I have a column that hasn't quite been published yet that I would like to withdraw in advance. Well, not withdraw. More like redraw. I don't think it's possible to correct something you haven't said yet, is it? So let's think of this more in the vein of an expansion. In advance. Sometime late tomor ... More >>
Please read Eric Nicholson's story this week about the city's incredibly callous treatment of Southern Dallas horse-owners whom City Hall has deemed unworthy of inclusion in that stupid fancy-schmancy run-by-an-alleged-animal-abuser horse park they're building near the river. And even though I hate ... More >>
It's never a good idea to cut off a humongous cement truck on the freeway. Not so much because karma may bite you in the ass at some vague point in the future as that it could be piloted by a driver who has no qualms about crushing the back end of your car. Take what happened recently on Stemmons j ... More >>
Riding the DART train, you may have wondered at some point whether those those overhead straps are capable of holding the weight of a fully grown adult. The answer is yes. You've probably never wondered whether those straps are capable of holding the weight of a fully grown adult as he does a dozen ... More >>
For decades, doubtless dating back to the advent of home mail delivery, the dog-bites-mailman trope has provided cartoonists and joke writers (and now meme creators) -- with an easy source of cheap humor. The U.S. Postal Service, whose employees were the victims of 5,581 dog attacks last year, is n ... More >>
In 1997, back when major metropolitan dailies apparently had enough cash lying around to send staff writers to Israel, The Dallas Morning News profiled the Black Hebrew Israelites, a group of expat African-Americans claiming to be descendents of the tribe of Judah and, therefore, Jews. It was an un ... More >>
Pro tip: Don't mess with the people of White Rock Lake. No matter how good your plans for providing parking for patrons of that fancy new children's garden or offering high-quality food and drink with a pristine view of the lake may sound in your head, you will lose. For developers Lyle Burgin and ... More >>
For the past six years, apparently, El Centro College has been planning a rooftop wind farm for its Downtown Dallas campus. On Tuesday afternoon -- Earth Day -- the project went live as students watched on a student union video feed. It's a relatively modest effort as far as wind farms go. The proj ... More >>
For all the roiling arguments surrounding Dallas ISD -- over governance and closing achievement gaps and teacher pay and whatever else two adults might possibly disagree on -- there's one topic over which there is little debate: Dallas ISD does magnet schools right. Just in case you needed a remind ... More >>
Robbing someone is, without exception, a terrible idea. Robbing someone in broad daylight one block from police headquarters? About as dumb as ideas get. That seems what happened this morning in the 1200 block of South Lamar Street:
If you're on the fringes of the labor force and are looking for a job, Texas Workforce Solutions may be able to help. The state agency coordinates with a wide network of potential employers and, if necessary, can connect job seekers with adult education classes and vocational training programs. Unsu ... More >>
The bloodless but brutal Plastic Bag War of 2013-14 has finally come to a close. The final battle, waged primarily through hyperbole and terrible metaphor, came today with the Dallas City Council ultimately voting 8-6 to impose a fee on single-use carryout bags at most retail stores. Under the ordi ... More >>
When intrepid Observerer Amy Silverstein recently took DART to DFW Airport, she missed her hypothetical flight and narrowly avoided being devoured by coyotes. She ultimately discovered that there was a bus that took her to the terminal, but the trip was long, arduous, and complicated. That problem ... More >>
Mark Cuban has always been part prophet, part crazy person. His early entry into online radio proved to be prophetic. The Benefactor, his short-lived reality show, was not. So when Cuban predicts that, within 10 years, the NFL will go the way of Toygaroo, it's hard to tell whether Cuban is demonst ... More >>
The 6900 block of Hemlock Avenue would have been dark at 9:30 Tuesday night. There are no street lights, just whatever light spills over from the adjacent apartment buildings. It would have been hard to see a couple of kids playing in the grass on the side of the road, and all but impossible to stop ... More >>
First off, we'd like to make a correction. Yesterday's report that the Trafficpocalypse was upon us was premature. Yesterday's bizarre configuration of vehicles stuck on LBJ did not augur a world-ending traffic jam. Commutes this morning were regular terrible, not apocalyptic. What actually happene ... More >>
In case you missed the September 2012 issue of Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience, here's a heads up: phenazepam, a powerful anti-anxiety drug sometimes sold as "Zannie" or "bonsai," is hitting the U.S. streets. It's not exactly a new product -- it was developed in the 1970s by Soviet scientists ... More >>
