Houston Texans

Texas Fights Air-Quality Standards Because Lower Ozone Levels Can Kill People

Here's the good news: Dallas-Fort Worth ozone levels for the first this year dropped below the federal standard of 84 parts per billion. The bad news: the 84-ppb standard the area has just now met for the first time is from 1997. The current standard is 75 ppb, well below DFW's 81 ppb mark. Worse st ... More >>

The Cowboys' Win Over Houston Showed What's Right and What's Wrong with This Team

After each of the Cowboys last four games -- all wins, sending the team to 4-1 and its best start since 2008 -- we've heard it: The team is winning because it's running DeMarco Murray early and often. Even in the third game of the season, when the Rams jumped out to a 21-0 lead, Murray got 28 touche ... More >>

Meet Texas' Six Newest Billionaires

Yesterday, Forbes released the billionaires list, its annual parade of the ridiculously, absurdly super-rich. This year, the list stretches to some 1,426 names worth a combined $5.4 trillion. Texas claims a small if significant portion of that, counting 50 billionaires among its 26 million resident ... More >>

Texas Conservative Groups Are Dismissing a Republican-Backed School Safety Plan as "Just Another Tax"

On Tuesday, the same day two men opened fire at Houston's Lone Star Community College, a bipartisan trio of state lawmakers unveiled a plan aimed at reducing school violence. Dubbed the Texas School District Safety Act, the measure would allow voters to approve special taxing districts that would p ... More >>

30 Essential Texas Restaurants to Visit Before You Die

NFC/AFC Championships 2013: Predictions Based on The Football Albums

This weekend, the NFC and AFC Championship rounds will pit such heavyweights as the Baltimore Ravens against the Peyton Mannings, The Green Bay Packers against the San Francisco 49ers, the Seattle Blinding Highlights against the Atlanta Falcons and a game I won't mention for obvious reasons. We're h ... More >>

An Englishman Provides Our Final Word on the State Fair: One Hero Passes, Another Enters

I chose the saddest day of all to go the State Fair. The death of Big Tex (flame-grilled is the way he'd have wanted to go) cast a shadow over the whole event, which had Big Tex's now non-existent face on every piece of merchandise, every map, every stall, every advert, every building. When the twit ... More >>

Screw the White House: Let's Focus on Keeping Texas from Becoming Teabagistan

There's a danger in getting too invested in presidential debates and the whole national political saga, gripping as it may be. By turning our faces to bright lights far away, we risk forgetting just how dark things could get here at home in November. The Tea Party is poised to make its ultimate as ... More >>

Top Chef Texas (Canada): Judges Whittle the Final Competition to Two Texans

via Bravo... that damn lonely sliver of arugula.​Just think, this episode's elimination could have come down to a piece of arugula -- a wisp of a flavor dose so tiny it contributed almost nothing to the dish, which was the root of the problem. In the final elimination episode before next week' ... More >>

The Wild Cards Are Finished: Watching the NFL Through Food

What a weird weekend in football. While I'm glad New Orleans trumped Detroit (what do people in D-town eat besides sadness?), I'm devastated by Pittsburgh's loss to Denver, another town whose culinary culture is difficult to define. What Would Tebow Cook? Pittsburgh, however, gave rise to the glory ... More >>

Whitt's Merten's End: 12.31.10

One of Sports Pickle's best photos of 2010​It's been a fun two weeks, sports fans. Richie's back on Monday, but before I give him back his blog, here are some week-end thoughts before I go. *Sunday's Cowboys-Eagles game looks like it might be the first NFL start for Stephen McGee as Jon Kitna ... More >>

MyPlates Probably Picked the Wrong Day (Or Season) To Debut Two New Cowboys Plates

​A year ago the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles bowed the do-it-yourself personalized-plates-maker known as MyPlates, and only a few weeks it rolled out some proposed plates that include one for Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas. Well, just this morning MyPlates sent word that it's in ... More >>

Cowboys 27, Texans 13: My Top 10 Observations

​10. Oh ye of little faith. If you listened to me or read me last week I toldja this was coming. Negate some penalties, some missed field goals and some turnovers - tweak things - and the Cowboys would be fine. Way I remember it, I called for more Dez Bryant (check), more blitzing (check) and ... More >>

Dallas Cowboy Fans: Be patient. Your winless team is about to come to life.

