Five stories that have North Texas talking: Dallas’ iconic green skyscraper lights up again, George W. Bush is scheduled to address a controversial group, a Dallas writer reflects on her dad’s connection to JFK, and more:
The downtown Dallas iconic green skyscraper lights up again tonight. Owners of the Bank of America building turned off the green, argon gas outline in July as part of $15 million in upgrades to the 72-story building. LED lights are replacing the argon gas, and downtown’s tallest skyscraper will be able to sport a variety of colors. The relighting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. A 20-minute light program showcasing the new LED system will follow the relighting.
- George W. Bush is scheduled to give a speech today to a controversial group. He’s speaking at a Messianic Jewish Bible Institute event at the Irving Convention Center. The Messianic Jewish Bible Institute is an evangelical group that tries to convert Jews to Christianity. Some Jewish leaders across the country aren’t happy. Rabbi David Wolpe wrote an opinion piece in Forward, calling the speech “dispiriting.” “What is so bothersome about the group that President Bush has chosen to address is that to speak of ‘Jews for Jesus’ makes as much sense as saying ‘Christians for Muhammad,’” he wrote. “A Jew who accepts Jesus has cut himself off from the faith community of Jews, and that has been so for 2,000 years.” The Atlantic offers some background on the issue.
- A possible solution to the Museum Tower glare? A sculpture: The Museum Tower saga continues. Nasher Sculpture Center officials say that glare from the tower is hurting the Nasher. Now a New York studio and architect firm have designed a “sunlight-responsive sculpture” that would prevent glare. KERA’s Jerome Weeks has more on Art&Seek: “The de zeen website reports that the New York studio REX(the office of Joshua Prince-Ramus, co-designer of the Wyly Theatre) and architects Front have designed a giant, sunlight-responsive sculpture … It’s basically a nearly 400-foot-tall, aluminum-cast sunshade with reflective panels that can move, furling and unfurling as the daylight changes. The project’s cost is listed as ‘confidential’ on the REX site, but the sculpture itself is called ‘Surya’ — the Hindu solar deity.” What makes this so interesting is that REX and Front were commissioned in 2012 by the Dallas Police and Fire Pension Fund – the developer of the 42-story Museum Tower – to explore the option of a shade element along the road intersecting the two sites. We hear that the Nasher isn’t interested in the proposal.
- A Dallas writer reflects on her father’s JFK connection: On Nov. 22, 1963, Eddie Barker, the news director for KRLD Radio and TV, was waiting at the Dallas Trade Mart to cover the speech Kennedy was scheduled to give. “What he ended up reporting that sunny Friday, and for days and months and years afterward, changed my father’s life,” Leslie Barker, a Dallas Morning News writer, wrote in the newspaper over the weekend. Eddie Barker was the first to interview Marina Oswald, Lee Harvey Oswald’s widow. Leslie wrote: “A masterful storyteller with a keen sense of detail, he never forgot — even toward the end of his life when other memories were occasionally foggy — any of the specifics of his interviews with the major and minor players of those times.” Eddie Barker died in July 2012. “I am certain he just assumed he’d be around for this,” Leslie wrote. “If he were here, he’d count on being contacted by various radio and TV stations; being interviewed by newspapers about his recollections of that day. He’d appear on panels, wearing a suit with a folded handkerchief in the front pocket and probably a red-print tie, and he would revel in every question asked, every tidbit shared, every bit of history further preserved.” Eddie Barker’s experiences are included in JFK 50: Eyewitness to History, which airs at 10 p.m. Monday on KERA-TV, Channel 13.
- Anne Lamott in Fort Worth: Author Anne Lamott is scheduled to speak at 7 p.m. at Fort Worth's Arborlawn United Methodist Church. The author will talk about her new book, Stitches. She’ll sign books during the reception following her talk. The event is free. Here’s a video of Lamott’s interview from 2011 with KERA’s Krys Boyd. Stitches is the follow-up to her bestselling Help, Thanks, Wow. In Stitches, Lamott explores “how we find meaning and peace in these loud and frantic times; where we start again after personal and public devastation; how we recapture wholeness after loss; and how we locate our true identities in this frazzled age.”