It's a shame, really, that Dallas never got to know what 635 is like without massive amounts of construction and with those groundbreaking TEXpress lanes fully operational. Alas, the freeway has fallen, overtaken by a traffic phenomenon completely unknown to science. NBC 5 producer Ashley Lowell Do ... More >>
When Allen ISD announced two weeks ago that its brand-new, $60 million high school football stadium had developed cracks in the concourse, it was clear that someone had screwed up in epic fashion. One doesn't shut something down, disrupt graduation ceremonies, and call every reporter in earshot to a ... More >>
I'm not going to say whether my bike ride this morning, straight into a patch of freshly laid concrete, was an intentional but poorly executed attempt to leave leave an indelible mark on University Park (think a child's sidewalk hand print, except with no hands and one ass), or whether it was purely ... More >>
No one who encountered Sergeant Nick Pitofsky while he patrolled the streets of Crandall would have predicted that he'd wind up as the perpetrator of a murder-suicide, fatally shooting his wife, then himself at their home in the Cedars. Understandable that the first response from his Crandall PD co ... More >>
Dallas City Council members had no trouble finding words to describe their feelings when confronted yesterday with a $9.6 billion to-do list of infrastructure needs that runs the gamut from streets to cultural facilities to flood management. "Unbelievable" was one. "Daunting" was another. Throw in " ... More >>
Football is very important to the city of Allen. It's a place where youth football coaches recruit 12-year-old players with Gatorade and Now and Laters, where anything less than a state championship is a disappointment. This passion is most fully expressed in Eagle Stadium, the state-of-the-art, $6 ... More >>
Longhorn Wrecker has a very long list of of enemies. That's only natural in an industry predicated on holding people's vehicles hostage for exorbitant fees, especially when you do business the way that Longhorn does business. Put another way, it will be no easy task to identify the man who avenged ... More >>
Every Wednesday, before and after every Dallas City Council meeting, there is an open mic session. Most of the stuff that comes up is rambling, off-topic, and beyond the scope of a municipal government's authority (e.g. 9/11 conspiracy theories), and council members may or may not pretend to listen. ... More >>
Dallas police officer Joshua Burns is alive right now in part because he was wearing a bulletproof vest, because alleged shooter Rakeem Perkins didn't hit his head, because he was rushed to Baylor Medical Center, where trauma doctors tended the wounds on leg and shoulder. He's also alive because, w ... More >>
Dallas County Constable Beth Villareal is in the middle of a tough reelection bid. She knows this. You can tell she knows because she sued challenger Susan Lopez-Craig because her name was too Hispanic. It would seem prudent, then, at least until the March 4 primary, for Villareal to avoid doing du ... More >>
Last week, University of North Texas grad Johnny Quinn was an unknown, just another one of the 1,200 or so Americans competing in the Winter Olympics America has never heard of. Then, the McKinney-raised bobsledder escaped a Sochi bathroom by busting Kool-Aid Man-style through the door.
On Saturday night, SMU's men's basketball team beat a Top 10 opponent for the first time in 27 years, and it wasn't even close. The Mustangs jumped to a 14-point halftime lead over Cincinnati and never looked back, ultimately winning by 21. It was the team's biggest statement yet, proof that its 19 ... More >>
When I woke up this morning and my journey to the backyard to let the dogs out confirmed what Pete Delkus had foretold -- that it was really cold -- the plan was to hunker down, put on an extra pot of coffee and blog from home. Then, I saw it: a fleck of white, a "flake" if you will, flutter past m ... More >>
There's always been something pleasantly nostalgic about the name of the Texas Rangers' stadium. The Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, like its red-brick facade, harkens back to simpler times, back before corporations plastered their names on every possible piece of sports-related real estate. Never m ... More >>
Do you love Dallas? Do you have thousands of dollars to burn? Do you love to burn that money on frivolous things? Then we've got good news for you. The state of Texas is currently auctioning off a "Dallas" vanity plate. Bidding starts at $1,000. How high will it go? Only time will tell. It probabl ... More >>
Pro tip: When planning a bank heist, it's best to eliminate or conceal any distinguishing features that might help cops identify you later. Exhibit A is this Fort Worth bank robber's grotesque salt-and-pepper facial hair. Yes, the powder blue sweats are suitably nondescript, and the beanie-over-the ... More >>
