Buzz

Making a silk purse outta Dan
We're glad that someone is taking seriously Buzz's suggestion that the Dallas School District name a school after spectacularly profane former trustee Dan Peavy. If you remember, we suggested the board pass up suggestions for school names like Arthur Ashe or Anne Frank to name a building Goddammed Tits on a Warthog Dan Fucking Peavy High School.

We promptly received a letter from Peavy's lawyer Tom Mills. (It's important that Buzz point out that we are not making this up.):

My client Dan Peavy, the reformed-former-user-of-offensive-language, objects to the incorrect "quotation" being attributed to him (also incorrectly in your previously printed "transcript"). If your high school name is accepted, it would accurately be named Goddamned (More Useless Than) Tits on a Boar Hog Dan Fucking Peavy High School.

However, Mr. Peavy, the reformed-former-user-of-offensive-language, is not in favor of that; the language would be too objectionable. It would also be too long a name and I think it would be hard to find an appropriate mascot.

Please do not further damage the reputation of Mr. Peavy, the reformed-former-user-of-offensive-language, for being an accurate purveyor of colloquialism.

We based the Buzz item and our previous article on a DISD-provided transcript of the now-infamous tape of secretly recorded Peavy conversations. But Mills, a purveyor of Texas colloquialisms, told Buzz that he has had an opportunity to listen to an electronically enhanced version of the tape provided by the FBI. We stand corrected.

We must disagree, however, that finding an appropriate mascot for GTBHDFPHS (whew!) would be difficult. While producing a boar hog with mammaries is beyond current swine genetic engineering, plenty of mascots in the metaphorical sense are available from the Dallas City Council or the Texas Legislature.

Ah, sweet bliss
The October issue of D magazine gave a "thumbs down" to Observer editor Peter Elkind for failing to note in print that syndicated columnist Molly Ivins, whose work appears weekly in the Observer, had been embroiled in a recent plagiarism controversy. Wrote D: "That means readers who depend on the tiresome tabloid remain blissfully unaware that Ivins' reporting has been called into question."

Forget for the moment that the controversy surrounding Ivins involved work not published in the Observer, but seven years ago in Mother Jones magazine--and had been covered in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Dallas Morning News, and elsewhere.

Consider instead that the just-out November issue of D includes a feature story by freelance writer Katie Sherrod, fired in 1991 from her longtime job as a columnist at the Star-Telegram after, yes, allegations of plagiarism. The firing of Sherrod, who consistently maintained her innocence, generated a considerable public controversy in Fort Worth--including a bumper-sticker campaign among her supporters. Yet there was, of course, no mention of all this in D, presumably leaving its readers--dare Buzz say it?--"blissfully unaware."

--Glen Warchol

21