Articles about Petty Feuds

America’s Best College Hockey Player is From Dallas

I’m not just stealing aggregating this item from TM Daily Post because it’s about the possibility that this year’s top college hockey player — who may win the hockey version of the Heisman Trophy — is a kid named Austin Smith, who played for Jesuit College Prep.

I’m linking the post because Texas Monthly is sticking to its guns, blatantly using the word “Metroplex,” and rubbing it in Tim’s face.

But we get to legitimately claim Austin Smith, the 23-year-old senior at Colgate University. He learned the game in the Texas, playing all his youth hockey around the Metroplex (hi, Tim!), as well as two years for Dallas Jesuit High. To finish his development, Smith spent two years at a Connecticut prep school and one season in a Canadian junior league before entering Colgate, a small private school in Hamilton, New York (which also produced Texas Brahmas coach Dan Wildfong), in 2008.

By then, Smith was already good enough to be selected by his hometown team, the Dallas Stars, in the fifth round of the 2007 leads the country with 33 goals in 32 games—ten goals more than the next player behind him.

Brinker Portrayed as Big-spending Autocrat

As discussed here last week, revenge must be visited upon Komen for the Cure founder Nancy Brinker for her heresies regarding Planned Parenthood. The latest salvo in the predictable smear campaign by the left/feminist machine and their media pals: this Daily Beast article that paints Brinker as a modern-day Marie Antoinette — spending frivolously, jetting around in first class, demanding that the underlings refer to her as “Ambassador Brinker,” not Nancy. (The article’s key named source, interestingly, is the same former Komen board member who called for Brinker’s head last week.) What’s next: a Committee of Public Safety to study Brinker’s sins in their entirety?

Newy Scruggs and Terrell Owens Are In a Fight

And a Twitter fight, no less, which is like when people had fights with graffiti in bathroom stalls in days of yore, in case you are not on the Twitters and have never seen a Twitter fight in action.

The Dallas Morning News (because Twitter fights are awesome and so why wouldn’t Dallas’ paper of record cover them) has the rundown here. But basically, here’s how it went:

Former Bengal/something else/Cowboy Terrell Owens (from his couch, since he’s kind of unemployed at the moment) makes fun of Terence Newman, sort of, for tackling Brandon Marshall and failing to bring him down during last week’s game, likening Newman to a “superman cape” hanging around Marshall’s neck as he ran in the TD. But he totally added “LOL” at the end of that, which should’ve made it cool in the Twitterverse.

Local NBC sports anchor Newy Scruggs then points out that Owens is unemployed, and says that his mocking of Newman was “petty.”  Then it gets interesting, because OMG – Owens straight up called Scruggs fat. To be accurate, he called him “fat-so.” He then insisted that he wasn’t slamming Scruggs, but instead gave him some weight loss tips, like “u’re FAT & need 2 hit the treadmill ASAP!!”

Scruggs then reiterated that while he might be rubber, TO is glue, and whatever he says, bounces off of him, and sticks to Owens. Or maybe he just said something to the effect of, “I have a job and you do not, kind sir!” And then maybe it went back and forth for a little bit longer, with Scruggs telling Owens to pay his child support and quit claiming poverty.

But Owens got the last word, which was “fatmeat.”

Why isn’t there a market for Twitter war play-by-play?

Troy Aikman and I Are Not Gay Lovers

In our November issue, I wrote about what happened when the image you see here of me and Troy Aikman wound up on a gay website called Queerty. The owner of the site and I got into it via email, with the end result being a pile of quarters on my desk. Here’s the story. Please flame me in the comments.
quarters

Calling Out a Rude Commenter

Earlier today, I posted an open letter to Derek Holland in which I took issue with the young man’s comedy stylings in the dugout during last night’s game. It wasn’t that I thought Holland’s impression of Harry Caray was bad. I just thought it was delivered at the wrong time. And, yes, as several commenters pointed out, Joe Buck and the Fox crew deserve much of the blame for asking Holland to do his impression in the first place. Many of the commenters had good points, and they were expressed politely and with good intentions.

One commenter, however, didn’t play nice. I did not approve his remarks, but here is what he wrote, using the handle “Mrs. Tim Rogers”:

Timmy honey,

Eat a bag of dicks and choke on them and die.

Your Wife.

The best part? He submitted this comment using his work email address (I checked the IP address, too). This guy works for a very large local organization. I will not name the firm. Nor will I name the commenter. The guy doesn’t deserve to lose his job over this small matter. He’s a Rangers fan, right? We’re all in this thing together. Anyway, I tracked the guy down and gave him a call at work. Enjoy.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Leading Off (10/17/11)

Rangers, Meet Cardinals: Let the break downs begin: Battle of the sluggers; don’t underestimate the birds; teams have only met once before; both teams trust bullpens; storied Cards have historical edge; unofficial NPR poll favors Cards; it’s tough to hit homers in St. Louisschedules/projected lineups.

Occupy Dallas Shoved Out of Pioneer Plaza: While Occupy Dallas is forced to move, Occupy Fort Worth protesters are arrested. And even if all of these satellite OWS protests seem more and more irrelevant, I’m starting to think Jim Schutze’s nightmares are reality.

Cold Weather Coming: Today’s expected high of 89 degrees may be the last of it. Here comes fall.

Brett Shipp Assaulted by John Wiley Price, Ctd.

A mole at Channel 8 sent us the video of the alleged and so-called quote-unquote assault perpetrated on Brett Shipp by John Wiley Price. We can’t show you the video. It’s protected by copyright. So we created this reenactment of the confrontation, wherein Price “uses his arm and the heel of his hand to physically remove Shipp from his office” while threatening to “split his throat.” Standing in for Brett Shipp is Rangers radio broadcaster Eric Nadel.

