Articles for November 12th, 2012
Arlington Code Inspectors Drop 477 Violations on Apartments, Probably Run Out of Paper and Ink
This Star-Telegram story is disgusting.
Cliffs Notes version: A water leak in an east Arlington apartment complex forces code compliance to do a sweep of the place. While there, they find:
- roaches
- mold
- missing smoke detectors
- graffiti
- Dirk’s pre-surgery right knee
In total, 477 violations, a number that could continue to climb. Councilwoman Lana Wolff, in the understatement of the year:Â ”There’s got to be some level of scrutiny. We need to bump it up on another list. If that means adding additional inspectors, so be it. It’s not an empty warehouse. It is where people and babies are living. Let those people live in a safe environment.”
DART Investigating Selling Naming Rights To Rail Stations
I think it’s probably not the best idea, but I also don’t think it’s the worst idea. I guess what I’m saying is I don’t care a ton. It’s just a name.
That said, if it does happen, I’m putting the finishing touches on a Kickstarter page so I can have enough money to buy the rights to name the Pearl Street station “Gary.”
Dallas and Houston Have a New Competitor in the Oil and Gas Game: Austin
From the Texas Tribune:
Despite its “Keep Austin Weird” slogan and passion for clean energy, Austin is increasingly attracting oil and gas companies like Three Rivers, a small firm founded in 2009 that focuses on oil development in West Texas and New Mexico, aided by the high oil prices of recent years. Austin’s oil industry, about 4,000 workers strong, is still dwarfed by Houston and Dallas. But the city’s entrepreneurial bent and reputation as an attractive place to live, along with the top-tier petroleum engineering program at UT, have trumped the fact that Austin is far from the oilfields.
Keep Austin Fueled?
Unfair Park Has Questions To Ask Before Texas Secedes
4. Can my gun now carry a gun?
(Some of them are better than others.)
The Cowboys Are Selling T-Shirts For This Weekend’s Game Against the 2-7 Cleveland Browns
Source: DallasCowboys.com
Nothing screams “I WAS THERE” quite like a t-shirt.
And nothing screams “I PAID $200 TO WATCH AN AVERAGE COWBOYS TEAM PLAY A TERRIBLE BROWNS TEAM” quite like a $21.99 t-shirt from dallascowboys.com.
Unless, I don’t know, this game ends up being Tony Romo’s last game with the Cowboys and the entire state erupts in joyful rioting and the shirt ends up being worth $30 to some maniac with a “Cowboys Man Cave, bro,” you should probably save your money.
(h/t Darren Rovell)
Veterans Day Tale Is A Case of Mistaken Identity
I bet even our veterans, who are being honored with a parade today, would find this story amusing. It involves a 70ish Dallas woman, a world-traveling grande dame sort whose eyesight is less than 20/20. This woman goes out of her way to thank our uniformed military for their service and their sacrifice, whenever and wherever she sees them. Sometimes she gives the soldiers a hug, too.
It happened again at DFW Airport the other day, when she walked up to a young man in a green camouflage outfit and said: “I want you to know that we are so proud of you, and thank you!” When she proceeded to give him a bear hug and repeated, “Your country is so proud of you,” the guy in the camo outfit looked genuinely confused and said, “They’re proud of duck hunters?”
KERA’s Krys Boyd Interviewed Paula Broadwell in February, so Go Back and Listen For Secret Clues
Well before she was known for her romantic relationship with Gen. David Petraeus, Paula Broadwell was instead known as his biographer. Back in February, she spoke with Krys Boyd on KERA’s Think.
Now’s the chance to go back and search for clues of the affair. Or just listen because you’re an informed American citizen, worried about our country’s increased reliance on foreign oil.
Should We Shoot, Sell, and Eat Dallas’ Feral Hogs?
According to Jackson Landers, author of Eating Aliens: One Man’s Adventures Hunting Invasive Animal Species, YES.
