METRO

About 10 women attending the Mary Kay convention were slightly injured today when an escalator malfunctioned.

It came to an abrupt halt, causing the women to crash into each other.

A Mary Kay spokesman said the women remained calm and coped well with the unexpected occurrence.

"That is indictive of the Mary Kay woman," said spokesman Crayton Webb.

Don't you get tired of those people -- you know the type -- who say, "Oh, I don't watch TV." Or, "Oh, I don't have a TV in the house."

Well, you should get one. And you should watch FX's Damages, AMC's Mad Men and Breaking Bad, ABC's Lost and HBO's In Treatment. Though I may be one of the few people in America who watched In Treatment.

Anyway, all of these shows or the actors in them were nominated for Emmys. TV at its best. And, yes, I still find time to read a book.

The operators of Dallas' new homeless shelter don't turn anyone away. That's commendable compassion.

But the result has been unmanageable crowds. Our story today says the center is serving twice as many people as envisioned.

Reports abound of drug dealing, fights and thefts.

I wonder if we'll see a backlash. Will people object to their tax dollars funding the center?

Will stereotypes about the homeless -- they're dangerous, ungrateful, lazy -- harden?

I hope not.

Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price certainly has taken his lumps for decrying one of his colleague's use of the term "black hole."

But I got a kick out of a letter to the editor that ran on today's DMN Editoral Page.

It came from Kathy Palomino (of Sachse), who wrote:

As long as they're not black hairs, Kathy, you're OK. Careful with those.

I winced while reading the newspaper this morning. Home Depot had an ad for its "End of Season" sale. It featured patio furniture, gardening supplies and other summer items.

A few days ago I saw my first "Back to School" advertisement of the year.

Such ads always fill me with melancholy. Could summer really be approaching its end so soon?

Even in this heat, I'm not ready to let it go.

From this obituary in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, B. Don Magness sounds like one of those larger than life, friend-to-all, pick-up-the-bar-tab promoters of a bygone era. Magness (pictured in 1998), was the longtime organizer of the Miss Texas beauty pageant. He died Thursday at 75.

His "personality was as big and flashy as the Miss Texas pageants he oversaw," writes Anna M. Tinsley. She adds:

"Mr. Magness, who often had a cigar in his hand, was known for telling jokes, speaking his mind, even his self-promoting T-shirts -- including one that read, 'Matthew, Mark, Luke and B. Don.' "

Tinsley's obituary also notes, however, that not everyone found Magness' color charming. In the late 1990s, he stepped down as Fort Worth's public events director amid sexual-harrassment complaints from female employees:

They said he told women on his staff to wear bright lipstick and short skirts -- a remark Mr. Magness denied -- as well as making sexual innuendoes, jokes about sex and comments about women's bodies. The city later settled a lawsuit out of court regarding the complaints.

Says here that Michael Andersen, 29, was fleeing police when he crashed his pickup into the Dubliner Irish Pub on Greenville Avenue in Dallas at 3 o'clock this a.m.

Instincts must have taken over the wheel.

As an old high school athlete -- and I do emphasize old -- I eagerly jump on board with State Board of Education members pushing a proposed rule that would afford high school athletes twice as much credit toward graduation than they can get now.

Right now, only two years of sports can be counted for credit. The proposal would allow all four years of sports to be counted. Anyone who's played or coached high school sports knows how much effort and commitment it takes. Plus, you learn how to accept defeat day after day, week in and week out (or was that just my team?)

The proposal is set to be drafted as a new state rule and voted on by the board at its next meeting in September.

Money quote comes from board member Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, who pointed out how other extracurricular activities, such as band and dance, now get four years of credit: "This is a fairness issue," Mr. Mercer said. "We will still be requiring all the core courses for our students. If we are going to honor scholar dancers, why not honor scholar athletes?"

Exactly.

Says here that Dallas Area Rapid Transit broke its ridership record in June, boasting 10.3 million passengers, highest in its 25-year history.

These high gas prices are changing folks' habits, and I suspect this trend will continue -- once folks begin seeing and appreciating just how much money they can save even if gas prices were to drop a nickle or two.

I got a kick out of this photo in today's paper. It ran with a story about the Woodhaven area of Fort Worth.

And it seemed to cry out for a creative caption. So let's hear what you've got.

A few possibilities to get you started:

West Meets South.