For 15 months, Sidelines Private Sports Lounge provided what it billed as "South Side's Version of Upscale," which included drinks, dancing, Madden tournaments and exotic dancers performing on the establishment's prominent stripper pole. The problem, according to Dallas police, is that it was opera ... More >>
This, no matter what the DART-phobic among you might assume, is not what the average bus ride is like. Nor is it what your average DART driver is like. Sure, most are less than jovial, and that sidelong glance they cast as you step on board could be interpreted as a glare, but they typically steer c ... More >>
Full disclosure: I don't follow Major League Soccer, and I've never been to an FC Dallas game. The one and only time I've been to Frisco was when my future wife dragged me to IKEA. So, when I say that the coming season doesn't look promising, I'm not passing judgment on the club's middling performa ... More >>
In at least a couple of recent cases, Dallas cops appear to have been a bit too quick to pull the trigger. In one instance, an officer opened fire on a mentally ill man standing in a Rylie cul-de-sac. In another, an officer shot a carjacking suspect as he sat with his hands up in the passenger seat ... More >>
It's the holiday season, which means it's time for Nike to release slightly altered versions of old Air Jordan sneakers. This year the hot ticket is the $185-per-pair Air Jordan 11 Retro Gamma Blue, the model MJ wore during the 1995 playoffs. What are people so excited about? What sets the new mode ... More >>
Bath salts haven't gone away. Just this week, a California smoke shop owner was arrested with half a ton of the stuff. But with a federal crackdown and heightened awareness of their face-eating side effects, their use (or at least the panicked reporting on it) is on the decline. Now filling the voi ... More >>
If you simply must have an authentic Hustle Gang T-shirt but can't afford the $50 price tag, and if you aren't put off by criminal activity, shoplifting isn't a horrible option. If properly executed, a surprise grab-and-run operation, much like this 300-pound dude carried out at Mockingbird Station' ... More >>
If anyone deserves a public shaming, it's the guy who allegedly abandoned his injured but still very much alive pit bull in the dumpster of his Vickery Meadow apartment complex on Monday night. For better or worse, that will have to wait. The man wasn't home (or didn't answer the door) when police ... More >>
Anyone visiting Klyde Warren Park over the the weekend -- and judging by the crowd at 10 a.m. on Sunday, attendance bordered on nonexistent -- would have been struck by how closely the unbroken white sheet resembled an ice rink. Ironic, given park officials' promise of an actual ice rink, which incr ... More >>
Funding-wise, the Dallas Public Library is starting to recover from the financial crisis. After four straight years of cuts, the system has gotten more money in each of the past two years. The $22.4 million allotted for next year is far from the $32.4 million peak six years ago, but it's progress. ... More >>
When the City Council passed new rules in December laying down a $300 fine on any driver caught cutting off, or throwing things at or otherwise behaving dangerously around bicyclists, there was an acknowledged need for a public awareness campaign to let drivers know about the new rules. No one was ... More >>
Yesterday morning Eric Nicholson uncovered the plan for the redevelopment of the Dallas Farmers Market. The package will be presented to the City Council tomorrow, February 20, at 1 p.m. See also: - The City Finally Revealed Plans For a Privatized Farmers Market If you don't feel like reading thro ... More >>
The 911 problem itself is bad enough, but the mayor and the police chief are about to drive me crazy. At our house we record the news and watch it right before going to bed. It's worse than chips and spicy salsa. Night after night we are subjected to these horror stories on TV about people perishin ... More >>
Guilty little secret time. I'm glad the Dallas County Commissioners voted themselves a 4 percent pay raise Tuesday. I would appreciate it if we could keep this just between us here on Unfair Park, because it's not exactly the best thing for me to be saying out loud in terms of my own personal caree ... More >>
Well, I guess Eric Nicholson and Jeff Siegel just know everything, don't they? Nicholson, our own blog editor here, and Siegel, a columnist for the Lakewood Advocate, have been having fun making of Lincoln Properties, a real estate company, over a scheme to get Garland Road in East Dallas re-named a ... More >>
FrontBurner carried a little news earlier today that may interest some of you: Eric Nicholson will be joining the Dallas Observer as the lead reporter on Unfair Park. Eric was born and raised in Dallas and graduated from UTD, although his collegiate career did some admirable winding, through Monta ... More >>
Eric Nicholson, Jim's hero​Well, as usual, The Dallas Morning News prints stuff, and then it's up to me to come along behind them and do clean-up on the story. What am I? Their journalistic janitor? Mariana Greene, The News's garden editor and author of a column called "Gardening Fool," has a stor ... More >>