News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News

02/19/2010

Stephanie Mueller: The tax that keeps on taking
While Americans everywhere despise the annual process of filing income taxes, it has one positive: When it's done, it's done. Unfortunately, this isn't the reality of Texas' famed property tax system. This recurring tax haunts you long after the price is paid.

Michael Landauer: What's your favorite tax?
We have favorite colors, favorite movies, favorite bands. But does anyone have a favorite tax? I do. Mine is the motor fuels tax in Texas. Here's why.

Karen Kimball: Fine-arts teachers connect educational dots
First-year elementary school teachers must take a "generalist" exam to be in compliance with federal standards. The Texas Education Agency has successfully fought for a waiver that would exempt fine-arts teachers from the test. That's a big mistake.

Kathleen Krumnow: Being powerless helped me plug in
We all watched the weather and knew that snow had been predicted. What we didn't expect was exactly how much snow would fall ... and fall. What came as an even bigger surprise to me was the fact that I would learn something about myself.

John McWhorter: It's time to stop saying 'African-American'
Almost one in 10 black people are foreign-born; about one in 30 are from Africa. Which means that they are – you see where I'm going – African-American in the true sense. Certainly a truer sense than Tracy Morgan, Donna Brazile, Jesse Jackson or Mo'Nique.

Cord Jefferson: How illegal immigration hurts black America
Today, with national unemployment hovering around 10 percent and black male unemployment at a staggering 17.6 percent, it seems even less likely that immigrants are filling only those jobs that Americans won't deign to do. Just ask Delonta Spriggs.

Point Person: Our Q&A with pollster Mickey Blum
Skeptical about polls? Wonder how they could be accurate since they didn't poll anyone you know? Convinced that survey questions are skewed? We asked Mickey Blum of New York, long The Dallas Morning News' pollster, for her take.

Leonard Pitts: Facts are stubborn things, but they are still facts
I can remember a time when facts settled arguments. This is back before everything became a partisan shouting match, back before it was permissible to ignore or deride as "biased" anything that didn't support your worldview.

George Will: A change of climate
The global warming industry is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Actually, a bad three months, which began Nov. 19 with the publication of e-mails indicating attempts by scientists to massage data and suppress dissent.

Star Parker: It's time to stop wandering the wilderness
Black History Month 2010 is not a great time for a party. Unemployment at almost 10 percent, and well over 16 percent among blacks, doesn't make for much of a festive mood. But if the mood is not festive, shouldn't it be reflective?

Ruth Marcus: A GOP star is born
How big a deal was Marco Rubio's speech to CPAC on Thursday? If you are asking, as former President George W. Bush did jokingly the other day, "Who the hell is Marco Rubio?" you probably won't be for long.

02/18/2010

Steve Chapman: The real reason for Obama's unpopularity
When a president suffers a sharp decline in popularity early in his term, it seems safe to conclude he has badly misjudged the mood of the electorate, pushed the wrong policies and set himself on the path to becoming a one-term president.

Trudy Rubin: Taliban arrest is a milestone
There's been a flood of news coverage of a major U.S offensive against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, but a less-heralded operation in Pakistan - that's just been made known - could be more crucial in the long run.

Balance of Opinion: Responding to Iran's threat
No two words strike more terror in the hearts of the punditry than "nuclear Iran," and fears have spiked with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent announcement of uranium enrichment advances.

02/17/2010

Carl Leubsdorf: Bayh leaving doesn't break partisan stall
Evan Bayh put his finger directly on what many people think is the biggest problem facing Washington - "Too much partisanship and not enough progress" - but the irony is that his decision to leave almost certainly will make things worse.

Thomas Friedman: Global weirding is here
Although there remains a mountain of research about the reality of climate change, the public has grown uneasy. What's real? In my view, the climate-science community should convene its top experts and produce a simple 50-page report.

Leonard Pitts: It takes a baby to make a man
I don't mean to mythologize or overpraise something that is, after all, just a father's duty, even if that father is my first-born son. But it is hard not to feel a certain satisfaction when I consider how many fathers fail that duty.

Kathleen Parker: Uganda's gays and moral colonialism
In a time of constant calamity and crisis fatigue, proposed legislation in Uganda to execute gays passes through the American consciousness with the impact of a weather report.

Ruth Marcus: What Bayh's retirement says about the Senate
The most striking part of Sen. Evan Bayh's retirement announcement was his on-air job application. He'd be interested in managing a business, Bayh suggested, heading a university or maybe running a charity.

02/16/2010

Mark Davis: Is it so much to ask for wisdom with freshness?
Call me greedy, but my search for rogue, grass-roots game-changer candidates includes an attribute that many say I dare not require: I want them to be as sharp as a tack.

Gregory Rodriguez: An antisocial response to social media
Way back in the 20th century, corporations generally lobbed their products into the marketplace, bombarded consumers with repetitive messages, then sat back and prayed that buzz would magically appear.

Marcela Sanchez: U.S. decline isn't inevitable
Pundits here and abroad obsess over it. U.S. politicians blame one another for it. Heck, even my mother is certain of it. The United States is losing its luster and facing irreversible decline.

Kevin Cullen: Doing good really does have its rewards
Last year, when the staff at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center agreed to give up raises and benefits so the hospital would not have to lay off its lowest-paid workers, the story went viral.