Photo by Anna Merlan

​It probably hasn't escaped the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation's notice that an awful lot of people are very, very unhappy with the organization lately. Just to drive the point home a little further, reps from MoveOn.org, CREDO Action and UltraViolet announced they'd be hand-delivering a MoveOn petition to the Komen HQ today around noon. Yes, Komen has announced they will "continue to fund existing grants" and "preserve eligibility for future grants," including Planned Parenthood's. And yes, Karen Handel, Komen's vocally anti-Planned Parenthood senior VP for public policy, just announced that she's out. But a tiny, vocal group of protesters -- mainly composed of ladies in the 55-and-up age group -- still gathered outside Komen's LBJ office, many of them holding purple signs that read "Shame on Komen" and "Planned Parenthood Saves Lives." They were outnumbered by police, building security officers and press, who lined up on the grassy median across the street from the building.

"We're thrilled Handel has stepped aside," Dawn Mefert, a MoveOn volunteer told us. But Komen still has a lot of work to do "to repair their brand's standing within the female community," she said. "If you look online, a lot of women are saying they won't give another dime to Komen." And MoveOn wants a commitment that the organization will continue to fund Planned Parenthood not just this year, but into the future.

"They haven't committed beyond 2012," Mefert said. "They're saying Planned Parenthood can reapply, but they haven't committed to funding that application." Many of the women present said they had given money to Komen and participated in walks, runs and marches for years, but that the past several weeks had left them uncertain that they'd continue to do so.

"I'm conflicted about it," said Cynthia Beard. "This has really raised a lot of issues."

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Karen Handel

​For days now Nancy Brinker has said, over and over, that Karen Handel -- the one-time gubernatorial candidate from Georgia and Palin pal -- had nothing to do with Susan G. Komen for the Cure's decision to cut its funding to Planned Parenthood. Handel, who's Komen's senior vice-president for public policy, didn't say anything. Till now, when she says: I'm out.

The Associated Press has gotten its hands on her adios missive, in which the abortion foe writes that she is "deeply disappointed by the gross mischaracterizations of the strategy, its rationale, and my involvement in it. I openly acknowledge my role in the matter and continue to believe our decision was the best one for Komen's future and the women we serve." So, that, as they say, is that.

Well, not quite: Late yesterday we got word that several groups -- including reps from MoveOn.org, CREDO Action and UltraViolet -- are congregating at Komen's LBJ HQ at noon today to drop off "petitions signed by nearly 850,000 people demanding that Komen not let anti-choice extremists get in the way of funding life-saving breast health care services for women." Will we be there? Why, yes.

Update at noon: Below is a statement from MoveOn.org concerning Handel's resignation and the reason for today's still-scheduled protest.More >>

Via.

David Timothy, better known as The Soupman, and Mayor Mike Rawlings at last year's Christmas Eve dinner for the homeless at the downtown Hyatt Regency

​For seven years David Timothy has brought to the Hyatt Regency downtown 500 homeless people for a Christmas dinner, followed by a night's stay in a warm bed; as Mayor Mike Rawlings said during this year's event, "it's the way we do things in Dallas -- in a classy way." But this morning Timothy sounded the alarm, via emails to media and his SoupMobile website: The annual tradition is in danger of coming to an end.

According to Timothy, he and Lon Ricker, chairman of the Christmas event, were told by Hyatt officials a few weeks ago that the hotel isn't available for Christmas Eve 2012 because "they were doing some remodeling and rooms could not be guaranteed." When I called Priscilla Hagstrom, Hyatt Dallas's spokesperson, to see if that's correct, she said, yes, "They will be doing guest-room renovations." But she'd only just seen Timothy's missive and was in the process of trying to track down further details; an update, she promised, is forthcoming.

[Update at 3:17 p.m.: Fred Euler, general manager at the Hyatt, just called to confirm that, yes, "the 2012 event will probably end up at another location" because of renovations. But, he stressed, Timothy "certainly hasn't lost his partnership for future years. We made it very clear because of the renovation this is a one-time situation, and we offered to assist him with another location. We've partnered with them for over seven years, had a good meeting with them, and offered to work on some other events coming in 2012 ... because we won't be bale to do the Christmas event." Euler says he's "talked to at least two other hotels ... and I am confident because it's such a positive event we can help them get another location. But we look forward to partnering with them for many more years."]

I also asked Paula Blackmon, Mayor Rawlings's chief of staff, if she knew about this; it was the first she'd heard of the potential demise of the event, which Tom Leppert also attended during his tenure as Dallas mayor. Rawlings, of course, had served as the city's "homeless czar" under Leppert.

