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Dallas City Hall must find another partner to run Texas Horse Park

Dallas City Manager A.C. Gonzalez talks to Wayne Kirk, right, as Council members toured The Texas Horse Park, the city's equestrian center being built in southern Dallas (Michael Ainsworth/The Dallas Morning News)

Enough is enough. Dallas City Hall and a number of Dallas council members are just so eager to get a new horse park up and running in southern Dallas that they have put on blinders to a problem the rest of us can’t afford to overlook.

Wayne Kirk, the man City Hall selected to run this city-owned horse park, is simply the wrong person for the job in my view. The time has come to acknowledge that and move on with the hope, if not the certainty, of finding someone else.

The latest news about Kirk came this morning from reporter Roy Appleton.

The city warned Kirk about “unauthorized vegetation and tree removal” in the sensitive Trinity Forest where the park is located. It also appears his River Ranch Educational Charities has violated its contract with the city by illegally erecting a barbed-wire fence.

There’s another problem too. Even though the park was supposed to be opening, Kirk has yet to purchase necessary insurance.

Keep in mind, this is a man who was convicted in McKinney Municipal Court of cruelty to a horse.

It boggles the mind that he was ever even considered for this job. But the city was desperate for someone to take on the business of running a horse park that didn’t generate the kind of interest it was supposed to in the first place.

Whatever happens to the park, the city of Dallas cannot go forward with Kirk. The place hasn’t opened and he has shown he either doesn’t understand or is indifferent to city code. Barbed-wire fencing? In the Trinity Forest? That shows a lack of judgment that Dallas should distance itself from.

This morning, City Manager A.C. Gonzalez wouldn’t say what steps he will recommend next. If it’s anything other than moving on without Kirk, that’s a problem.

Clarity on Ebola quarantine remains as elusive as a cure

Kaci Hickox, left, in Sierra Leone before she returned to the U.S. and her quarantine ordeal began.

If you were hoping a little patience, and a new day, would bring some clarity to the debate over Ebola and quarantines, well, sorry.

For the record, President Barack Obama rejects the idea that states should impose anything like a mandatory quarantine on, well, anyone. Fear over facts, he insists.

Well, except for the U.S. military. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered all military personnel returning from fighting Ebola in West Africa to submit to a 21-day quarantine.

Not a contradiction at all, said the commander-in-chief, in a quick statement just dripping with science and logic:

“The military is in a different situation, obviously, because they are, first of all, not treating patients,” he said. “Second of all, they are not there voluntarily. We don’t expect to have similar rules for our military as we do for our civilians.”

So the military, because it has less exposure to actual Ebola patients, should be quarantined, but medical professionals, because of their greater voluntary exposure, should go bowling and ride the subway all over town?

Meanwhile, in Maine, nurse Kaci Hickox says this lousy joint can’t hold her and she’s busting out by Thursday, at the latest, and no governor better dare to stop her. If Maine’s Paul LePage did, she said, the fight would move to court.

“I don’t plan on sticking to the guidelines,” Hickox told Today. ”I remain appalled by these home quarantine policies that have been forced upon me even though I am in perfectly good health.” Her lawyer told the Associated Press that Hickox isn’t willing to cooperate further unless the state lifts “all or most of the restrictions.”

LePage, in something of an understatement, called this disappointing and made plans to turn “voluntary” into that other thing.

I hope your local editorial board can resist the urge to side with the UT-Arlington-trained nurse, even stipulating all of her good works and selflessness in West Africa. Now that she’s home, it’s tougher to see it her way, isn’t it?

For what it’s worth, Americans overwhelmingly support quarantines for people coming in from West Africa, including health care workers, in CBS News and Rasmussen polling out today.

Disagree? How would you have reacted if one of the 70-ish medical professionals at Texas Health Presbyterian in Dallas had refused to isolate him-or-herself after treating Thomas Eric Duncan? Yes, we knew he had Ebola, and those Presbyterian workers who provided him care did God’s work, just like Hickox in West Africa, where we can be fairly certain she can across some Ebola patients.

In fact, we know your local editorial board would have encouraged those Presbyterian workers to do the right thing and isolate themselves for 21 days, because that’s exactly what we did Oct. 18:

… Dallas County commissioners stopped short of an isolation order Thursday, maintaining that the health care workers can be trusted to quarantine themselves. Here’s how Mayor Mike Rawlings described the strategy: “They can walk their dog. But they can’t go to church. They can’t go to schools. They can’t go to shopping centers.”

A carefully adhered-to quarantine — voluntary or forced — is absolutely necessary to stop the local Ebola outbreak. It’s imperative that the 70-plus Presbyterian staff members under observation take this order seriously.

This is their opportunity to be heroes once again — heroes of common sense who recognize the seriousness of the situation and respond with an abundance of caution.

Those Presbyterian workers, by the way, were as asymptomatic as Kaci Hickox is today. Would we not urge the same isolation for her, no matter how much she might not like it?

Natinsky’s ‘food stamp’ moment damages better candidates in his party

There’s an old saying: When someone shows you who he is, believe him.

I’m afraid that former Dallas council member Ron Natinsky has had a moment when he has given us insight into his deepest thoughts, and they aren’t very attractive.

In case you haven’t heard it, there is a tape out there that apparently has Natinsky explaining why its best if southern Dallas voters stay home on Election Day.

Better that they “spend their food stamp money” than vote, he says.

Natinsky says he can’t recall saying that. I’ve heard the tape; I’ve been listening to Natinsky speak for years. Absent some very elaborate and unlikely audio manipulation, that is Ron Natinsky speaking.

So where do we go from here? First, we mourn the fact that the Dallas County Republican Party has Ron Natinsky as a candidate for county judge.

The GOP has some solid people on the ballot, like Susan Hawk, who is trying to unseat District Attorney Craig Watkins, Judge Jennifer Balido, a very able hand on the bench.

Natinsky’s words – or the words that sound like they came from Natinsky’s mouth – are so destructive to conservatives who hope to pull the Republican Party away from the fringe it is clinging to ever more desperately.

We can talk about social programs and whether they keep people on the government leash or not. But food stamps are probably the most effective way to help people in need that we have as a society. Feeding one’s family should not be a source of derision or mockery. It’s sad that it is, and it’s sadder when it comes from the mouth of a major party candidate for local office. And it’s that much more sad that it’s used in the context of keeping people from their constitutional right as citizens to have a say in who governs them.

There is only one course here for Natinsky beyond denying what appears to be obvious. He must apologize, and he must accept the electoral consequences that will come from this.

It’s unlikely he was going to win anyway. But this hurts those in his party who actually had a chance. And it hurts good if needy residents who do’t deserve the back of a politician’s hand.