Dallas Cowboys' Pre-Season Schedule is All Over the Map

​Five games. Three time zones. Two training camps. Your Dallas Cowboys are certainly expanding their brand as America's Team. But is such nomadic pre-season good for them? The Cowboys will travel almost 5,000 miles this summer, compared to only 852 for the New York Giants. I think jet lag is ... More >>

GOP Chair Neerman Doesn't Buy Harry Reid's Excuse for Backing Out of Irving Trip, Says it's a Disappointment, Not a Victory for Protestors

Hal SamplesJonathan Neerman​Earlier today, Irving Mayor Herb Gears e-mailed The Dallas Morning News to let them know that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid "just called to inform me that pressing government business in our nation's Capitol requiring his presence necessitates his having to pos ... More >>

Dallas's First Hockey Team, a Keepsake

​Everything I know about the Dallas Texans hockey team comes from The Handbook of Texas History's Dallas Stars entry:Professional hockey in Dallas dates back to 1941, when the Dallas Texans joined the minor-league American Hockey Association. The debut occurred at Fair Park Ice Arena on November 6 ... More >>

Lone Star Face

Says Rick Perry: I'm "Resisting Further Government Intrusion" and Saying No to $500 Mil in Unemployment Insurance

Just arrived in Austin, only to find in my in-box, oh, 'bout a dozen Friends' links to either Governor Rick Perry's speech down in Houston or the Burnt Orange Report's compendium of reactions to said speech. As you may know by now, the governor is saying no to more than $500 million in unemployment ... More >>

10 Questions: Clay Bergus

If you've been in Perry's, you know him. For seven years, since the steak and upscale southern comfort restaurant opened, Bergus has served as general manager.New apartment buildings sprung up nearby. Other places opened and closed. But Perry's keeps plugging along, unchanged...except for an upcomin ... More >>

10 Questions: James Neel

He wanted to be a chef since the age of six, when he would "surprise" his parents with self-taught recipes. Neel's first professional role, however, was at the famous Ninfa's in Houston--as a dishwasher.After working his way up to a chef's apprentice role, he attended cooking school at Le Cordon Ble ... More >>

A Texan's Home is his Castle, Until Someone Richer Wants It

At JerryWorld, the Closest Most Of Us Will Get to Reality is "Perception"

The Los Angeles Times this morning heaps piles of praise upon Jerry Jones' under-construction EnormoDome in Arlington, which Sam Farmer coins the "Y'all Mahal," a nickname that will never, ever stick. Still, the piece does contain two classic Jerry quotes, the first one concerning the $1.2 billion ... More >>

Chili Bowl

The Cowboys host the Texans

Mapes to Clinton: Remember the Alamo!

Two Huffington Post pieces to point out this a.m.: The first is from Mayhill Fowler, who's on the ground with the Clinton campaign as it skitters across Texas today. Writes Fowler, if Hillary takes Houston, she'll take Texas -- and, yup, has to do with the Latino vote, because Clinton's counting on ... More >>

Old Texas Now

Practice Makes Perfect?

A little something-something for the ladies: Terrell Owens, sporting a very nice hat Tony Romo is healthy. Terrell Owens is happy. And, at 2-0, the Cowboys’ Super Bowl train is preparing to leave the station. OK, let’s not get carried away. In their last game the Cowboys scored only one more po ... More >>

A New Report Says That Texas' Ignoring Stem Cell Research is Just Bad Business

As other states are becoming more aggressive in promoting stem cell research, Texas is falling behind, and if something isn't done to change that, the state will lose both scientists and the support services they generate. So says a new report, which will be released tomorrow. The economic impact st ... More >>

Everlasting Sounds

Ten of the year's most timeless records

Represent, Y'all

The holler's not that far from the 'hood

High on the Hog

In Texas, shoot as many feral pigs as you like. Just don't let your dog bite them.

When Evacuees Become Residents, Part 3

Not Sweet News

The Dallas-Fort Worth Business Group on Health--"a coalition of Dallas and Fort Worth area employers committed to working with our partners in the community to promote and maintain a health care delivery system that provides quality, accountability and affordability for our employees," says its Web ... More >>

Popularity Contest

This grill exhibits pleasant mellowness

Texas Twister

Cowboys and Texans kick off

Members Only

It's a view to a thrill

Best Sports-Talk Show

Pretty much all of 'em on KTCK-AM (1310), The Ticket

Open Season

Border authorities fear a return to the law of the Wild West as Texas homeowners take up guns against illegal Mexican immigrants

Get Out the Map

Upcoming summit aspires to make D-FW a player in the hip-hop world

High Spoons

Bare breasts, a bowl of red, and bad blood among the chili brethren in the Big Bend. Texas doesn't get any better.

No place like home

Main St. artists, trapped online, can only pine for tornado-ravaged downtown

Biting back

The Whitney Biennial has brought out the worst in the art world -- fussing, feuding, and in-fighting. But Fort Worth's Michael Auping stands by his decision to bring a few Texans to New York.

Hash Over

Zagat 2000; Mixed Hash

Nothing ventured

The end of the 1999 legislative session proves that, for Gov. Bush at least, it's better to look good than to do good

Ignorance is bliss

Two supposed champions of open government are pushing hard to keep campaign finance records off the Internet. What don't they want you to know?

Texas Monthly's Midlife Crisis

GOP to gays: Butt out

Texas' Log Cabin Republicans find themselves the ultimate outsiders--vilified by both the GOP and fellow gays

Games Grownups Play

Recruiting violations. Cutthroat competion. Big money. Larger egos. It isn't NCAA football. It's kids' soccer, Dallas style.

Buzz

Making schools smarter

Lege fiddles, with results unknown