The Dallas Morning News is reporting that Metro columnist James Ragland, 50, has been re-assigned to general assignment duties covering Collin County pending the outcome of “a misdemeanor family violence assault charge him involving his wife.”
DMN editor Robert Mong says, “He will be reporting outside of Dallas County to avoid inevitable conflicts that might arise. James agrees with this decision.”
In the meantime, Ragland’s wife, Shannon Morley-Ragland, 42, has filed for divorce because of “discord or conflict of personalities.”
White House press secretary Jay Carney recently dismissed a Republican payroll tax cut proposal as “window dressing or gorilla dust.” Since no one in the press room understood exactly what Carney had meant by that second metaphor, The Washington Post investigated. Turns out it was a phrase Carney learned in the early 1990s from his old boss in the Washington bureau of Time magazine, a guy named Dan Goodgame:
And where did Goodgame pick it up?
“Ross Perot used to use it,” Goodgame said. “It was Ross. I wish I could claim it. I love to do Ross Perot impressions. I can’t remember if we ever used it other than quoting Perot. It became bureau slang.”
The Post confirmed, thanks to a William Safire column in the New York Times, that Dallas’ own Ross Perot used it in a debate about NAFTA televised on an episode of Larry King Live.
And this is where I either count or curse the blessing that we live during a time when seemingly any scrap of video a person might want has been uploaded online by some crank somewhere. I went through half an hour of footage of then-Vice President Al Gore and Perot having a testy discussion about the merits of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Many times Perot looks like he can barely restrain himself from slugging Gore, who keeps asking repeatedly where the funding for Perot’s anti-NAFTA organization comes from. Perot says Gore’s only raising the issue as “propaganda,” a distraction from the central debate on NAFTA. Finally he arrives at the quote I’d been searching for. The 2:35 mark on this video. (Sorry, embedding was disabled):
“See, again, he throws up propaganda. He throws up gorilla dust. It makes no sense.”
So, is this a phrase peculiar to Perot himself? Or can anyone claim it as a Dallas-ism?
I just got word that Dallas Animal Services is kicking off an adoption special for the month of December. Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this month, you’ll be able to adopt any dog or any cat for just $30. It’s a good deal. (I paid about $200 to adopt my dog a few years ago.) If you want to add a pet to the family, you should most certainly do it through a shelter and not a breeder. Because, as I talk about in a column in this month’s print product, Dallas has enough dogs and cats already. They just need homes.
Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher had some scary things to say while addressing the Dallas/Fort Worth Minority Supplier Development Council today. Fisher ”has been among the most vocal critics of the central bank’s policy, dissenting this year against moves to push down long-term rates and to keep the benchmark U.S. interest rate near zero until at least mid-2013. He voted five times in 2008 in favor of tighter policy,” according to Bloomberg.
Today he spoke of a recent conversation with a European Central Bank official, who pointed out that the U.S. debt burden is even bigger than Europe’s:
“We don’t want to be in a situation like Greece. We are headed that way, if we are not careful,” Fisher said. ”We are headed in the wrong direction, and if we don’t bring it under control, we are going to have social unrest.”
Translation? Despite those slightly-maybe improving unemployment numbers today, hold on to your effin’ hat?
A readingpants FrontBurnervian shot this into my inbox today – a story about Fort Worth ISD kicking Santa out of the classrooms. And not only that, gift exchanges are verboten. Santa can visit the cafeteria, but nowhere else.
And why? For that you’d have to cue up the district’s lawyers, according to the story.
“One of the district’s lawyers is reportedly concerned that if they allow students to exchange presents, they would also be be required to let them distribute a religious message with the gift.”
Anyone think that the worry is related to the Plano candy cane kerfuffle that is still winding its way through the courts?
God bless you if you plan to be among the thousands running the Dallas White Rock Marathon on Sunday morning. Whether you’re participating in memory of a family member or a mentor, or your church, or just for some strange sense that you’ve accomplished something in your life, the weather forecast promises temperatures in the 40s with rain and wind.
The Dallas Morning News running blog has a number of tips for the challenging day. Basically, don’t wear cotton. Have layers, some of which you might be able to dispose of along the way. Don’t overdress. But the best tip comes from Spareribs Lamothe (he of quite possibly the greatest name ever):
And no matter what you do, do NOT bring a jacket, then get hot and tie it around your waist! You will look like an idiot for one, and for another, the jacket will act as a giant sail and slow you down. If I see you out there with a jacket (or worse, a sweat shirt) around your waist I’m going to fine you five dollars.
If you do find yourself getting overwhelmed by the cold, WFAA assures us that doctors will be standing by to help. There will be a relay team of doctors from Baylor running the route so that they’ll be nearby should any emergency needs arise. They’ve also got a fancy piece of equipment, which WFAA calls a “bear hug” in case anyone suffers hypothermia.
The device is actually a “Bair Hugger.” So doctors would be doing something like this.
This weekend will automatically take a turn for the terrible if you try to get on I-3o after 9 p.m. on Saturday. Just don’t bother.
Friday
There’s some kerfuffle in the Arts District this morning, and of course it’s in aid of spreading holiday cheer. The AT&T Performing Arts Center will light up their Christmas tree as planned, despite the little bit of inclement weather. The evening’s entertainment includes craft booths for kids, horse-drawn carriages, food trucks, and a performance by a Jersey Boys cast member (the AT&T PAC’s Lexus Broadway series will bring the much-loved musical to town in the spring). Plus, kids can get their photo taken with Santa.
