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Dear Cliff Lee:

Hahahaha. I don’t mean to sound bitter after you rejected us, but seriously, ha! I was all ready to just boo you and cast strongly worded, disparaging remarks in your general direction, but you punished yourself.

You and your Phillies pitching buddies are on the cover of this week’s Sports Illustrated. Everybody knows there’s a curse involved with being on the cover of Sports Illustrated. This never would’ve happened if you had chosen the Rangers. There’s nothing really noteworthy about a team signing an ace pitcher. Signing twelvety-hundred of them, though? Noteworthy. Noteworthy enough to get you on the cover of Sports Illustrated, where, as I mentioned before, there is a curse attached.

So you enjoy your so-called better weather and stuff, but remember that this curse probably means your arm is going to fall off or you’ll get a raging case of hemorroids and will never be able to sit comfortably in the team plane again. And when this bad stuff happens, you remember that this never would’ve happened if you had just chosen the Rangers.

Yours truly,

Me

OK. So after reading the DMN‘s Sunday Q&A with him and Liz’s interesting interview yesterday and after attending his DMA Arts & Letters Live talk in Dallas last night, I’m still not sure what the hell David Brooks is talking about with his new book, The Social Animal. The conservative scribe, described by one Dallas CEO as “the only New York Times columnist I can read without throwing up afterward,” was characteristically smart and modest and funny and insightful, for awhile. But then, he started talking up this new book that apparently describes new research on our emotions and our “unconscious” minds, and how it has the potential to change U.S. politics for the better. At least, I think that was his point.

Brooks rocketed to fame with 2000’s Bobos in Paradise, a hilarious and prescient look at America’s new bourgeois-bohemian elite. And last night, in a prelude to the Social Animal discussion, he was at his old best scattershooting at the Bobos: How, for example, it’s OK for them to drive a “luxury” car like a Volvo or a Saab–“so long as it’s from a country that’s hostile to U.S. foreign policy.” Then, unfortunately, he launched into this long discussion of some woman named Erica–apparently this is a character he made up for the new book–who was empathetic and purposeful and who used her emotions to … do something sort of important with her life, but it wasn’t really clear what it was.

Cautious Optimism About Trinity Project Emerges. Some good news for the Trinity Project has been released. The U.S. Army Corps says the levee fixes may meet approval. And the project may cost less than what was proposed. Sure, there are still a lot of “mays,” but all I have to say is, “Winning!”

People Are Good. A week ago, 12-year-old Shaquintha Briscoe died in a car wreck. In the seven days since, her family has been unable to give her a funeral because they can’t afford the cost. Shaquintha’s school counselor sent out emails and contacted news stations yesterday to see if the family could get help raising a little more than $600 so the little girl could be buried. About an hour and a half after the story aired, there was an update saying that several people had contacted the station asking to pay the remainder of the costs. Thus, my initial statement: people are good.

Woman Makes Friends by Testing Deadly Nerve Gas. Natalyia Tarasenko is new to the area. So she wanted to do something that would help her meet people. That’s how she became part of the city’s tests to expose citizens to nerve gas and chemical agents in order to better prepare North Texans for disasters and attacks. You, too, can make friends by contacting the Office of Emergency Management. Me? I prefer to just poke random strangers through Facebook.

My fellow NBA-obsessed peeps keep sending me this link, along with messages I can’t print. An athlete dating a beauty pageant winner is not news. Obviously. The real takeaway from that is that the Mavs still list JJB as 6 feet tall. Which makes me 6-foot-4.

Twitter’s back up. Spotted the following tweet from the Observer: “Village Voice Media veteran Joe Tone named Dallas Observer Editor http://bit.ly/eepmcj.” But the link doesn’t work. The post on Unfair Park has been taken down. Developing.

Update: Now the post is up. And I’m sorry, because I kinda buried the lead. THE POST WAS WRITTEN BY PATRICK WILLIAMS!

Twitter is down. Not only are you being forced to go without tweets from @TimmyTyper, you yourself can’t put anything up. We’re here for you. Consider this post your Twitter substitute. Have at it in the comments. Remember: only 140 characters.

Update: The whale was just replaced by a robot.

The real reason I had New York Times columnist and bestselling author David Brooks on the phone was not, as it turns out, to pester him for his thoughts about our Art District, mostly recently the butt of a few jokes in a Simpsons episode.