Murderer Bernie Tiede wrote checks after he killed his elderly companion

Two checks that Bernie Tiede wrote to himself and cashed after he killed Marjorie Nugent in Carthage on Nov. 19, 1996.

Hopefully, film director Richard Linklater has a good security system on his home in Austin. But more than that, I hope he doesn’t do anything that his back-house tenant, murderer Bernie Tiede, might regard as mean. Not only would Linklater’s life be in danger, his film fortunes might well wind up funding yet another Bernie Tiede spending frenzy like the one he went on in 1996 and 1997.

The last person Tiede befriended to this degree was 81-year-old Marjorie Nugent. When she and her banker began questioning his massive expenditures of her money — to the tune of millions of dollars — he decided that she was mean. In his confession, he admitted to planning out how he would kill her. On the day Nugent and Tiede were supposed to meet with her banker to come to terms with Tiede about his expenditures, he followed her out to her garage, grabbed a shotgun, then shot her in the back. The blast severed her spine, and she collapsed on the garage floor, alive. He finished her off with more shotgun blasts, then stuffed her body into her garage deep-freezer. That was on Nov. 19, 1996.

Look at the dates on the two checks above: Nov. 20, 1996 and Dec. 3, 1996. They were miraculously signed and dated by a dead woman stuffed inside a garage freezer. They were made out to Beta Tau Systems. Beta and Tau, of course, are the Latin initials for BT, or Bernie Tiede. Investigators collected these checks as part of a massive treasure trove of evidence on Tiede that they have sat on since the murder, even though it’s common knowledge that Tiede continued to steal from the Nugent estate long after he killed Marjorie Nugent.

The Nugent family obtained copies of these checks in a partial release of evidence years ago. They are awaiting decision by Attorney General Greg Abbott on a request for an additional release of documents, videotapes and other items removed from Marjorie Nugent’s and Tiede’s residences. Assuming the attorney general supports the release of those items, it’ll take weeks for them to go through everything as they piece together what Tiede did with Marjorie Nugent’s money.

The fact that he stole from her before he killed her, and continued to steal from her afterward, contradicts his lawyer’s argument that the murder was the result of some kind of dissociative, out-of-body episode related to sexual abuse he might have received as a child. He killed Marjorie Nugent in cold blood. He was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Yet Tiede is free today, living on Linklater’s property, because of a starry-eyed prosecutor, Danny Buck Davidson, who appears to have placed a greater priority on fame and friendship with Linklater than on justice. Linklater hired actor Matthew McConnaughey to portray Davidson in the hit film “Bernie.” Davidson shirked his chief responsibility as the district attorney of Panola County and instead worked with Tiede’s attorney to arrange for the confessed murderer’s release after serving only 15 years of his sentence.

You can like him on Facebook. You can like the film all you want. I loved it. You can even sympathize with the Bernie character played by Jack Black in the film. And if you like, you can hate the mean old woman that Shirley MacLaine depicted in the film. This was not a documentary; it was a work of fiction based on Hollywood actors’ reconstruction of events. In real life, Bernie Tiede killed in order to avoid accounting for millions he stole from Marjorie Nugent.

The fact that he is out of prison today is not just a travesty of justice, it represents a clear and ongoing danger to the general public. We have zero assurance that Tiede won’t do this again. That’s why he belongs behind bars, where the jury intended for him to be. An appeals court will decide soon whether to send him back to prison or override the jury’s verdict and let him continue to evade serving his full sentence. Let’s hope the appeals panel grasps the injustice that the Nugent family has been dealt and puts this killer back where he belongs.

Why scarcity of Greg Abbott signs in my red-ish neighborhood? His consultant answers

I wrote a little something yesterday about seeing Wendy Davis signs in equal number near my house as Greg Abbott signs. Only two each. That was surprising to me, since my area goes red over blue.

Now see this email from Abbott consultant Craig Murphy, who breaks down the economics of yard signs. Live and learn. He wrote:

You won’t many yard signs for statewides these days because of two graphs:

1) Cost per vote of a yard sign vs. all other ways to spend money.
2) Affordability of yard signs vs. all other options.

Those sound like the same thing, but they are not.

With regard to number 2) above, Abbott can afford anything, so he does not have to choose simply based on what he can afford.  So, he chooses based upon 1) above, which is essentially “efficiency.”  Yard signs are hugely expensive for Abbott (while still affordable) but very inefficient.

So, Abbott would HOPE people do not ask for yard signs and will not often suggest it.  He will have signs available at HQ, but not push it.  Where does he put his money? TV.  NOT MUCH MAIL NOR SIGNS.

Meanwhile, the Koop campaign pays about the same as Abbott does for a yard sign effort.  So, cost per vote is about the same for her. On the surface, inefficient.

But on affordability, signs look great to a Koop campaign.  She can AFFORD signs while not being able to afford DFW TV.  So, where does she put her money? Signs. Mail.

And one last thing about signs.  They have no message (other than “I am voting for Abbott, if you like me or like to go with the crowd, vote Abbott”).  Signs = Name ID.  A down ballot candidate like Koop needs name ID.  Abbott and Davis do not.

It used to be that these top of Ballot races like President and Governor needed yard signs.  Those days are gone.  I could drop 5,000 signs in houses around a huge county like Dallas County and you would have a hard time driving around and finding one.  To make a real dent in perception, you need to get 10s of thousands of signs up in Dallas County which is massively expensive and requires a huge organization to get them all to the right houses (and replace them when they are broken or lost).  And when you are finished, you have not increased your name ID or support by a bit.

That is why what is happening in your neighborhood is happening.

Chris Christie doubles down on dumb as 2016 hopes dim

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie answers questions from the media about nurse Kaci Hickox's quarantine as Republican candidate for Connecticut governor Tom Foley, right, listens, Monday, Oct. 27, 2014, in Groton, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie seemed to have everything going his way after he teamed up with President Barack Obama in 2012 to marshal aid efforts in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. The Republican looked downright presidential. And bipartisan to boot.

Then, inexplicably, he decided to take a jump off the political high dive into an empty pool.

His first brilliant move was to apply the political screws to Fort Lee, N.J., Mayor Mark Sokolich for the mayor’s refusal to back Christie’s re-election campaign. A Christie staffer emailed a colleague at the New Jersey Port Authority, ”Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” Miraculously, two our of three access lanes linking Fort Lee motorists to the George Washington Bridge were shut down for rush-hour “maintenance.” Children couldn’t get to school. Emergency vehicles were blocked. A huge traffic snarl followed.

