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Arts & Entertainment

Winners and Losers This Week in Dallas (5/27/16)

A look back at the week that was, by the numbers.
By Jason Heid |
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Fifteen minutes of fame equates to more than 150 million views, apparently.
Fifteen minutes of fame equates to more than 150 million views, apparently.

A national hero takes a blow, while an unknown woman gets a taste of stardom. But who’s to say which of them is a winner and which of them is a loser? I am. I am to say.

Winners

Ronald Kirk
After a debate over the appropriateness of rechristening the Continental Avenue Bridge (officially the Lamar-McKinney Bridge) for former mayor Ron Kirk (who supports building a road that would require destroying a significant portion of that very bridge), the Dallas City Council voted to rename the structure for Ronald Kirk, whoever he is. +9%

Nomar Mazara
The Texas Rangers 21-year-old right fielder let loose what I can only assume has been a slowly-building, lifelong hatred towards baseballs by walloping a pitch high into the home run porch at Globe Life Park on Tuesday night. Estimates are that it would have (had its progress not been impeded by the stadium itself) traveled 491 feet, which makes it the longest homer hit in the major leagues this season and the longest in the history of the ballpark. +107.8

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Dallas Zoo
The zoo announced the birth of a new baby, born to one of the elephants recently flown in from Swaziland. It provided the nonprofit the chance to respond to critics of the relocation project. “This birth validates the critical importance of our rescue efforts and why we worked so hard to get these animals to safety as quickly as possible,” said Gregg Hudson, Dallas Zoo president and CEO. +175

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Consultants
Have a difficult problem that supposedly trained and experienced government professionals don’t want to be personally held accountable for solving? Hire outside experts-for-a-buck to propose solutions so that — if the problem persists even after those are implemented — the bureaucrats can cry “we only did what the consultants, the experts we trusted, told us to,” and no one at City Hall will need to be fired. +86

Chewbacca Mom
Grand Prairie resident Candace Payne shot a Facebook live video of herself trying on a Chewbacca mask in her car, and here we are about a week later and it’s been viewed more than 150 million times. She got to make an appearance on the Late Late Show With James Corden, and the North Texas-residing actor who plays Chewbacca in the Star Wars films invited her to join him at the Dallas comic con event next week. Legitimately seems like it couldn’t have happened to a nicer lady. +150,356,529

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Losers

Susan Hawk
Her relapse into severe depression and return to a treatment center in Houston raises again the issue of whether she’s fit to continue as Dallas County district attorney. -1

City of Dallas
The family of dog-mauling victim Antoinette Brown has made a $5 million settlement claim following her death. -52

The Middle Class
The Dallas Morning News nicely laid out how badly those in the center of the economic spectrum are being squeezed by property tax appraisals. Homes worth $100,000 to $250,000 saw an average value increase of 11.2 percent while homes worth more than $1 million went up just 7.5 percent. -73.5

Chris Kyle
A report by the Intercept showed that the American Sniper/legend exaggerated the number of medals he earned. The Navy is investigating the discrepancies in its records. -3

Alligators
No longer will they be able to sneak up on unsuspecting North Texans. You can bet that after the news of a 7-foot-long reptile captured at a Dallas middle school, we shall remain ever-vigilant in the face of this menace. -240

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