Dallas News Blog

Or, at least, be treated like one. OK, would you settle for just getting hold of the really cool free shit celebs get? For last weekend's Reebok Heroes Celebrity baseball game in Frisco, famed Klein Creative out of New York created one of its trademark swag bags for each of the players. Inside the gift bags is $2,700 worth of stuff you need (like watches and headphones) and stuff you'd never buy yourself (like bullfighting lessons). Here's the really cool part: You can get one of those bags, autographed by all the athletes (such as Mike Modano, Marquis Daniels and Dallas Cowboys safety Roy Williams) and celebs (including Clerks II's Rosario Dawson and Mavs owner Mark Cuban) who played in the game. The bag is available through July 20 via online auction. Something tells my hearty leading current bid of $110 ain't gonna stand up. --Richie Whitt

Concerning my post this a.m. about the fab opening of the W Hotel last night, Lorlee Bartos sends this missive, which is supposed to make all of us hobbing and nobbing last night feel guilty. Me, I just feel a little tired and queasy. (Note to self: Tequila, white wine and Jack Daniel's should never be mixed in one's stomach in the span of three hours.) The subject line of her e-mail reads: "I am with Schutze." I am too, most of the time.

"I am glad you all had a good time at our expense. I am not saying that what is there is bad, [but] consider the amount of money we spent and the lost opportunities. Just think what $150M could have bought that might have been much more beneficial for more people."

I know, I know. It's a bad deal. But have you tried the soft-shell crab at Craft? That's worth, like, $2.4 mil right there. --Robert Wilonsky

Says here that attorney Fred Baron, co-founder of local law firm Baron & Budd, has been included on a list of the nation's 100 most influential attorneys as selected by The National Law Journal. The complete list is available here, but suffice it to say Baron's the only local attorney to make the list, and jut one of four from Texas. Here's what the country's top legal newspaper has to say about the tort master general:

"Founder of the firm, Baron has built it into one of the largest toxic tort firms in the country; lead attorney in cases involving water contaminated by the gasoline additive MTBE, lead contamination, toxic waste and pesticide exposure; has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court twice to decertify class action settlements involving future claims of asbestos-related injuries; represented 1,600 Tucson, Ariz., residents who claimed exposure to water contaminated by trychloroethylene; past president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America; founder and past president of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice."

And if yer interested, this is what the paper version of Unfair Park has had to say about Baron & Budd in the past:

"To hear lawyers at the Dallas law firm of Baron & Budd tell it, they are frontline warriors in a battle against callous corporations whose product, asbestos, claimed the lives and health of thousands of working men.

But the first casualty of war is truth, and at Baron & Budd, one of the city's most successful law firms, the truth, if not killed outright, is sometimes missing in action."

You might wanna check this out too. And this. And this. And this. Just sayin'. --Robert Wilonsky

A year ago tomorrow Charmane Jackson bid her son Chandler farewell as he left their Frisco home early for the family's annual July 4th reunion in Kentucky. Tomorrow night, during the Frisco RoughRiders-San Antonio Missions baseball game, Charmane won't see Chandler, but she will see a vision of his legacy. It was on July 6, 2005, that 12-year-old Chandler died in a freak golf-club accident during a family tournament. After 12 months of struggling with her emotions and grasping for hope, Charmane established a foundation in her son's name, and Saturday night will mark the foundation's official coming-out party, as the RoughRiders host Chandler Jackson Night at the Dr Pepper Ballpark.

Because her son so loved baseball, Charmane was determined to host an event on the diamond. She'll throw out the first pitch, watch Chandler remembered via video tributes on the scoreboard, see his former teammates and coaches get recognized on the field and probably tear up as proceeds from the game benefit her fledgling foundation. Full disclosure: In the past year I worked with Charmane providing media contacts and editorial content for the foundation's web site. The Jacksons are great people and good parents trying to make the best out of a very bad experience. --Richie Whitt

Former mayor Ron Kirk wouldn't engage in a little nyah-nyah-toldya-so last night at the everybody's-a-VIP opening of the W Hotel in Victory Park; said the last thing he wanted to talk about was Mayor Laura Miller and other naysayers who'd insist even at this late date that the W and its attendent surroundings were bad business for our good city. "It's not about the negative," he said, standing poolside on the 16th floor as the lovely and lubricated ogled the half-naked models taking showers and floating in the chlorinated agua overlooking scenic Stemmons. He then took a sip of whatever he was drinking, which didn't look as strong as what I was drinking, and patted me on the shoulder and said, "You guys are gonna have to get over it and just enjoy this." To which I said, "Do I look like I'm having a shitty time?" Note to self: Try to use fewer curse words around former mayors and, Christ, their wives.

