OPINION: SOUTHERN DALLAS

I was just up in Frisco a couple of nights ago, enjoying a fantastic dinner and theater experience. On the long drive up from Dallas, I found myself wondering what it must be like for Dallas residents -- particularly those in southern Dallas -- who have to commute that distance every day, twice a day, to reach their jobs in the ritzy shops and restaurants like the one I was at.

When you look at the commute times for residents in our five southern Dallas bases, and look at the map of the places those workers commute to, then you realize that there's a big problem. When places like Frisco, with lots of wealth and lots of places in need of low-cost labor, fail to construct adequate low-income housing for those workers, they have to live in places that do supply such housing (like Dallas). So it only makes sense that Frisco should make the responsible choice of building the housing that suits the people working there.

Sounds logical, but I was amazed at the angry comments from more than 100 Frisco residents at a Frisco City Council meeting Tuesday who flat-out didn't want any semblance of affordable housing in their community. There's a threat of a lawsuit to stop the City Council from proceeding after a vote yesterday to approve new affordable housing, which would include some Section 8 housing.

"If Dallas can't handle its own problem, it shouldn't become Frisco's," resident Dody Brigadier said Tuesday.

Amazing. The message here is: We love the cheap labor you send our way, but hey, we don't want those people actually living among us. Isn't that how the entire problem of the north-south divide got started in Dallas? Good for the Frisco City Council that they didn't let the protesters sway the council's better judgment. The fact is, all communities need to be balanced economically, racially and even politically.

If you want to know where the "island unto ourselves" mentality leads, just look at the north-south problem in Dallas. When you concentrate poverty in one area and wealth in another, you create enormous problems that endure for generations. Social segregation doesn't work. Never did, never will.

Justice of the Peace Thomas G. Jones has had a reputation of running a pretty chaotic courtroom, so chaotic ,that he's been sanctioned several times. And that doesn't begin to touch the surface of complaints about poor service and muddled legal interpretations.

But in his heavily Democratic southern Dallas district, voters have returned Jones to office - over and over again. Despite his record, he's been in this office an astounding 18 years.

With early voting underway and the March 2nd election day rapidly approaching, Jones is facing another paperwork challenge, this time from opponent Sylvia Rhodes-Bradley, who is disputing the voter signature petitions that Jones filed to be placed on the Democratic primary ballot.

Rhodes-Bradley contends that the Democratic party chair Darlene Ewing allowed Jones to amend his petitions after the filing deadline in violation of election code. She had begun to challenge that do over, but has been told that she needs to re-serve the Democratic Party.

Challenging the validity of an opponent's petition is Politics 101. It's an easy way to trip up a candidate. But a quick perusal of Jones' documents indicate that Rhodes-Bradley may have found a problem with Jones paperwork.

Be that as it may, Jones' fate rests with the voters in JP Precinct 1, Place 1, who after all these years of tolerating Jones, need to elect a new JP. This newspaper has taken the rare step to recommend in this race based on our deep concern that voters don't know that they have a viable choice this year -- Rhodes-Bradley.

Winning on a technicality is one way to oust an incumbent. But if voters really want to hold incumbents like Jones accountable, then they need to do it at the ballot box. And that means turning out to vote Jones out of office.
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The Center for Public Policy Priorities has launched a neat new interactive database that allows you to compare and contrast all kinds of statistics on children's health issues across the state. I compiled the following two charts for Dallas County. We outpace the state in terms of the percentage of children giving birth to other children. We particularly outpace the state for unwed teens 17 and younger, although the state pulls ahead for 18-19 year olds. As for inadequate prenatal care, again, we are higher than the state average.

We also outpace the statewide average for overall poverty and children living in poverty. And we outpace the statewide average for high school dropouts. Some of these statistics show wide gaps that run counter to the very narrow gap in median household income for Dallas County versus the statewide average.

I can't say I'm surprised by these figures, but it sure would be nice to see our numbers improve. Click on the images below to see them at full size.