State and federal investigators are looking into Christie’s role in the incident. Even if he had nothing to do with it, the incident left an indelible black mark on his political record. All of a sudden, one of the Republican Party’s bright lights in the 2016 presidential race went dark.

Christie has spent the following 18 months performing damage control and trying hard to fight his way back to viability. He was almost there.

Then Ebola came to New York City. Christie resumed his Take-Charge/Crisis Dude mode and stood before the cameras to announce tough new measures aimed at stopping Ebola in its tracks. New Jersey would immediately impose a mandatory quarantine on anyone coming from West Africa who had been in the vicinity of Ebola patients. That meant any volunteer medical personnel would be forced to comply if their airline tickets routed them through New Jersey. Kaci Hickox, a nurse who graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington, became the first test dummy for Christie’s new policy. Only Christie wound up looking like the dummy.

Oops moment number one occurred when Dr. Christie, steeped in all of the intricate details of Ebola symptoms from his non-existent experience with the disease, declared that Hickox was “obviously ill” and therefore merited quarantine. A forehead thermometer registered an elevated temperature, but subsequent thermometer checks showed her temperature as normal. Hickox protested, drawing from her extensive experience on the front lines dealing with Ebola patients and noting that she was entirely asymptomatic and not contagious and unlikely to have Ebola. Dr. Christie overrode her.

Oops moment number two came when Hickox tested negative for Ebola. Not once but twice. Future President Christie dug in and insisted that he was right, she was wrong, end of discussion. She had to stay in quarantine.

Oops moment number three came when Hickox complained that her plastic quarantine tent only had a toilet and sink. Was she supposed to spend the next 21 days in this thing? Christie responded: “Malarkey,” and “She was doing just fine.” In the end, he said, she would realize that he was right and she was wrong.

Oops moment number four occurred when the White House, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and overwhelming numbers of actual doctors and nurses surged forth with a collective voice of outrage and told Christie that his quarantine policy amounted to overkill. Once again, Dr. Christie insisted that he was right and his detractors were wrong.

Oops moment number five occurred when Christie reversed stayed the course by declaring that his policy would remain in effect but that, instead of having it remain in effect, he would agree to  change it and release Hickox so she could go to her home in Maine. Acting ever-so presidential, he challenged Hickox to sue him if she felt her rights had been violated. “Bring it on,” he said.

Did Christie reverse stay the course on his policy (while letting Hickox go) because of White House pressure? “We work professionally together and I never felt any [pressure]. … There is absolutely no truth to it at all,” he said. “And by the way, if they did, it wouldn’t change my mind anyway.”

Except that he did change his mind.

I haven’t checked New Jersey’s gun laws lately. Is there a legal limit on how many times you’re allowed to shoot yourself in the foot?

Ebola: Don’t panic, just trust … someone’s in charge, right?

The Ron Klain effect remains a work in progress for the Obama White House, which still doesn't seem to quite have its hands around the Ebola crisis. Or, rather, one hand might not be sure what the other is up to (Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press)

Quelling public hysteria is more than an admirable goal. It’s a requirement as we contend with a killing disease like Ebola.

That was part of the thrust of our editorial this morning on the increasingly fractured national response, especially as it relates to quarantines. “The mandatory quarantine rule that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie imposed Friday to combat the spread of Ebola underscores the need to keep politics out of this important public health issue,” we wrote. “Policy decisions on Ebola should be based on science, not fear.”

True enough. I only wish we had completed the thought and explained why Christie and governors of more and more states — New York, Illinois, Virginia, Florida, Georgia and Maryland — had decided that the continually shifting U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines might not be the one-size-fits-all solution.

Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo did not act until after a doctor who had volunteered in West Africa, Craig Spencer, developed Ebola symptoms upon his return to New York City. What alarmed them — and, one presumes, their constituents — was that Spencer had ridden three subway trains, gone bowling and eaten out the day before he checked himself in to a hospital, where he tested positive for Ebola.

So which route would have caused less public hysteria? Ignore this situation and blandly trust the feds? Or impose a mandatory quarantine on health care workers who had done such selfless work in a world hot zone?

It’s not hard to see why Christie and Cuomo went the latter route, with their states receiving the most travelers from West Africa. This is the net that caught Kaci Hickox, the UT-Arlington-trained nurse who now lives in Maine. She complained bitterly about her situation, quarantined in a tent, and got herself some good legal representation.

Your local editorial board, not far from America’s Ground Zero for Ebola, basically absorbed her argument in its entirety, as did a local columnist with whom I have some relation. So be it.

Ironically, a columnist with whom I seldom agree, Froma Harrop, pointed out what I do wish everyone would consider: “Mandatory quarantine is not a punishment. It is a public-health tool designed to protect a population from those carrying deadly infectious disease. It is not voluntary by design.”

For instance, I suspect we’ll hear less wailing about the circumstances for members of the U.S. Army who are separated from the herd in Italy, after returning from assignment in West Africa. Unlike the many doctors and nurses, they did not volunteer to go; they were ordered there by their commander in chief.

So the same Obama administration that leaned hard on Cuomo and Christie over the weekend to relax their quarantines apparently has nothing to say about another part of the executive branch keeping U.S. troops sequestered for 21 days? I mean, this sounds a lot like a mandatory quarantine:

They will be monitored for 21 days at a “separate location” at the U.S. military installation at Vicenza Italy, according to U.S. military officials. Senior Pentagon officials say it is not a “quarantine,” but rather “controlled monitoring.” However, the troops are being housed in an access controlled location on base, and are not allowed to go home for the 21 day period while they undergo twice daily temperature checks.

It is not clear yet if they will be allowed visits from family members.

It seems we’re coming up a bit short on that honoring-their-service thing.

Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, said whatever the Army does is up to the Defense Department: “We are seeing this administration put in place the policies that we believe are necessary to protect the American people and to protect the American troops. And we’re going to let science drive that process. And as soon as we have a policy to announce on this, we’ll let you know.”

Yes, please let us know whether the latest iteration of CDC guidelines are administration policy or if the Army’s path is policy or, hey, if anyone knows how to play this game. Please let us know when the various parts of the federal government are working in concert, since they all supposedly report up to the same guy.

Maybe one day we’ll hear some of that political fixing from President Barack Obama’s political fixer/Ebola czar, the one who’s all politics and zero health care experience. And maybe one day the people supposedly in charge of this mess will give people less reason, not more, to get just a little hysterical about their inability to govern.

You can’t say Police Chief David Brown doesn’t understand community policing

Dallas Police Chief David Brown plans to put details of police involved shootings on the Web. (Dallas Morning News)

Well, this certainly is transparency.  I’m surprised – and impressed – by Dallas Police Chief David Brown’s decision to put 12 years of officer-involved shootings on the Web.