I'm all ready to let the man take his victory lap around Victory Park; damned if we'll stand in his way, mostly because we could barely stand when all was said and done and the valet finally brought round the family truckster. (Those who bitched about waiting for their cars last night, and well in to the early morning, really should have thankful for freebie gallons of bottled Voss water, which just might have been the thing that spared many of us the hangovers we so richly deserved this morning.) As the missus said last night, Ron Kirk deserves his shit-eating grin. I believe she said this right before telling me to get her another vodka and soda, pronto, Chachi. Gotcha and gotcha; free booze and gratis foie gras will make anyone forgive a lack of introspection from 16 stories up.

Everybody with a notepad and a blog attended this mother of all shindigs last night; it's barely sun-up and no doubt 34 people have already posted their items about the fabulosity surrounding the soiree attended by the likes of Cuba Gooding Jr. (licked a friend of mine, said said friend), Kevin "Hercules" Sorbo, Ross Perot Jr. (greeting everyone at the front door, along with W Hotels president Ross Klein, like they were working the toniest Wal-Mart in the county) and...uh...well...uh...Rolando Blackman and Don Nelson and the Malouf brothers, owners of the Sac Kings. (I gotta be honest: I began writing this thing at 12:14 a.m., and I was stunned to sit down at the eMachine to find that The Dallas Morning News and FrontBurner weren't live-blogging the event, since every person employed by Dallas' Only Daily and D seemed to be at the party.) What's left to say, really, except that it was the kind of party everyone in Dallas dreams of attending when they visit Hollywood; as an old party pal said from the rooftop, "Welcome to El Lay, bitch."

This morning's Baltimore Sun contains the first interview with former Texas Rangers first baseman Rafael Palmeiro since Congress cleared him of lying under oath. The paper's reporting that a year after failing a test for steroids and denying he ever used performance-enhancing drugs, the guy now "spends his mornings working out, his days playing baseball with his two sons at his suburban Dallas home and his nights watching on TV as his former teammates throughout the majors play the game he still loves." Dan Connolly writes a pretty straightforward piece here: You're left to draw your own conclusion about whether Raffy shot up with the good stuff, or merely got some B-12 laced with stanozol from Baltimore teammate Miguel Tejada. But it's nonetheless a sad portrait of a guy who was on his way to at least Hall of Fame consideration before he became a punch line and punching bag for even putting himself in this position. Your heart kinda, sorta, maybe, not-really breaks for Raffy when he tells Connolly:

"The tragedy of all of this is that it happened to me and it shouldn't have happened. It ruined my life and my career. That's the tragedy of this. Three thousand, it's just a number. It's just a game. The other deals with my life and my livelihood and my family and all that I stand for. All of that is gone."

And some folks still wonder whose fault that really is. In other depressing you-gotta-be-kiddin'-me news related to former Texas Rangers and steroids, the San Diego Union-Tribune's reported yesterday that Jose Canseco has signed with the San Diego Surf Dawgs baseball team of the independent Class A Golden Baseball League. That's like Hunter Thompson working for the Greensheet. --Robert Wilonsky

As promised in this week's And Another Thing, here's the Astronautalis freestyle recorded over the phone on Tuesday morning. After you have a laugh at the fact that I actually beatboxed on this recording, consider how hard it has to be to come up with a freestyle rap off the top of your head, let alone doing so while walking in the middle of a public street on the way home from a post office. If this MP3 doesn't convince you to see one of his three local gigs this weekend (with a live band, no less), well, nothing will. —Sam Machkovech

Today, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said he's shut down a housing scam that his office claims defrauded folks "out of tens of thousands of dollars" locally. This permanent injunction stems from an April 2005 lawsuit filed under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA), which claimed that Dallas-based FCI Equities, Inc. and others "participated in a scheme that involved the sale of homes without valid property titles." The AG says FCI and other people associated with the "company" told would-be home-owners, most of whom were Hispanic, that they could buy a house in Dallas (usually in Oak Cliff) for between $20,000 and $40,000, and that most of the victims were preyed upon at a Mexican food restaurant owned by one of the men involved in carrying out the scheme, which entailed hastily written notes of ownership and cash up front. According to the AG's press release:

"The court imposed fines of $103,000 toward consumer restitution against the operation and its associates, to be paid by the operation's lead proprietor, Jose Demetrio Murrugarra of Dallas. Jose Menjarez, a Dallas man who posed as an attorney to offer legal services to victims of the housing scam, was charged with $10,900 in civil penalties and restitution for consumers for his part in the deceptive scheme.

'It is a disgrace that these scam artists preyed on consumers' dreams of putting down roots in Texas by exploiting their lack of knowledge about the home-buying process,' Attorney General Abbott said. 'Housing scams like this are a flagrant violation of the law, and I am determined to shut them down.'"