The results of the Danny Defenbaugh-led investigation into Precinct 5 Constable Jaime Cortes are front-page news today. This is particularly bad stuff for southern Dallas -- and southern Dallas County. That's where Precinct 5 is located and, thus, where a lot of this alleged funny business is going on.

Your tax dollars appear to be funding a really sketchy operation headed by an even sketchier constable. Please take time to learn about it here and make sure you get out and vote. Here were our thoughts on this race and two others that affect southern Dallas.

Click here to read more and comment.

Today's editorial page contains a recommendation of Pastor Stephen E. Broden in the congressional District 30 Republican primary. We were a bit surprised during our interview with Broden when he was unequivocal about the role that race should play in this election. "Color matters," he told us.

The other two candidates, Sheldon Goldstein and Charles Lingerfelt, are both white, and Broden is black, as is the 17-year incumbent Democrat holding the seat, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson. Goldstein and Lingerfelt took strong issue with Broden's remark.

"I'm surprised that race should be brought into this," Goldstein told us. In a separate interview by phone, Lingerfelt said he was upset at the notion that, decades after Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s appeal for all of us to judge people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, Broden appeared to be counseling exactly the opposite. Lingerfelt was particularly incensed, given the decades he's spent working with minority students and working hard to convince them that they should never regard their race as a barrier to success. Now he's being told by his opponent that, in fact, Lingerfelt should regard his own race as a barrier to success.

Broden called me after the interview to make sure I understood why he said what he did. To prevail in a political contest in which an African American Democrat has held the seat for 17 uninterrupted years, any viable GOP challenger will have to attack Johnson's record vigorously. (And there is lots to attack.) If a white GOP candidate does that, he will be vulnerable to charges that he's a racist because that's the way lots of District 30 voters regard such criticism. He said that if a white and black candidate tell people exactly the same thing, black voters will tend to listen to the black candidate but disregard what the white candidate says.

I'm not quite ready to endorse that kind of thinking, because the path ahead contains an awfully slippery slope. Besides, voters in New Orleans just elected a white mayor, Mitch Landrieu -- the first time that's happened since 1978. Apparently, they concluded that race doesn't matter. What do you think? Is Broden simply stating the unspoken facts on the ground? Or is he playing the race card just to get a leg up on his opponents?

In this Sunday's Points section, we'll be running an interview with David C. Wiley, professor of health education at Texas State University and chairman of the Texas Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. Wiley also is president of the American School Health Association. In the interview, he addresses many of the issued regarding teen pregnancy that have arisen in our Gap research regarding the vicious cycle of poverty, dropout rates and teen pregnancy. If you look at our database, one of the most shocking statistics concerns the high rate of teen pregnancy in southern Dallas. So this is an important issue worth addressing.

Wiley argues that too many people are using statistics and studies for political purposes. Some say the statistics are "proof" that abstinence-only works. Other say the statistics show it doesn't work. The truth, Wiley suggests, is somewhere in the middle. What does't work, he says, is the idea of using scare tactics to frighten kids into not having sex. It also is counterproductive to suggest that condoms shouldn't be used because they fail. When used properly, they only fail 2 percent of the time. But all this talk of failure is giving teens an excuse for not wearing them at all -- which could explain why pregnancy rates are going up.

The text of the entire interview appears on the extended page. The edited version appears in Sunday's Points. It's well worth reading.

A few weeks ago I posted Green Line figures from DART that reflected the number of passengers delivered downtown during the morning rush hour. Those numbers tended to make ridership on the new Green Line look bad, by virtue of the relatively few downtown-bound riders.

For example, average weekday ridership for the morning rush:
-- Red Line coming south brought 3,316 downtown
-- Green Line coming from Deep Ellum brought 177 downtown

Now I have DART's overall station-by-station numbers for last year, and they tell a different story. If you look at total boardings, instead of the rush hour ridership that's typical for office workers, Green Line numbers are respectable. Fair Park ridership stacks up against many other, long-established stations.

