Damn. Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings got me last night. I resisted, but he got me. Anyway, I finally found the answer to a question that has long nagged me. When he does that affable dumb jock routine? Yeah. He's about to take you for a whirlwind visit to the cleaners.

My wife was already falling out of her chair laughing because Rawlings was so hilarious onstage at the Lakewood Theater, where he was one of three celebrity contestants in a benefit show for the Aberg Center for Literacy.

I wasn't laughing. I didn't intend to laugh. I believe it's a violation of journalistic integrity to laugh at jokes made by elected officials. It's like when everybody else claps. We don't clap, OK? And I don't think we should laugh. But he got me. I wound up falling out of my chair too.

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Tons of talk already, of course, about this morning's announcement that City Manager Mary Suhm is stepping down. I tend to go with the end of the spectrum that's viewing it as ushering in the End Times. But I would.

Oh, not my End Times. Their End Times! The Citizens Council! I'm talking about the Dallas Citizens Council, the behind-the-scenes elite moneybags group that should not be confused, please, please, whatever you do, please do not confuse the Dallas Citizens Council with the old White Citizens Councils of the past, because, really, there is no connection whatsoever. It's just this unfortunate confusion that happens, like if we had a group in Dallas that called itself The Qu Qlux Qlan and everybody went around confusing them. Unfair!

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Last night the history group called Preservation Dallas gave a special award to Lindalyn Adams, one of the people who created The Sixth Floor, the Kennedy assassination museum downtown.

That's great. She deserves it. Now I want to know why The Sixth Floor got Robert Groden thrown in the slammer.

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Wow. I take it all back, Tea Party. You cool. In fact, I'm jealous. Targeted by the IRS. There was a time when that would have been my dream come true.

I remember back in the day when my hippie friends started getting their FBI files under the Freedom of Information Act. I was always afraid to ask for mine, because I knew there wouldn't be one. How would I have faced my friends? Better not to know.

Yeah, well I have spent a certain amount of time here, I admit, denigrating and dismissing the Tea Party as a bunch of white geezers in costumes pissed off because Obama is black. I think I may even have used the phrase "tea party type" to convey a person who would rather not see the country survive if it means people of color get to survive, too.

But this week's revelations that the IRS targeted Tea Party groups for special investigation amounting to harassment have forced me to reconsider. If you can get the IRS to take you seriously as a political threat, you're serious.

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OK, I'll bite. Now that my two favorite psycho-moral philosophers have offered their opinions of the long-haired viral Duncanville kid who told off his teacher, I guess I will, too. I can't stay out of a debate where the word "cockeyed" has come into play. I can't tell you why. It's probably deeply Freudian. I just hate that word.

See also: Watch a Duncanville Teen Deliver a Blistering Classroom Sermon on Lazy Teachers

In a column at the end of last week, Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Blow came out against the kid who told off his teacher. Blow told readers: "One of the things that seem most cockeyed is that school officials quickly cleared [Jeff] Bliss of any wrongdoing -- and even praised him for raising important issues."

The day before Blow called the school cockeyed, Dallas Morning News editorial writer Tod Robberson said of the kid who told off his teacher, "He owes everyone involved an apology."

So that's it. Blow uses cockeyed. Robberson is giving the spurs to his hobby horse again. I gotta saddle up.

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All I want is to connect the dots. You help me. Mayor Tommy Muska, whose town of West just suffered what has been called the worst industrial accident in the 15-year history of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, is on the front page of The New York Times today agreeing with Governor Oops that government regulation is not the answer.

Muska says any analysis blaming the blast on the utter and complete lack of routine safety procedures in West before the blast is "Monday morning quarterbacking."

See also:
Bryce Reed, a West EMT Whose Best Friend Died in Blast, Arrested for Having "Destructive Device"

OK. Even if their fertilizer plant blows up, kills 15 people, injures 200 and destroys a swath of the town, people in West still don't want the government, especially that federal one, sticking its long nose under their tent. Ferocious independence till death do us part. Got it.

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Working on a big story about school reform these days. (Note to editor: definitely see completion this year, possibly early next. Best way you can help -- make sure I keep up my darned morale.)

Speaking of morale, I wanted to go ahead and share a bit of the reporting with you in advance of the story itself. I had a long, very interesting interview and visit yesterday with Juanita Wallace, head of the local branch of the NAACP. Wallace, a retired Dallas Independent School District reading specialist, told me that one reason for particularly low morale these days among black school district employees is what she said was the school superintendent's obvious dislike of black people in general, strong black women in particular.

I responded to that assertion by asking what I told her was probably a stupid white guy question: How can Mike Miles be a racist, since the man is himself black?

Wallace explained to me that Miles is a certain type of black person who thinks he is "white inside." She said black people with that belief think they are "neutral" in terms of their own racial makeup.

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Michael Vincent Moore, 57, arrested in the murder of his niece, 16-year-old Alicia Moore of Greenville, can still turn out to be utterly innocent, uninvolved in any way, when the wheels of justice slowly turn. But I have a smaller thing to talk about. The cupcakes.

Last time I saw this guy -- last February, four months after his niece's body was found stuffed in a car trunk -- he was on TV baking cupcakes for a party. Moore told the camera: "I'm over it now. It's time to rejoice. You know, you gotta get over it. And move on."

Yeah. If you did it.

What is this "move on" crap? No, you don't have to move on. In fact, people who move on that fast need to be put on the suspect list. Why would you move on? Why don't you need to stop first to deeply confront and engage your terrible sadness? When did we adopt the Darlie Routier Silly String party as the gold standard for dealing with loss? (More on that in a moment, if you are unfamiliar.)

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You know what's wrong with the Bush Presidential Center at SMU? It's not a terrible thing or place in and of itself, yet. But what's wrong already is that it represents such a lay-down by the leadership of the university. The way the thing is set up is a betrayal of academic excellence, which depends entirely on academic independence. Its constitution is a rebuke to real rigor and research.

Who actually thinks independent academic research and independent rigor are bad? Tons of people. It's practically a reflex for them. Ask Holden Thorp, the highly respected academician now departing a five-year tenure as chancellor of the University of North Carolina with his tail tucked between his legs after being made a bit of a chump by his own out-of-control athletic department. Football idiots. They're a good example of people who hate academic excellence or just don't care. Look around. America probably has more football idiots than Episcopalians. That's a guess, by the way.

Football idiots all over America have shown time and time again that they would gladly trash their own alma mater's academic standing in order to hire a better football team. Excellence is for wimps. We want us some game!

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Three prominent Dallas business leaders have written a caustic public letter to Dallas ISD Superintendent Mike Miles, taking him to task generally for not conferring with them personally on school reform and specifically for threatening the job of a particular high school principal popular in South Dallas.

Everybody is entitled to an opinion, and all three of the letter-writers -- J. McDonald Williams, Arcilia Acosta and Pettis Norman -- have solid credentials for community involvement. But it's worth reflecting on other baggage they may carry with them into this fight.

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