I asked Timothy if they've spoken with other hotels downtown about taking over hosting duties -- like, say, the new Omni. But, he told me, "the real issue here is the event itself logistically is huge. We don't just have 500 homeless people but we have 2,000 volunteers helping us during the course of the event, so logistically it takes a world class hotel to help out. And it takes a hotel willing to deal with 500 homeless people, and few hotels are willing to do that at any price."

He said the reason he sounded the alarm so early is because conventions book up hotels years in advance, and he's terrified that sooner than later he'll discover there's no room at the inn.More >>

What you see above is the video -- the short film, really -- that accompanied a weekend Wall Street Journal story about two recent Dallas residents: Ian Welch and girlfriend Katie Brickman. Welch is a native Texan, born and raised near College Station; Brickman's from Mentor, Ohio. The couple, boyfriend and girlfriend, moved here for two reasons: to be close to the Dallas VA Medical Center, and to be near Ian's mother, Nancy, a psychologist and the Coordinator of Veteran Services at Texas A&M.

Ian's a vet -- a Marine whose battalion was attacked outside Baghdad on April 7, 2003. Two soldiers were killed; Ian, wounded, more deeply than anyone initially suspected. He would write in a letter to a friend, a fellow Marine, shortly after the incident, "Our penance will be the sleepless nights, the fools we will make of ourselves at loud noises, the looks on our faces at the sight of swerving cars, and the pains in our chests when no one is awake." Michael M. Phillips of The Journal writes that the missive, the handiwork of a former wonder boy who loved art and English as a boy only to fall down the rabbit hole known as PTSD, would prove "starkly prescient."

As you know by now, locally based Susan G. Komen for the Cure has cut off its funding to Planned Parenthood, meaning it'll no longer help pay for mammograms for women who can't afford them; why, there's Nancy Brinker herself above, attempting to explain Komen's "new granting strategies" concerning its breast-health grants. (Which no one's buying.) The loss is somewhere around $600,000 annually, thanks in large part to a Florida congressman's investigation into Planned Parenthood. Komen says it has a rule about funding groups under investigation. But till now the question's been: What rule, and since when?

The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg picks up the story this morning, using several named and unnamed sources to recount how and when this happened and the resulting fall-out when Komen put a Sarah Palin pal in charge of public policy:

Komen, the marketing juggernaut that brought the world the ubiquitous pink ribbon campaign, says it cut-off Planned Parenthood because of a newly adopted foundation rule prohibiting it from funding any group that is under formal investigation by a government body. (Planned Parenthood is being investigated by Rep. Cliff Stearns, an anti-abortion Florida Republican, who says he is trying to learn if the group spent public money to provide abortions.)

But three sources with direct knowledge of the Komen decision-making process told me that the rule was adopted in order to create an excuse to cut-off Planned Parenthood. (Komen gives out grants to roughly 2,000 organizations, and the new "no-investigations" rule applies to only one so far.) The decision to create a rule that would cut funding to Planned Parenthood, according to these sources, was driven by the organization's new senior vice-president for public policy, Karen Handel, a former gubernatorial candidate from Georgia who is staunchly anti-abortion and who has said that since she is "pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood." (The Komen grants to Planned Parenthood did not pay for abortion or contraception services, only cancer detection, according to all parties involved.) I've tried to reach Handel for comment, and will update this post if I speak with her.

The decision, made in December, caused an uproar inside Komen. Three sources told me that the organization's top public health official, Mollie Williams, resigned in protest immediately following the Komen board's decision to cut off Planned Parenthood.

Read the whole thing here.

Florida congressman Cliff Stearns

​Perhaps you've heard by now: The Dallas-based Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation (don't bother clicking the link; the site's not loading) will no longer be giving grant money to Planned Parenthood, a move Planned Parenthood of North Texas says comes after "anti-women's health groups have repeatedly targeted and boycotted" the foundation. Since 2005, Komen has given funding to 19 of Planned Parenthood's 83 affiliates; last year, the grants totaled $700,000.

Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas, who have already gotten a lot of bad news lately, will be among those losing their Komen funding. According to Sarah Wheat, co-CEO at Planned Parenthood of the North Texas Capital Region, for the past three years Komen funds have helped North Texas Planned Parenthood affiliates refer 1,757 low-income women for mammograms, or 580 a year. The Austin Komen affiliate has helped provide 720 mammograms a year there for the past six years, while in Waco Komen and the Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening (BCCS) program, a state effort, are the main sources for breast cancer screening funding. In 2010, Wheat says, that accounted for, among other things, 609 women who received mammograms and 329 who received cervical cancer screenings. (PP can't provide mammograms at their clinics; instead, they refer women to screening centers, pay for services for women who can't afford them, and provide follow-up counseling.)