Should you want to see some of the properties involved in the scheme or read the lawsuit and the final order against FCI, go here. The AG's office is nothing if not thorough. --Robert Wilonsky

Katie Couric's coming to town July 11 as part of a six-city exploratory mission, and yer welcome to come meet the former Today show co-host who, on September 5, takes over as anchor of the CBS Evening News. Lori Conrad, director of communications at KTVT-Channel 11, just shot us the note that Couric's got a full day planned, including two fundraisers for the American Cancer Society (breakfast in Fort Worth, lunch in Dallas) that are open to the public, but she will spend the afternoon at an informal town meeting with folks from the community, which, last time I looked, included you. Now, it's less a meeting, really, than a sit-down to find out what kind of pieces Regular Folk wanna see on TV; please, by all means, feel free to tell her you want...whatcallit...hard news. That, or more cooking segments. One or the other's bound to make a dent. But Conrad just told Unfair Park this thing's for Couric's ears only: KTVT isn't even allowed to film it, and no media's allowed inside the meet-and-greet, though some of us will be attending the breakfast or lunch (where, alas, no one-on-one interviews will be allowed, either, suggesting the journalist doesn't like other journalists being, uh, journalists, but whatev). If you want to attend the research-and-development git-together with Katie, all you have to do is go to Channel 11's Web site and fill out the questionnaire, which, oddly, contains the question, "Where in the world is Matt Lauer?" --Robert Wilonsky

You know those old eight-panel leather basketballs you grew up with? Gone. The old, American-dominated game you used to love? Gone too. First the NBA announced it was making a radical change to the sport's ball. Then last night the Toronto Raptors announced they were selecting some Italian named Andrea with the first pick in the 2006 draft. Somewhere, George Mikan weeps.

Your Dallas Mavericks restored some order late in the night by taking Michigan State guard Maurice Ager. He's athletic, has four years' college experience and can slash to the hoop. Give credit to ESPN-FM's (103.3) Chuck Cooperstein, who called the pick at around 5:30 p.m., or four hours early. Also give credit to the Mavs, who took a player that could possibly, conceivably, someday have the athleticism to actually guard Miami's Dwyane Wade without getting called for multiple phantom fouls. For a team with a late pick and a need for so little help, Dallas did better than expected in landing Ager. --Richie Whitt

Tonight, the W Hotel in Victory Park official opens with a red-carpet shindig; should be many celebs there, though I don't know if Mayor Laura will be attending, and, sadly, I think Jim Schutze will be unable to make it. There is one person I know will be around: chef Tom Colicchio, whose Craft is the sole restaurant for the W, which means when you order room service or have your meeting or wedding or whatever catered in the hotel, you're being served from the menu of the man considered a Top Chef. Aside from having TV-show celebrity status, the man does possess several James Beard Foundation awards for, among other things, being the best new chef some years back, writing the best cookbook and having the best restaurant; the TV gig's just a little extra sumpin-sumpin, like the roasted wild mushrooms and sweet corn I ordered with the soft-shelled crab at Craft last week, just before dying and going to heaven.

In the paper version of Unfair Park this week there's a short piece about how Colicchio wound up bringing Craft to Dallas, only the second time he's opened a joint outside of New York (there's also Craftsteak in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand). In short, some guys in Dallas had the money to bring him here, and Colicchio knows good bread when he smells it. But during the course of our hour-long conversation last week, on Craft's unofficial opening day when already the dinner reservations were full and people were casually and curiously meandering in for the first serving of lumch, Colicchio dished about a few other things, like what to expect from Dallas diners, how he put together the crew at Craft (which includes Kevin Maxey, former chef at Colicchio's other renown restraurant Gramercy Tavern) and what to expect next season on Top Chef (in short, no more Mrs. Billy Joel). There's much, much more with Colicchio after the jump.

The retrial of Andrea Yates is underway down in Houston, riveting both the public and defense attorneys who have followed the case for five years. Accused of drowning her five children on June 20, 2001, Yates is pleading insanity, as she did in her first trial. She was convicted, but last year an appeals court last year tossed her capital murder conviction on the basis of erroneous testimony by a state witness. The prosecutors contend now, as they did during her 2002 trial, that Yates was mentally ill but not insane when she killed her kids.

But in the last few years, three mothers in North Texas have done the same thing: Lisa Diaz, Deanna Laney and Dena Schlosser. Diaz drowned two children; Yates drowned five. Yates waited to act when no one was home, as did the three other mothers. Yates called 911; Schlosser told her husband on the phone that she'd killed the baby. All three women were acquitted by reason of insanity. So what's the difference between Yates' actions and the three other lethal mothers?

"The Texas insanity defense is so difficult," says Dallas attorney Robert Udashen, who successfully defended Diaz. "You need experts to come in and testify about their mental health. You also have to show they didn't know what they were doing was wrong. The prosecutors contended that [Lisa] knew it was wrong, and I think that is what the state is doing down in Houston. My position was Lisa Diaz killed her children to save them from this horrible life, because that was the right thing to do."

The Diaz and Laney juries had something the panel in the Yates's case doesn't have: forensic examinations by psychiatrists done not long after their arrests, and their psychosis came through loud and clear during those sessions. "It made a big difference in Lisa's case," Udashen says. "They could look and listen to her deal with questions. You can have someone recreate their state of mind, but it's never as good as seeing for yourself."

