Articles for July 17th, 2012
Betches Love SMU
There’s a thing called Betches Love This. It’s kind of like Stuff White People Like, only instead of white people, you’re talking about betches. And a betch, if you don’t know, is just another word for that other word. Anyway, the anonymous betches over at Betches Love This periodically break down a university, betch-wise. Yesterday they did a betches guide to SMU. It is unkind is a very NSFW way.
Golden Chick’s Mascot Perplexes Me
Despite this being the height of bikini season, I craved fried chicken for dinner last night. I pulled into my neighborhood outpost for the Richardson-based Golden Chick chain, and I was informed that they had run out of yardbird. (The horror!) As I waited in the parking lot for my grub, I had time to stare at the mascot, whose name could not be ascertained through 30 seconds of Googling, and contemplate two questions:
1. Is there another restaurant whose mascot is an anthropomorphized version of the very food it serves?
2. Why the glasses?
We Have A New Blog: D Healthcare Daily
Here is everything you need to know about our new blog, D Healthcare Daily, which will cover the business of (surprise) healthcare in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. A quick primer before you click: it’s led by Stephn B. Jacob, author of Healthcare in 2020: Where Uncertain Reform, Bad Habits, Too Few Doctors, and Skyrocketing Costs Are Taking Us, and formerly a publisher with the Star-Telegram, where he also wrote nationally syndicated healthcare columns by the McClatchy Tribune News Service. He’s an adjunct faculty member at UNT’s School of Public Health. The site has more than 30 contributing editors (and growing) and will have daily news stories (hence the name) and three weekly e-newsletters: D Healthcare Digest, D Healthcare MD (for physicians), D Healthcare PM (for practice managers). The site’s advisory council is after the jump, along with Thompson Twins’ “Doctor, Doctor.”
Things To Do In Dallas Tonight: July 17
Ask me for directions!
Man, with all this lady trouncing going on, might I remind you people of a different sort of magical play where a woman is worth more than 20 boys? It’s called Neverland, somehow a realer place than Aaron Sorkin’s increasingly infuriating, revisionist soapbox.
And you can visit, as the Dallas Summer Musicals’ touring production of Peter Pan runs through the weekend. I doubt I have to convince you of the merits of J.M. Barrie’s lovely, timeless tale of a child who never grew up. What’s better than immersing yourself in the world of the Lost Boys, Tinkerbell, and the dastardly pirate Captain Hook? Olympic gymnast and Tony Award-nominee Cathy Rigby reprises her Broadway role as Peter Pan, a not insignificant detail considering that Rigby is nearly 60. (Keep in mind, Pan is actually 105.)
Lindsey Wilson, who reviewed the show for FrontRow, says that Rigby is phenomenal, capturing the confidence of a young boy and managing the flips and kicks with the athleticism of someone less than half her age.
Miss Texas DaNae Couch Talks About The Pageant Experience — And Her Teeth
Megan Shaw is a junior at Washington and Lee University. She is also one of our summer interns. On Monday, she interviewed DaNae Couch, the current Miss Dallas and, as of last weekend, Miss Texas 2012. The 23-year-old Baylor grad is now attending law school at Texas Tech. The Q&A is after the jump.
Jim Schutze Finds His Next Conspiracy Theory
A few days ago, Jim Schutze embarrassed himself by cooking up a conspiracy theory to explain a Dallas Morning News editorial that came out in support of the Nasher Sculpture Center in its efforts to mitigate the glare and heat reflecting off Museum Tower. He got more than one important detail very wrong, most notably that Lucy Billingsley and the Crow family have an interest in Museum Tower. Today, Schutze offers his latest theory. Over on Unfair Park, he implies that I’ve taken the side of the Nasher because my wife’s PR firm did work for the museum more than a year ago. He says I should have disclosed that fact when I wrote the first story about reflectivity problem in May:
What Rogers has neglected to share directly with his readers — something he still denied to me this morning even after his wife admitted it — is that his wife, Christine Rogers, is part-owner of a public relations firm called SparkFarm that has represented the Nasher in the past and still lists the Nasher as a “current client” on its web page.
As I said in the comments to his post, Schutze’s email to me asked, “When did you plan on telling readers that the p.r. firm of which your wife is part-owner represents the Nasher?”
I wrote back to Schutze: “As you’ve by now no doubt discovered, Jim, SparkFarm doesn’t represent the Nasher. Neither am I related to Lucy Billingsley or the Crow family. But Jim Moroney is Catholic and I am Catholic, and if you ever happen to see the two of us meet at, say, a cocktail party, if you look closely, you’ll notice that we engage in an odd handshake.”
