Dallas Affairs

If you live in Dallas, you probably know that the city goes around in the summer spraying blanket pesticides to “control” West Nile Virus. I’m pretty sure that’s a completely ineffective way to deal with the situation and likely has far reaching negative impacts on other pollinators like butterflies and bees. As it turns out, you can opt out though I have no idea how much help that is if they are spraying your neighbors house. Still, worth trying. The information below comes from one of our Texas Master Naturalists.

1. Go to DallasCityHall.com

2. Click on 311 at the top right

3. Request Service at the middle left

4. Click on Service Type drop down menu. Select Mosquitos and Go.

5. Key in your address. Then next.

6. Drop down menu under “What is the nature of your concern?”

7. Click “Do Not Spray”.

8. If you would like to be contacted fill in your information.

9. Step 5 allows comments. I wrote in that box a message similar to the introduction above. Write whatever applies to you.

10. Step 6 click Submit.

11. Then click Finish.

While we’re picking on Dallas, might as well point out another excellent Schutze column at The Observer detailing what sounds like a nifty little scam business opportunity of one Ed Oakley, candidate for mayor.  The whole Trinity project has become a boondoggle, almost entirely because of the special interests and power brokers that operate behind and above the scene of politics in Dallas.

If you live in or around Dallas, you owe it to yourself to support the Trinity Vote project which is trying to get the Trinity project on the ballot for a revote concerning that stupid toll road all the power brokers want to run down the middle of the park.  We’re kinda at a cross-roads here and depending on the political power of Angela Hunt and the Trinity Vote project, Dallas can do something good or something bad.  Based on the history of Dallas, my brain says it’s going to be the latter.  But my heart hopes it’s the former.  You can donate your time or money to the project and I’m sure it would help.

The Dallas police busted two poker games over the weekend, one at AmVets and one at the VFW. It’s good to see the police are on top of such dangerous organizations as those made up of former veterans. Poker games are such a menace to the Dallas public that without the concerted, focused efforts of the Dallas police, citizens would surely be in terror for their safety lives property . . .ummm. . .yeah, not so much.

On the bright side, with more cops attending and busting poker games, that’s more donuts for me I guess. And I sure like donuts.

Dallas school trustee Ron Price wants the City Council to ban saggy pants inside the Dallas city limits. Ron Price, who apparently wants to run for City Council, thinks it’s disrespectful and dishonorable to women for men to wear their pants around their thighs. Bill Blaydes, already a member of the esteemed Dallas City Council, thinks it’s an embarassment to our city if we can’t keep our pants up.

Women and citizens of Dallas, I call on you to inform Ron Price and Bill Blaydes that you firmly support the right of men (or women, though sadly, few women walk around with their skirts around their thighs and their thongs showing) to wear their pants around their thighs with their underwear showing. Tell them you believe this is a fundamental right.

But mostly tell them that you are against this law because if it passes, how will you easily be able to tell which men NOT to breed with? Outward signs of stupidity are becoming harder and harder to discern and thus, stupidity seems to propagate much faster these days.. For the love of God and the strength and speed of the gene pool, let your voices be heard.

UPDATE: Only Council members Hunt and Griffin show any sanitys at all.

The city council of Dallas continues to give money away to developers as an incentive to develop choice pieces of land in the city. This is the most ridiculous strategy I’ve ever heard of. They did it for the Park Lane development going in north of my office and they’re doing it now with the Valencia project. They are going to uproot thousands of people on a piece of land that other developers would probably give their right nut for.

Dallas is going to eventually write a check they can’t cash and then bad things are going to happen. Some day, they’ll promise money to someone that they don’t have and things will get ugly. It will be fun to watch from the safety of Wylie.

Probably what will happen instead is that the voters will wise up, throw the bums out down at City Hall and they’ll start over. When that happens no one knows. Though Jim Schutze has an idea.

I understand enforcing laws and all that but this is ridiculous. If your own cat bites you, you shouldn’t get six tickets.

That animal control officer sounds like he probably flunked out of the police academy and is taking his ineptitude out on whoever he runs into.

As many of you know, it’s election time for lots of city councils around the Metroplex. You should definitely get out and vote as it’s your American duty. Or something like that. But scolding you for being a worthless no-account isn’t what I’m interested in today. No, I’m interested in a certain candidate for Garland City Council District 2. There are two people running for this place, one Terri D. Dunn and one Laura K. Perkins Cox.

Now I have no idea what the qualifications of either candidate are or who you should vote for if you live in Garland. In fact, before my drive home yesterday, I had no idea about any of this. But on that ill-fated drive home, I encountered the lawn signs of Ms. Cox, she of the “four names isn’t enough to differentiate me from the crowd” group. You see, Ms. Cox has a nickname, one that seems to me would be one you might not want on your advertisements. But Ms. Cox is proud of her nickname. So proud that it apparently is her preferred moniker. Why would I write all these words for a candidate I know nothing about and can’t even vote for? It’s all because of the name.

Her nickname is Perky. And she goes by Perky Cox. Yup. Garland District 2, you have the chance to be represented by Perky Cox. How could you not vote for her?

The only surprising thing about this is that it took so long. Arresting people inside bars who “appear” to be drunk (no objective tests were ever given) is insulting and silly. In one case, a man was arrested at a hotel bar, the very hotel he was staying in. Clearly, the goal of this operation was not to keep people from driving drunk but just an exercise in governmental power, wrongly decided and poorly implemented.

Good riddance.

I’m not sure this is the best way to encourage kids to get involved in civic activities. While I’m not completely sympathetic with what they were protesting, it seems a bit heavy handed to suspend students for exercising their right to organize. Granted, the rules were fairly clear and they broke them. However, in an age with increasing apathy and disinterest in the polictical process, what message does it send when students are suspended and barred from their senior prom for standing up for something they believe?

This seems like a typical bureaucratic overreaction to a situation someone was unprepared to handle.