The U.S. Supreme Court decision on Texas redistricting is out, and by almost any measure it's a Republican victory. A 5-4 decision isn't exactly crushing, but the effects certainly are: DeLay's 2003 map, known as Plan 1374C, is left almost intact, as is his new tactic of redistricting whenever power changes hands in a state. In District 23, the Court did side with the plaintiffs challenging DeLay, but the resulting shuffle will likely allow Democrats to regain just one of the six seats they lost in 2004.

Texas GOP Chairman Tina Benkiser released a statement that said, in part, "Like bad-tempered children, Democrats can continue stamping their feet, yelling and screaming, running and hiding, or abusing the legal system, but Republicans will continue leading this state." Not exactly magnanimous in victory. While I had trouble raising live Republicans, I did manage to talk to Martin Frost, the Dallas Democrat ousted in 2004 by the plan, and his former aide Matt Angle, who had led the fight against 1374C as head of the Lone Star Project. Angle didn't try to hide his disgust this morning. "We're disappointed that the court gave the green light to every tin-horn Tom DeLay wanna-be with a weak-kneed governor and a complicit president to force through redistricting for political purposes, and it's disappointing that the Court failed to protect the rights of African-Americans," Angle said from DC.

Right now, and until 7 tonight, two guys are sitting at Zeus Comics on Oak Lawn Avenue waiting to meet you. While that may sound unappetizing--yeah, that's just what you wanna do, drive to a store that sells comic books and action figures and hang out with dudes who are there all freaking day--trust me, it will be well worth your time to head on over during a late lunch or after work. That way, you can shake the hands of writer David Hopkins and artist Brock Rizy and buy their stellar new graphic novel Emily Edison, which is being published today by locally based Viper Comics. And if you do go today, you can buy the book for half off its $12.95 cover price, as the nice folks at Zeus are covering the other half for the boys' first meet-and-greet of many to come, including a stop July 15 at Unfair Park's fave comics-only retailer Titan Comics and a week later at the mammoth Comic-Con International in San Diego.

Hopkins, an English and creative writing teacher at Arlington Martin High School, and Rizy, an Arlington-based illustrator with an estimable portfolio, have been working on Emily Edison for about two years--which Hopkins knows off the top of his head only because he started working on it when his daughter was a newborn. In fact, he sort of wrote it for her: Emily Edison tells the story of a young girl whose old man's an appliance repairman and whose mother is a superpowered being from another dimension. The couple met after Emily's dad created a rift between earth and this other dimension using a, uh, vacuum cleaner; turns out, being from separate dimensions isn't good for a marriage, and after their divorce Emily spends every other weekend in the alternaverse with her mom. But that isn't good enough for her grandfather, who wants Emily away from her average-Joe dad and living permanently in the other dimension; it's his evil scheming, involving robots and squishy monsters and other dastardly doings, that drives the story. Also a major character is Emily's half-sister Koo, who's less evil than she is merely misunderstood.

Re-reading the above synopsis proves only one thing: There is no good way of recapping the plot of a comic book without sounding like a total dork. But trust me: The story's first-rate, and the art's equally impressive. (Some of Rizy's work for Emily Edison hung for a while in the bar at the Magnolia Theater; on more than one occasion I overheard patrons inquire about purchasing the pieces, which is the nicest compliment anyone could ever offer.) Fact is, despite the copious action sequences at which Rizy excels--his work is reminiscent of that of Jack Kirby, Mike Mignola and, especially, Kyle Baker, with some anime and Kim Possible thrown in--the story holds its own, refusing to obscure its broken-family subtext behind standard superhero derring-do.

I, like Matt Weitz over at The Dallas Morning News, attended the Kathy Griffin show at the Meyerson Symphony Center Monday night. Griffin is known for offering up gay-friendly humor and even dished that while entertaining troops in Iraq, she found one soldier with whom she communicated in "fluent gay." Weitz, however, is not so fluent. In his overnight review yesterday, he quoted the Queen of the D-Listers as gossiping that Clay Aiken is "an impressive top." Oh, Matt, perhaps you've already received letters. Maybe some of them even had diagrams. Point is, you misheard. The term is "aggressive top." But hey, as a straight gal, it's not the first time I've seen a man confuse "aggressive" with "impressive." --Merritt Martin

Because people love baby photos (and we love making people happy), we'd like to congratulate Dallas Observer Music Awards Musician of the Year Chris Holt and his wife Aubrey on bringing Christopher Peyton Holt into the world yesterday afternoon. Since the Holts are busy with a new screaming presence in their life, we'll hold off on a lengthy interview and go with the Holt quote in his bulletin: "I suspect he'll become a mighty drummer before his thirst for melody leads him to both the piano and the guitar. Or not. Maybe he'll be a hairdresser. Or perhaps a basketball star. Yeah, that's the ticket." Dude, if Peyton's eligible for tonight's NBA draft, well...talk about cutting it close. --Sam Machkovech

For the first time since becoming owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban won't be sweating out the NBA draft, which takes place in a few hours. Why not? Well, because his Mavs, fresh off their first appearance in the NBA Finals, don't need any help, and because he's making a bid to become a hockey owner. While the latter would be priceless if Cuban starts lacing up skates and performing double salchows during on-ice tirades against NHL refs, tonight's draft will be refreshingly indifferent. The Mavs have no pressing needs. With their pick--No. 28 overall--they are hoping for a player who can make an impact years from now, not next year.