Examples of average daily boardings by station from November:
-- Green Line's Fair Park station -- 1,467
-- Blue Line's Kiest station -- 1,204
-- Red Line's Forest Lane station -- 1,442

Away from the center city, the big numbers are at the end of both the Red and Blue lines, all of which top 2,000 a day.

I've posted the full report over on the Dallas Transportation Blog.

Make no mistake -- every community needs a strong public school system.

But there are roles for charter schools. This editorial from the Detroit newspaper caught my eye. In particular, i noticed the turnaround by the state's governor on charters, and these paragraphs on how public schools and charters can provide results greater than the sum of their parts:

Chris Barbic, head of schools for the YES Academies, sees the relationship with the school system as "coopetition," meaning that charters and traditional public schools will compete to provide the highest quality education, and cooperate on methods that work.

YES gets those results by hiring highly qualified teachers -- it draws heavily from the Teach for America program, which has been virtually kept out of Michigan by teacher unions -- and by putting students through a rigorous course schedule over a nine-hour school day and a longer school year.
Detroit will be its first school outside of Houston. The University YES School will be a partnership with New Urban Learning, which operates the University Prep, Science and Math and Creative Studies schools in Detroit.

This certainly sounds to me that this kind of approach would work in West Dallas as well as other Dallas communities. West Dallas has a growing charter/private school base, but there is work to be done on the public school side. A key part of the YES program is that the kids get really good teachers.

Thoughts anyone?

An age-old question of economic development is how best to bring needed services to a community without adversely impacting families that live there. And West Dallas is not an exception. In fact, West Dallas is becoming a laboratory in creative modern urban design.

Late last week, the Dallas CityDesign Studio (a new city hall office) and a bunch of urban designers sat down to begin hammering out conceptional plans for West Dallas. Since late fall, they've been doing the footwork, talking with residents, developers and others is small groups.

And in the course of discussions last Friday, designers that included Larry Beasley, an internationally known designer from Vancouver, B.C. and Brent Brown, the design studio's director, took pen to a paper and came up with these ideas which they say balance the desire for residents in the Los Altos and La Bajada neighborhoods to have access to new shops and economic development without getting run over by out of control real estate speculation.

These ideas are a starting point and aren't cast in stone, but could be the start of something very special for West Dallas.

You don't hear a lot of good news these days from the four Dallas schools slated either for closure or re-tasking because of their repeated "academically unacceptable" ratings. But students at one of those schools -- L.G. Pinkston in West Dallas -- really stood out this weekend in an academic competition that has probably shocked and pleasantly surprised a lot of DISD insiders.

When you think of the performing arts, schools such as Booker T. Washington, Bryan Adams and Woodrow Wilson often come to mind as exemplary. They've got well established programs, a very active group of involved parents, and lots of good funding sources. Pinkston has none of these. But the school entered the Irma P. Hall Theatre Arts Festival on Saturday and went up against nine other Dallas schools -- including Booker T. Washington.

And Pinkston walked away with a gold medal in playwriting, a gold in acting and a gold in directing. The judges included various members of the Dallas Theatre Center and other notables within the performing arts community in the city. So it's quite a significant achievement for Pinkston, especially considering the high level of competition and all of the bad news that's come out of that school recently.

But more importantly, it sends an important message that's often overlooked within the academic community about the role that fine arts can play in stimulating the minds of at-risk students. (And they don't get much more at-risk than Pinkston, which is has one of the lowest income and highest drop-out rates in the city.) Very often, it's very hard to get these kids' attention long enough in any subject to nudge them all the way through to graduation. But as Dallas Theatre Center artistic director Kevin Moriarty noted in an interview with us published Sunday, the fine arts often can awaken at-risk kids in ways that core subject can't. The text of that interview follows.

Some interesting observations from a North Dallas resident who works in West Dallas as a director of a nonprofit literacy center. Freelancer Barbara B. Johnson proposes that perhaps material rewards for motivation -- something much more do-able in her North Dallas neighborhood than in the West Dallas neighborhood where she works -- backfire .

