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David Tuthill
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7/10/08 Can't blame it
on a full moon.
It's not even August, and the Summer heat seems to be taking a toll on the
sanity of some of our elected officials. People who are normally fairly
sensible are just being flat out ridiculous.
I'm going to make a confession, right here, right now. I like Commissioner
John Wiley Price. More than like, I admire him. He's smart, he's
fiscally responsible and he's a sharp dresser. He may even be a good
dancer, but I have no first or second hand knowledge of his dancing skills.
I don't like everything he does or says, but that's not necessary. He's
careful with my tax dollars, and he takes his job seriously. You can't
realistically ask for much more in an elected official.
Before we get into the current fiasco, here's a funny story. Back when
former Mayor Miller was a mere councilwoman from Oak Cliff who had the audacity
to call for the firing of the idiot Police Chief Terrible Bolton, Commissioner
Price had some of his hired hands picket in front of her home carrying signs
with vile words visible to her three children. Donna Blumer and I and
several other women (and men) rallied to Ms. Miller's defense and called for a
demonstration of support at City Hall. It was pretty well attended.
Commissioner Price and his backers showed up and stood in the corner observing.
We also had a group attend the Commissioner's Court that week to speak against
Commissioner Price's treatment of a woman and her family.
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7/11
Ralph Goin:
I agree with your feelings about JWP.
Around 30 years ago, the TV newscasts showed
him white washing (can't be black washing can it?) liquor and beer
billboards in South Dallas. I immediately admired him for stepping
out like he did!.
In October 2004, I had the opportunity to debate John and
Maryellen Hicks on her KKDA show about the upcoming Presidential
Election, for two consecutive Sundays.
The first debate was spirited with great give and take, which I
believe surprised JWP. He complimented me afterward.
The second show was down and dirty. In my opinion, I disproved
nearly every item they supported and they
got frustrated. Finally,
John threw out the race card, which set me off. The last 8 to 10
minutes of the show was spent debating why so many on their side
revert to the race card when cornered with facts and logic. After
that show, there were no goodbyes of any
kind. I still admire John, but wish he and
others like him would think twice before using the race card. This
episode is a perfect example, being just plain embarrassing and
silly!
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7/14 Harry T:
Congratulations! Your nemeses, The
Dallas Morning News, Dallas City Hall
Monitor Blog,
http://cityhallblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/07/dallas-city-hall-monitor-july-5.html:
7/11/8: ?Sharon
Boyd at DallasArena.com weighs in here.?
If you look at the Dallas City
Hall Monitor for 7/7/8, ?Dallas County
Officials spar over ?black hole? comment,? many of the commentators
disagree with your assessment of JWP more than two days
before your article was posted, and call John Wiley Price and idiot!
Why didn?t you?
You are so right about that security guard, Lupe Valdez. She
never had the qualifications to be a good sheriff, much less a
Dallas Sheriff. In Spanish, we don?t call them ?cerebral
shortcomings?, we call her a ?Pendeja? (a
fool).
Lastly, Craig Watkins, I last
visited his private law office about two
years before he lucked out and got elected. There were so many
beautiful women there at his office. Mr. Watkins, God Bless his
soul reached the age of 12 and stayed there.
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I mentioned both gatherings on DallasArena.com in advance, so the Commissioners
knew we were coming. There were a dozen of us at most, but the
Commissioners were ready with at least 20 armed deputies and guards. It
was hysterical. Mary Lou Montes Zijderveld was in our group. I
lectured Commissioner Price on his disrespect for women and an elected female
official. After I and a few others had spoken, Commissioner Price said he
did not need to be lectured by a bunch of White folk. Commissioner Jim
Jackson (now a State Representative) leaned over and said there was at least one
Hispanic in the group (Mary Lou). Commissioner Price said he didn't see
one -- sweet little Mary Lou piped up with "What's the matter, Commissioner?
Am I not dark enough for you?" That took the wind out of his sails, and we
all had a laugh.
