My column on the hunt for a new top cop for Dallas is up on the web now.
Also, I get some kind words from Rudy Bush at City Hall.
My Piece on Judge Dread is in D’s December Issue
November 20, 2009 5 Comments
There’s always that guy who stays long after the party has ended. Drop all the hints you want. But he’s going through your music collection and checking to see if your couch folds out. Tell him you have an early meeting, and he’ll ask if you have anything to make a sandwich with.
Which brings us to Judge Charles Sandoval, arguably the most ineffective judge working in Dallas County today.
The party that Sandoval won’t let end gracefully started in 1996, when he took over the 380th District Court in Collin County
Read the rest online or in the print product.
UPDATE: Link fixed. Thanks to Joker’s Wild, Max Girth and Dear Amanda for alerting me. I’m leaving the comments — I’ll always edit other people’s comment mistakes on request, but my screw ups stay. Keeps me humble. Which is another of my great qualities. Hell, if there were a Humble Olympics, I’d take the gold.
My Piece on Dallas Constables Online or in Your Mailboxes
September 23, 2009 5 Comments
I have a news-ish column in this month’s D Magazine questioning whether the anachronism known as constables in Dallas go way too far.
Short version: Constables, who have a necessary role, are doing too much, becoming too militarized, and don’t have enough oversight as they increasingly become — of course — revenue agents.
Feherty Falls Victim to Ye Olde Double Standard
May 11, 2009 8 Comments
As Tim reports, David Feherty is in danger of losing his CBS gig because of a joke he wrote in the print product in the magazine where yours truly is one of the contributing editors.
Ahem.
But this video clip below is OK, where even Mr. Obama guffawed, I guess since the target was on the right side of the binary line.
(I guffawed, too. Sykes and Feherty were funny. So the Always Indignant on both sides can suck it.)
Monday Roundup: Do They Have Jokes in Your Country?
May 11, 2009 5 Comments
- “If they ban smoking what’s next? Fatty foods?”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. That’s a stupid slippery slope argument.”
Guess what.
- A grandma in pajamas. With a gun. In a convenience store. Demanding cigarettes. Then, weirdness ensues.
- I’m not seeing a problem. Not. At. All.
- “And they are shrewd enough to hide behind issues of personal liberty, or whatever works,” [State Sen. Rodney Ellis] said. So let’s knock that flat to go after the devil, right Rodney?
- Good God. Almost three months for skipping jury duty? Which banana republic is this? Oh, it’s Collin County. That’s some fine police work, Lou.
- Gromer, sometimes you slip one past them. Nicely played.
And of course, a congratulations to the Mayor Tom Leppert, James Taggart, Phillip Jones, and Wesley Mouch on a sweeping win Saturday.
Wick Allison: It’s a Bad Deal. Vote Yes.
May 6, 2009 4 Comments
My sometime employer, longtime hero, and the guy I’d most love to see riding a Segway in the office, Wick Allison, sweeps the leg of the People’s Hotel, and offers a merciless explanation of why, even though we may need a convention hotel, the way the city wants to structure this deal is bad mojo and bad business.
To be blunt, the city is often not very good with numbers. For this fiscal year, it is projecting a $100 million operating deficit. For the hotel site, it paid $42 million to buy land appraised at $7 million (I’m still trying to figure that one out). Its projections for the hotel are so rose-colored that the pro-hotel campaign has not used them. The reason it hasn’t used them is that they don’t make sense.
But that hasn’t stopped the pro-hotel campaign from coming up with numbers of its own. For example, it trumpets the fact that the hotel will create 800 permanent jobs. At a $500 million investment (excluding the $50 million reserve fund), that’s a cost of $625,000 to create each job. If there is a case for such startling extravagance, this is a strange economic time to make it.
The pro-hotel campaign also tells us the hotel will not be paid for by our tax dollars. That is only true if we believe the city’s sunny-day scenario. But after the economic thunderstorms of the last eight months, is there anyone who would forecast that all future days will be sunny? A $50 million reserve fund may sound reasonable, until one remembers that the American Airlines Center was budgeted at $230 million but ended up at $420 million. So when the $50 million reserve runs dry, either from cost overruns or operating losses, where will the bondholders look for their money? To the taxpayers.
Money shot at the end — the bottom line is the bottom line:
It is the wrong deal at the wrong economic time based on the wrong numbers. Pardon me if, like our neighbors in Fort Worth, I don’t salute. I hope you won’t, either. Thank heaven Harlan Crow did not salute, or the bulldozers would already be digging the hole. Vote “Yes” on Proposition 1 – for good governance, fiscal prudence, and a healthy future for Dallas.
FB Open Comment Thread, and a Happy 41 to Tim Rogers
May 5, 2009 3 Comments
Today’s comment thread is open for business. Post on anything you want, be it FrontBurner related or whatever.
Also, a special happy birthday to Tim Rogers, who turns 41 today.
Tim’s B-Day
Here’s a shot from when we went fishing, back before Tim’s first hip transplant.
UPDATE: Adriana Bate kindly wished Tim a happy 41st birthday on WRR 101.1. Very kind of her.
Daily Comments Thread
April 29, 2009 7 Comments
Sound off.
Tim pulled a little boner in declaring Brint Ryan had his Chazz Redd moment. I’m thinking this is going to be Ann Margolin’s shirtless with guns experience. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
