In terms of the way we treat school superintendents in Dallas, we're kind of like the spoiled rich lady who fires her housekeepers one after another, then asks, "What on earth is wrong with the housekeepers of this world?"

I can't even count how many times in the last month I have heard somebody say, "The problem with the school system is that every single superintendent we hire around here turns out to be no good." Yeah. That's a problem. But are we sure it's a problem with the schools system?

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Occasional correspondent Bill Marvel, who defends the high holiness of art, sent me the following headline this morning, "DIA's art collection could face sell-off to satisfy Detroit's creditors," along with a personal note: "I know this will warm your heart."

The DIA is the Detroit Institute of Art, their big museum up there. I'm from Detroit. Bill thinks I'm wicked because I didn't take the side of the Nasher Sculpture Center here in Dallas when it said a nearby condo tower was burning up its artwork with light reflected off its windows. My own headline was, "Ain't No Call fer Us to Pick a Side in Them Rich Folks' Museum Feudin'," which ought to give you the flavor.

Are we caught up here? Oh, no: Detroit is bankrupt. It owes billions and billions. Somebody up there floated the idea of selling off artwork in the DIA, which is worth billions and billions, to pay off the debt.

Predictably, billions and billions of Bill Marvels leaped to the fore to denounce the very idea, the very idea! I picture Marlon Brando with snakes on his face in Apocalypse Now, muttering, "The horror, the horror!" Oh yes, heaven forefend that anyone should think of art as money, in spite of the fact that its principal and most important role in modern culture is to serve as a form of currency.

And this thought occurs: You know who might not think it was so totally terrible to force Detroit to sell off some of its paintin's? The guy whose electrical supply warehouse or storm sewer repair contracting shop is in the toilet because he did a bunch of work for Detroit and didn't get paid. He's sitting around right now with snakes on his face muttering, "The money, the money!"

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Look, life is not football. It's more important. I do get that. But, sorry. At a certain point in last night's Dallas ISD board meeting, a big scoreboard flashed in my mind. MIKE MILES, 7. JOHN WILEY PRICE, 0.

Very, very superficial of me, I know. But, hey, I am not the one who set it up this way. Last night, when an overwhelming majority of the Dallas school board voted to support Miles' program of reform through replacement of principals, the obvious score was inescapable.

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Today is a key moment in the battle for school reform in Dallas, as a list of school principals to be fired goes before the school board. (Check back tonight for the body count.) The main opposition to the reform effort has come from southern Dallas black leadership allied with the district employees who may be about to lose their jobs.

Last week, the Dallas Citizens Council joined the Dallas Regional Chamber (of commerce) in an open letter to Dallas school board trustees, urging them to stick with the program of school reform designed and executed by school superintendent Mike Miles. So, blah-blah-blah, right? Local business persons want better schools. How is that news? Oh, man, you have to know how crazy this town is before you can even get the answer.

See also:
"Mike Miles versus the World," this week's cover story by Jim Schutze

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Yesterday when my wife, son and I were driving back from Lubbock, the news on my tablet told me that Phyllis Schlafly, president of the Eagle Forum, Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation, and Tea Party leaders in 25 states had released an open letter urging congress to dump its immigration reform effort. The story couldn't have been more ironic, given what we had just witnessed at Texas Tech University.

The main force driving an ultimate Republican/Democratic compromise in the Senate Judiciary Committee was America's need for highly skilled immigrants. A few years ago, when I did a long piece on immigration reform, people told me America was getting toasted in the international competition for skilled immigrants.

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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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