I know, Josh Howard was picked 29th, and San Antonio's Tony Parker went 28th, but the beauty is that this Dallas team isn't counting on contribution. Most likely, the player will bounce from the NBA's Developmental League to the end of Dallas' bench next season. It's a far cry from when draft day dictated the franchise's interest, ticket sales and hope. All this doesn't mean, however, that the draft won't be interesting. Considered weak by most experts, a local-boy-does-good story could arise if Seagoville native and University of Texas center LaMarcus Aldridge is the No. 1 overall pick by the Toronto Raptors. Though Seagoville is about 20 miles from Dallas, apparently we're ready to boast him as a "Dallas product" taken first, following Larry Johnson (Skyline) in '91 and Kenyon Martin (Bryan Adams) in '00. Aldridge, too passive and unpolished to be a big-time scorer in the NBA immediately, does live in Uptown. And if he lands the top prize, he would be guaranteed $17 million over the next five years. So, yeah, I guess we'll claim him. --Richie Whitt

With an ongoing federal investigation into the health care practices at the Dallas County Jail, numerous litigious inmates are, it seems, jumping on the bandwagon, alleging to be the victims of medical neglect. These are largely pro se federal lawsuits, with their scribbled allegations calling to mind some sort of diary entry. Still, it's hard to discount many of these claims that have been broadly corroborated by judges, outside attorneys and doctors.

Robert Darden, whose lawsuit was recently dismissed on procedural grounds, alleges that the medical staff often failed to change his colostomy bag for a week or longer, which is the same complaint Jerry Mooney and his family had during his incarceration. Francis Tejanie Kundra claimed that the jail is a breeding ground for tuberculosis. That should sound familiar to the jail's former medical director, Dr. Stephen Bowers, who said the same thing under deposition in a separate lawsuit against the jail, noting that for a variety of reasons the staff does not do enough to identify and isolate those with the disease. Kundra, meanwhile, said he contracted TB after he was placed in an cell with someone who was infected.

Another inmate, Alvin Strong, claimed he contracted both TB and staph infection while he was a ward of the county and detailed an incident during which an inmate with some sort of ailment bled profusely in a tank and no one cleaned it up. Lastly, inmate Hector Cueras Garcia has filed a suit arguing that it took weeks for the medical staff to treat a bleeding wound on his leg, which is almost the same song and verse of Jeffrey Ellard, the inmate a state judge released on a personal recognizance bond so that he could belatedly receive care for a festering gash on his upper thigh. There are dozens more of these suits sitting in the federal courthouse downtown; start your collection now. --Matt Pulle

A concerned Friend of Unfair Park called early this morning with the news that City Plan Commission chair Betty Culbreath is in "grave condition" at a local hospital, following emergency surgery last night. Apparently, Culbreath had a routine procedure done earlier in the week that went awry, forcing the surgery for the mayor's appointee to the commission. --Robert Wilonsky

UPDATE: The Dallas Morning News confirms what we heard this morning: that Culbreath suffered a tear of the colon during a routine colonoscopy earlier this week, and that she's in intensive care at Baylor University Medical Center.

If it's the last day of school before summer break, the kids must be cleaning out the lockers and throwing their papers in the air. Today at 2:30 p.m. at City Hall, those nutty Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) folks are going to step up to the podium during the final city council meeting before summer recess and present councilman Leo Chaney a sarcastic award for, among other things, refusing to meet with the group to accept its study into chronicling 90 years' worth of segregation and racism in the South Dallas-Fair Park area. Now, to be fair to Chaney, I've read the study, and it's a four-page, single-spaced report and about 229 pages of notes (dozens of old city studies and plans, photocopied charts and faded maps, ancient clips from newspapers and so forth); the kids really did throw their papers in the air after all. While it makes the compelling case that Dallas has used city ordinances and procedures and zoning policies to "deny the Fair Park neighborhood the municipal services necessary for a good neighborhood," all you need to do is drive through the place to see that; the city's betrayed Fair Park and South Dallas for decades, absolutely, a fact documented in such places as my pal Jim Schutze's The Accommodation: The Politics of Race in an American City and Michael Phillips' recently UT Press-published White Metropolis. Chaney ought to know it as well as anyone: He grew up in South Dallas and still lives on South Boulevard. Then again, ACORN organizers say Pauline Medrano and Elba Garcia did meet with them to accept the study, which also comes on a CD-R with some 50 photos documenting the neglect and squalor of the crumbling Fair Park neighborhood--pictures ACORN wants Chaney to answer for as the council member for the area.

