Stephen Philbin was, by all accounts, a great First Amendment lawyer who died way too early. He was 34. Since 1983, the Dallas Bar Association has annually held a luncheon to give out seven awards honoring him, along with some proper cash, to print and broadcast outlets that did a great job with legal reporting. D Magazine over the years has won a few of these, the most recent honoree being Matt Goodman, in 2017. (I don’t think he ever bought a round of drinks for the staff, as promised.) I recall the 2006 luncheon, when presidential hopeful John Edwards was the keynote. Kind of a big deal.

The speakers in recent years, all due respect, haven’t had hair nearly as perfect as Edwards did. Attendance at the Belo Mansion has waned. So today’s news doesn’t come as a surprise. While I await official word from the Dallas Bar, I can tell you this: the luncheon is no longer, and, going forward, there will be just a single (or possibly two) Philbin Award(s). It (they) will be presented next year at the Dallas Bar fellows luncheon.

For the 30 or so local media people who give a flip about this development, I can’t help but harken back to the defunct Katie Awards. There’s no scandal this time around, which in some ways makes it sadder. In 2019, it’s hard to imagine someone caring enough about a local journalism award to game the system.

When I was a little girl, the school that I attended took a field trip to the Hare Krishna temple in Laguna Beach in Southern California. The day’s most striking impression was the lifelike bald figure on a dais, seated under a baldaquin, two streaks on his forehead over a tunic in shades of marigold.

We were there to learn a bit about Hinduism; we were studying the deities. The lesson ended with lunch at the vegetarian restaurant that served dal and halvah. It would stay in my mind. And when, decades later, I moved to Dallas, I was not surprised to find that the city’s most beloved vegetarian restaurant was the one ensconced in the tranquil courtyard of another Hare Krishna temple.

The devotees of what is officially known as the International Society of Krishna Consciousness who founded Dallas’s temple came in 1970, purchased an old church— Mount Auburn Christian Church—in East Dallas, and bought up houses around it. And this is no doubt how you know it: an amalgam of architecture, turrets and lotus petal-framed domes overlaid like piped icing on a squarish brick façade, like a frosted cupcake. In a neighborhood of crumbling houses on buckling foundations, Kalachandji’s temple is an island.

Something rather extraordinary happens there—something you’ll miss if you’re just there for tamarind tea. Once I realized it, I was drawn farther in. Which is how I found myself in the closet of a deity. And writing this feature, out this month in the magazine and online today. Jonathan Zizzo’s photography captured the Technicolor extravagance beautifully. Take a look.

On Friday, Tim wrote about the latest shenanigans coming from the North Central Texas Council of Governments and its transportation director Michael Morris, and the absurd plan to funnel millions of federal transportation dollars to prop up an idiotic, and wildly conflicted, idea of building soccer fields under I-345. The incident offers yet another example of how a governmental organization with little actual public oversight is able to advance large-scale public projects without much of a public process. “This isn’t really all transportation related,” Morris admits, almost flaunting the way he can deploy millions in public funds at his own personal discretion. So much for democracy.

This shouldn’t be surprising—this kind of thing happens all the time. How does it happen? Across the country, civil engineers have built up a solid strategy of thwarting public will by relying on a few rhetorical and procedural tricks of the trade. Over on Strong Towns, Charles Marohn breaks down the playbook. As a jumping off point, Marohn’s article uses a letter that traffic engineers in Springfield, Massachusetts, sent in response to three city council members’ request for a new signaled crosswalk near the New England town’s library. In the letter, Marohn, an engineer himself, finds all four of the typical obfuscations that thwart the public process. If you follow city politics, each of these four general strategies will sound all too familiar. Here are some highlights.

Cowboys Win. Dak Prescott, through two games, has completed 82.2 percent of his passes and thrown for 7 TDs and just one interception, and I’d argue that one was not even really his fault since it hit Randall Cobb square in the paws. He also had a 42-yard run. And Zeke Elliott had 111 yards, very quietly. Anyway, Pokes are 2-0 and neither one has really been in doubt. People are about to lose their minds.

Two Child Shootings in Arlington, One in Fort Worth. A 6-year-old was shot in the head by his preteen brother; he is in the hospital in grave condition. An 8-year-old girl was shot in the buttocks, it looks like while friends and family were messing around with a gun; she is probably going to be fine. That was in Arlington. And in Fort Worth, yesterday morning, a 4-year-old was shot and killed by a sibling. I’m sorry if I made a mistake here. There were so many I was having trouble keeping them straight.

Review of the New Holocaust Museum. I thought it was very good.

Implosion on Turtle Creek Boulevard. Implosion. Implosion. IMPLOSION.

Yesterday at a meeting of the Regional Transportation Council, something quite spectacular came out of director Michael Morris’ mouth. You can watch it for yourself. Fast forward to the 4:00 mark of the video for item No. 5. But first let me set this up for you.

Earlier this year, news broke that Roddrick West, son of State Sen. Royce West, was close to signing a deal that would allow him to build soccer fields under I-345. Royce, it should be noted, is very much opposed to tearing down I-345. This soccer field deal would seem to make it much harder to tear down the highway, and all this had been going on without any public debate about it. No matter. Robert Wilonsky at the Morning News said there was nothing to worry about. Everything was on the up and up.

The Texas Scorecard disagrees. That’s the Michael Quinn Sullivan joint, so read this knowing their agenda, but today they posted, for the first time that I’ve seen, Roddrick’s schematic of where he wants to put the fields. Oh, also, as a result of Royce’s run for the U.S. Senate, new information has come to light showing his appetite for conflict of interest (short version: if it makes him richer, he’s hungry for it).

OK. That brings me back to yesterday’s meeting of the Regional Transportation Council. Now you’re ready to appreciate what Morris said. He was asking for (and got) $10 million to $15 million to help spruce up the neighborhood around Uber’s new Deep Ellum headquarters. (And, please, don’t get distracted by news of yet another round of layoffs at Uber.) Morris wants to use the RTC money to do the following: give the first wave of Uber employees transit passes; improve the sidewalks and make bicycle connections; work on the traffic signals; fire up an electric shuttle that will take Uber employees from Deep Ellum to someplace, maybe the Farmers Market; and, finally, to help Roddrick build soccer fields under I-345. Morris’ exact words:

Gordon McLendon moved to Dallas in 1947 and started a radio station the same year—KLIF, the Mighty 1190, broadcasting out of Oak Cliff. In the early 1950s, he turned KLIF into one of the first Top 40 stations in the country and developed a reputation as one of the more creative programmers radio had ever seen. But that wasn’t enough for McLendon. Along with his father, Barton, he began branching out into other areas. They bought movie houses and drive-ins and land to build more of both. Eventually, they owned more than 40 theaters. 

That wasn’t enough for McLendon, either. Noting the occasional foray of Hollywood into Texas—Giant, for example, had been filmed near Marfa—and with his now-vested interest in the medium, he decided it was time to establish the first movie studio between New York and California. His new studio’s debut project would actually be a pair of films: The Giant Gila Monster and The Killer Shrews. 

It was in 1958—20 years before camera crews rolled through the gates of oilman Cloyce Box’s ranch to begin filming the exterior scenes for Dallas—and excitement was racing through the city that not one but two movies were going to be made here. And by an honest-to-God local studio, no less!

I was attending St. Mark’s at the time. Since the parents of several of my classmates were friends with the McLendons, campus hummed with chatter about the films. The main topic: that some of us would likely be excused from class to act as extras, particularly when the big teen dance scene in The Giant Gila Monster was filmed. I, for sure, planned to be first in the line of volunteers.