So what's the deal, Komen? Leslie Aun, a spokesperson for the organization, told the Associated Press that the main reason they're yanking the funding is "a new rule adopted by Komen that prohibits grants to organizations being investigated by local, state or federal authorities." We'd love to ask Aun, or someone else at Komen, when this rule was adopted, but they don't seem to be picking up the phone or answering emails -- not for us and not for The New York Times.

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Photos by Stephen Masker

A slide show from last night's trip through the Fair Park area can be found here.

​The woman popped up from the pile of blankets she had laid out on a dirty patch of sidewalk and took a look at the ring of people surrounding her. She patted her woolen beanie self-consciously. "Why you takin' pictures?" she complained sleepily to a photographer. "I ain't put my hair on."

Crystal is 42, and she's been homeless about four years now. Sometimes she sleeps inside at a friend's house, but mostly she's right here at night, on a deserted stretch of road in East Dallas not far from where a DART train comes screeching by. She keeps most of her things in a baby stroller, a blue stuffed puppy with long purple hair dangling from the handle. Her knee is bothering her. She should be receiving disability checks, but there's some kind of problem. She needs medical attention for this knee, she told the people around her, throwing back a green blanket to show how swollen it is. Can they help?

Crystal is one of several thousand people who were counted last night as part of the seventh annual point-in-time homeless count and census. Organized by Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance, the count takes some 200 volunteers to shelters and outdoor encampments where homeless people are known to stay. Four-hundred and 50 major cities in the U.S. do such counts in the last 10 days of January, a requirement from HUD to be eligible for federal funding. This year's Dallas count was sponsored by the Real Estate Council, who also brought out some 50 volunteers to help.

According to Mike Faenza, MDHA's president and CEO of MDHA, even though precise numbers are difficult to come by, counting homeless people and taking census information -- about their veteran status, their education, how long they've been homeless -- helps to see trends in Dallas county.

"You're not going to be able to count all the homeless people or get exact figures," he tells Unfair Park. "But you'll be able to see what trends are if you're consistent. So it's seeing how much progress you're making."

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Dallas Police Dept.

William Palmer

​By 8 a.m., the news vans had started to arrive, parking on the street behind the cop cars, the Medical Examiner's white sedan, the city of Dallas vehicle marked "Crime Scene." They sank their tripods into the soft mud surrounding the house on Peavy Road, a nice-looking two-story with a two-car garage, a sun roof and a tire swing hanging from the big tree in the front yard. By 9, technicians wearing blue latex gloves and blue footies over their shoes were loading the bodies into vans from Southwestern Medical Center. A detective in a neon green rain slicker lifted the yellow crime scene tape to let the vans down the driveway, then stretched it back across.

Looking at this scene, there were a lot of unanswered questions about who and what and why. But the police just demystified things pretty thoroughly, giving this account during a press conference at DPD headquarters:

A man named Willliam Palmer showed up at the house on Peavy this morning, they said. His wife, Donya, 47, was staying there with her parents. Donya and William separated about a week ago. When Donya came out around 6 this morning to retrieve something from her car, William attacked her. She ran back inside the house for help and made it to the living room, but he caught her, and then he stabbed her.

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Photos by Justin Terveen

​The sign still says "Articles," but I'll always remember the three-story storefront on Elm and Good-Latimer as Chumley's, located at the acoustic end of Deep Ellum on the heels of Charles Francis "Chumley" Hawkins's late, great Dave's Art Pawn Shop. Everyone played there, from Aimee Mann to Cafe Noir, Lisa Loeb to Rhett Miller, all on their way up. Before that, long ago, that spot had accommodated everything from a lumberyard to a loan-maker to a paint-and-paper company.

Last I looked there was talk of it becoming an ultra-lounge; that didn't pan out. Westdale's been trying to lease the valued-at-$320,000 building ever since. But now, it's sans roof: Justin Terveen was out in the deluge last night, of course, and was there when Dallas Fire-Rescue answered the call. Wrote Justin in the note that arrived in the in-box during the wee small hours of the morning: "Place is thrashed."More >>

​There's trouble brewing in the land of lofts, bros and trolleys. Owners of Uptown spots such as Thomas Ave. Beverage Company, The Nodding Donkey and Si Tapas say they're getting squeezed by irascible homeowners who've had whole swaths of Thomas Avenue and Allen Street designated for residents only, leaving patrons with nowhere nearby to park. And they're afraid it's going to get worse.

"This thing is going to spread all around Uptown, which is gonna be terrible for business," says TABC owner Russell Hayward. "We've been trying to be cooperative and conciliatory, but they're just trying to shut us down."

McKinney Avenue-area establishments like TABC don't have big asphalt lots to accommodate patrons, so they're zoned for street parking. "The intent of that is to rely on the neighborhood for street parking," Hayward says. "The reason they did that was to entice people like me to open businesses where there is no parking. That was fine for 17 years.

"Now the new residents don't like that anymore and have basically choked us off on parking."

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