As Schutze knows, there’s a material difference between having done work for somebody and representing somebody. As I have learned from reading Schutze’s post, SparkFarm worked for the Nasher between March and May of 2011. The problem with Museum Tower did not manifest itself until September 2011. I didn’t learn about it until January 2012, when I happened to be in the garden and noticed the glare.
Should I have disclosed in the story I wrote in April 2012 that my wife’s firm did work for the Nasher a year prior? Schutze thinks I should have. As a matter of practice, though, when I begin a writing project, I don’t do a conflict-of-interest check with my wife, asking her if, in the past year, she has worked for anyone involved with the story I’m reporting.
Forbes Lists Dallas Cowboys, Texas Rangers Among World’s Most Valuable Sports Teams
Forbes magazine ranked the world’s 50 most valuable sports franchises, and your Dallas Cowboys came in tied at No. 3 with the New York Yankees, both teams valued at $1.85 billion. Â Â Two of those European clubs that play that sport where matches are allowed to end in scoreless ties finished on top.
Much of the praise for the Cowboys from the Forbes staff was directed the team’s Cash-Cow-Death-Star:
Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones is a master salesman and has attracted the NBA All-Star game, the Super Bowl, a Manny Pacquiao fight, soccer matches, concerts and more to Cowboys Stadium since the $1.2 billion venue opened in 2009.
Mayor Robert Cluck of Arlington may be sending a correction letter to Forbes staffer Kurt Badenhausen, who says in the video above (skip to the 1:51 mark) that Jerry Jones financed the building of Cowboys Stadium “almost entirely himself.”
I realize that the stadium cost about $1.2 billion and the city of Arlington kicked in only $325 million, but that’s still about 27% of the cost.
Also making the list, at No. 50, are the Texas Rangers, whose recent increase in value (to a more modest $674 million) is tied both to record attendance this season and last, but especially a hell of a sweet TV deal with Fox Sports Southwest.
Leading Off (7/16/12)
Mavs Agree to Terms With O.J. Mayo. I’ve always loved the guy’s name. It’s a beverage and a condiment. But if you want any deeper analysis than that, you’ll have to ask Zac Crain what it means for the Mavericks to have the point guard from Memphis.
Dez Bryant Arrested on Family Violence Charge. According to DeSoto police, the Cowboys wide receiver committed the assault Saturday. He was arrested Monday. Here are the parts of the story (paywall) I enjoy the most: 1) Asked for comment, Bryant said, “I’m good. I’m good.” 2) “The Lufkin native moved to DeSoto in 2009, the year before he signed with the Cowboys, to live in the home of his mentor, a former bail bondsman named David Wells. ‘I’m helping him prepare not to get in trouble,’ Wells told the Dallas Morning News in 2010.” And 3) “Bryant won a small court victory in late June, when he persuaded a Dallas County judge to grant him a conditional driver’s license. His regular license had been suspended for excessive traffic tickets.”
DMN Asks Attorney General To Investigate DPD. This story is behind a paywall, which is a shame, because everyone should read it. The Dallas Police Department has been making it harder for reporters to get information. For instance, a basic police incident report now oftentimes requires a written open-records request. Well, now the department is destroying emails before the News can see them. The paper’s attorney has asked AG Greg Abbott to look into the matter. The story quotes Keith Elkins, executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas: “It appears to flagrantly be a thumb-your-nose to the law by a law enforcement agency, and that’s something that I hope any lawmaker in Texas … takes note of. Something needs to be done in the taxpayer interest.”
NTTA Slammed by Former Executive Director. In related news, the paper just got its hands on some documents that it had to fight three years to see (with the AG’s help). The News was trying to figure out why the North Texas Tollway Authority’s executive director resigned after working there just one year. What they found (paywall) was worth the fight. Jorge Figueredo wrote the following in a memo to the agency’s board: “My early assessment of what needed to be done here was influenced by my belief that the agency had a reasonably talented and committed workforce that would react rationally to change. However, the reality is that the NTTA suffered from a marginally talented workforce, lack of strong internal systems and controls, and a rigid culture that has to be replaced. … I have more fully come to understand the serious and systemic resistance to change within the NTTA. … I believe that lingering regional complaints about the NTTA being an arrogant agency that was primarily focused on itself are, in large part, based on the organizational culture that I have found here.”
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