Over the weekend, I received a campaign mailer from Mayor Mike Rawlings. First sentence:
As your Mayor for the past three and a half years, I’m humbled to lead what I believe is one of the great cities in America.
Oh, boy. Most long-suffering FrontBurnervians have already spotted my first problem with this letter. The mayor has misused the word “humbled.” I’ve hit this topic many times before on this blog. If the man is leading what he believes is one of the great cities in America, I don’t know why he’d experience humility. If Marcos Ronquillo were to trounce him in the election, then he’d be humbled. Til then, let’s go ahead and say he’s proud to lead Dallas.
But the following sentence in the mailer really made me snap to attention:
Working together with the various communities that weave together to create the tapestry of our city, we’re making Dallas even better.
The phrase in italics was written that way in the letter. I did not add it. It caught my eye because that is D Magazine’s slogan. We’ve been printing it on every cover since October 2012 (and using it internally as a mission statement long before that). So we were clearly the first ones to start making Dallas even better and to establish what making Dallas even better actually means. It means tearing down I-345 and rebuilding it as a boulevard. It means rerouting I-30, getting it out of East Dallas. It means no Trinity toll road. Now that the mayor has decided to join us in making Dallas even better, we welcome him warmly. Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you’re part of a team!