It is bold. I’m sure some attorney advised against it, knowing that no show of vulnerability goes unpunished. If I were in the chief’s shoes, I don’t know that I would revisit history.

Still, this decision is yet another indication that Brown understands community policing and the all-important neighborhood-police relationship. His most impressive moment came after a shooting in 2012 nearly sparked a riot in Dixon Circle. Brown got involved in the most hands-on way possible, which helped to put a lid on a rumor mill that was on the verge of running amok with misinformation about how the shooting occurred.

Now, the website should pull back a bit more of the curtain. The Dallas department plans to post details about the shootings, including bar and line charts, details of the incidents, ethnic breakdowns, whether weapons were involved, case dispositions and details of the deadly force policy and investigative process. I’m guessing that this statistical exercise will reveal information/trends that the department might not have known before.

Interestingly enough, the Philadelphia Police Department has a similar website that also shows where the shootings occurred and statistics on gun crimes in that area. Brown opposed adding that last bit of information because he says it might give the impression that the department is making excuses. Again, I’m impressed. He’s trying to keep this clean and simple —  and improve police credibility.

Stay tuned.

Can something good come from ‘Ebola House’?

Dallas-area resident James Faulk displays his Ebola-themed Halloween decorations on October 26, 2014 in University Park, Texas. Faulk decorated the front of his house and lawn to resemble the scene of the Dallas apartment where the first U.S. case of Ebola virus was confirmed several weeks ago. Faulk has set up a Twitter account and a website in an effort to raise funds for the Doctors Without Borders charity organization. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

Last week, I was among the first to criticize the decision of Park Cities resident James Faulk to decorate his residence ahead of Halloween with all kinds of hazmat paraphernalia — a clear effort to make light of all the commotion surrounding the Ebola scare in Dallas over the past month. Faulk didn’t take kindly to my criticism, so we talked it out by email over the weekend and by telephone today.

I was hoping he and I would share my re-interpretation that this display is worthwhile because it makes fun of all the people who are overreacting to Ebola. But no, Faulk says the display is making fun of the underreaction, particularly by Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins. Faulk even considered blatantly politicizing his display by placing a dummy effigy of Jenkins atop some hazmat barrels with a sign that said something along the lines of Bill Murray’s doofus character from Caddyshack as he wonders why everybody’s making such a big deal about a few gopher holes blowing up on the golf course.

So, obviously, we part ways there. The second you politicize your Halloween decorations, you’re asking for trouble. And I still think that the reaction of schools that sent home employees for having visited African countries like Zambia and Tanzania — more than 3,000 miles from the Ebola epicenter in West Africa — is more than deserving of public ridicule. I had hoped that Faulk was poking fun at that side of the Ebola scare, and I was hoping that, today, I could eat my words for having criticized him last week.

But no, I gather from Faulk’s comments that people should’ve been freaking out more. In fact, he said he was prepared to jump in an Airstream and hit the road with his family if more Ebola cases surfaced in Dallas.

But one thing I like about Faulk’s effort: He is trying to use all the attention he’s received to raise awareness about the heroic efforts of doctors and nurses traveling to West Africa to help fight the disease. He wants to raise money for them. He established a website, ebolahalloweenhouse.com, with a link for people to donate to Doctors Without Borders. The response has been underwhelming. A whopping $160 so far, which, if you subtract the $110 Faulk spent on his decorations, comes out to a net of $50.

Even worse, Doctors Without Borders called and asked to be dissociated with his campaign.

Even worse, his backup donation recipient, Samaritan’s Purse, also apparently doesn’t want anything to do with the campaign.

Even worse, his effort to partner with Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital also fizzled. The hospital is keeping Faulk at arm’s length. Well, more like a few train lengths.

Everyone is treating Faulk like, well, like he’s got some kind of disease or something. The international news media, though, can’t seem to get enough of him. He’s received coverage from SkyNews and the Daily Mail in the U.K., and various Mexican news outlets as well.

His next problems could come when the IRS asks him for records of his fundraising activities and for copies of his 501(c)(3) registration. But we’ll leave that for another time. In the spirit of Halloween, where we should all be making fun of the things that scare us so that maybe they’ll seem just a little bit less frightening, I’m calling a truce with Faulk and asking for everyone to stop and appreciate his art for what it is. The guy really put a lot of thought and effort into this.

No, Ebola is still not funny. But Faulk’s Ebola House most definitely is.

Native American groups are right to want Washington team to change its nickname


Over the years, many words have fallen out of favor, especially those that stigmatize ethnic or racial groups. That’s appropriate. It is a sign of sensitivity.

Personally, I’ve always had a basic rule-of-thumb: If I wouldn’t say a word in polite company, then why would I say that word in reference to sports teams? The answer is simple: the sports teams treat it as benign. It isn’t.

Tonight, Native America groups will stage a protest at the Dallas Cowboys game against division rival Washington over the Redskins name and logo.

Experts are divided on the origin of the word. Some say it refers to the skin tone of Native Americans, others to tribal body paint. But all that is irrelevant. The word has been used as a racial slur in books and movies of previous eras. Germans, Chinese and Japanese  also are among a long list of people who suffered similar negative depictions in popular culture through the 19th and 20th centuries. Some of those depictions even made it into team nicknames. Oddly enough, Redskins remains a sports nickname — most notably Washington’s — while many other offensive team nicknames have been discarded.

If you are not Native American, you’re likely to have a blind spot about the word. I’ll put myself in this group with tunnel vision. While I would never apply it to a person, the only time I have used it is in mindless reference to Washington’s pro football team.

Yet I find the Confederate flag offensive. To me, it symbolizes slavery and a divided United States. Make the states’ rights argument to me all you want. I can’t see beyond the ugly origin and legacy. I’m glad that I can’t. And that is the same point Native American groups are trying to make. The word carries lots of baggage.

I would hope Washington owner Dan Snyder to acknowledge the changing times and abandon an archaic nickname that carries a distasteful history. No, this isn’t a knee-jerk, politically correct request. It is an acknowledgment that history’s painful chapters need not be kept alive. Snyder isn’t racist; he is tone deaf.

For sure, a Dallas Cowboys vs. Washington (fill in the blank) game might lose some marketing cache. And, yes, hundreds of high school and college teams derive their nickname from references to Native Americans, some more problematic than others. But more schools are shelving derogatory images and nicknames, rather than perpetuate an offense.

You don’t have to look far for examples of name changes that reflect contemporary attitudes and reject problematic stereotypes. The Washington’s NBA franchise traded in the nickname Bullets for Wizards in deference to mounting gun violence in the nation’s capital. Was it necessary? Probably not. But represents a desire to change with the times as opposed to hanging onto a controversial nickname.