So which group of children is actually better off? Read more and comment here.

Eric Johnson is a classy guy, and he's smart enough to know that just because he's the only eligible candidate in the District 100 Democratic primary, his isn't the only name on the ballot. Alas, Terri Hodge has pulled out after admitting corruption-linked tax evasion. But that doesn't mean her supporters won't vote for her.

Here's the message Johnson sent out today. It's measured and cautious. With its appeal for unity, the message seems designed not to rub anyone's nose in this affair.

Dear Friend,

To serve the public as an elected official is a high calling and requires a great deal of personal sacrifice. I want to thank Rep. Hodge for her years of service to District 100 and the State of Texas.

As you may have heard by now, State Rep. Terri Hodge has pulled out of the race to represent District 100 in the Texas House of Representatives, leaving me as the only candidate in the race.

Whether you have been a supporter of mine from the beginning or you once supported Rep. Hodge, now is the time for us to unite. We are now on the same team and it is time to move District 100 forward. Together.

We are no longer in a political fight, but a fight for the future of our district and our city, and it is a fight that we must win.

I need your support. I need your help as a volunteer and, if you live in District 100, I need your vote on March 2nd.

We can never lose sight of what this election is really about: the people of District 100. It's about how we work together to improve our public schools, bring more high-paying jobs to our district, and make our neighborhoods safer.

I look forward to working with you to make District 100 and the Great State of Texas all they can be.

Are there differences between strategies to reverse soaring minority unemployment and strategies to put Americans back to work regardless of their race, gender and income?

And if not, should there be targeted efforts to attack minority unemployment, especially now when the nation's overall jobs picture is the worse it has been in years?

It's a dicey question. Different groups -- based more on income and educational differences than solely race -- have differ starting points. But unless people who want to work have the necessary job skills and opportunities, then this country will be paddling against global economic currents and floating backwards with each stroke.

But how does a policy maker acknowledge the very real and very persistent challenges in minority communities without feeding perceptions that disadvantaged communities and individuals need handouts to survive?

Here's what the National Council of La Raza wants the Obama administration to do, and to my knowledge none of these -- with the possible exception of a twist on the new hires proposal -- are in the White House or Congressional jobs initiatives. I've just noted the top line recommendations of NCLR and urge readers to click on this link for the details

1. Create millions of community jobs in hard-hit neighborhoods. An effective way to employ millions of people in a short time is to pay them to meet existing needs in their local communities. Congress should award grants to states for employing workers to repair and maintain buildings and grounds, work at community health centers, care for children before and after school, or provide services for seniors.

Any publicly funded jobs initiative that aims to reach the communities hardest hit by the recession should:

Reserve 20% of grants to states for hiring in the nonprofit sector. I
Dedicate $1 billion of funding for hiring workers to maintain and rehabilitate abandoned and foreclosed properties.

Mandate that at least 30% of new jobs go to economically disadvantaged job seekers. Jobs seekers with low income and low levels of educational attainment, and those who are not currently receiving unemployment insurance, should be given priority consideration in the publicly funded jobs initiative.

2. Make affordable loan products available to nonprofits and CBOs for infrastructure and capital investments

3. Invest in the human capital of workers overlooked by ARRA. For many workers struggling in the current recession, investment today in education and skills development will prepare them for the jobs of tomorrow. ARRA authorized millions of dollars for worker training programs in green jobs and health care in order to support their entry into emerging industries. The U.S. Department of Labor received an unprecedented number of applications from entities around the country hoping to train and place job seekers in these fields, but because funds were limited a significant number of worthy projects will go unfunded. Congress should authorize additional funding for human capital investment in emerging fields such as green jobs, but should target programs that:

Support the skills development and language acquisition of low-income, limited-English-proficient (LEP) workers. Future funding should prioritize programs that integrate skills training with basic literacy and English language skills in order to ensure that access to jobs in emerging industries is open to Latino and other underserved communities

4. Use the tax system to reward small businesses and nonprofits that hire new workers. In these uncertain times, businesses of all sizes, as well as nonprofit organizations, may have the immediate means to employ new workers but lack the confidence to hire. Policymakers should encourage hiring through a refundable tax credit for companies, including small businesses and nonprofits that hire new workers or expand the hours of workers on their payroll.

