Nothing shakes up or shuts down Dallas-Ft. Worth like the Arctic Blast. It's like the local TV stations live for the words arctic blast, and wintry mix.  Even the newspaper and radio are in on the act.  Fox 4 had a guy in Gainesville doing a live spot who basically said, "Yep, it's cold up here."  There's no doubt that the 40 degree temperature shift over the course of an hour or so was strange even by Texas standards, but are you telling me all the news of the day should take the back seat to a couple of snow flakes? I can only laugh, but it seems like it's getting worse each winter.  The sand truck guys are giving canned speeches now.  I do hope I'm wrong in my original prediction and we can get an ice day out of the deal. 

Thanksgiving is a time when we get together with family, eat too much, watch the Cowboys win, and give thanks for all the wonderful blessings God has bestowed upon us.  I think about what I am personally thankful for, and of course I first think of my family, my friends, my health, and my strength.  But this year I have something new to be thankful for:  DALLAS SOUTH BLOG!!! It may sound trite to some, and contrived to others, but I am thankful that a technophobe like myself has been able to survive out here in the blogosphere.  I'd have to thank Bob Sturm for introducing me to the concept of a blog, and Men's Health magazine for placing the thought in my head that I could actually start my own site.  I thank my wife for putting up with blog talk, and my mom for clicking on my site everyday. But most of all, I'd like to thank every person who has taken at least 3 seconds to read what I have to say here at Dallas South.  In the initial days, I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to read my work, but the positive feedback and encouragement that ...

By now I'm sure most of you have seen it, but if not, take a look at Michael Richards' Racist Outburst during a stand up set at the Laugh Factory in L.A. I'll be honest, as I watched the video of the man we all know as Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld spewing bigoted venom and racial slurs; I was both stunned and saddened.  Saddened because this man brought me may nights of joy in college, as I am a self-proclaimed Seinfeld junkie.  Just like Mel Gibson a few months ago, Richards swears up and down that he is not a racist.  Those comments from he and Gibson are the most worrisome of all.  If a non-racist can tell a black man "50 years ago WE'D have had you upside down with a fu**ing fork up your ass," then what does a hard-core racist have on his mind?  This was much more disturbing to me than the 7 times he used the word nigger/nigga. I'm against all use of the so-called n-word; we do give other races liberty to use the word anytime we put it out there.  But Richards, in his frustration and anger, opened his soul in a way that most closet racists are able to suppress.  The anger in his voice at the ...

The Dallas Morning News has a piece this morning on the Trinity Parkway, an important piece of the overall Trinity River Corridor Project.  I've been tracking the progress of this project for the last 8 years, and though you hear how it's about bridges, parks, water sports, wildlife, and most of all flood control, the proposed parkway is ever present. In the article by Emily Ramshaw, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers say they figure the current configuration of the toll road may compromise one of the Trinity River's levees.  Therefore the proposed design of the roadway, which is scheduled to run on top of and inside the levees, would need to be altered.After all this time, I still have not heard a good reason why the road has to run inside the levees, and thus close to the proposed parks and recreational activities.  I mean I'm sure it's money, but what about risk reward?  The article quotes Ed Oakley as saying the city has no other alternatives. The toll road is the one part of this puzzle that has never fit in my mind.  I visualize a beautiful sunbathed afternoon where you stroll up and down the river, on one ...

Michael Davis has an excellent post at Dallas Progress regarding titled Address the problem.  There he outlines some of the issues that he feels are hindering Dallas, and contributing to the crime situation.All his points are on the money.  There's so much crime going on at these apartments complexes, I'd like to see the police take the proactive approach of setting up shop onsite.  If they had a unit in the complex they could help discourage some of those with bad intent.  When I talked to some of the folks at Southwind Apartments after a fatal shooting there, they said the police assured them they would drive through 3 times a week.  I know the department is spread thin, but you have 3 or 4 complexes right there together on Wheatland, they should be able to make a more focused effort.  Chief Kunckle rightly says Dallas can't arrest its way out of the crime situation, but focusing on hot spots will be a better use of resources.  But this is not a DPD issue, it's a city issue.  The city has to get more officers on the street, without excuse and in short order.  I'm still not sure how the ...

