Back Talk Lakewood/East Dallas

An officer and a gentleman

Word just reached us that Officer Rex Post was diagnosed this morning with stage four cancer that has entered his lungs, kidneys, stomach and liver. Officer Post has been the Lakewood Neighborhood Association's crime watch patrol officer since its inception three years ago, and has "devoted the last three years to keeping Lakewood safe," says Nancy Wilson, crime watch chairwoman.

Wilson visited Officer Post and his family at Presbyterian Hospital today, and says that the doctors' prognosis is three to six months. That's absolutely devastating news for him, his wife and three boys, and Wilson says Lakewood neighbors have sent a deluge of e-mails in response to the news and have been calling her in tears. Post will undergo a colonoscopy tomorrow morning. He's only 50.

Wilson says that at this point, the best thing neighbors can do for him is pray. She'll be speaking to his family again tomorrow morning, and will let us if there is anything more we can do.

Update on X10/Snow Pea plans

Kert Platner over at X10 emailed me back. Snow Pea's lease runs through May 2009. After that he and his partners will take over the space and "get a restaurateur in there to do something great for the neighborhood." Platner says he already has someone lined up but for now he's keeping any specifics under wraps. Too bad ... I'm dying to know, and I bet a bunch of other neighborhood folks will be too. But I guess in 20 months a lot could go awry.

Speaking of Times Ten ...

This might be a case of "I'm the last to know," but is it common knowledge that the owners of Times Ten and Blow salon will be taking over the Snow Pea location when the restaurant's lease ends? I just now heard about it. I've emailed the guys at X10 to see if I can get any details. Hope to have an update soon.

Toast your neighborhood winery

Just a quick post to note that tomorrow, Aug. 1, from 5-9 p.m., Times Ten Cellars will be celebrating its second anniversary with hors d'oeuvres, desserts and wine specials, inlcuding half-price wine by the glass and some varietals offered at $8.01 per bottle (take home only). Photo is of X10 owners Kert Platner, Rob Wilson and Chris Lawler.

Council will meet in executive session about the Trinity

Most of the news accounts I have seen say the that the City Council won't take up the Trinity referendum until Aug. 8 or Aug. 15. So why, in the council agenda for tomorrow's meeting (p. 6), is there an item entitled "Legal issues concerning the Trinity River Toll Road Petition," which will be discussed in closed session?

The state attorney general's frequently asked questions (p. 20) regarding the open meetings law say the council is allowed "to meet with its attorney to receive legal advice about pending or contemplated litigation or about settlement offers. The Attorney General has also concluded that a governmental body may meet with its attorney to receive legal advice on any matter."

Apparently, the council will discuss, in private, its legal options regarding the referendum. This could be as innocuous as asking for advice about when the referendum needs to be held. Or, and forgive me for being so cynical, will the council discuss using taxpayer money in a legal challenge to stop taxpayers from voting in the referendum?

Note to Jackie Floyd: Yes, you are gullible.

Bloggers meet newspaper deadlines

Those of us who do this sort of thing for a living are on intimate terms with deadlines. Some of us may not like them, but we know them all too well. That's why I was more than a little curious to see what would happen in the blog-o-sphere yesterday when the Rangers traded star first baseman Mark Teixeira.

There are a half dozen or so well-done Rangers blogs run by people who don't do this for a living. The most famous (and when I say famous, I mean it -- this guy is a huge star in that particular universe) is written by a lawyer named Jamey Newberg called the Newberg Report. Sure enough, when I checked, Newberg had a flashing red box on his site announcing the trade.

That was impressive enough. But the one that blew me away was Lone Star Ball, run by Adam Morris, who I don't know much about. (Wamre has actually met Newberg, both of them being Rangers' fan big shots.) Morris' coverage of the trade was mind-bogglingly amazing, a lesson to more established media outlets (take note, Belo and Star-Telegram owner McClatchy). Morris had a piece up called Previewing the pundits comments that made this ex-sportswriter laugh out loud. He riffed on Galloway, Jacques Taylor, Dale Hansen and the rest and it was brilliant.

Mayor Park Cities brings out his bucket of tar

I tried to give the new mayor a chance. Honest. I really don't want to write this. But, sadly, he apparently has no interest in meeting anyone half way.  It's his way, and everyone else is not just wrong, but a criminal.

How else to interpret Tom Leppert's decision to ask the district attorney to investigate potential fraud in some Trinity River toll road referendum petitions? If you can't beat 'em, smear 'em. This extremely carefully written article in Dallas' Only Daily Newspaper doesn't say there weren't enough valid signatures. Leppert and his cronies know they can't win that fight anymore. But what they can do is discredit TrinityVote in the run-up to the referendum. They figure: Throw around some innuendo, some half-truths, some guilt by association, and who knows what will happen?

This insults all of us who signed the petition. I will be more than happy to go down to city hall and show the mayor my signature and each of the signatures I gathered. Like the guy who owns my dry cleaner. Like the guy who owns my bar. Like the guy who owns my breakfast joint. (And Mr. Mayor, just in case you can't figure this out, these are all small businessmen and women, the kind you claim you're so eager to help.)

Finally, many of us reacted with outrage when Leppert's opponent threw around the same kind of mud during the mayoral run-off. I'm glad to see Leppert is rewarding those of us who defended him by doing the same thing to us.

Let's not forget about the blog contest

Thanks you, so much, for the many fine suggestions in our How to Improve the Back Talk Blog Contest. Even Wamre has been impressed, and that's not easy.

To recap: The best suggestion gets $50 in restaurant gift certificates, and the best suggestion written in text-message speak gets $20 in certificates. Deadline is noon Friday. Send entries here (which is easier for us, given the volume we have received, than including them in the comments).

And, in this corner, The Morning News

Apparently, after what has been a month-long moratorium (which those of us who follow Belo assume was imposed by the bosses), the metro columnists and their blogging colleagues at Dallas' Only Daily Newspaper are once again hopping on the anti-referendum bandwagon. I especially enjoyed this one -- battle for souls, indeed -- and this one. Consult with the council? If Mayor Park Cities isn't careful, he won't have any support on the council by the time this thing comes to a vote.

When it comes to politics, D doesn't matter

In June, just before TrinityVote turned in its 80,000-strong petitions to force a referendum on the Trinity River toll road, the intrepid journalists at D magazine wrote that the group wasn't going to get enough signatures. They were wrong. Then, in last week's run-up to certifying the signatures, D wrote that the certification was short. They were wrong again.

Isn't it about time we stopped paying attention to anything in D that doesn't have to do with plastic surgery?

I do not write this because several people at D, and most notably editor Tim Rogers, think I'm an idiot. I've been called much worse names by much more talented people. I do not write this because publisher Wick Allison sits in his Highland Park home and tells those of us who live in Dallas how our tax dollars should be spent. That's his privilege -- free speech applies even to those who disagree with me.

I write this because they have been flat-out, miss-it-by-a-million-miles wrong -- and, until now, they won't own up to their mistakes. That's because, in their world of fake noses, conspicuous consumption and places to be seen, where flash is more important than substance, they haven't been wrong. In fact, they've never been wrong, because no one ever calls them on it.

This time, though, someone is.