I keep writing this phrase: "Southern Dallas deserves better." I keep reading it in other people's headlines and commentaries. And it strikes me at how hollow it is, especially considering the voting record of southern Dallas residents.

Let's look at one voter in particular: Gloria Hogg. She's the precinct chair in District 100. Here's her take on this week's events: "If Hodge's name is still on the ballot, then I will vote Terri. That doesn't mean I don't like Johnson. We don't know a lot about Mr. Johnson. Terri has been out here fighting for her constituents for 14 years. Until I hear further, Gloria Hogg supports Terri Hodge."

My god. And she's actually in a Democratic Party leadership position.

It's time for me and everyone else to stop using trite phrases that sound great but mean nothing.

The fact is, voters everywhere deserve the people they vote for. When voters choose corrupt politicians like Terri Hodge and Don Hill, they deserve what they get. Nothing better, nothing worse. When voters like Hogg blindly choose Terri Hodge on a ballot, even when they know that she has pleaded guilty to corruption-linked tax evasion, they get what they deserve. In this case, it'll be zero representation if Hodge gets elected over challenger Eric Johnson, simply because it was too late to remove her name from the ballot.

No wonder southern Dallas suffers from lack of effective political representation. No wonder southern Dallas gets short shrift year after year. No wonder southern Dallas is perpetually relegated to second-tier status in terms of budgetary and developmental priorities.

Do southern Dallas voters "deserve" better? I'm rethinking the previous position I've taken on this, and I'm not so sure they do. They have a right, and should demand better. But if they knowingly allow people like Terri Hodge to take office year after year after year, I'm sorry, they don't deserve anything more than what they vote for.

Today's guilty plea and promised resignation of State Rep. Terri Hodge marks a major potential turning point for southern Dallas. There can no longer be any doubt that the FBI had a strong basis to investigate and seek prosecution in the City Hall corruption scandal that also ended the political careers of several of southern Dallas's highest profile politicians. It is time for the era of pay-to-play to end. It is time for southern Dallas politicians and businessmen to stop lining their own pockets on the backs of their constituents. It is time to end this phony notion that "giving something back to the community" means enriching a powerful few under the table.

Note the word "potential" in the first sentence. Nothing will change in southern Dallas unless voters wake up and actually start examining the records of the incumbents who claim to represent them. Too often, political dynasties develop in southern Dallas because voters wed themselves to names they know without examining the records behind those names. They always have to ask whether this person is actually doing something to help the community. If voters take a good, hard look, they will realize how poorly these politicians are performing, and they will demand change.

Instead, they balk at change. They balk at the idea of a "newcomer" coming in and actually doing something. They blindly support ineffectual (and corrupt) politicians like Terri Hodge, while refusing to consider the merits of people like Eric Johnson. Why? Because he went to Harvard. He's a high achiever. He really did something with his life. Therefore, he cannot be one of us and represent us.

Just take a look at Hodge's answers to our questions regarding the pressing issues facing her district (Johnson says it's education; she thinks it's eminent domain), and look at the way she minimizes the importance of educational achievement. Something is terribly wrong with this picture -- especially the fact that she was probably heading toward victory in the primary before today's announcement. Who knows? She might still win even though she can't serve because it's too late to get her name off the ballot.

I can't say I'll be shocked if Terri Hodge works behind the scenes to put a crony on the ballot -- all in an effort to thwart Eric Johnson from winning the primary election and, by default, winning the general election. But if southern Dallas voters (the vast bulk of District 100's constituency) allow such an effort to succeed, they will richly deserve the poor representation they already receive and will receive in the future.