Play the video at the top of this post. Listen to the long list of tribal names and individuals. Then note the final line before the image of the Washington helmet. Now ask yourself, “Isn’t it time for a mascot change?”

Why the scarcity of Greg Abbott signs in my fairly red neighborhood?

This is the political sign that's omnipresent in my neighborhood. Greg Abbott's signs are conspicuous by their relative absence. (Rodger Jones)

One thing that jumps out in my fairly red Richardson neighborhood are Wendy Davis-for-governor signs. There are a few. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised about that, given the fervor of some of her supporters. But I would naturally expect the Greg Abbott signs to outnumber the Davis signs. They don’t, and that’s curious, until you think about his understated candidacy.

Mi esposa and I took a pre-dinner walk yesterday through the neighborhood to get exercise and eyeball landscapes. We live in Richardson, in House District 102, now represented by Stefani Carter and soon to be represented by her fellow Republican Linda Koop.

Yes, you think that’s presumptuous of me, since the votes have yet to be counted. But know this: the district went Romney over Obama 53-45 percent two years ago, and Carter won 57-43. Koop signs were within eyeshot of every point along on our little jaunt yesterday. The zone is flooded with Koop signs. You can bet your house and the car on Koop beating Democrat George Clayton next week.

Anyone else’s signs were harder to find. We saw two Wendy signs and only two Abbott signs. One of the Abbott signs shouldn’t count, because it was in a yard crowded with signs posted for every GOP candidate in big races — maybe 8-10 of them. Abbott seemed to get a sign there by default.

Why do Abbott yard signs not appear in proportion of the GOP strength in my neck of the woods? I read into this picture all my predilections.

The major one is that Abbott is not a terrifically inspiring candidate. He hasn’t galvanized people who live near me to make a statement in their front yards.

Abbott’s careful, in a lawyer-like way, like the judge that he used to be. He’s understated and organized. His well-paid team has the bases covered, and all Abbott has to do is circle them. He does that, with no dramatic flair, nothing memorable.

From his staff’s point of view, nothing memorable is a good thing. Abbott hasn’t wandered into hazardous territory, like the overconfident Clayton Williams did with his disrespect of Ann Richards and oafish remarks about rape.

Greg Abbott has run about the safest campaign for Texas governor that I can remember, using a classic frontrunner’s strategy of taking no risks.

If you questioned voters about their image of Abbott, I’d guest most would have only a vague notion of what he’s done and what he stands for. Ask them what the unifying theme is for his campaign, and most people might be stuck, beyond knowing that he’s a Republican who dislikes Obama and other things associated with Washington.

Abbott’s the standard bearer of the political status quo. “Steady as she goes” is not an exciting message, but it’s a winning one to imply for today’s red Texas. Plus, it can be interpreted as “Not Wendy.”

But that strategy could put Abbott at a disadvantage in office. Say he wins by, more or less, the 13-point margin that Rick Perry had over Bill White in 2010. Would Abbott claim a mandate? If so, where would he now say his passions lie and would become his signature issues?

The problem is, given Abbott’s passion-less campaign, it will take a neat political transformation to rev up his engines to burn hot for governing. But, you know, given the competence of his organization, they’ve probably got that scripted out, too.

They better have. The truly passionate Dan Patrick, whose jets burn white hot for governing as elected lieutenant governor, has been clear about his priority issues — border security and education choice.

If Abbott doesn’t want to be upstaged politically by Patrick later, he better start rehearsing that passion thing now. It’s too late to produce more yard signs, but it’s not yard signs Abbott will need in vying for attention with the the silver-tongued Dan Patrick.

Grand jury threats nothing new for Craig Watkins’ office

Leaving a nice car like a Porsche Boxster in such condition seems almost criminal, but apparently abandoned in this state, it was towed from roof of the Dallas County courthouse garage, leading to all manner of typical DA's office hilarity.

It takes some doing to shift even a smidgen of sympathy to towing companies that haul off your ride while you’re chatting up a waitress, leaving you with an empty space near a little warning sign. One commenter calls towing companies “the Iranians of the business world: hold you hostage for ransom.”

My own experience with such tows was, as is so often the case, my own stupid fault. I parked on Main Street outside the old Dallas police headquarters and missed the sign that warned my truck would get towed if left after 4 p.m., as I recall. I did, and it was.

So I come to last week’s news story with no built-in love for the sometimes-shady characters who hook and roll.

One such company, United Tows, insists it did everything by the book in 2013, when it hauled a 2001 Porsche Boxster from the roof of Dallas County’s courthouse garage off the former Industrial Boulevard. As the photo above would indicate, the Boxster had been shamefully neglected by its owner, left on the roof in the elements and caked with so much dust that passers-by took to writing little messages on it.

As it happens, the Boxster belonged to the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, although that fact apparently was hidden behind some sort of shell company, Rockett Enterprises, with a Garland post office box.

As a lawyer for United Tows, Robert Jenkins, tells it, the DA’s office took its time figuring out what had happened to its Boxster and, when it did, went straight to abuse-of-authority in an attempt to get its car back. Jenkins says a top prosecutor, Lincoln Monroe, and DA’s investigator, Eddie Salazar, threatened United Tows owners with a grand jury investigation and criminal charges if they didn’t give the car back.

They refused, and finally the Watkins’ people relented and dipped into the occasionally controversial forfeiture fund for money to get their Porsche back. The amount was either $3,600 (Jenkins) or $1,800 (Salazar); Channel 8 also reports that Watkins’ office tossed Jenkins $750 to cover his legal fees.

And before you think, “No way the DA’s office would threaten to use the grand jury system and criminal charges to intimidate some towing company guy,” remember that this particular DA’s office has something of a track record on this score.

Back in 2010, Dallas County Commissioner Maurine Dickey accused Watkins of abuse of power and official oppression after his public integrity unit sought to question her about a vegetable and butterfly garden she established at her road and bridge district headquarters.

No, seriously.

The Watkins-Dickey standoff was over his apparent reluctance to investigate county constables (and fellow Democrats) accused of wrongdoing. The Republican commissioner and the DA also were known to butt heads over his budget, among other pleasantries. Maybe they just didn’t like each other.

Proving himself a bipartisan abuser of authority, Watkins also has attempted to sic grand juries on (two or) three Democratic judges, related to his refusal to testify in the Al Hill III-Lisa Blue mess that chewed up so much airtime at the courthouse (instead of, you know, actual criminal cases).

So if Watkins would use the threat of a grand jury to lean on a county commissioner and three judges, it’s not even a bit of a stretch to imagine that he’d order his people to do the same with a company that legally towed one of his cars.

