Former Chief David Brown’s Memoir has Some Issues. First, a personal tale: A decade ago, when I was a wee freelance fact checker at New York Magazine, my very first assignment with the mag was checking an interview with Woody Allen by the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Adam Moss. In the process, I found two biographies on the actor with differing dates, thus forcing me to go between the actor and the editor, questioning one’s memory and the other’s research (terrifying for a newby). The takeaway: Never trust books, which are rarely fact checked, nor memories, which often make things up. And apparently David Brown’s memoir isn’t any exception. The DMN uncovered several discrepancies, such as Brown’s description of a July 7th news conference he says he spoke in, when it was actually Mike Rawlings doing the talking.
John Wiley Price Fined for Violating Campaign Finance Laws. It’s totally unrelated to the corruption charges Price faced this year, and he only has to pay $3,400 after the Texas Ethics Commission found that he didn’t properly report $120,000 worth of political contributions from 2012 to 2014.
No More Texting While Driving. Greg Abbott signed a ban to bring Texas’ texting-while-driving law up to speed with most of the states in the country. Texas drivers will have to BRB on all LOLs starting September 1.
Police Trying to Identify Burglar Scared Off by Small Dog. One last personal note: My mother, a former prosecutor, has always said that she never came across home invasion cases involving dogs. Culprits are afraid of even the smallest mutts, which proved to be true in the case of the burglar who fled an Arlington home a couple weeks ago. The takeaway: Instead of buying a fake ADT sign off eBay, consider adopting a yappy Chihuahua.