Tonight, the South Oak Cliff Golden Bears begin the defense of their Class 4A State Championship against Lincoln.  The Golden Bears are two-time defending champions, so SOC Coach James Mays II has his team in a familiar position.  Coach Mays filled us in on what’s going on with the program as he prepares to tip-off the season.  Tonight’s game vs. Lincoln will start at 8 pm at Cobb Fieldhouse.  DSB:     Coach Mays your team has won back-to-back State Championships in Class 4A, but you graduated one of the state’s most dominant players in Darrell “Slim Shady” Arthur.  What will this year’s team looking like? JMII:     This year’s team will look a little bit different from the past groups in that we will be quicker and more athletic at the guard spot. We are deeper on the bench and we can play more aggressive in the open court on and on both ends of the court. We feel we have one of the strongest backcourts in the area. Fred Gipson (PG) is a 4-year letterman and brings back a ton of experience and two championships. Michael Berry (2-guard) transferred from Seagoville and is a do-everything player that can really ...

Tavis Smiley was in Dallas on Saturday to promote his latest book What I Know For Sure, which is his 10th.  The book is semi-autobiographical and details his upbringing, and some of the lessons he has learned along the way.  Tavis stopped by Friendship-West Baptist Church where he delivered a 45 minute talk describing some of the events in the book and encouraging who he calls "black folks" to love one another.  He moved the crowd with his account of a particularly rough period in his life where a former pastor wrongly accused him and his sister; resuling in their father physically abusing them over the misunderstanding. I must admit Tavis Smiley is one of my favorite authors, and his book Doing What's Right has served as an inspiration for my community advocacy.  I spoke with him briefly after his talk and he said "...more (African-Americans) need to get into blogging."                                                     The theme of Smiley's message on Saturday could be summed up as LOVE. He asked why African-Americans have abandoned what we already know, that love wins.  And the highlight of the speech came when he asked, "What ever happened to the notion of love in the public discourse?"It was here that Tavis honed in on the so-called War on Terrorism.  Here he asked how does one have a war on ...

I wanted to get to get you some info on the racist video incident at Texas A&M and Dr. Gates response. Dallas Morning News Account here. Letter From Robert Gates here. Recap of campus meeting here. Response from Texas A&M Black Former Students here. Gates action update here.

Robert Gates has gained the respect of a broad range of people and organizations while at Texas A&M.  One of those groups would be the Texas A&M Black Former Student Network, and it's president Ken Robinson. Mr. Robinson graduated from Skyline High School in Dallas, and graduated from Texas A&M in 1994.  He is also founder and president of Computer Innovative Services, Inc.  Ken answered a few questions I asked him about Dr. Gates after we learned of his nomination as Secretary of Defense.  As an aside, some of you may be aware of the current flap at A&M over a racist video that was posted on You Tube.  Believe me I'll get to that, and so will Ken. But at the time of the interview the situation was still fluid as they say. DSB:  As President of the Texas A&M Black Former Student Network, you had regular conversations and interactions with Dr. Robert Gates, what was your impression of him? KR:    Dr. Gates is a very dynamic personality.  He is the kind of leader that carries a quiet demeanor and persona, yet he gets pretty remarkable results from those he leads.  He’s effective at what he does and, more importantly, he is man who I ...

By all accounts Dr. Robert Gates' tenure at Texas A&M has been an extremely successful one.  He had just been featured in the November issue of Texas Monthly hailed as an agent of change.  But on Wednesday, all of that changed.   As I drove down Central Expressway Wednesday around noon, I was shocked to hear that President George W. Bush (that may be the 1st time his name has appeared on this blog) had essentially fired Donald Rumsfeld.  Even more shocking to me was his replacement, the aforementioned Robert Gates, president of my alma matter.  But as the shock wore off I realized how logical the choice was. I won't get into Dr. Gates credentials here, but you can get a feel for who he is at Wikipedia.  His ties to the Bush Family go back decades, as does everyone in the Bush Administration.  Gates, who was once the Director of the CIA, led the university, which is home to the Presidential Library of George H.W. Bush. Bush 41 was President while Gates was at the CIA. I'm going to need a little latitude here from my readers. Because of Gates ties to my former school, I’m going dig into this a little because there are a couple of moving parts.  Hang ...