Articles for January 7th, 2013
New York Times Takes On Texas Pregnancy Centers
This story was on the front page of Saturday’s edition of the New York Times. It’s about pro-life pregnancy centers, specifically one in Waco, and how they are, as the head of one of the largest pregnancy center organizations put it, “a compassionate approach to this issue.” Or as a representative of Americans United for Life says, “They’re really the darlings of the pro-life movement.” Predictably, the story is being criticized on a few anti-abortion blogs, mostly, it seems, because the Times reporter points out the differences between pregnancy centers and women’s health clinics, while not offering much criticism of Planned Parenthood.
As luck would have it, I wrote about this same topic in the January issue of D Magazine. I hung out with David Pomerantz, the young man who drives the Sonograms-On-Site van. (An over-sized cargo van converted into a roving ultrasound unit.)
George W. Bush Library Director Attempts to Draw Crowd by Promising Free Chicken Pot Pies
“Hey, BE COOL! There’s plenty of pot pie for everyone.” Photo: Marion Doss
This is really too good to mess with, so:
Highland Park Cafeteria will host the Director of the new George W. Bush Presidential Library, Alan C. Lowe, who will give an exciting visual presentation to all Highland Park Cafeteria diners on Sunday, January 13 at 5 p.m. in the main dining room. This event will be free and open to the public. Â All attendees will receive a free entree of chicken pot pie, one of President George W. Bush’s favorite dishes. In addition, a limited number of Presidential Library memorabilia will be given away to attendees.
The emphasis was included in the email. For more information, visit Highland Park Cafeteria’s website.
AT&T Cotton Bowl the ‘Prohibitive Favorite’ to Host the 2015 National Championship Game
Maybe you shouldn’t sell those personal seat licenses just yet. ESPN is reporting that the AT&T Cotton Bowl is the ‘prohibitive favorite’ to host the BCS National Championship game in 2015, the first year of the BCS’s new playoff format. One assumes this means the game will be held at Cowboys Stadium, which makes sense: domed, central location, etc. The weather might not hold up, but, really, what are the chances a winter storm will hit Arlington before a major sporting event?
Hundreds of People Are Trying to Unload Their Personal Seat Licenses at Cowboys Stadium, Including One For the Low, Low Price of $200,000
Prompted by this New York Post story today about unhappy Jets fans selling off their personal seat licenses, I headed to SeasonTicketRights.com to see what the scene was like at Cowboys Stadium. The result: lots of people, trying to sell lots of seats.
Like this one:
Amenities – Best sightlines in the stadium – Roomier, cushioned seats – Access to the Field Level Club – Private, exclusive Founders Club – All-inclusive food & Beverage – Complimentary, reserved VIP parking – Opportunity to purchase seats to all other events – Exclusive invitation to team events Have a friend that would like to sell her seat which is right next to mine. We bought 2 seats as a couple. These seats are a part of the founders club, which means you receive high incentives & benefits. Like 1. your own VIP Parking with your name on it. 2. 4 meals free prior to game and all during game. 3. Free Alcoholic beverages 4. Complimentary on field passes and much more….
That one goes for an asking price of $200,000, plus an additional $113,157.79 in debt. Reminder that this is for one seat, and doesn’t include the actual price of any tickets.
Or this one, which makes the previous one look like a steal, since it’s only $300,000 for eight seats:
We have 8 seats (4) in section C310 Row 4 seats 15-18 & (4) in section C310 Row 5 seats 18-21 asking $37,500 each for seat option. They are on the 50 yard line and are aisle seats. These seats come with Miller Lite access to the team tunnel to see players coming in and off the field. This listing is for season 2013
The Miller Lite tunnel! Huzzah!
I understand the PSL game is a money-making venture for many people. One that can pay off huge. But it’s also fair to say that the number of licenses for sale probably wouldn’t be quite as high if the Cowboys were even making the playoffs.
Grantland’s Charles Pierce Incorrectly Labels Arlington as the Ground Zero of the ‘Latest Collapse of the American Economy’
I like Charles Pierce. You might even say I love Charles Pierce. He’s one of the finest journalists in the country, bouncing from politics to sports with little hesitation or brake. That’s why it was so jarring to read this in his otherwise wonderful Cotton Bowl piece on Grantland:
Cowboys Stadium is a spectacle all on its own, looming above the Walmarts and brake-and-lube joints, the empty luxury housing developments and huge, blank-staring abandoned office parks, and all the rest of the essential archaeology of the latest collapse of the American economy, for which the area in and around Arlington, Texas, looks like ground zero. It is what’s left there, after the ambulances go, as Dylan would say. It is not, in any case, where the Cotton Bowl game belongs.
