Buzz

Guess again, Kay
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has made her opposition to changes in the Wright Amendment clear. What a pity she hasn't bothered to acquaint herself with the amendment's history before weighing in on whether to expand flights from Love Field.

In a letter to a constituent, Hutchison offered up some fractured facts to back her position.

"As you may know, the Wright Amendment was a compromise between the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, the State of Texas, and the federal government when the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth were forced by the federal government to build Dallas/Fort Worth Airport," the letter states.

Not quite.
As regular readers of the Observer may know, ["The (W)right to fly," October 16] the Wright Amendment was cooked up in Congress by former U.S. Rep. Jim Wright, who originally wanted to ban all interstate flights from Love. This happened in 1979 in an effort to keep Southwest Airlines from flying beyond the Texas border, about 10 years after the cities agreed to build D/FW and five years after it opened.

Oh, shut up
Buzz is the last place to call for restraint when it comes to gloating over the misfortunes of fallen political hacks. Yet Thomas Muhammad, a columnist for the black newspaper Minority Opportunity News, crossed the line with his remarks about former City Councilman Paul Fielding and Fielding's trip to the pen on fraud and conspiracy charges.

"Fielding was the most mean-spirited, selfish, greedy, nasty, crazy, and oh yes, racist White Jewish person to place his butt in a city council chair in a loooonggg time," Muhammad wrote in his November Community Pulse column.

Mean-spirted, selfish, greedy, nasty, crazy and racist? No problem. But to put Fielding's religion at the end of a string of insults raises the stench of anti-Semitism.

We were unable to reach Muhammad for comment, but maybe that's a good thing. The last black-press columnist Buzz challenged over references to Jews was Rufus Shaw in the Elite News. The air in our office is still blue from the cussing he gave us in July.

Give peace a chance
Bosnia and Serbia. Israel and Palestine. Swiss Avenue and Bryan Parkway. At least one of the world's trouble spots is ready to bury the hatchet.

Last week, several Swiss Avenue homeowners allowed commoners from Bryan Parkway into their homes for "little taco things and cold beer," says DISD flack and sometime pianist John Dahlander, who recently moved to Bryan Parkway.

The event was intended to welcome new neighbors and end some of the sniping among residents who feel the Swiss Avenue Women's Guild--aka a bunch of snoots--is trying to take over the historic district. "It was a very nice event," says Dahlander. "I'm not a snob, by the way," he added.

That's nice, John, but did they let you enter by the front door?

Feeling snide and churlish? Have some inside info? Why not share? E-mail Buzz at Patrick_Williams@dallasobserver.com.

--Compiled from staff reports by Patrick Williams