Forfeiture funds are supposedly reserved for law enforcement purposes. In Watkins’ reasoning, this includes buying back a towed car; spending $50,000 to settle a car wreck he caused by rear-ending another driver at tollway speeds while texting and driving; and another $1,250 to sweep his offices for listening devices.

The car crash settlement included a provision for a $40,500 penalty paid to Watkins himself — not the forfeiture fund — if the other driver spoke publicly about the incident. Some people would call that hush money; the question is whether it has an actual law enforcement purpose.

This newspaper’s recommendation of Republican Susan Hawk over Watkins in the Nov. 4 election was based, in large part, on the two-term incumbent’s loss of public trust. This nonsense with the towed Boxster is just one more brick in that wall.

New York is better prepared to treat Ebola and Dallas is the reason

President Obama Meets With Dallas Nurse Nina Pham After Her Release From NIH (Getty Images )

For the past two weeks or so, we’ve written that Dallas’ struggle with responding to Ebola would be the textbook on what to do and what not to do.

New York City’s early response proves that point, aided of course by the fact that the patient is an emergency physician at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

1) Craig Spencer arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport on October 17. He exhibited no symptoms of the virus until Thursday morning. He quickly provided a detailed timeline of people he met and places he visited. That has to be a big help.

2) Spencer was admitted to a hospital as soon as he developed symptoms, unlike Thomas Eric Duncan, who was sent home with antibiotics the first time he went to Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas. Duncan returned days later and was hospitalized.

3) Doctors knew they were dealing with Ebola. There was no confusion about where Spencer had been. He was in West Africa treating Ebola patients. Doctors now treating him are taking Ebola precautions from the very beginning and specialists are engaged in the case sooner. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention got a team to New York faster than they got one to Dallas. Spencer’s Manhattan apartment was quickly isolated, locked and decontaminated.

3) Spencer is in isolation at Bellevue Hospital Center, one of eight hospitals statewide designated as part of New York’s Ebola preparedness plan. Doctors should be well-versed in the protocols necessary to prevent being infected.

I wonder if Ebola is really the scare of Brett Giroir’s professional life

Texas Task Force on Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response director Dr. Brett Giroir, right, announces two Texas medical facilities to isolate and treat victims of Ebola and other health threats, at UT Southwestern Medical Center Tuesday.(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Nicole Stockdale wrote the other day about Brett Giroir, the Texas physician leading the state’s preparation against the spread of Ebola and other virulent diseases. Giroir is the head of Texas A&M’s Health Sciences Center, the latest entry in a truly stunning resume. It includes service as a top official at DARPA, the defense research agency whose bywords are “Creating and Preventing Strategic Surprise,” and as chief medical officer at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas.

It was at Children’s that Giroir did work on infectious diseases that brought him renown. His work there in fighting an outbreak of meningococcal disease appeared to ignite his jets on making maximum professional impact on fighting pandemic threats.

I did some reading on Giroir and interviewed him a few years ago, when this newspaper named him a finalist for DMN Texan of the Year. At the time, he had helped attract to Texas A&M one of three federal Centers for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing.

That meant this, as we published in an editorial:

Giroir’s job is to get a new federally funded center running to mass-produce drugs and therapies to repel biological agents so insidious that they might have leapt off a Hollywood script.

Get the picture? Perry’s choice of Giroir a few weeks ago to lash together a response to the Ebola threat made perfect sense to me. So did his group’s quick action in organizing two centers in Texas — one in Richardson — to isolate and treat people who contract Ebola and other health threats.

I thought back to things I had read about him at Children’s, how the hospital treated young people who came from across Texas for treatment of meningococcal disease. The cause is a bacterium that attacks the brain and spinal cord. It can be deadly within hours, typically in children or young adults. Or it could cause a young patient to lose arms and legs to amputation. There are about 3,000 cases in the U.S. a year.

The Children’s ICU saw several new patients daily during one stretch, Giroir said in a NOVA documentary about the outbreak.

One quote of his, from the NOVA transcript:

There’s nothing more intense than the 24 hours when a patient comes in with meningococcal sepsis—the battle between life and death. They literally hang on the edge of a cliff just waiting to fall over.

And this:

We’ve always had the dilemma: How could a disease be so bad and kill so many children and adults, and leave many children and adults maimed? How can it be so bad when we know that the bacteria that causes it is so very susceptible to antibiotics?

And this:

We’re going to make a difference in this disease. It may take a few years to do it because it’s very complex, but this is the right point in time with the right amount of science—everything pointing in the direction that we’re going to impact it. We’re going to change it and—I’m sure we are.

After Children’s, and after his stint with DARPA, at the request of the Defense Department, Giroir returned to Texas to continue building infrastructure against pandemics. See this recent coverage from The Eagle, which references a drug in development at a manufacturing facility that Giroir helped piece together. It’s the type of big impact that he seemed to be talking about in fighting disease in Dallas.

I wonder, in his heart of hearts, what struck more terror into the core of Brett Giroir — the steady stream of young people into Children’s, or the outbreak of the dread Ebola virus among medical personnel at Dallas Presby.

Either way, Texas has a hardened medical warrior on the front lines.

 

Would you rather have an Ebola decorated house on the block or a meth dealer action figure?

Which is worse, a set of meth action figures... (Chris Pedota/The Record/MCT)

I agree with colleague Tod Robberson. An Ebola house is in bad taste. However, Halloween brings out bad taste. Women, Hispanics, African-Americans, and presidents (not just Obama) all have been depicted in really ugly ways his time of year. And when I say ugly, I mean ugly.

But let me ask this. Which is worse — the bad taste of an Ebola house — which has to drive neighbors crazy, or the bad taste decision of Toys R Us to sell a Breaking Bad action figure of meth dealer?

...or Ebola-themed Halloween decorations? ( AP Photo/LM Otero )

Breaking Bad was a breakout series that wasn’t for everyone and certainly not for youngsters. It seems a bit out of place for a mainstream toy store whose inventory is aimed mostly at young children to offer Breaking Bad toys for sale. That’s what a Florida mom thought when she began a petition drive, resulting in the the toy store yanking the action figure from the shelves.

All of this makes me wonder whether we have become so de-sensitized that we don’t listen to our inner censor, that little voice inside that says, “Don’t go there.” There had to be someone at Toys R Us advising its buyers to steer clear, that a meth cooking dealer/action toy is not a good idea for their clientele — even with the age 15 and up disclaimer on the packages.

Likewise, didn’t the homeowner think a  mock quarantined Ebola house in the Dallas area just might be over the line, the kind of joke that should never make it away from the water cooler? The DMN’s real estate guru Steve Brown puts it this way:  would it be okay to have a polio theme with dummies of crippled children out front in the 1950s?