Jim Schutze Just Can’t Help Himself

Why does Schutze take his own sometimes-perfectly-reasonable arguments and twist them into a pretzel? Because, like the Sean Hannitys and Rachel Maddows of Fox News and MSNBC, Schutze is an ideologue, and if something doesn’t fit into his narrow worldview, he has to contort it until it does. From his latest column:

In the August 2009 edition, publisher Wick Allison urged readers to ignore growing concerns of government engineers that the inside-the-levees route might be hugely expensive and also dangerous because of its effect on flood safety.

Oh, really? Here’s the column in question. You will note it doesn’t even mention the toll road. It is about the Trinity project as a whole. The column’s point is summed up in the last paragraph:

Mayor Tom Leppert and the current City Council need to take a leaf from Laura Miller’s notebook. Don’t believe a word the engineers tell you. Don’t accept any of their assumptions. They paved over this city once, and given the opportunity, they will do it again.

Alas, we now know that Leppert and the City Council did accept the engineers’ assumptions. On the toll road specifically, the road engineers, the flood-control engineers, and the city engineers all said the Corps would eventually come around.

Schutze, of course, deliberately misreads the column because it doesn’t fit his thesis. He then misinterprets it — filling in his own words — to make it fit. He has used the same trick over and over again his entire career as a columnist. Which leads me to wonder why anyone ever returns his phone calls — when he bothers to make them.

Shouldn’t Tom Leppert Have More Twitter Followers Than Me, @zaccrain?

I mean, he is running for Senate, after all, and I am just being me. Bearded and debonair and, yes, somewhat awkward, but just me. And yet, as of press/me pushing “publish” time, SCOREBOARD:

Mayor of Handtown — 1,206

Zac Crain — 1,538

Step it up, T-Lep.

Kim Fischer’s Pole-Dancing Photo Is Pulled

Kim Fischer

Kim Fischer

Uncle Barky removed a Friday post about KXAS-NBC reporter Kim Fischer’s Facebook photos shot by photographer Bob Manzano. Seems Bob threatened a lawsuit and Uncle Barky (aka Ed Bark) decided it wasn’t worth the aggravation.

One photo had Kim “simulating a pole dance.” The other one had something to do with her appearing to be passed out next to a plate of leftover cake.

Uncle Barky reports that Manzano writes on his myspace page –

“In my opinion, there is nother more beautiful than to see a woman walking across the house wearing nothing but her birthday suit being her natural self — walking ART. I admire women who wear sexy and sensual clothing when in public, and we men need to admire it as walking art and stop eye salivating them.”

(The photo on the right was taken last June at the Paws in the City’s “Top Hat & Tails“. . . and not by Manzano.)

UPDATE: Just saw the “infamous” pole-dancing photo and it ain’t what was promised. It was just Kim and KDFW’s Fiona Gorostiza standing next to a pole. No dirty dancing, no girls gone wild, just two cute fully clothed girls standing there.

Did some investigating about Kim’s being passed out next to a plate of leftover cake. Again, it wasn’t what was suggested. An eyewitness to the photo admitted that it was posed as a joke.

So, shelve the fantasy about a wild and naughty Kim Fischer. It’s nothing more than photo cropping and wishful thinking.

Getting a Signature Bridge Built: A Handy Flow Chart

It’s after the jump.

(more…)

Senator Tom Leppert Would Be Much Worse Than Mayor Tom Leppert

When he was mayor, Tom Leppert’s Twitter account was just crazy boring, filled with safe non-opinions like “Dallas is great” and “Don’t you just love the Beatles?” and “Who else thinks breathing air ROCKS?” (may be slightly paraphrasing). Now that he’s running for senator*, his Twitter feed has switched gears and is now all about GENERIC RIGHT-WING TALKING POINT OF THE DAY (see?). Why does that work me up?

(more…)

Zac Crain Finds Second Career

A FrontBurnervian whose work responsibilities earlier today took him to MPS Studios sends along the below photo of one Zac Crain preparing to deliver what appears to be an on-camera performance. Zac? Care to explain yourself? What’s this side gig you got going?

Zac

Dwaine Caraway, Arthur, and Archie

I know Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway made his statement yesterday, admitted he lied to the DMN about why cops were called to his house, and said, “That’s the end of all of this with me. That’s my statement. There’s not going to be anything else. No more questions, no more nothing.” But I have a question. How do you diagram the following sentence, which came from his statement?

“Those of you in this audience that are married, those of you that are listening that are married, if you’ve not always wanted eggs and bacon and some of you may have wanted something else, but you didn’t get it and that’s just what marriage is all about.”

That’s the way marriage go?

Leading Off (1/10/11)

1. Dallas has increased police presence in public schools, and, lo and behold, that has resulted in a sharp increase (95 percent) in the number of tickets issued to students. Not sure what to say about this one, except that after reading this quote, I’m real happy I’m not in school anymore: “Disrupting class, using profanity, misbehaving on a school bus, student fights and truancy once meant a trip to the principal’s office. Today, such misbehavior results in a Class C misdemeanor ticket and a trip to court.”

2. Just remember: nothing happened. Sure, the police were called by council member Dwaine Caraway. But when the police arrived at the politician’s house, they found that “both the complainant and the wife [Rep. Barbara Mallory Caraway] stated that they had had an argument and settled it.” That’s it. It was settled. It’s just a big misunderstanding between two elected officials that somehow ended up in the annals of the police reports.  Pay no attention. Move on.

3. Be careful out there.