Otherwise, Peter reminded us on FrontRow this morning that filmmaker Alex Cox (Repo Man, Sid and Nancy) is in town. The Texas Theatre will screen Highway Patrolman and Straight to Hell Returns before Cox takes the stage for a Q&A.
Gov. Rick Perry made his much-anticipated appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno last night. He continued to poke fun at his own mental lapses, including the speech he gave in New Hampshire earlier this week in which he told young people to come vote for him once they’re 21 years old. “I was thinking of the drinking age, maybe,” Perry told Leno. It is perhaps fair to conclude from this statement that he likes his chances if voters show up to the polls drunk.
Here’s the first part of the interview:
Company Charges Widow $13,400 for Matchmaking Services. The Dallas Morning News’ Katie Fairbank got Dallas Singles to reduce Frisco widow Jean Green’s commitment down to just more than $5,500 eventually, but still, that’s substantially more than eHarmony or other services. Oy.
Things That Make Me Absurdly Happy. This. Is it Christmas yet?
Rolling, Rolling, Rolling. ERCOT says that power generation is something something not enough so next summer we could have rolling black outs. The takeaway from this story? In Fort Worth, if you work for the city you get to wear shorts in the summer. And next summer will be a clustercuss. I read the news so you don’t have to.
Grapevine Traffic Causes Road Rage Incident. Rush hour traffic on Highway 121 from Lewisville to Grapevine is just the kind of thing that would give Dante the hives. But shooting at someone’s car? Wrong. Also wrong? This.
Pay It Forward. Someone stuck this in my ear earlier, and I can’t get it out. So now it’s yours. You’re welcome.
The Government Accountability Office just released a study looking at foster kids around the country, and how they are prescribed psychiatric medications. According to the study, about a third of all children in foster care have been prescribed at least one mind-altering drug, a rate at least five times higher than non-foster kids.
Of all the states examined in the study, foster children in Texas were the most likely to receive powerful psychiatric drugs. Even more startling is the number of children who were prescribed at least five different psychiatric drugs at the same time. Foster kids in Texas are 53 times more likely to be on five different drugs at the same time, compared with non-foster kids. That’s not a typo: 53 times more likely.
This will obviously raise all sorts of questions, about child welfare, about state economics (tax payers are buying those drugs), and about the relationship between the drug companies profiting from these prescriptions (hugely in the case of Texas) and the politicians putting forth these dangerous policies.
A new Rick Perry presidential campaign spot (see it below, via Politico) is making its way around the web today. It apparently is going to air in Iowa during The Tonight Show, on which the governor is going to appear tonight.
The ad is a real hoot.
“Part-time Congress,” ha! Hope the governor has saved some more one-liners like that for Leno.
Speaking of Southlake having more money than they really need, when I clicked on this CBS 11 video of how the White Chapel United Methodist Church has a 3D Christmas display that costs about $100,000 a week I was prepared to respond to it with full-on snark about the huge waste of resources that it is. But damned if that doesn’t look like a fun show:
I’ve been writing on deadline for the last few days, so I haven’t been on the blog much. Now that I’m out of that particular pain cave, I wanted to draw attention to the most recent Dallas Observer cover story, by my friend Brantley Hargrove, about the long drilling battle in Southlake. See, Southlake proved an interesting fracking litmus test in the on-going drilling discussion. The residents there, by and large, don’t need energy company money the way people in other places do. (Read Paul Kix’s D Magazine cover story from 2007.) Parents that have long been strong supporters of “pro-business” Republican politicians have been forced to question their own beliefs–and many have been called hypocrites. These are interesting times for Perfect City, U.S.A.
As mentioned earlier, last night’s episode of Top Chef: Texas was the first set in Dallas. A sampling of what outlets across the country learned about our city.
Esquire: “What we learned here is that rich people in Dallas are freaking weird. One couple revealed that they had 1,200 people at their wedding. Another proudly reminisced about their gummy-bear wedding cake — they were hosting dessert, and dessert-team member Ed Lee, he of the facial expressions, shot them a look that said, ‘You people are from another planet, but okay.’”
Baltimore Sun: “The couple that owns the first insane mansion is Kim and Justin Whitman. Kim is an entertaining expert and seems to be auditioning for Real Housewives of Dallas … Keep an eye out for her on Bravo in the future. Kim hates cilantro, bell peppers, grease and things she has never tried. Basically she is a chef’s dream.”
Entertainment Weekly: “Cilantro is apparently public enemy number one on the Dallas version of Wisteria Lane.” (more…)
Spend a few minutes poking around on Texas Monthly’s new TM Daily Post, which went live today. TexMo editor Jake Silverstein describes the effort as “an online destination devoted to organizing, prioritizing, and analyzing the news of Texas every day.” At first blush, here’s what I like: it goes beyond merely throwing up a link and saying, “Here’s something that’s interesting.” This post about the recent New York Times story on the fight in Gun Barrel City over late-night liquor sales is a good example. Dig the way Sonia Smith not only summarizes the story but lays out some of the reaction to it, from blogs around the state and from folks who live in Gun Barrel City. That sort of work can be exhausting. TM Daily Post, looks to me, is being populated by two people, Smith and Jason Cohen (though a third, Andrea Valdez, is also on the masthead). They all appear to have real jobs at the print product. I wish them luck in sustaining the grueling pace of a daily site that digests the entire state.