I don’t think so.

I’m not against making Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, their beakers and ventilation masks available through online sales and in collector shops. That makes sense. On Toys R Us shelves, not so much.

Why I’m current on the latest sex research (or, how the sausage is made)

One of the things I do for this newspaper is compile the weekly column of snappy or evocative quotes. It’s called “Talking Points,” and it appears on the front of the Sunday Points section.

My ideal “Talking Points” compilation consists of one item from each of these categories, definitely not in this order of priority:

Sex

God

Sports

Business

“How we live”

Hollywood/entertainment

Politics

Big breaking news stories (war, Ebola, domestic strife, etc.)

Generally, I think, these things make a link with readers. Problem is, the sex category doesn’t always produce something printable. My standard is that it’s got to be tame enough so grandma will not want to cancel her subscription.

I think grandma’s OK with some titilation, and bona fide news often presents that opportunity. Here are recent quotes that made the cut:

From Oct. 12:

What do I sentence a guy who has sex in a squad car to?” – Oconto County, Wis., Circuit Court Judge Jay Conley, at a hearing for a man who had a tryst in the back of a police car with a woman after a drunk-driving arrest; he got 90 days for the DWI, nine days for sex episode (USA Today, Tuesday)

From Oct. 5:

“Negotiating Successful Threesomes” – Title of a free seminar during the University of New Mexico’s first-ever “Sex Week” activities, held to teach students safer and better sex (KOB-TV, Monday)

From Sept. 14:

“The reliance on air power has all of the attraction of casual sex: It seems to offer gratification but with very little commitment.” – Retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, former chief of the CIA and National Security Agency, on Obama’s military strategy (U.S News and World Report, Thursday)

From Aug. 31:

“Who’s got a pelvis?” — Cleveland Browns rookie quarterback Johnny Manziel, dressed as a workout instructor in a Snickers ad, to a room of gyrating women (Dawg Pound Daily, Thursday)

From Aug: 24:

“Plaintiff … was shocked, horrified and outraged to observe this intrusion into her privacy for all to see.” – From a lawsuit filed by “Dating Naked” TV show contestant Jessie Nizewitz, claiming producers failed to fully blur every body part as she cavorted unclothed (Entertainment Weekly, Thursday)

From Aug. 17:

“I’ve got my hands on their butts probably more than their wives, so, you know, it’s a pretty unique trust and relationship you have.” – New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, on working with the team’s centers (CBS Boston, Thursday)

Some weeks the well is dry. Those weeks I turn to Google and hit the words sex and research. That, I tell myself, gives me cover. It raises my standards a hair above the clickbait that oozes across most web pages I’ll see in a day. It keeps me from websites where my boss wouldn’t want me lingering.

It also keeps me up on the latest important discoveries on the sex frontier (or at least the ones that busy journalists and web mongrels understand well enough to write). I don’t always excerpt those, because they’re often devoid of snappy quotes.

Example from today that I pass along as a reader service (not that you’re the least bit interested):

Rubber ducks can kill your sex drive

There was no good quote in that one. Darn.

Luckily, I had seen a story a few days earlier about cyborgs — those people who are implanting technology into their bodies and brains. It’s out-there stuff that deals with developing super-human abilities.

One inventor foresees mass global Internet orgies through implantation of spinal devices.

I wouldn’t bet against it. Think of the profits possible selling cyber-sex.

And so I used his quote for this Sunday’s Talking Points. Go through the story (if you already haven’t). The quote is a natural. It takes awhile to find, but it’s a window into where technology is leading us.

It’s a good thing for my wretched soul that I found a good quote from Pope Francis to balance all that out.

Bless me, Father, for I was only doing my job …

When you worry about the west, think of these names: Nina Pham, Amber Vinson and Kevin Vickers

Kevin Vickers, Sergeant at Arms, Canadian Parliament (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Adrian Wyld)

We hear so much about the shortcomings of our culture, it’s easy to wonder how we ever get anything right.

The constant mindless entertainment, the perpetual focus on appearance and sexuality, the narcissism, the solipsism, the cult of our own little lives.

How do such an indifferent, navel-gazing people face down the passionate intensity of murderers like the ones who populate the ranks of ISIS? Or how do we answer the arrival of a deadly virus in our cities and our hospitals?

The sense of the stiff upper lip, or the stuff that formed our grandparents and our great-grandparents, seems so often to be missing. Our enemies love to think of us as soft and listless, un-dedicated to anything but our own comforts.

Some of us live up to the caricature. These sorts are easy enough to find in anonymous comments on the internet or, as likely, facing the camera of a cable television news network.

It can be despairing – the unquiet chorus of fear and ignorance.

But amid that noise, there always seem to be people who can give us a little courage when we worry about what’s next.

Today, their names are Nina Pham, Amber Vinson and Kevin Vickers.

Pham and Vinson appear to have recovered from their infection with Ebola. They were infected because they did their jobs despite the fear Ebola brings. They did what they had to do in the face of something deadly.

There is Kevin Vickers, the sergeant at arms of the Canadian Parliament who walked through gunshots to his office to retrieve his pistol, then returned to the fire, aimed his gun and killed a fanatic bent on murder.

There is a photograph of Vickers shortly after he shot the Islamic convert Michael Zehaf-Bibeau. He is walking through the halls of Parliament, a tall, silver-haired man in a suit. In another context, he might just be someone at work on a typical day. You have to look for just a moment to see that, in his right hand, he is carrying a silver gun. The pistol seems misplaced in the calm and the quiet of his demeanor. I’ve thought about his face in that photograph and tried to understand what he is thinking. There isn’t much to tell. He looks nothing so much as someone who’s done his job.

It’s a face to remember. There is another one, a photograph of Nina Pham in her hospital bed at Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas, before she was moved to Bethesda. The photo is out of focus, but she is wearing a green gown and her arms are bandaged where the i.v. needles are set. She is sitting up, covered in white sheets and a blanket. She’s isn’t looking at the camera. She’s smiling.

If you get nervous about our future like we all will, think about these photographs and think about these three people – all of different races, all of different backgrounds. They are who we are when we are at our best. And it’s very, very good.

508 Park’s bluesy historic restoration in downtown Dallas shows how to do it right

The developing Encore Park scene, with its amphitheater, historic 508 Park building and community garden. (DMN Staff Photo)

Since moving into my full-time writing gig, I’ve been prolific on the tragedy of mowing down historic old buildings in the core of Dallas. You can catch up to my previous opinions on this topic right here.

