Sorry for the absence. Shockingly, this blog doesn’t quite generate the revenue yet that would allow me to make it my sole daily endeavor. Blog FAIL.
- Trial is underway for the man who gave SMU coed Meaghan Bosch the drugs that killed her. The defense is engaging in fantasy of the worst sort, and claiming poor James McDaniel is just a scapegoat. Yeah, if you pull my leg it plays Jingle Bells. If you want the whole sordid story of Meaghan’s tragic end, it’s here in what I wrote for D Magazine.
- State Sen. Royce West is the champion of the overdog. (h/t Matt Pulle.)
- There’s more to this story of Richardson politics than meets the eye. More to come on this later.
- Public school delinquents with hearts of gold. A damsel in distress. This has the makings of a Morgan Freeman vehicle.
- On the one hand, it’s a stupid move by the homeowner association and a silly rule. On the other hand, if you buy where there’s an HOA, don’t be surprised if they get ticked if you violate HOA rules. Solution: don’t buy where there’s an HOA.
James McDaniel is the worst kind of scum imaginable — the absolute bottom of the barrel — but I don’t see how providing a consenting adult a fatal dose of drugs (provided that they themselves administered it) is tantamount to murder, as some people seem to feel. (Not the prosecutors, in this case, it would seem, at least formally; and yet that’s the angle they appear to be working.)
Unfortunately, with all due respect to the bereaved family, Meaghan made some very bad decisions that led to her own demise. It’s not like she couldn’t have, or wouldn’t have, found cocaine and oxycontin if it weren’t for James McDaniel. Almost certainly, in my mind, she OD’d and whomever she was with freaked out and dumped her body. That person is guilty of a serious crime, and has revoked his or her own status as a human, but there’s been no evidence that I’ve heard establishing James McDaniel as the culprit.
In short, it’s not so implausible to say he’s a scapegoat vis-a-vis the death of Meaghan Bosch. They’ll throw the book at him, though, on the charges they’re pursuing, and thank God for that.
Trey, we just want you to know that we’re watching you, and plan to pull you over, hoping you’ll resist so we can destroy your credibility. That’s how we roll in Richardson.
The Eleventy Billionth blog has more coverage of the HOA FAIL, including contact info for the association and its president.
Do car dealerships….those not closed because of their Republican donations…still put their names on the cars they sell? I seem to remember once having a car that had a Lee Jarmon Ford logo on the back….is that subject to towing? It is more of an advertisement than a Marine sticker or two.
Yours was an excellent EXcellent article. Beautifully diagramed. But Mr. McDaniel’s home on Southeast Dallas was several miles NORTH of ‘Pleasant Grove’ and in fact in Buckner Terrace (just south of RL Thorton / I-30). A common mistake but one I was counting on you not to make.
FYI: You might, for use going forward, want to check the map linked in the DMN editorial day before yesterday, Tuesday May 26th. I helped supply the data used to show the comprehensive breakdown on the SE Dallas neighborhoods and their approriate names; PG being the most southern and largest, Buckner Terrace SE Dallas’ most northern.
And on June 8th, my DMN Op-ED should also itemize and trace this 50 year old misuse of the name ‘Pleasant Grove’ as the generic colloquial name for roughly 20% of Dallas. When if fact PG was the first-to-be-annexed (after WW2) and remains the most southern PART of what is today properly called, ‘Southeast Dallas’.
I do some crimewatch duties in my part of Buckner Terrace and if you eliminate the Walmart shopping center on I-30 and Buckner and the apartments near Skyline High School, we have some of the lowest crime stats in the city. Needless to say, Buckner Terrace hates being lumped into the same statistical pool as Pleasant Grove.