from opening times to extremely cheap ticket prices—plus added a few extras.
Catch Cry of Battle, the main feature about a spoiled son of an American businessman who gets caught up in guerrilla warfare in the Philippines during World War II, and stick around for Rush To Judgment, a conspiracy theory documentary based on a book debunking the findings of the Warren Commission. Just for fun, there’s a free late night screening of Naughty Dallas, a B movie in the spirit of the theater’s Tuesday Night Trash series that features the Carousel Club, the nightclub formerly owned by Jack Ruby, Oswald’s killer. Whew. Feel free to bring your copy of 11/22/63 and read at the bar between movies.
And finally, because I’m the helpful-yet-jealous sort, there’s an excellent option for families who find themselves free of work and school. It’s Dollar Day at the Dallas Zoo, which makes for an extremely cheap way to commune with animals that are not ritualistically slaughtered to feed us in two days time. Layers are your friend, since it’s a tad cold.
For more to do tonight, go here.
Jeb Hensarling’s Epic Failure May Be a Success
With Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.), Dallas Congressman Hensarling co-chaired the supercommittee, that extra-legislative Hail Mary pass that failed to connect with a receiver. Blame is, of course, flying back and forth in both directions. Several groups have come up with ways to fix the deficit — Simpson-Bowles, the Group of Six, etc. But Congress cannot. The Senate has failed to pass a budget for the last three years. The House has passed budgets which resemble nothing more than ideological talking points for Republican members running for re-election in heavily right-wing districts.
The market’s reaction was predictable. Say what you will about Italy and Greece, but their parliaments have faced the music and acted.
What’s to be done? Nothing.
Absent Congress, the automatic cuts will go into effect. The Bush tax cuts will disappear. The combined fiscal result will be a huge reduction in the deficit.
Now we get the pure enjoyment of watching both sides scramble to undo the consequences of their intransigence. It is America’s Zen moment. Inaction equals action, whether either side likes it or not. We may come to thank Jeb Hensarling after all.
D Magazine’s Raya Ramsey Talks Giving Back For the Holidays on WFAA’s Daybreak
Our very own online lifestyle editor, Raya Ramsey, acquitted herself nicely this morning on WFAA’s morning show, Daybreak. But that dastardly host Ron Corning cut her off before she could plug our website featuring even more ways to celebrate the holidays: www.dmagazine.com/events
She’ll get you next time, Corning.
Leading Off (11/22/11)
Kennedy Was Killed 48 Years Ago. To mark the anniversary, the Los Angeles Times runs a story about our preparations to mark the 50th anniversary in 2013. Says the Times: “Those organizing the 50th anniversary event … say they are not capitalizing on memories of Camelot. They want to show the world how far ‘Big D,’ the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country, has come from its days as a conservative outpost of big-haired socialites, oil tycoons and cowboys.” But the best thing about the story is the photo that accompanies it. Is that really the pose you want to strike when being photographed at the “X” in the road where the bullet(s) struck our president?
Redskins Player Tells Cowboys Fan to Kill Himself. Everybody is up in arms over Jabar Gaffney’s response to a Cowboys fan who was taunting him on Twitter about the Redskins’ record. Gaffney tweeted back: “3-7 ain’t a record to be proud of I’m just proud I ain’t you get a life or kill urself.” I’m more disturbed by that run-on sentence.
Rick’s Cabaret Buys Silver City Cabaret. Silver City, which we once called the worst strip joint in Dallas because of all the bad stuff that has gone down there, is now owned by Houston-based Rick’s Cabaret International. I love this quote in the press release from Eric Langan, the CEO of Rick’s: “We are very enthusiastic about the potential to develop the Silver City location at 7501 North Stemmons Freeway near Love Field, which will become a great entertainment and retail destination. [So far, so good. We're talking business here. Excellent.] Only 14,000 square feet of the 54,000 square foot building is currently in use [still with you], and we will develop the rest to include a Tootsie’s-style Knockers Sports Bar and an after hours nightclub.” Right there. That’s the part of the quote where Eric Langan’s mom’s head hits the table. We can only hope that this Knockers Sports Bar will be open in time to welcome visitors coming to Dallas for the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination.
Merrie Spaeth on the Penn State Disaster
Frequent D CEO contributor and crisis manager Merrie Spaeth was asked by the PR site Bulldogreporter.com to reflect on what went wrong in the university’s awful response. Her thoughts go beyond the particulars of the case and apply to any organization, whether a university or a business or even, saints preserve us, a media outlet.
Tear Down the East Dallas Portion of I30
At a recent TED event in Philadelphia, Next American City editor-at-large Diana Lind reviewed the movement to dismantle highways that disrupt a city’s natural flow. From a report by Andrew Nusca:
After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the city of San Francisco faced the tremendous task of rebuilding the structurally-damaged Embarcadero Freeway. Instead, they tore it down, replaced it with a people-friendly boulevard that encouraged development. The surrounding area has since rebounded, Lind said, with higher property values, more tourism and more housing for city residents.