Some political races fall below the radar even though the position being contested carries great responsibility.

Anyone who has read the DMN stories about Dallas County constables should be more than slightly concerned about the cloud over at least two constable posts. And one JP court has been an administrative disaster for many, many years.

Simply put, residents in these precincts deserve better. But only residents in these precincts can vote out elected officials who for whatever reason aren't doing the job expected of them.

So this is why the DMN decided to recommend against incumbents and in favor of breaking with the past in the following contests. If voters want change, then they must demand it at the ballot box.


JP PRECINCT 1, PLACE 1

Candidate Sylvia Rhodes-Bradley, a self-employed mediator, is far superior to Jones, who the state's Commission on Judicial Conduct recently said demonstrates "incompetence in performing the duties of his office." The 37-year-old Rhodes-Bradley, a graduate of Clark Atlanta University, is a strong communicator and seems to possess the skills necessary to restore professionalism to this operation, one of the busiest JP courts in the state.

CONSTABLE PRECINCT 5

Beth Villarreal, 38, is the best choice over Cortes and two other challengers because she could provide a clean break with the precinct's clouded present. She lives in Oak Cliff and is a patrol and community relations police officer in the town of Italy in Ellis County. While Michael Orozco, a deputy constable in Precinct 3, has more constable experience, we believe Villarreal would restore public trust. Chief Ozumba Lnuk-X, a former security guard and regular speaker at Dallas City Council meetings, also is on the ballot.

CONSTABLE PRECINCT 1

In a race filled with constable insiders, Robert McIntyre, a former chief deputy in Precinct 5, brings the most experience and the best hope for change to the race against Evans. McIntyre, 64, has more than 25 years of law enforcement experience and is a volunteer reserve with the Lancaster ISD Police Department. Andrew Harris, now a Precinct 3 deputy, and Calvin Jones, a former deputy constable, both were fired in 2008 by Evans and are suing the county over their dismissals.

Some people like to spend their weekends watching sports on TV or going to the movies. I spent much of Sunday arguing with a blogger about the Inland Port. This guy posted an item that contained all kinds of inuendo, unsubstantiated allegations and just-pure garbage spruced up as fact. So I couldn't let it go. I wasn't just going to leave that stuff hanging out there, unchallenged.

But it's made me realize that there is a small movement of residents in southern Dallas County who are vehemently opposed to the International Inland Port of Dallas. We see it as the best hope for generating jobs in southern Dallas and providing a major economic engine for the entire region. These protesters see it as giant turd being deposited on their doorsteps. They see a future full of pollution from smoke-belching trucks, traffic congestion from the constant flow of cargo containers, and residential displacement as the port expands to its planned 243,000 boundaries.

They have a point. And although I rejected the blogger on Sunday as someone who was unable to produce facts to back up his wild allegations -- not to mention his irresponsible support for the alleged shakedown of port developer Richard Allen -- I don't want to suggest that opponents of the port don't deserve to be heard.

But I will continue to insist that the opponents answer these questions: What better use do you propose for the vast amount of undeveloped and underdeveloped land in southern Dallas and Dallas County? What better proposal do you have to generate employment for an area that has extraordinarily high jobless rates? How will you lure investors and businesses to open shop in southern Dallas if you run off the very few who are putting their money into the Inland Port? And if you really think the shakedown that Richard Allen allegedly suffered was a good thing, how do you propose to convince other outside developers and business people that they won't suffer a similar fate if they try to invest in southern Dallas?

We had an interesting discussion yesterday with Dr. Juanita Wallace, head of the Dallas NAAACP, regarding the newspaper's coverage of southern Dallas. Although we took issue with a number of her complaints regarding our attention (or what she described as a lack thereof) to southern Dallas, we found common ground when the subject turned to the types of dance being instructed for drill teams at southern Dallas high schools.

