The People's Response

Some, if not all, of these individual will attend the April 25 rally against the Bush Center.

The George W. Bush Presidential Center, construction of which has clogged up the eastern part of the SMU campus for years now, will be christened at a private ceremony on April 25. The former president will be there, as will wife Laura and an unspecified numbers of alumni from the Bush-Cheney administration.

"With world leaders invited to join President and Mrs. Bush for this historic day," the center's website boasts, "the event is expected to enjoy internationally-televised coverage."

In other words, it's the perfect stage for a protest. That's what a coalition of local human rights-oriented groups are planning to do. They're organizing what they're calling "The People's Response" to speak out against Bush administration policies.

But Bush left office more than four years ago, you might point out. Why not move on, let bygones be bygones? The Bush Center is, after all, a pretty unobjectionable place, what with a presidential library, museum, rose garden and think tank.

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You can bike a city, just not this city.

Last month, Gary Lacara was "100 percent" sure that Bike the City, his 30-mile, Dallas-to-McKinney charity bicycle tour scheduled for a Sunday morning in April, was a go. "I wouldn't attempt this if I wasn't," he told Unfair Park at the time.

And there was no reason to think he couldn't organize a bike event in three months, other than the not insignificant facts that 1) the event would require the closure of all northbound lanes of U.S. 75 that the route runs straight down U.S. 75 and 2) he had permission from neither the Texas Department of Transportation nor any of the cities -- Dallas, Richardson, Plano, Allen, McKinney -- the highway passes through.

Both trifling matters, he assured us, and TxDOT confirmed they'd been in talks with Lacara and were, at least in theory, open to closing the freeway assuming the cities were on board. In other words, there was no reason people should worry about going to the website and cough up $45 to $240 for registration.

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texasfreeway.com

Picture this, but with 10,000 bicycles.

Starting at 7 a.m. on Sunday, April 21, all four lanes of Central Expressway will be shut down for several hours as some 10,000 cyclists pedal their way from downtown Dallas to McKinney. That's at least what a group called Bike the City is promising.

It's an undeniably badass plan, reappropriating one of the region's major highways as one humungous bike lane. But its website, which is already soliciting registrations at $45 to $240 per person, and organizers' confidence seem a bit premature.

"In short, it's not a done deal at all," TxDOT spokeswoman Michelle Releford said. "What they're advertising on our website is not a done deal."

The agency could hypothetically shut down a portion of a major highway for an event, but a number of high bureaucratic hurdles would have to be surmounted first. To begin with, event organizers would need to obtain permission from each of the cities they intend to pass through, in this case Dallas, Richardson, Plano, Allen and McKinney.

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Photos by Mike Mezeul II

This morning, the First Presbyterian Church hosted a gun buyback, offering cold, hard cash for unwanted firearms which will later be destroyed. The idea, as Rev. Bruce Buchanan told the Morning News, is to "make Dallas homes and families safer, one gun at a time."

As far as gun-control measures go, this is about as unobjectionable as it gets -- but not so unobjectionable as to escape controversy given the current state of debate. So naturally, First Presby's event inspired a small, armed counter-protest across the street organized by Collin Baker, a local concealed handgun license instructor.

The protest, which was more of a counter-buyback, with the pro-gun crowd paying as much as twice as much as the church. Presby collected 30 to 40 gunsFirst Presby says it collected 112 working guns, while Baker's group auctioned off about 20, according to the Morning News.

More photos below.

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Still allowed.

Yesterday's announcement that the Greenville Avenue St. Patrick's Day Parade is now the Dallas St. Patrick's Day Parade seems to have been greeted with a collective, "Call it whatever the hell you want so long as there's booze."

Look a bit more carefully, and the announcement included some ominous signs for the parade's future. At City Hall yesterday, Pegasus News reported that city officials and parade organizers promised the event would be "family friendly" with "less of a focus on drinking." Mayor Mike Rawlings expressed his view that the parade had grown "a little raucous," apparently unaware that raucousness it pretty much the point.

Visions danced of Greenville Avenue populated by the animatronic ethnic folks from the "It's a Small World" ride as onlookers guzzled Solo cups of club soda.

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Last year, Mark Cuban swooped in at the last minute to save the Greenville Avenue St. Patrick's Day Parade, thereby ensuring that the gutters of Lower Greenville would flow with beer and other liquids for a 33rd consecutive year.

The parade had run into trouble as the event -- and costs, mainly from hiring off-duty police officers -- had grown from a modest neighborhood affair into a blowout that draws more than 100,000 people every year.

With Cuban on board, the parade's long-term viability seems secure; his company, AXS-TV, has signed on again as the main sponsor of this year's event, which is scheduled for Saturday, March 16. But the soul-searching prompted by the parade's near-demise has prompted a rebranding effort.

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Megan Feldman

Caraway has been on this crusade for a while.

It was pretty much guaranteed that Dwaine Caraway's "Saggin' Pants Forum," held Saturday in City Hall chambers, was going to be weird. This was, after all, almost a full afternoon devoted to the City Council member and former mayor's ongoing crusade against men who don't belt their pants at the waist. What more is there to say? What other weapons does Caraway have in his anti-sagging arsenal? How many times can he show that Dooney Da Priest music video?

But Caraway managed to pack the house, filling almost every chair with young families, church groups and a fair number of high school students. And some interesting conversations took place between Caraway, his anti-sagging panelists and the audience: How should young black men dress in a world that's often hostile to them? How do parents guarantee that their kids grow up to be productive and self-respecting? What do teens owe to their elders, in terms of the way that they dress, speak and express themselves?

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Honest to God, we have no idea what's going to happen at Glenn Beck's upcoming three-day-long "Restoring Love" rally at Cowboys Stadium. None whatsoever.

When Robert Wilonsky first tipped you to the event back in December, he mentioned, per the promo materials, that there would be "music, speakers and fireworks." Fine. We just saw some pretty good fireworks last week, but we're always up for more explosions.

But that's a little vague, yes? Apparently other people had questions too, because now Glenn Beck himself has appeared in the new promo you see above, getting into some real esoteric shit.

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Image courtesy of Camina Entertainment

Rainbow Lounge patron Chad Gibson, pictured in the hospital following the raid.

One night in late June three years ago, police and TABC officers entered the Rainbow Lounge, a new gay bar in Fort Worth. By the time they left 40 minutes later, six people had been arrested. A seventh, 26-year-old Chad Gibson, was taken to the hospital with multiple skull fractures and bleeding on the brain.

The police and TABC agents would later claim that they had come into the bar to conduct a routine inspection, only to be sexually harassed by intoxicated patrons. But witnesses told a very different story: that police had behaved aggressively from the moment they walked in the door, and hadn't attempted to do even the most basic things a normal bar-check would entail, like examining liquor bottles or asking for a certificate of occupancy. Many people pointed out that the incident bore no small resemblance to the infamous raid of the Stonewall Inn in New York City -- which had happened exactly 40 years before to the day.

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Image via Flickr

Find out how much your collection of unsettling postcards is really worth.

We know the value of things at Unfair Park. We appreciate a fine wine. A beautiful painting. A rare book. That excellent marijuana you had to drive across town and sit in your dealer's living room for 40 minutes feigning an interest in his girl problems to get.

Yeah, we know what things are truly worth around here, and that's why we're offering you a rare opportunity this weekend to have your precious possessions valuated Antique Roadshow-style. Your coins, art, jewelry, sports memorabilia, musical instruments, that suit of armor that's clanking around in the basement -- bring it all down to Heritage Auctions June 22 through 24 and find out what it's worth. (No Mongolian dinosaurs. Sorry.)

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