Commissioner Price was close to the late Judge Dave Fox. Commissioner
Price was (may still be) close to former Commissioner Jim Jackson. I don't
know why he isn't close to Commissioner Ken Mayfield. Commissioner Price
doesn't seem to have a close ally on this current Court. He does not
suffer fools lightly. Which makes it hard to understand his recent
protectiveness toward Sheriff Lupe Valdez.
From:
B. Lynn
Subject: Black holes
and other local nonsense
It
wasn't nonsense then and it isn't nonsense now.
EXCERPT FROM SPEECH BY MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR;
'Where Do We Go From Here'
Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, Atlanta, Georgia,
8/16/67
Depiction
of Blackness and Negro Contributions
"Even
semantics have conspired to make
that which is black
seem ugly and degrading.
In Roget's Thesaurus
there are
120 synonyms for blackness and at least 60 of them are offensive,
as for
example,
blot, soot, grim, devil
and foul.
And there are some 134
synonyms for whiteness and
all
are favorable, expressed in such words as purity, cleanliness,
chastity and innocence.
A white lie is better than a black lie. The most
degenerate member of a family is a "black sheep."
Ossie Davis
has suggested that maybe the English language should be
reconstructed so that teachers will not be forced to teach the Negro
child 60 ways to despise himself, and thereby perpetuate his false
sense of inferiority, and the white child 134 ways to adore himself,
and thereby perpetuate his false sense of superiority. "
I guess some things don't really change, do they?
The way I see it, there was no
mistake by JW Price or Judge Jones. Perhaps the rest of you should
get an understanding of what a 'black hole ' really is,
scientifically speaking, because it was not how Comm. Mayfield meant
his comment to be. He meant it to be derogatory and that is how it
was received. We all need to be careful of the words we use and how
we use them.
Scientifically speaking, go
here for the real definition of a 'black hole' and get an
understanding:
http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/blackhole_worldbook.html
You will also find a definition for
'white hole', scientifically speaking. BL
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Editor's Response:
A ?black hole? is not a positive
thing in nature. Things go into it, nothing comes out,
not even light. It?s not white.
Daytime is light. Nightime is dark. Nighttime/Black has always
been associated with danger and boogie bears. It was not about
people ? it was about darkness/black.
Fear is what it is. If the people who first began to speak and use
language had decided to call ?day? Black and ?night? White ? we
would be having this discussion in reverse.
The English language ? all languages ? all cultures ? associate dark
with danger. In Africa, I expect you find the same word usage.
This issue has made Dallas the laughing stock of the country. It
has given JWP?s enemies another stone to throw at his image. I like
the guy ? don?t always agree with him. I don?t really care what he
says ? I like the way he votes.
No one will ever take you seriously so long as you keep running down
these politically correct rabbit trails.
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For all intents and purposes, JWP has been running the county jail for some
time, after it became apparent Sheriff Valdez was not up to the job. All
the improvements made have been under his guidance, but the jails continue to
fail state inspection. That somewhat explains the Sheriff's stupid blunder
of inviting a TV program to come film inside the jail -- she didn't know
anything about the status of the jails or existing problems.
Lord knows, I am no lover of jail birds. I don't care if conditions aren't
perfect in the county jails, because 99% of the people incarcerated there are
way beyond imperfect. They have caused harm to themselves, and more
importantly, they have caused harm to others and society in general.
Still, prisoners are not zoo animals to be viewed and observed for entertainment
or to serve as background footage for a politician's campaign video.
Commissioner Price voted with his four other colleagues to deny the Discovery
Channel film crew access to the interior of the jail. Despite his
assistance to her for the past three years, Sheriff Valdez confirmed her
critics' opinion of her cerebral shortcomings and teamed up with another mental
dwarf to challenge the Commissioners' decision. She may have been
technically challenging the entire Commissioners Court, but she was in fact
giving JWP a full bitch slap.