Because as mad as ACORN is about Chaney's failure to meet with them to take the document on a disc, they also claim he's been unresponsive to the needs of the neighborhood, which is a familiar cry among those who live and work in District Seven and witness every day the desiccated houses plastered with red and green city violations, the burned-down businesses stripped of copper by junkies on the prowl, the vacant lots covered with old tires and other junkyard detritus, the prostitutes wandering the streets during daylight hours, the by-the-hour hot-sheet motels located next to liquor stores that were supposed to have been shut down long ago. (All of this is within feet, literally, of my father's auto parts store on Second Avenue, where it's been more than 50 years.) Ask only Michael Davis, the damn-it-I'll-do-it blogger who recently helped close with Dwaine Caraway and others the American Inn motel on Scyene Road--infamous for its junkies, prostitutes and violence--without Chaney's assistance, though he would later try to take credit for its shuttering. As Davis wrote on his blog Dallas Progress on June 15:

"That's not surprising because [Chaney]'s has done NOTHING about many things in District 7. Most readers may not know there is one corner along MLK (west of I-45) that has 6 liquor stores. There are more liquor stores than corners at that intersection. (4 corners...6 liquor stores) A guy like Chaney is the reason South Dallas looks the way it does right now. MLK Boulevard? Second Avenue? Malcolm X Boulevard? What could he have possibly done? Chaney better not EVER try to run for ANYTHING else. If he does, I have a slogan for him. Ineffective...Incompetent...and Invisible... The I's have it."

Because I swear we will cover every aspect of the Dallas movie, from pre-production to its first screening on an airplane, here's today's utterly inessential tidbit: Seems Jessica Simpson, who actually grew up in the area, has been Jock-blocked from the role of Lucy Ewing, which is now going to Katie Cassidy, who was on 7th Heaven but is probably better known as the daughter of Keith Partridge hisself, David Cassidy. Katie's also in the new Adam Sandler movie Click. Hard to believe, but that's all I gotta say about this. --Robert Wilonsky

News this week--well, last week, really--that The Dallas Morning News is offering buyouts to some 40 (or 60 or more) of its folks before firing 'em outright has rekindled memories of the October 2004 massacre that left 250 Belo Corp. employees jobless. And it's raised the specter of the circulation scandal that has haunted Belo since August 5, 2004, when the company admitted it had been juicing circulation figures in order to keep ad rates high (Belo bosses fessed up to the fact it overstated daily delivery numbers by 1.5 percent and Sunday stats by 5 percent). But most likely, unless you work for the News, you've forgotten all about the federal class-action lawsuit brought against Belo by lead plaintiff Operating Engineers Construction Industry and Miscellaneous Pension Fund on behalf of Belo stockholders who purchased the stock between May 12, 2003, and August 6, 2004. The suit names as its six defendants Belo chairman and CEO Robert Decherd, News publisher and CEO Jim Moroney III and Jack Sander, Belo's president of media operations, among others. Also named is Barry Peckham, who was the executive vice president in charge of circulation till he resigned on August 5, 2004--when Decherd was breaking the bad news and announcing the company's own internal investigation.

Turns out you probably can forget about the suit, which claims that not only did Belo execs know about the circulation fraud but encouraged it, even demanded it. Despite the company's own admission it bent and broke the rules, on March 30 U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater tossed out the case, claiming "at most Decherd and Moroney engaged in acceptable management techniques intended to increase DMN circulation and corporate revenues by emphasizing personal employee responsibility and increasing employee awareness of the adverse consequences of failure." In other words, they were just doing their jobs by demanding their people hit their numbers or else.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs, who are in Los Angeles and Dallas, will not take no for an answer: On May 12, they filed an amended complaint in federal court here that, they claim, stregthens their case against Belo. If nothing else, at 142 pages, it lengthens it. Tomorrow we'll have a review of the document, which is this summer's must-read for the CJR set, but today Belo filed for an extension, claiming it can't respond in the required 45 days because Peckham's attorney is seriously ill and "will likely undergo follow-up hospitalization." Expect a response by July 13, when Belo will likely file yet another motion to dismiss, and then expect the plaintiffs' motion to oppose Belo's opposition by Labor Day. So the suit's still there. And maybe it's about to get more interesting; did someone mention "secret tape recordings"? Not me. --Robert Wilonsky

The other day I was browsing the import section at Tower Records and stumbled across something that had a decidedly homegrown flavor: the new LeAnn Rimes album, Whatever We Wanna. It was a little odd to see the former sweetheart of the rodeo from Garland amidst the Q- and Mojo-approved Brit-poppers who make up most of the section, but not wholly unusual to see a U.S. artist slumming it among the U.K. bunch; after all, Macy Gray's 2003 release The Trouble With Being Myself came out overseas before it was released here. Happens all the time--though usually to headliners on their way to becoming footnotes. Deep Blue Something's Byzantium, the 1998 follow to the hit-spawning Home, was a U.K.-only release till it got picked up by a tiny Phoenix-based indie. I hate that I know these things off the top of my pointy head.