From a recent interview with Grist.org:
There are so many people right now who have meat-eater’s remorse – people who eat meat and feel kind of bad about it, but they’re not actually going to stop. Or they’re vegetarians and their bodies actually crave meat. But there’s so much awareness about what’s wrong with the mainstream food system – and they haven’t known what to do about that. The beautiful thing about hunting, especially invasive species, is it’s a way of dropping out of the mainstream meat paradigm, where so many of the ethical and health problems associated with eating meat arise.
Specifically about feral boars and hogs, which have recently begun their descent into North Dallas and the suburbs:
Q. Local and federal agencies seem to be divided on this issue. How is conservation reconciled with food safety? For example, should we hunt species like feral boar rooting in spinach fields?
A. The [U.S. Department of Agriculture] doesn’t really care if hunters are out in spinach fields shooting feral boar. The [Food and Drug Administration] has more of a problem in that regard. Because whenever federal regulations come into play involving the sale of meat across state lines, it has to be slaughtered and processed in an approved slaughterhouse – which is kind of ridiculous. In Europe, wild game can be killed in the field, brought to the butcher, cut up, and sold. It’s not like big E. coli or brucellosis outbreaks are happening; they’ve been doing this in Europe for over 100 years with good science behind it. There’s no special food safety danger with regards to selling the meat of animals that have been killed in the field, which is to say on a hunt.
Texas has more feral hogs than the rest of the country combined, and the state began hosting its “Get The Hog Outta Texas” competition in 2010. Maybe they should also let people bring a fork and knife.
Artist Maps All of DFW’s Street-Sign Colors
Source: JCZ Art
Like the headline says, an artist mapped out the street-sign colors of every municipality in Dallas-Fort Worth. Any errors?
Things To Do In Dallas Tonight: Nov. 12
Danchev’s book.
In honor of Veterans Day, which was yesterday, the city is hosting a parade this afternoon that begins around noon. Before the parade starts from the parking lots near the place formerly known as Reunion Arena and snakes around downtown, there’s a ceremony outside City Hall. I’d like to thank my grandfather for his life of service so that I can a) live in a free country and b) bank with USAA.
Tonight, the Dallas Museum of Art hosts biographer Alex Danchev for a special Arts and Letters Live event. Danchev’s latest book, which he’ll discuss this evening with author (and Dallas native) Michael Ennis, is an exploration of the life and work of French post-Impressionist Paul Cézanne. In his day, Cézanne was viewed as many things, but not as the visionary artist we now know him to be. Arts District restaurant Jorge’s is open, so I recommend an Estrella Damm and the spinach enchiladas. But if margaritas are more your thing, they’re just five bucks all day today.
Over at the Granada, Jens Lekman of Whip It soundtrack fame headlines a bill that includes a personal favorite of mine as the opening act: Taken by Trees. Among other things, I really love their “My Boys” cover of Animal Collective’s “My Girls.”
Texas Secession Petition Barrels Ahead
Source: Mario Piperni
As Republicans nationwide continue hoarding grains, ripping out what remains of their graying, fleeing hair, and praying to Grover Norquist, one has decided to do something about it. Micah H., an Arlington resident, has petitioned the United States of America (specifically the Obama White House) for permission to remove Texas from the rest of the country. His words:Â
“The US continues to suffer economic difficulties stemming from the federal government’s neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending. The citizens of the US suffer from blatant abuses of their rights such as the NDAA, the TSA, etc. Given that the state of Texas maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in the world, it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect it’s citizens’ standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.”
Forget the jobs created by NASA and federal defense contractors, obviously.
Micah’s petition has already garnered more than 18,000 signatures, well on its way to its stated goal of 25,000. No idea what happens when they hit 25,000, but I assume the state will break off into the Gulf of Mexico.
(I saw this independently, then saw Wilonsky posted something about it an hour ago. Half hat-tip.)
