Articles for December 18th, 2012
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Back in July, Angel Dobbs and Ashley Dobbs were driving down the George Bush Turnpike when they were pulled over by a state trooper. State trooper said they threw a cigarette butt out the window. Angel Dobbs said, “Yeah, maybe,” but she forgot. Trooper was going to tag them with a littering citation, then claimed he smelled weed in the car.
Okay, so maybe a marijuana citation was coming. Instead, he called in a female officer and had full-cavity searches performed on both of them. Now the Dobbses are suing.
According to the Observer:
The pair alleges that Farrell and Hellson had no probable cause to justify the search and that their behavior violated established law governing cavity searches. This is a reflection not only of Helleson, whom they say has “performed numerous unconsented and illegal cavity searches of females and is an ongoing and pervasive problem,” but of the Texas Department of Public Safety in general. They blame the agency’s director, Steven McCraw, for failing to provide adequate training to troopers. The’re are asking for unspecified damages.
It’s not exactly NSFW, since there’s no nudity, but it’s kinda icky.
(h/t WFAA’s David Schecter)
Cadillac Giveaway: Gaylord Texan Staycation
Like the Metroplex Cadillac Dealer Facebook page, and your name will be part of the drawing for a Winter Ice Staycation.
This Gaylord Texan Staycation package includes:
–Two-night tr
aditional room accommodations
–Four tickets for front of the line access to ICE! featuring DreamWorks Animation’s Merry Madagascar
–ShrekFest Interactive Character Meal one day for a family of four
–Character passport meet and greets
–DreamWorks Themed Scavenger Hunt
–Welcome Amenity
–Souvenir Family Photo
–Must be used by January 1, 2013
ivate_coll.%2C_possibly_Leonardo%29.jpg” alt=”" width=”223″ height=”325″ />In April, we learned that the Dallas Museum of Art had borrowed a rare Da Vinci painting that it was thinking about buying. It was called Salvator Mundi, and informed speculation put the purchase price at somewhere around $250 million. Now comes news that the DMA made an offer, but it wasn’t high enough. A press release from the DMA’s Jill Bernstein says:
The DMA made a formal offer to the painting’s owners, and following several weeks of negotiation, the owners decided to decline. The painting has been returned to them. While the Museum’s leadership was hopeful that the painting would be acquired for the benefit and enjoyment of the public, they are incredibly inspired by and grateful for the outpouring of community support for the campaign to acquire this work. Through the tremendous generosity and vision of its many patrons, the Museum was able to raise tens of millions of dollars for the campaign in just a few short months. The DMA is looking forward to working with its growing constituency on new opportunities in 2013.
I asked Bernstein an annoying number of follow-up questions:
I presume that tens of millions would not have been enough to purchase the work, right? People were speculating that it might fetch upwards of $250 million. Was that guess way off? If it wasn’t off, does that mean the DMA would have had to borrow money to complete the purchase? If so, what kind of institution would loan that sort of money for an artwork?
Her response came:
The Museum made a reasonable offer to the owners. We can’t comment on what offer they would accept and, as per Museum policy, we don’t discuss the purchase prices of acquisitions. However, in terms of what the Museum would have had to do to purchase, the Board of the DMA was prepared to finance part of the purchase price using multi-year pledges as collateral.
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Now taking suggestions. “Garbage Alley” is the frontrunner, but probably will lose its lead in the popular vote.
Either that or we start naming all alleys: “The One That Blows Warm Pizza Fumes Onto You;” “Shortcut Nobody Knows Because It’s Super Dark Alley;” “Continuous River of Dirty Soap Alley.”
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