The same phenomenon occurred in New York City when it rebuilt the elevated West Side Highway in 1989 as a surface roadway, giving New Yorkers access to parks, piers and picturesque views on the West Side of Manhattan.
Our opportunity lies with the elevated portion of I30 that runs from downtown through East Dallas. I argue here that tearing down that 2.5-mile portion and creating a boulevard in its place would unleash millions of dollars in development (and new taxes).
Programming Note: Watch Raya Ramsey on WFAA’s Daybreak Tomorrow Morning
For those of you who are normally awake by 6 a.m., ShopTalk’s own Raya Ramsey will appear on the WFAA (Channel 8 ) morning show, Daybreak, sometime between 6 and 6:20 a.m. tomorrow. She’ll be talking about upcoming charity to-do’s.
Please tune in and let me know whether Raya falls asleep during the telecast. I’ll still be in bed myself.
Mark Cuban on his New E-Book: ‘Don’t Feel You Have to Read It Like a Book’
Our D CEO CEO of the Year, Mark Cuban, has published himself an e-book. According to the Wall Street Journal, much of it is culled from blog postings that were already freely available.
I like how candid Cuban is about just wanting to sell books. The last thing he wants you to do is weigh the likelihood of whether you’ll actually read the thing before turning over your $2.99:
“Don’t feel you have to read it like a book,” he writes in the book’s foreword. “Use it as a way to get fired up. A way to get motivated.”
Evan Grant’s MVP Choice Is Not Popular
Just about every year, one unlucky sportswriter is pilloried for his selection for American or National League Most Valuable Player. This year, that unlucky sportswriter is former InsideCorner writer Evan Grant, because he picked Michael Young. (Detroit Tigers pitcher — and recently named Cy Young winner — Justin Verlander won, in case you haven’t heard.)
So, Do You Like the Omni?
Because Dallas Morning News writer Scott Cantrell went on a tour, and he doesn’t, so much. The article is behind a paywall, so those of you who haven’t a) paid to scale it , or b) figured out a way to scale it for free, here are the highlights:
- The Omni has a split personality, and is “awkwardly trendy on the outside, timidly but fussily nostalgic inside.”
- It’s really big.
- The windows don’t all match.
- There are LED lights between floors to make the hotel look pretty at night, only Cantrell says, “Exterior light features have become Dallas’ architectural answer to breast enhancement.”
- “The building’s worst feature is the cheesy metal grille, its angled supports clearly visible, swooping across the top and carrying the Omni logo.”
- The inside is done in earth tones.
- TVs! In the mirrors! Of the crapper in the hotel rooms! Can I say crapper? Facilities? Powder room? Bathroom?
There you go. Our city’s hotel is the architectural equivalent of a boob job or something. And you can watch TV in the bathroom. I read the news so you don’t have to.
Wouldn’t ‘Advice & Puzzle’ Have Been More Appropriate?
Because the Dallas Morning News has eliminated its Arts & Life section on Fridays, the paper has created a new Fridays-only section called Comics & Puzzles. Based on the cover of the first edition, maybe the word “columns” or “advice” should have been worked into the section’s name.
Things To Do In Dallas Tonight: Nov. 21
Weekend recap. Friday, I visited the John Paul Gaultier exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art. I couldn’t hear a word the mannequins were saying, but I did meet a nice artist type who gave me the last copy of his super hero comic book that he just so happened to have in the inner pocket of his jacket (a pocket, by the way, he had ripped off an old pair of pants and sewn into the lining himself). Let’s call that one a wash. On Saturday, I finished 1Q84. I wanted to fling the whole frustrating thing out the window. In conclusion, I’m need of cosmic balance, and I’m looking forward to a short week. I’m sure the rest of you are, too.
I have very vivid memories of the first time I ever set foot in a Central Market. Pretty sure it was the Fort Worth location, ages ago. I’d never seen a store with so much space devoted to bread, and it was love at first sight. I bought a plastic box of cranberry-orange scones and never looked back. And in front of all the holiday baking coming up, CM will teach you how to create all the tasty carbs you could ever want. Tonight’s class features treats like bacon, Gruyère (one of the best cheeses to use with breads or pastry crusts, by the way. I bake Gruyère into all my pies), and scallion muffins, pumpkin cranberry bread (yum), and gingerbread (my all-time favorite). There are only three spots left. Go.
If you’re lucky enough to have the time off this week to spend with the kids, head over the Gaylord Texan at some point for the resort’s gigantic Lone Star Christmas. There’s a snow tubing hill. With real snow, something you may not see around here for another month or so. It’s open late, too, so no need to rush to it or through it.
And hey! Our new travel blog is live. Go look. And add your own adventure. But remember that no place will love you like Dallas. For more to do tonight in our fair city, go here.
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