Five stories that have North Texas talking: Journalists peep the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, Denton is named Best Small Town In America, and more.
Members of the media are pushing the limits of iPhone panorama and 140-character hyperbole during the anticipated first walk-through of Dallas' Perot Museum of Science and Nature this morning in advance of its December 1 opening. (Follow our own @rickholter on Twitter for an especially good time.)
Art&Seek’s Jerome Weeks profiles the 40-foot-long glass escalator protruding from the side of Thom Mayne’s striking building as a central character in the museum's conceptual interior life -- and a pathway through the architect’s own moving universe.
This video shows original plans for the interior of the museum:
-- Lyndsay Knecht
Interested In Beer And Scantily-Clad Women? Study Says You Could Lose Money
Along with hiding loose change when you drop your car off to get washed, you might want to stash any gentlemen’s reading materials and empties out of sight as well. Researchers Ronald Burns, Patrick Kinkade and Michael Bachmann from TCU dropped copies of Maxim and crushed beer cans along with loads of loose change in certain cars. They found the money was twice as likely to be stolen -- and more of it – from cars with the posed setup.
Kinkade’s theory?
"The experimental condition created the perception that the driver of this particular vehicle was perhaps a deviant," he said. "And what we did in order to trigger that perception was place a men's magazine on the front seat to suggest some sort of interest in sexuality and a couple crushed beer cans underneath the seat to suggest that the person probably had been drinking and driving."
NPR’s Shankar Vedantam has the full story.
-- Lyndsay Knecht
Denton Named Best Small Town In America, Wins Multiple DOMAs
[UPDATED 11:50 a.m.] Business Insider named Denton the Best Small Town In America. We know a few reasons why the city would be honored as such, and so apparently does the Dallas Observer Music Awards electorate. Congratulations to DJ Paul Slavens, our sister music station KXT 91.7 and the 35 Denton music festival for the awards each received in some capacity last night, making us look good as usual.
The honors were announced at the House of Blues last night, literally just after North Texas Public Broadcasting President and CEO Mary Anne Alhadeff cited each of those very entities as major assets tied to Denton at a Friends Of KERA event in that city. (Slavens just bought a house in Denton and KXT is a media partner for the festival, which I’ve also worked with as a volunteer, to disclose fully.)
Board members and major donors nodded emphatically when Alhadeff mentioned artist Sarah Jaffe, who claims Denton, as a staple on KXT’s playlists. Jaffe won awards for Best Video, Best Female Vocalist, Best Album, and Best Solo Act in a sweep that has become just as annually expected as the awards show itself.
-- Lyndsay Knecht
As Petraeus-Blackwell Dust Settles, What About Those Emails?
One practical concern rising from the wreck of the Petraeus-Blackwell affair is the issue of email privacy, which Carrie Johnson addressed on Morning Edition with information on what the FBI needs -- or doesn’t need -- to confiscate online correspondence. For the Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez, a possible breach of right to privacy is of more relevant than the transgressions between Blackwell and the General:
"Given the weakness of the initial case here, given the fact that it now seems the initial impetus for this investigation was not actually a crime, you have to wonder, were they able to get access to some of these older emails in part because they didn't have to show probable cause that a crime had been committed?" Sanchez asked.
The Two-Way continues to follow the story.
-- Lyndsay Knecht
Fox News Is For Real
A Dallas’ reddit user recently snapped a few photos of a gorgeous Gray Fox somewhere in downtown Dallas.
These photos reminded me of KERA’s elusive Fox. For years I could only catch a glimpse of the Fox. I would pop outside after a shift and catch it’s tail diving into the bushes or a brief flash of it’s body before it disappeared. For a while, I didn’t believe my own eyes.
Eventually Art&Seek’s Jerome Weeks snapped a photo of KERA’s own sneaky fox (below right) confirming it was a Fox, and that I wasn’t losing my mind.
BTW: Gray Foxes are true native Texans. DFW Urban Wildlife has some stunning photos of one spotted in Corinth.
-- Justin Martin