Back Talk Lakewood/East Dallas

Sergio's back in the headlines...for DUI

Here's a cautionary tale about the difficulty of making the jump from high school to college football: Sergio Kindle, Woodrow's remarkable running back of two years ago, was picked up in Austin at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday for DUI, according to WFAA-TV.

As expected, UT coach Mack Brown was dutifully concerned and is withholding judgement (and saving Sergio's place on the team) pending a police investigation of the incident. The good news: no accident and no one hurt. But it's another case of an athlete, however young and inexperienced, setting a bad example for others, as well as risking his future by drinking and driving.

It's on - TrinityVote has the signatures

According to my sources, which I believe are better than FrontBurner's, the city has certified that Angela Hunt's TrinityVote group has enough signatures to force a referendum on the toll road this fall. Confirmation should be coming shortly (probably around 10 p.m. news time), and then we'll all know for sure. Buckle up for threatened legal challenges, a lively debate, and some good old-fashioned politics. If people act civil and if those of us who live in Dallas pay attention, I think we're all going to learn a lot.

Update: Here's a pdf from the city secretary announcing the signature count decision...

-- Rick Wamre

Angela Hunt, profiled

There's an interesting story by Bruce Tomaso in today's News about Angela Hunt and some information about how she came to be who she is. It's an interesting story about an interesting person, someone who has (whether you like what she's doing or not) almost single-handedly raised the level of political discourse about an issue of importance to our city.

Whether you support the Trinity referendum or not (and I write this not knowing whether or not enough signatures will be certified by the city secretary today to allow the referendum), take the time to read the story. Note: the photo is from the Morning News story.

More good news for inner city neighborhoods like ours

Forbes.com reports today that one of the best ways to shorten your life is to sign up for a long commute. That's right: Sitting in your car for long periods of time each weekday morning and afternoon could very well slice a few years from your life. Additional exposure to pollution from cars and trucks on the highway, the added danger of being involved in a wreck, and of course the mounting stress from dealing with the other chumps on the road are all conspiring against lengthy commutes.

What does that mean for most of us, who probably live a whole lot closer to work than many of the people in our surrounding suburbs? Two things: We'll live longer, and we'll probably benefit from rising housing prices because of this phenomena.

How can we become older and richer just by living here? Well, remember our discussion last week about the young attorneys who are commanding starting salaries of $160,000, while the partners at their firms are pulling down about $950,000? Where do you think those people are most likely to live? Near work, and most of the largest law firms (and hospitals and many large corporations) are Downtown or nearby. And where are they going to spend (overspend, some may say) all of their loot on housing? Right here, where the commutes are relatively non-existent, and they'll have an extra couple years of their life to enjoy all of that money they're banking.

Poor, poor, pitiful University Park

Those of us on this side of Central need to send our condolences to University Park, which is facing several crises.

First, there is the on-going debate about whether to let a developer renovate the Chase Bank building in Snider Plaza. This has apparently split the community, and many yellow, "No Wal-Mart's in our town" yard signs have popped up. I don't know enough about the situation to offer an opinion, but I will caution the residents who oppose the renovation (which they say will destroy the charm and character of Snider Plaza): Don't get too militant. After all, you don't want to be confused with people like me. And for those us who appreciate irony, the developer, Townscape, is, as near as I can tell, a well-respected company that just happens to be located near Casa Linda.

Second, a $13 million renovation and expansion project to the University Park city hall means some council meetings will be held in a double-wide trailer for the next 11 months. This leaves even me speechless.

The cat that can smell death

This post can be linked to the neighborhood only in the sense that some of us love pets and all of us are going to die. And, of course, it came to my attention courtesy of neighborhood resident Candis Wheat with the State Fair of Texas...

It turns out there's a two-year-old cat in Rhode Island that lives in a nursing home. Not so unusual so far, right? Well, get this: the cat makes regular rounds of the facility, looking into and sniffing around the patients' rooms until it eventually snuggles up next to what at first appeared to be a random patient. Three to four hours later, the patient is dead, and the cat starts its rounds all over again. After 25 such incidents, the facility has taken to calling patients' families once the cat beds down with the news that their loved one's death appears imminent.

Check out the video link and think about how something like this can be true.

Cum-bay-yah time again for the council

Call me naive, but I don't think it's a requirement for people to necessarily like each other to work together to get things done.

I say this after reading a Morning News story about the new Dallas City council members getting together at a ranch in Paradise (no further comment needed) to, as the headline on the story said, build camaraderie and prioritize focus areas. The story talked some about the touch-feely stuff the council members did to get to know each other better; who among us hasn't had to do something like that at some point in our business careers. And they apparently agreed on six focus areas (they're listed in the story but they're so general, you can just about guess them without reading it). And then there were the obligatory comments about the importance of working together, blah, blah, blah.

Having the focus areas is an OK idea, I guess, so that at least the ship is pointed in some direction. But council members can be just as productive, and maybe more so, if they disagree all along the way about the best paths to reach the focus goals. The freshest ideas and best new paths often come about from ideas bantered back and forth. We lose sight of the value of that process, though, when the inevitable and inexcusable name-calling and professional dissing starts to occur, and the media invariably jump on the personalities involved.

How much better would it be for all of us if, after a couple of weeks of intense debate and differing viewpoints and maybe even a couple of heated but civil exchanges in the council chamber, our council members actually voted on the best option to solve a problem rather than the one that allows everyone to sing cum-bay-yah together? I don't mind a mess, as long as it makes the meal better and everyone pitches in to help clean up.

A new take (honest) on the Trinity River thing

Even I'm worn out from writing about the Trinity River business (at least until the petition signatures are counted), so please read this from Patrick Williams at the Observer. He covers all the important points: The intrepid journalists at plastic surgery's favorite local magazine, Dallas' Only Daily Newspaper's unerringly fair and biased reporting, and the crucial role that New Media play in the world today. Plus, it's funny.

Lakewood Early Childhood PTA auction donations

Have merchandise or a service to donate? Then the Lakewood Early Childhood PTA needs you.

The group raised $100,000 at last year's auction. The money went to Woodrow Wilson, J.L. Long and Lakewood Elementary for items like computers, printers and playground maintenance. The PTA did such a good job, in fact, that the DISD gave it an award.

This year's auction, the 31st, will be held in conjunction with the Lakewood Home Festival on Nov. 2-4. If you want to donate an item, send an e-mail to [email protected].

Grocery news from the grapevine

I dropped by Central Market last night to grab a few things and happened upon a fruit I had never tried before, at least not in its solid version — Concord grapes. The signs posted mentioned that these dark blue and purple grapes are the ones often used in jams, jellies and juices (Dr. Thomas Welch is the man responsible for making them famous), and that they are sold only during certain times of the year in limited quantities. Wikipedia states that they are occasionally available as table grapes, especially in New England and in Texas.

New England makes sense because Concord, Massachusetts is where the first variety was grown. But a quick search didn't reveal any simple answers as to why Texas was the only other area mentioned. Anyone happen to know? I'm also wondering whether the reason so few are available as table grapes is because so many are needed to produce grape-related items. I don't think the reason is that people don't enjoy them in non-juice or jelly form because I have to say, they may have been the best grapes I've ever put in my mouth.