Is Arlington pretty? No, it’s not. But to make it sound like some sort of Cormac McCarthy crater dotted with Exxons and cheap groceries and full of wandering, job-hungry zombies is disingenuous.
The Nasher’s Front Trees: Minimalist Sculpture, or the Worst Pruning Job Ever?, Ctd.
On Friday, Bradford put up a cheeky post asking the question in the headline. In the comments, people took the question seriously and speculated that the Nasher was over-trimming crape myrtles. I pass these trees every day on my walk to work and have always marveled at how they spring back from their yearly haircut. So here’s the real story from Neil McGlennon, the museum’s tree expert. Aft the jump an image from Google Maps showing the trees in spring.
They’re called Vitex trees. They produce small blue flowers in the summer months. They are very similar to Crape Myrtle trees. They grow very quick and need to be controlled by pruning. We originally had selected Chinese maple trees, but we did not have the shade to keep them alive, so we opted for the Vitex (nicknamed the Texas weed). If you have room for the trees to grow naturally, you would do minor directional trimming. Our trees are directly under our roof line, so we need to cut them back each year during the month of December. This keeps them manicured.
Dirk Nowitzki: ‘You Don’t Want To Build Your Franchise On Hope’
ESPN’s Tim MacMahon caught up with Dirk Nowitzki at pretty much the worst possible time — following a dispiriting home loss to the Western Conference’s worst team, the New Orleans Hornets, in overtime. Frustrated, Dirk had plenty to say:
“I always liked to think you don’t want to build your franchise on hope. We hoped for Deron last year. We hoped for Dwight. Why would he leave the Lakers? To me, it makes no sense. He’s in a great situation. Why would CP3 leave? [The Los Angeles Clippers are] the best team in the league probably right now. They’re probably the deepest team. So are you going to hope that we get something? Maybe Cuban has something up his sleeve. Maybe you have to take a chance on a bad contract to get him in here and make something happen. I mean, I don’t know. That’s something we’ll have to see this summer. We’re going to play out this season. I’m going to get better and better, hopefully from game to game, so I can actually close out some of these games. And then we’ll see what happens.”
Some have taken this line — “So either you break the whole thing up and trade me” — as Dirk coming close to asking for a trade. But he was talking about the decisions they made this summer. I don’t think Dirk would ask for a trade, though stranger things have happened and will continue to. And I don’t think Mark Cuban would trade him. I mean, like, I don’t think Cuban would trade him for anyone, even someone Dirk’s biggest supporters would have no problem with (like Kevin Durant). I’m serious.
In Kansas City, a Love Letter to Clark Hunt
With the hiring of Andy Reid in KC, the Kansas City Star has given Clark Hunt a big, sloppy kiss. The meat:
In place of Crennel comes Andy Reid, the most accomplished coach available unless Jon Gruden changes his mind and returns to the sidelines. It’s a happy time, finally. The New Chiefs are only a few days old now, but it’s hard to think of how Hunt could’ve better handled his most critical moment of running his family’s franchise, and Kansas City’s most cherished institution other than barbecue.
This is Hunt’s finest hour, an undeniable big-boy move to turn the Chiefs into winners. The free jerseys for season ticket-holders were nice, but this goes much further with fans.
He’s not the type, but now would be a fine time for Hunt to bow.
Things To Do In Dallas Tonight: Jan. 7
Whiffenpoofs of 2013.
When I was in early high school, my dad came home from work with a CD. It was a recording of the MIT Logarhythms, because they’d dropped by his office to do a quick concert, and he’d liked them so much he bought a recording. I didn’t know that these college a cappella groups even existed, but I thought what they did was so cool. Still do, in fact. Their version of “I Wish” gets decent iTunes play.
All that brings me to the Yale Whiffenpoofs, a selective singing group that’s been around for more than 100 years, which makes them older than the MIT Logs by at least 50 years. It’s the oldest in the country, in fact. The current incarnation–14 singers, all seniors–perform here tonight at the Jewish Community Center after hanging out in Fort Worth for the weekend. I’ve never heard the Whiffenpoofs live, of course, but a Mass Transit (one of NYU’s many collegiate a cappella groups) concert was always a really fun time. Fans (or occasional hate-watchers like myself) of Glee should know that the Dalton Academy Warblers are voiced by the Tufts Beelzebubs. As an aside, this is also a perfect response to that dreaded first date question, what kind of music do you like? College a cappela groups, exclusively. You’re welcome.