Her actions were not only politically stupid, but turning to DA Craig Watkins
for legal advice was just plain dumb.
The Bail Bondsman has his own current problems, not to mention a war he has
started with Commissioner Price. As his last story before heading off on
an academic fellowship, Fox 4's Paul Adrian had another blockbuster that ran
Tuesday (7/8/8):
Watkins' Private Business
Presents Possible Conflict.
The link takes you to the video and the text of the report. It will chill
you to the bone. Not just because Watkins is caught violating state law,
but because you get a chance to hear just how dumb our DA is.
Watkins kept his title company, which his wife runs. That might be OK if
there was another attorney in the title company. Since Mrs. Bail Bondsman
is not attorney, she can only work under the supervision of an attorney.
It's a Catch-22. Either Mr. Bail Bondsman is continuing to practice law
(which he is) which he is prohibited by law from doing while holding office as
our DA, or his wife is illegally operating a title company (which she is)
without an attorney over it. This story is a long way from done.
Still, it is hard to watch the video because it leaves no room for doubt that
Craig Watkins is a complete idiot. Never mind that he is our County
Prosecutor -- think about this imbecile driving a car on our streets. Now,
we can understand how he had several wrecks in his first year in office.
Everyone (including The Dallas Managed News
Editorial Board) was amazed that the Sheriff and the DA would be antagonizing
the Commissioners right here at budget time. Adrian's video makes it clear
that Craig Watkins is a dim bulb. We have had three years to confirm
Sheriff Valdez is no bright light.
So, what happened this week at Commissioner's Court really had nothing to do
with Ken Mayfield or that poor White Sheriff's Lieutenant who got gutted by JWP.
Lupe Valdez didn't have the courage or the good sense to take her case to the
Commissioner's Court herself. She sent a middle age White guy to incur
JWP's wrath. Had Sheriff Valdez presented herself personally to the
Commissioners after the Judge ruled against her and against Watkins' bad legal
opinion, JWP would have chided her but still protected her from Mayfield or any
other Commissioner's criticism.
Having that defenseless White Lieutenant before him only added fuel to the fire.
When Commissioner Mayfield made the perfectly sensible comparison of the central
ticket collection center to a "BLACK HOLE" in space, Commissioner Price just
lost it. Now, the whole country is laughing at Dallas. Even Rush
Limbaugh mentioned it on his show.
You know what? I don't care what the rest of the country thinks about
Dallas. Maybe they will stop coming here and stop trying to change our
city to be like the place they left behind. If you don't like Dallas, take
off - go home and write a book about how bad we are.
UnFairPark (DallasObserver.com) has a bit about
The Dallas
Myth: One Professor's
Love-Hate Relationship With His Former Hometown.
If you are a Dallas native, don't even bother to read it. In the first
place, Dallas was not the hometown of the author/professor. He didn't live
here very long. Like most implants who criticize Dallas, he hung out with
other move-ins. He never knew who we really are. When you hear
people talk about Dallas folk being materialistic and shallow, they are only
talking about the people they hang out with - other transplants. They are
talking about people who hang at the latest bar/restaurant to be seen by the
other transplants. They don't know the people I know.
They don't know Willetta Stellmacher, who can kick your butt even if she is over
90 now. They don't know Marian Gibson, who picks her friends carefully.
They don't know Betty Culbreath, who takes no prisoners. They don't know
these Dallas, Texas women. I do.
Think about it. Since Steve Bartlett, we have not had a Mayor who is even
from Dallas. Ron Kirk is a hustler from Austin who saw Dallas as an easier
market for his carnival act. Laura Miller is not even from Texas.
Neither is Mayor Leppert.
Say what you will about JWP, he's Dallas. He's smart, he dresses well and
periodically screws up. That pretty much describes my city.
It's hot in Dallas in the Summer, but most of the year it's really nice to live
here. John Wiley Price blows up every so often, but most of the time he's
watching out for my tax dollars. Seems like a fair trade to me.
sb
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