Dr. Wallace complained that, out of all the photos our paper decided to run from the parade honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Jan. 18, the one the paper chose was of several girls gyrating their pelvises as they pranced down the street. Actually, it's not entirely clear from the photo that they were doing this, and our paper ran four other photos from the parade. But it's safe to say that this kind of dancing was going on. We saw it during the Veterans Day parade downtown, and you can see it at pep rallies and halftime shows for various high schools.

Dr. Wallace says she complained to the principal of Carter High School, whose drill team is in the photo, about the appropriateness of such dancing for girls representing their school in public. And that's a point where we can definitely agree. I've said it before: The kinds of pelvic grinding and overtly sexual dancing that is accepted for these drill teams should not be tolerated by the adults running these high schools. But it's not only tolerated, it's often encouraged.

We need adults to lay down the law and simply put a stop to this. I'm not being a prude. I'm just being realistic: When this is the type of behavior teachers and principals permit of their students in public, what inferences should those students make about what's acceptable in private? I don't know exactly where the line should be drawn, but I know when something crosses way over the line. And this is one of those instances.

Contrary to the Reader Information, we do plan to include a healthy dose of your comments.

Will candidates get specific about how to tackle blighted areas and how to empower cities to improve neighborhoods?

Contrary to the Reader Information above, we do welcome comments in this event. We look forward to your interaction, although comments will not be posted automatically.

Will the president's speech touch on anything that will truly make a difference in the lives of struggling American families?

Rick Atkinson posted his reply regarding the item I posted yesterday about his many, many emails. Rather than risk having readers overlook it at the bottom of a very long stack of comments, I'm going to post his text here.

"Wow, I'm a celebrity. I'm Rick Atkinson and have evidently gotten some libs' panties in a wad. (I'm so proud.) Where to start? Mr. Robberson is an anti-captitalist, race-baiting Marxist. My problem with the Gappers is I don't accept their premise: that unless everyone has the same stuff and lives in the same circumstances, it's "not fair" - - and it's "the haves'" fault. Capitalism isn't perfect. But it's absolutely the best economic system in the world. And it's responsible for more prosperity for more people that any other system in the history of mankind. (Marx, Stalin and Mao? How'd that work out, anyway? Yet American leftists push to control every aspect of our lives to this day.) My comments aren't "tirades." They're simply passionate, straight-forward challenges to the Gappers. (Actually, I use the term derisively alright, but it's in retaliation for the libs' use of Tea Baggers. But I digress). And I never get any answers to my questions from the Gappers. Just miffed, sniveling missives from Tody. I'm all for helping those in need, as is most every single American - and I'll put my charitable giving up against Mr. Robberson's any day. But don't tell me that unless a community is economically homogeneous that something is wrong or "unfair." Or that city leaders who are dead and gone were undoubtedly racists. Or that South Dallas' challenges evolved from a sinister conspiracy by evil capitalists. When has anyone ever seen an economically homogeneous city? Or city block? Or church? Or family? I'm talking in America, of course. I'm sure there are plenty of those in Communist China. And don't tell me that because I have things that I worked hard for - and choose not to live in blight - there's something wrong with me. Again, our system of government and our economy aren't perfect. But they're the best, freest systems in the world. There's no where else on earth with more opportunity. NO WHERE. Cheers to everyone."

I just got off the phone with Richard Allen, chief executive officer of The Allen Group, the biggest investor in the International Inland Port of Dallas. Allen says he has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which will give him breathing space from his creditors while he reorganizes. Allen says he has faced a mountain of debt because of the 6,000 acres of land he bought and enormous warehouses he built in southern Dallas County, starting in 2005.

It was a huge undertaking and an enormous risk. Allen bet that he could turn his portion of the Inland Port, known as the Dallas Logistics Hub, into a profitable venture that would create tens of thousands of jobs for southern Dallas. But nobody could have predicted in 2005 what kinds of economic turmoil we would face in 2009-2010.