I’ve been craving a La Duni mojito and the chicken flauta things, so I might do that for dinner since it’s just a quick ride from the JCC. But of course, we have a whole host of other nearby recommendations, such as Meso Maya and Liberty Burger, over in our our exhaustive restaurant directory.
For more to do with your Monday evening, go here.
Denton Elementary School Drops Number Grades
A Denton ISD elementary school is no longer issuing numerical averages or letter grades to students on report cards or schoolwork, the Denton Record-Chronicle reported today.
At the start of the 2012-13 school year, Hawk Elementary School became the only Denton ISD campus to pilot a standards-based reporting system school-wide, with students receiving a numeric score for specific skills and goals, not subjects.
Listed on students’ report cards at Hawk are the essential skills a student must learn to advance to the next grade. Students are rated on their knowledge of those skills dependent on the six weeks in which the material is taught. Ratings range from 1 to 3 for students in kindergarten through second grade, and 1 to 4 for students in third through fourth grade.
Ratings are: 1, insufficient progress; 2, making progress; and 3, meets expectation. A rating of 4 in grades three, four and five identifies a student who has exceeded expectations. Teachers also report student behavior, just as they do on traditional report cards.
“[Students] have to demonstrate they’ve truly learned a concept, and by doing it the way we’ve done it, we’ve made every child accountable for their learning and every teacher accountable for a child’s learning and me accountable for every teacher knowing,” Principal Susannah O’Bara told the paper. “Accountability has really increased with this.”
Texas Is Still the Most Valuable College Football Team, But Michigan Is Closing In
Photo: AaronIsNotCool
The University of Texas’ college football is valued at $761.7 million, which makes it more valuable than the Jacksonville Jaguars, a recent study indicates.
The Longhorns are the most valuable college football team, but their hold is slipping. The team’s worth fell five percent from the 2011 evaluation, and Michigan – the second-most valuable – is fast approaching at $731.9 million. For comparison’s sake, the Jaguars – a professional team, though it often does not play like one – were sold for $760 million in 2011.
Other teams of note:
Oklahoma: $454.7 million
Texas A&M: $278.5 million
Texas Tech: $211 million
Oklahoma State: $209.1 million
TCU: $76.6 million
Baylor $71.3 million
The Cowboys’ Jumbotron Is 18 Times the Size of the Vikings’ Puny, Hummingbird-Sized ‘Jumbo’tron
Source: Daniel Beaton
The Cowboys currently boast the largest Jumbotron in the NFL, a behemoth that literally can affect the way a game is played. In its grandeur, graphic artist Daniel Beaton saw an opportunity to showcase the boards of the NFL, from the Cowboys all the way down to the Vikings. The above graphic is for comparison’s sake; to see his interpretation of each board, head here.
(h/t The Verge)
Mellon Foundation Wants to Stem Theater ‘Brain Drain,’ So Dallas Gets Playwright Resident
The Boston Globe reports this morning on a new $3.7 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that is intended to shore-up the flight of talented writers from the stage to screen. Turns out it is hard to make a living as a theater writer, and most talented writers head to Hollywood when they finally realize that, you know, food is nice.  So the Mellon idea: fund playwrights-in-residence for fourteen American theaters.
And yes, Dallas has one: Will Power, who was the recipient of last year’s Meadows Prize and was already awarded a National Endowment of the Arts grant (the largest in Texas) to complete Stagger Lee, a new musical, for the Dallas Theater Center. Now the playwright will spend the next three years in Dallas, and in addition to working on his own work, leading workshops, and doing the things writers who live at theaters tend to do, Power will work with DTC artistic director Kevin Moriarty on a neighborhood initiative:
Power will work with Moriarty on a new strategic initiative to reach out to two under-represented neighborhoods in Dallas, one affluent and one made up of low income households, and help DTC to forge relationships that will welcome audiences from both neighborhoods into the theater.
Former Lee Harvey Oswald Residence to Be Destroyed This Week
The Oak Cliff apartment building where Lee Harvey Oswald lived for five months in the early 1960s will be razed later this week, the Morning News reports. The property at 600 Elsbeth had been on and off the city’s radar for years, its possible demolition the result of asbestos and decay. Jane Bryant purchased the building and fought its demolition, a battle which now appears to be over.
Oh, and what about that bathtub? Well Bryant took down that eBay listing, but a few other 600 Elsbeth items are still up for sale. One assumes you should act fast.
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