"Funny, that's just how John Wayne walked, too."

"I wonder if they know how silly they look in those hats?"

This is probably a stupid question but I'll ask it anyway.

In light of the carnage among warring drug cartels in Mexico, do recreational drug users here ever feel guilty about being the cause?

I'm sure the answer you would get from drug users is that the carnage is evidence that drugs should be legalized.

I still don't know how I feel about that. But I know that whatever moments of pleasure drugs bring, they exact a higher price in misery.

"Or as the bulls call it, 'The Running with the Morons.'"

-- Jay Leno, on The Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain

I see that Garrison Keillor, the popular humorist, is coming back to Dallas.

Oh, boy.

I've never gotten the appeal of Keillor. To me, he's a fraud. His downhome, folksy humor seems packaged and phony.

My dislike of Keillor was confirmed when he made some enormously insulting comments during his last visit to Dallas almost two years ago.

Remember?

He veered away from humor and tried some scathing political commentary. For instance, he compared the Methodists of Dallas to Nazi sympathizers, apparently for not opposing President Bush.

Who needs this guy?
.

This headline made me laugh: Soon, Dallas drivers will be able to zip through toll plazas.

Soon? I'm not sure it's possible for Dallas drivers to zip through those lanes any faster than they already are.

But I salute speed limits that reflect reality.

Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez has her share of problems. But I guess she can console herself that she's not in the hospital.

That's where Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson is after falling through the ceiling of his home over the weekend. Ouch.

That's what I try to tell my wife: Home repair is more dangerous than police work and really should be left to professionals.

This is why I take lightning very, very seriously.

A few weeks ago, I saw a man rapidly trying to finish mowing his lawn before an expected downpour -- despite flashes of lightning. Holding a push mower made of metal while it's lightning didn't strike me as a particularly clever move.

I know Blow gets this all the time.

But one of our young, smart interns noticed that I kept typing in www.google.com to call up the search engine. "My dad does that," she said, trying to hide her frustration.

Ouch! The intern -- did I say she was young? -- then proceeded to place Google in my toolbar, making it much easier to access.

I'm using it now, looking up "Social Security calculators."

Colleague Clay Zeigler notes that our story on the 30th anniversary of the television show Dallas went all the way to the top:

Dallas stars Larry Hagman, Linda Gray and Patrick Duffy read the story online, according to local public relations rep Martha Tiller.

She says Ms. Gray is a spokesperson for one of her clients and they spent time together here recently. Ms. Tiller wrote us to say, "I sent her a link to your wonderful story about the TV show, and she forwarded it to both Larry Hagman and Patrick Duffy. They loved it."

Apparently they weren't the only ones. More than 5,500 people clicked on the story on dallasnews.com, and more than 11,000 have taken our online quiz that tests your knowledge of Dallas trivia.

I notice in the TV ratings published today that one of the most-watched programs in the nation last week was Wipeout, a show featuring people bouncing off big inflatable balls and splashing into a mud pit.

We really might be doomed.

The Cleaner (Tuesdays on A&E, starring Benjamin Bratt)

Ex-addict tries to rescue lost souls. Can he save himself?

Boy, my column about the affluent Far North Dallas neighborhood needling the Dallas Housing Authority over the agency's landscape design for some new townhomes struck a nerve. More specifically, my use of two words upset some people -- "zeroscape" and "rich."

First, armchair gardeners, landscapers, horticulturists and wordsmiths jumped on me for using the term "zeroscape" rather than "xeriscape," which basically is a water-conserving landscape design philosophy.

And some folks, including at least one in the Far North Dallas neighborhood about which I wrote, say calling them "rich" is a stretch -- even if they are, uh, richer than the public housing tenants moving into their neighborhood. Affluent's OK. Not rich.

But zeroscape is the word that really got under some folks' skin.

While I really want you to read and take seriously that story on property appraisals in Texas, I have to say it contains one of my favorite, funny faux pas.

It's the use of the word "literally" to mean something other than "in actual fact." Using the word incorrectly can lead to some pretty comical mental images. As in this paragraph from the story:

"We are literally required to do our job with one hand tied behind our backs," said Jim Robinson, Harris County's chief appraiser and chairman of the Texas Association of Appraisal Districts.

Really? Literally? Not "practically" or "essentially"? I wonder who is in charge of tying him up each morning.