Dim bulbs

Dim bulbs: Buzz doesn't cry, but even we can be moved by the news once in a while. The stories in April about Mercy, the dog that rescuers tried and failed to save after she was intentionally set afire, were pretty sad, for instance, but years in the news biz has hardened our heart and tear ducts.

Still, it was all Buzz could do to keep from weeping like a crocodile when we read Dallas Morning News reporter Kimberly Durnan's first-person account Monday of the discovery of an indoor marijuana garden upstairs from her SMU-area condominium. About 100 pot plants, some nearly ready for harvest, were destroyed when neighbors tipped the police to strange odors and weird goings-on at the condo.

Oh, the humanity. Oh, the stupidity of growers who start a weed farm in an apartment building.

Still, Durnan managed to leaven our heartache with a little unintentional humor, writing that cops found "elaborate grow lights that used bulbs worth about $1,000 each."

A thousand bucks for a light bulb? That would go a long way toward explaining the high-cost of locally grown hydro...or so we hear. (See "The Other Farmers Market," October 13, 2005.) We checked with a local hydroponics supply house. The pricier bulbs designed for growing plants range somewhere around $100.

A $1,000 bulb would be pretty damn bright--maybe the Morning News could use one of them to illuminate their search for Angie Barrett, the former wife of Dallas philanthropist Bill Barrett. No mention of her managed to make it into last Thursday's Morning News obituary of Bill Barrett, described by News Editor Robert W. Mong Jr. as "one of the great stalwarts of The Dallas Morning News Charities campaign over the years."

Of course, this is the same paper that neglected to report anything in 2002 when Angie Barrett was suspected of assaulting her elderly husband and the case against her was suspiciously dropped by the Dallas County District Attorney's Office. (See "Bill Due," April 18, 2002.)

Think there's a connection between Bill's stalwartness and the obit's failure to mention his ass-whuppin' ex? Does marijuana grow in condos? (Excellent name for a variety of weed, by the way: Mondo Condo.)

By now you might be wondering how Buzz's warped mind can tie together marijuana plants, the Morning News and a curious omission in what was ostensibly a "reported" obit. It's easy. Two words: bush league.