For those of you who care where the downtown demolition derby stands — and I hope that means everyone — here’s the status report on efforts to try to prevent more buildings from suffering the fate of the four on Main and Elm that vanished last month, compliments of Joule hotel retail expansion: Preservation Dallas and City Hall staff continue to compile that list of buildings that lack historic preservation status. They are supposed to present their findings to City Council any day now. Then it’s up to council members to find some answers. Trust me, I’ll be following that story.

But today I want to highlight an example of getting it right when it comes to revitalization/redevelopment that, at the same time, preserves our city’s past. On the same weekend that Klyde Warren Park is celebrating turning two with all sorts of activities, history is being made — and saved — on the south end of downtown, as the Encore Park project is kicking off its dedication weekend.

The centerpiece of this project (these photos describe it better than I can) is the long-neglected 508 Park building, which shows what can happen when preservation and new urban ideas are braided together. Back in 2013, our editorial page described the significance of that building like so:

When vinyl was king, 508 Park Ave. in downtown Dallas was one of the throne rooms of music. Companies such as Warner Bros., the American Record Corp., Brunswick Radio and Decca America were tenants. Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys recorded there, and in June 1937, blues pioneer Robert Johnson held one of two Texas recording sessions at the building. When Eric Clapton did a tribute album to Johnson in 2004, he taped some of the songs at 508 Park.

As Dallas writer and critic Thor Christensen explained in his DMN article earlier this week, the three-story art deco building’s 23,000 square feet have been gutted and construction has begun to repurpose the interior. It will serve as a Museum of Street Culture, which will feature a visual art program for homeless people to develop their art and a recording studio that can be used by anyone, from professional musicians to students to the homeless. All of this under the auspices of The Stewpot of First Presbyterian Church.

Encore Park has big expectations — It’s trying to combine preservation, commerce, art and social justice issues. That’s an ambitious mission, and only time will tell how many of its admirable goals will be met.

Today let’s simply celebrate the work that has been done so far — and the music to come out of the project this weekend.

Mike Hashimoto penned a great line about Dallas’ attitude about preservation in this July editorial:

Dallas has a well-deserved reputation, cultivated over the decades, of tearing down what it no longer needs to make room for something new and shiny. Preservation always seemed like a good idea for the next thing.

Thank you, First Presbyterian and partners, for not taking that easier “shiny and new” path and instead preserving a grand piece of our city.

Ebola-themed Halloween decorations? Bad idea blue jeans

A house at the corner of Emerson Ave and Westchester Dr. is decorated with hazmat and chemical waste bins that pokes fun of ebola on Oct. 23, 2014 in Dallas. (Kirsten Kearse/The Dallas Morning News)

Don’t get me wrong. I love dark humor. And if anyone is going to engage in death-related themes, Halloween is absolutely the time to do it. But decking your Highland Park house out in hazmat materials and quarantine paraphernalia is in the worst possible taste.

Ebola isn’t funny. A person died here. Others had their lives turned upside down by this disease. More than 4,000 people are dead in West Africa from it.

One of my close relatives proposed that we go out on Halloween wearing Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital surgical scrub uniforms or something similar. I thought about it long and hard, not wanting to be a fuddy-duddy. I ultimately decided it was an extremely bad idea. Nerves are too raw to joke about this. There’s been way too much upheaval. Presbyterian has seen a serious dropoff in business, as have businesses around the hospital.

It took a long, long time — more than a year — before any major comedian was willing to make jokes about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks. We’ve now acquired enough distance from 9/11 to develop a sense of humor — not about the attacks themselves but about the ridiculous mentality behind those who staged the attacks. And probably in the not-too-distant future, we’ll acquire a sense of humor about something related to Ebola.

But anyone dumb enough to joke about it now, say, on an airplane, is going to be escorted off by guys in hazmat suits. A world of pain will follow for the joker. People take this way too seriously.

How deep is the payday industry’s influence in Austin? Deeper than you think.

The exterior of a closed payday loan store, now for lease, located along East Northwest Highway in Dallas. Many payday loan stores in Dallas have closed since the city passed a landmark ordinance regulating the lenders three years ago. (David Woo)

If you’re among the growing legions in Texas who have come to understand the real cost of a payday loan, here’s more reason to be ticked — the influence of the payday loan industry’s checkbook at the Texas Legislature.

Texans for Public Justice released their compilation of campaign contributions to gubernatorial candidates Greg Abbott and Wendy Davis based on fund-raising reports through Sept. 25.

By their tally, the payday loan industry has given Abbott $402,959 and Davis $10,500 since 2009. The list of  top contributors can be found at this link and here is TPJ’s list of lawmaker/recipients of payday dollars for the years 2009-2012.

This year, the biggest contributor is Trevor Ahlberg at $75,000 to Abbott. Who is that, you ask? He heads Cottonwood Financial (Cash Store) in Irving, and is the subject of this D magazine profile in 2013.  TPJ researchers couldn’t find any new payday loan contributions to Davis in 2014, but found $130,222 in new money to Abbott this year.

What these two reports indicate is that money is spread like butter around the House and Senate and touches a lot of people, including members of key state regulatory committees, and knows no party preference. No doubt this is why previous attempts get meaningful payday legislation at the state level seems never to make it out of committee and to the full floor. And the payday industry’s checkbook isn’t just influencing legislation in Texas. It is doing the same in other states, as this recent New York Times story notes. 

That’s why the city councils of major cities like Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin and lots of smaller ones around the state have taken on the task of writing tougher payday lending rules. Cities are on the front lines of these issues, which impact families, neighborhoods, crime and overall quality of life. They have a right to do what the state won’t.

The payday industry in Texas is not going to go away without a fight. Thankfully, neither are the cities. A Dallas Municipal Court recently denied motions from a payday lender accused of violating Dallas stricter rules to quash Dallas’ enforcement efforts. It is yet another important legal victory.

The company, CBA Leasing Ltd. doing business as Power Finance, has an interesting link to the state Legislature. It is owned by Houston-area state Rep. Gary Elkins, who has firmly opposed tougher payday rules from Austin, according to the Houston  Chronicle who went to his Linked-in profile where they found this:

Elkins did not return calls seeking comment, but his Linked-In profile touts his role in developing the payday lending industry nationally and in Texas, noting that he has “pioneered two industries that became billion-dollar industries.” Under the “specialties” heading of his profile, Elkins writes, “I am very good at figuring out ways around obstacle’s(sic) in business.”

If the fight comes down to lawmakers and the contributions they get from the industry, reform from Austin will be difficult. The good news is that the cities are winning the skirmishes city-by-city and are showing strength in numbers. As I said in this related blog post last week, it is time for cities like Fort Worth, Arlington and Irving to join the cities’ fight.

It is the right thing to do.