No, I was supposed to be quizzing him about The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, his latest book and the topic of tonight’s Dallas Museum of Art  Fresh Ink series special event. And I did do that, I promise – though after reading countless other interviews, the talking points sounded as tired as he did. But as we were wrapping things up, in honor of our Must-Do list, I couldn’t resist asking Brooks for his essential Dallas experience. A restaurant, perhaps? A place?

“Is it too boring to say Cowboys Stadium?” he asked, meaning Texas Stadium, of course. And he dropped the real secret: he’s a Cowboys fan. This native New Yorker called that original Irving eyesore “holy ground,” but admitted to being surprised at how rundown it was. Me too, and I drove past that thing practically every day.

Dez Bryant Sued Again. According to this lawsuit, between January ’09 and July 2010, Colleyville’s Eleow Hunt gave the Cowboys receiver: 40 pieces of jewelry, worth $588,500; $26,000 in cash (for expenses and spending money); and $15,850 in tickets to various sporting events. Bryant was supposed to repay all this when he signed a pro contract. Hunt has receipts. The word Bryant is looking for is: guhhhhhhh. This quote from Bryant’s lawyer, state Sen. Royce West, doesn’t scream innocence: “What we’re seeing is Dez Bryant being singled out. There are lawsuits. They will be resolved.”

Plano ISD Laying Off Almost 350 Employees. Technically, their positions are being eliminated. More than 200 are teachers. The $26 million that saves still doesn’t cover the $65 million shortfall the district is facing in the next two years.

“Yarn-Bombers” Descend on Unprepared City. It’s pretty awesome. (Unrelated, but from the same site: So is this.)

Miniature Horse With Prosthetic Leg “Hitting His Stride.” You’ll know if you want to read more after this sentence: “In a scene worthy of a Walt Disney film, a trio of protective llamas, two curious goats and another miniature horse crowd around while a tiny prosthetic limb is fitted to Midnite’s deformed hind leg.”

Willie Nelson may be able to sing his way out of that well-publicized pot bust in Hudspeth County. According to reports, the Red-Headed Stranger could be allowed to pay just a small fine and sing the judge’s favorite song, “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” there in the Sierra Blanca courthouse. Nice enough tune, but this one would have been better.

It’s no secret that cancer treatment is big business, that MD Anderson in Houston is the field’s 800-pound gorilla in Texas, and that Baylor’s just-opened Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center is aimed partly at keeping patient bucks out of H-Town and right here in Dallas.

So it was interesting to see Baylor take a shot at Anderson right out of the chute, disclosing that Sammons had decided to offer free valet parking to disabled (including radiation oncology) patients instead of charging them $15, the standard valet fare. A story in the Morning News (sorry; it’s paywall-protected) said Baylor had modeled the $15 rate after the price at Anderson, but quickly switched gears “to do the right thing” … after a lymphoma patient complained to the paper.

Dez Bryant Sued for Not Paying Bling Bill. First he had trouble keeping his pants up and his mouth shut at NorthPark. Now we learn that the jeweler Rafaello & Company claims that Bryant is in arrears to the tune of $246,000. Bryant’s lawyer, Texas state Sen. Royce West, says, “I think we’ll solve [the dispute] quickly.”

13-Year-Old Girl Cops to Capital Murder. Interesting how various outlets are reporting this one. A boyfriend and girlfriend from Garland. Both are 13 years old. Boyfriend and girlfriend. The boy shoots and kills the girl’s mother and stepfather. He gets 28 years; she gets 20. The Morning News says, “Dallas Morning News does not name those convicted of juvenile crimes.” The AP goes one step further to protect the murderers: “The Associated Press is not reporting their exact relationship [to the victims] in an attempt to protect the identities of the minors.” Do these teenagers really deserve to have their identities protected? Is the notion that any murderer who is so young must himself be a victim of his own actions? I don’t get it.

Shawn Marion Has Funny Finger. I want you to look at this picture of Shawn Marion’s hand. Ask yourself if you’d be coming in to work every day if your pinkie were that badly dislocated. [shudder] Dude’s tough. Like, hockey tough.

Medrano Family Member Indicted for Voter Fraud. Justice of the Peace Carlos Medrano won his job by a little more than 100 votes, unseating Luis Sepulveda. And now we know why. A grand jury has indicted a niece of Medrano’s, 21-year-old Raquel Medrano, for living in Mesquite yet registering in Dallas and voting here. Another of his nieces, Veronica Medrano, did the same thing. She says she was coerced by her uncle to do it. And the guy still has his job why?