UPDATE, from friend turned traitor/New York-returner Greg Howard, at the Village Voice: Some joker from Grand Forks, North Dakota submitted a similar petition, graciously asking New York to remove itself from the Union thankyouverymuch.
Lakewood Stop Sign Voted the “Dumbest in Dallas,” Wins Award From Fancy City Magazine
Source: Reddit
A co-working FrontBurnervian pointed us to Reddit yesterday, where some tech-savvy Lakewood residents were discussing the merits of a new stop sign.
The sign – at the intersection of North Brookside Drive and Tremont Street, adjacent to Lakewood Country Club – drew such reactions as:
- “What a waste! I think I ran it the other day, didn’t even realize it was there.”
- “best part is that within a day of them going up, there was a wreck because of the stop sign…”
- “Brookside sees traffic flowing in and out of the Hollywood Heights neighborhood during typical rush hour periods, but very few cars drive on Tremont, so the stop signs took people by surprise.”
Google Maps shows – pretty conclusively – that this probably isn’t an intersection worthy of a stop sign. Most likely the efforts of  an overzealous neighbor with a kid who just learned how to ride a two-wheeler, IMO.
Thankfully, someone was thoughtful enough to brand the sign, and give it a highly-regarded, award-winning magazine’s stamp of approval:
Dallas to Interview Library Director Candidates Soon, Thank God
The city of Dallas is expected to interview library director candidates the first week of December, a little FrontBurnervian birdie told me, hopefully bringing the interim-director game to a close.
Don’t get too excited. The last round of interviews for candidates to replace Laurie Evans – who left more than two years ago – didn’t go too well. The position’s been handled recently by Kris Sweckard, who, by all accounts, is doing a stand-up job despite the fact that his most recent position within the city government prior to the library was in the Office of Environmental Quality.
Reading, clean air, same difference.
I chatted with city manager Mary Suhm at a D-related event in September. She was bullish, but cautious about saying too much about a new hire, and why it took the city so long to find a permanent director. (Hint: it’s because the city doesn’t fund its libraries close to the level of other major cities.)
Around the same time as my chat with Suhm, Unfair Park caught up with city spokesman Frank Librio:
“Mary’s thinking was the economy’s still tenuous, … maybe we should wait until the economy turns around, put more money into the materials budget, and get the library system up to more competitive level so Dallas is more attractive” to a candidate, Librio says.
Guess we’ll find out if that worked in December.
Leading Off (11/12/12)
New Children’s Medical Center Dallas Report: Health Care Picture Bleak for Suburban Children: Eight percent of children in the United States don’t have health insurance. In Texas, that number increases to 14 percent uninsured. But according to a report released today by Children’s Medical Center Dallas (sub. req.), in five suburban North Texas counties, including Collin, Denton, Cooke, Fannin, and Grayson, that number doubles to 23.9 percent of children who have no medical insurance. Compounding the problem for children seeking healthcare is the fact that now only 31 percent of Texas physicians accept Medicaid patients.
Squatter Could Get Life Imprisonment: David Cooper isn’t just the latest squatter trying to take control of a home by citing an obscure Texas law that protects people who move into abandoned properties but perform upkeep and pay taxes. No, Cooper moved into the home of a man who had vacated temporarily because he was receiving cancer treatment. That makes Cooper, who is being charged with theft of over $200 thousand, very uncool.
Four Years After Throwing Kids Off Overpass, Mother Walks Free: In 2008, Khandi Busby threw her 6- and 9-year-old boys off an overpass and then jumped herself (in her mind, she was being chased by Satan and the military). Remarkably everyone survived. Perhaps even more remarkably, Busby, who was diagnosed with a schizoaffective disorder, will walk free today, moving from a mental institution to a boarding house. She is forbidden to have contact with her children.
Cowboys Season “Saved:” Yes, now that the ‘Boys defense beat a pitiful Eagles offense, we actually have to keep paying attention to the Cowboys’ season.
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