Well, turns out Rimes' latest will never be coming out in the United States, at least officially. (It is for sale at Tower and elsewhere for about 22 to 25 bucks, which is no bargain.) Liz Cavanaugh of Curb Records says she doesn't even have any copies of the disc in her office; far as the Nashville-based label's concerned, Whatever We Wanna doesn't even exist in Rimes' home country. "I couldn't send one to [press] even if they wanted it," the publicist says. Not that country-music critics are likely to beg for one: The CD's slathered in a thick sheen of Euroyuck; seems The Next Patsy Cline's figured out she's happier being The Second Coming of Cher. (Still, there's nothing here approaching the awesome awfulness of her "Purple Rain" cover from 1998's Sittin' on Top of the World.) Says Cavanaugh: "In Europe, you can do other kinds of music, and over there she isn't a country artist. She's a pop artist. For her to do a country album in England, it wouldn't make a dent. For her do a pop album, that's a big deal." Or at least it was: According to the BBC Radio 1's Web site, Whatever We Wanna was in the Top 20 for the week of June 11, when it was released, but two weeks later it's already out of the Top 40. --Robert Wilonsky

Bonus MP3:

LeAnn Rimes--"And It Feels Like" (from the U.K.-only release Whatever We Wanna)

Afraid that voting for Dallas' own Sam in the Meow Mix House over and over again on company time might start to raise some red flags over in IT? Well, there's another local whippersnapper who desperately needs your online votes: Dustin Wilen from Frisco. The 6-year-old is up for an inaugural spot in the first-ever Energizer Keep Going Hall of Fame for his dedication to karate. The kid went from zero to black belt in two years, and he did 20 hours of community service, wrote a book report and a research paper and ran a 9:45 mile in addition to all that, you know, martial arts stuff.

Every time you vote, a buck gets donated to the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation. If he wins (and he already made it past 1,200 other nominees) Dustin will get $10,000 cash and $5,000 to put toward his favorite charity. The Energizer organization honors people who are into stuff like perseverance, determination and having a "never-quit attitude." Yeah, we don't get it either. Drinks at the Grapevine at 4, ya'll? --Andrea Grimes

A Friend of Unfair Park's with a coffee buzz sends the following item about the bad blood brewing between South Side of Lamar coffee house-performance space Standard & Pours, winner of a Dallas Observer best-of last year, and the self-proclaimed "world's preeminent providers of credit ratings" Standard & Poor's. Apparently, the battle over the names has been going on for two years but has picked up steam in recent weeks, with S&P threatening to sue the local coffee shop owned by Pascale Hall, formerly of Legal Grounds, if she doesn't change the name. I do wonder what this does to my plans to open my new daytime restaurant Merrill Lunch next door to my X-rated video store American Sexpress. Really, got a million of 'em. The story follows after the jump. --Robert Wilonsky

Seven months after Assistant City Manager Ryan Evans suggested substantive changes were on the way for the beleaguered 19-year-old South Dallas/Fair Park Trust Fund, the city council is at last getting around to making them official. Tomorrow, before the council members begin their summer recess, they will vote to authorize changes in how the fund does its business. On May 9, the city staff proposed that the trust fund should changes its name to the South Dallas/Fair Park Neighborhood Development Fund. The reason, says this proposal on the city's Web site, is to "eliminate negative perceptions" about the fund that's doled out some $350,000 in small business loans since 1997 and has little to show for it except shuttered businesses and lawsuits piling up in the City Attorney's Office. The council's Economic Development and Housing Committee committee believes the fund needs to be redefined "as a community, social and economic development engine," which was its purpose all along, new name or no. Or perhaps the myriad trust fund loans that went into default meant the city could no longer use the word "trust" in good conscience.

The council committee, which is chaired by Bill Blaydes and vice-chaired by James Fantroy, also suggests changing the make-up of the trust fund's board. It wants eight of its members to have "direct connection to South Dallas community," which means they have to live, own a business, work or have some community involvement to qualify. The remaining seven positions will be at-large, and the board members there must "have qualification related to business, housing, non-profit management [and] community building." Also, at least two of the 15 board members "must have loan and grant underwriting experience." As far as Leo Barron Hicks, the trust fund's administrator, is concerned, these two recommendations are the most important; they will, he insists, remove the "taint of the old name" and give people in the neighborhood more control over the checkbook that's supposed to pay for improvements around Fair Park.

Tomorrow, the city council will likely vote to give the Stoneleigh Hotel $2.5 million so its owners can rennovate, remediate and otherwise redo the 83-year-old Maple Avenue hotel. That money will come from the Downtown Connection TIF fund, which includes downtown and Uptown. The TIF board voted only last Thursday to approve the expenditure; normally, that means the Stoneleigh wouldn't have been on the council's agenda for several weeks, likely until after its summer recess that begins this week. But the fact is, there ain't no rush on the vote: While the Stoneleigh would benefit greatly from "historic facade renovation, environmental remediation, interior and exterior demolition" and other improvements allowed by council and through the TIF fund, the hotel's owners aren't going to get a penny from it for at least 10 to 15 years.