When consumers stopped buying, Allen said, the need for big regional warehousing diminished as retailers and shippers cut back on their distribution networks. The entire national transportation network is coming to a screeching halt. Rail traffic is down. Trucking demand is down. And The Allen Group can't stay on top of its debt service when nobody is investing, purchasing land or leasing his warehouses.

Allen insists that the Inland Port project remains viable and the future is bright. He is talking to potential partners who, presumably, would take on some of his debt in exchange for a share of his project. "We're staying right here. ... We're not running off and hiding under a rock," he says. He insists he won't be selling his assets at fire-sale prices, but that remains to be seen.

What does this mean for southern Dallas? Well, actually nothing. The project has been stalled for more than a year because investors weren't coming in. Whether Allen filed for bankruptcy or not, southern Dallas was not seeing any jobs created or land being used at the Inland Port. That's too bad. If anybody else were succeeding where Allen failed, I'd blame it on his poor judgment. But nobody's succeeding right now.

Allen was quick not to lay any blame whatsoever at the feet of John Wiley Price and others who stood in his way. Allen says those roadblocks disappeared a long time ago and have no bearing on the current problems, which are 100 percent related to the economy.

If you're an investor with money, now's the time to take a look. That Inland Port land isn't going to get any cheaper than it is right now.

If police want to know who was behind yesterday's theft of telephone cable in southern Dallas, all they need to do is check with a few of the metal recycling factories that are taking over parts of southern Dallas with the full complicity of City Council members such as Carolyn "Well, they have to go somewhere" Davis.

These are the places that accept all kinds of metal materials gutted from abandoned houses and, now, stolen straight off telephone poles. How do I know this? Well, it's kind of like drug trafficking: If you don't have a buyer for your illegal wares, you don't have any reason to engage in your illegal activity.

Someone is buying this stuff. And it's someone close to where these thefts are occurring, because the people stealing the cable, pipes and other electrical wiring don't have a lot of money to begin with. If they did, they certainly wouldn't be in this kind of business. So they sell it to someone close by, who carts it to a metal recycler. The metal recycler innocently claims, 'We do everything in our power to certify the source of all metal brought to us. We do not accept stolen metal.' But when it's stuffed onto a truck with thousands of pounds of other junk metal, how thorough can the certification process really be?

A new study on nationwide teen pregnancy rates offers some good news about long-term trends regarding abortion and preventing unintended pregnancies. But it also suggests that teens are not getting the message about abstinence as the best way to prevent pregnancy. In fact, pregnancy and abortion rates are now on the rise again after a steady decline since 1990. The study by the Guttmacher Institute confirms what we've known for a long time, that Texas consistently ranks among the top two states, alongside California, as the nationwide leader in teen pregnancies. Whatever we're doing in Texas, it ain't working. (We also know from our own studies that southern Dallas has alarmingly high teen pregnancy rates.)

The good news is that abortion rates among girls between ages 15 and 19 have dropped dramatically over the past two decades. Among non-Hispanic whites and blacks, abortion rates are almost half of what they were in 1990. Among all ethnic groups, blacks continue to use abortion the most as a radical form of birth control.

As far as pregnancy rates are concerned, black and Hispanic teens are virtually tied, with a rate almost three times that of white non-Hispanics. The study states:

By 1990 or 1991, the pregnancy rate among teenagers and young women had begun a steady and consistent decline. A decrease in both birth and abortion rates among these women signaled that both intended and unintended pregnancy rates were declining among these age-groups. Recent research concluded that almost all of the decline in the pregnancy rate between 1995 and 2002 among 18-19-year-olds was attributable to increased contraceptive use.1 Among women aged 15-17, about one-quarter of the decline during the same period was attributable to reduced sexual activity and three-quarters to increased contraceptive use.

Click here to access the full Gutmacher Institute report and statistics.

Of special interest to those who have labored in the civil rights movement -- whether that be back in the sixties, in 2010 or both -- is this lecture by the Rev. James Lawson in Dallas a week from tonight.

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