"They're just getting in line," says Preservation Dallas' executive director Dwayne Jones. "You have to remember there is no money in the TIF because of the Mercantile project." Indeed, last year the council approved a $70 million tax incentive deal with Cleveland-based developer Forest City for the Mercantile, all but eradicating other tax incentives for developers--and redevelopers--for years to come. In order to fund the Mercantile project, the city is selling bonds, and the council was warned specifically that it could not encumber the TIF's future income with other promises without undermining the bonds--which means at best the Stoneleigh agenda item is an empty promise, and at worst it's a dicey issue for the bond market. And, keep in mind, this is the same TIF from which the owner of and investors in Urban Market want their $4.1 million in tax incentives, or else they'll close shop.

"There's $2.5 million set aside for the Uptown area, and they wanted to get all of it," Jones says. "The problem with it is they're going to get in line, and there are tens of others who can't get it because they're downtown. And even then the Stoneleigh will have to wait for a long time. Whatever happens tomorrow [at council] won't really mean anything till there's money in the TIF."

In fact, this very issue tops Preservation Dallas' list of Dallas' Most Endangered Historic Places. PD cares so much because the expansion of the downtown TIF in 2005 into Uptown and other parts of the Central Business District essentially gutted the city's 13-year-old Historic Preservation Incentive Program, which is set to expire December 31, 2007. Jones says the fund's lack of funds will halt the rehabbing of older, smaller projects in as much need as the mammoth Merc. He has ideas--such as altering the boundaries of the downtown TIF--but "they all take a long time, would be challenging and difficult and require political will." Till then, the Stoneleigh will probably get its money tomorrow, then have to wait till 2016 at the very earliest to cash the check. --Robert Wilonsky

If you don't have to wake up early tomorrow, then you have no excuse to skip the Band of Horses concert at Hailey's tonight. Noah W. Bailey lauded the Seattle band in his recent interview with lead singer Ben Bridwell, though we were unable to make room for stories about his love for his PSP and a blatant overuse of the word "fuck." Can't win 'em all. -Sam Machkovech

Almost seven years ago, former Dallas Observer writer Miriam Rozen chronicled how Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport was polluting Trigg Lake, the lake at the airport's southeast corner that was full of dead fish. D/FW officials blamed it on a busted sewage line; environmental groups and ultimately the government didn't think so, and the Environmental Protection Agency threatened to investigate the airport for polluting nearby watersheds, including the Trinity River. According to Miriam's story, the airport had inadequate draining systems to handle everything from the jet fuel to de-icing fluids running off the runways, and "within an hour of a storm at D/FW, industrial waste could easily be on its way to lakes and streams," she wrote. That was in September 1999. Eight months earlier, Susan Heath, a former environmental affairs analyst at D/FW, which is owned and operated by Dallas and Fort Worth, filed a federal suit against the airport alleging the same thing and worse: Heath claimed not only did D/FW officials knowingly taint the water supply and do nothing about it, but they also covered up the dumping in order to secure more than $200 million in Federal Aviation Agency grants. Airport officials have always denied the allegations.

That suit's been sitting at the federal courthouse downtown ever since, and only now is its resolution sort of in sight: On July 5 in U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn's courtroom, a jury will begin hearing Susan Heath v. Dallas/Fort Worth International, in which Heath alleges that DFW covered up information that the airport's industrial waste water and storm water system "grossly violated the Clean Water Act and Texas Water Code" as far back as 1992, when the airport began an expansion involving two new runways, two terminals, more than 400 acres of parking and other necessary additions. In its October 2005 motion for summary judgment, which the judge tossed out (for the most part) about two weeks ago, airport officials claimed the whistleblower's full of hot air:

"This is not a case about whether DFW expended these grant funds for the exact purposes that the FAA provided them to the Airport...This is not an environmental case. [Heath] cannot determine whether DFW should be fined because of environmental allegations...This is not a case about environmental issues unique to DFW. Every airport in the country faces the same problems with industrial waste water and deicing fluids...What this case is about is a [plaintiff] who believes that she knows, better than anyone else, what the FAA should do, what the environmental laws should say, and how DFW should act."

Edward Mendoza is out as executive chef of Kitchen 1924, Lakewood's ode to the generic kitchen. "Edward and I, for the last month or so, the relationship started to sour a little bit, and I was being told 'no' a whole bunch," says Kitchen 1924 founder Shawn Horne. "He wanted to do froufrou stuff. So we went ahead and parted ways." In the Mendoza wake, Horne hired former Aurora chef Brian La Grange to assume the 1924 executive chef post. In the meantime, Mendoza has joined forces with his former Lola kitchen colleague Scott Gottlich to open Bijoux, a French restaurant that will burrow into the former Cheeburger Cheeburger space on West Lovers Lane near Inwood Road. Well, it's not officially French, but it will pluck planetary influences and pester them with French technique, which technically makes it a global fusion mongrel with a lot of kitchen cussing and humiliation. But, hark, there will be sweetbreads. --Mark Stuertz