Archive Search Results
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Feature
R.I.P.ped
Even former Mr. America Mike Scarcella wasn't strong enough to beat the horrors of GHB addiction
By Mark Donald
Published: March 25, 2004
Shelly Martin was bone tired from the countless hours she spent at the bedside of her sick friend, but she figured she had better return to the hospital, and fast. For the last...
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Feature
The Wrong Guy
In a bungled hunt for a killer, police wreck the life of an innocent
By Mark Donald
Published: March 4, 2004
McKinney, May 16, 2002, 1:33 p.m. "McKinney, 911," answers a female dispatcher, sounding somewhat blasé. "What was the address of your emergency?" "Yes, ah...I am at...
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News
Keeping the Peace
Peace protesters at Bush's ranch get their first day in court
By Mark Donald
Published: February 12, 2004
Amid protest signs and peace songs and the animated anti-war crowd that had gathered Saturday in Crawford stood Robyn Curtz, a teenager who was worried about her mother. In...
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News
Cell-bloc Voting
A new effort tries to unlock former felons' votes
By Mark Donald
Published: December 18, 2003
Every weekday morning beginning at 7 o'clock, the gate of Huntsville's Walls Unit opens, just slightly. Returned to society are a dozen or so prisoners who have completely...
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Feature
Cocktail Hours
The latest AIDS medications give life to the dying--but what kind of life?
By Mark Donald
Published: November 13, 2003
He can't be more than 18 or 19, brown hair, tight T-shirt, tighter jeans, light blue eyes that have yet to be deadened by the street. It's obvious what he wants: a quick...
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News
Crack Alley
A Dallas neighborhood fights crime using placards and protests
By Mark Donald
Published: November 13, 2003
For a crime fighter, Peter Fleet seems on the smallish side, his slight appearance lacking a command presence, his reedy voice a bit nervous around the edges. But two weeks...
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News
Deanie Babies
It's Howard's party; buy if you want to
By Mark Donald
Published: September 4, 2003
The wine is flowing, the chips are dipping and the conversation is turning brazenly partisan. And why shouldn't it? This is not some effete soiree that hopes to nudge funds out...
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News
Consider the Source
Planned Parenthood refuses to give up the dole without a fight
By Mark Donald
Published: July 24, 2003
It's not much of a place, really: a bland, one-story yellow brick building hoping to remain innocuous to the small-town traffic that drives by. Its sign--Corsicana Health...
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Feature
Where the Rubber Leaves the Road...
...and flesh sometimes meets the pavement, stunt bikers look to go legit
By Mark Donald and Merritt Martin
Published: July 10, 2003
Like flies to honey, they swarm into the Sonic Drive-In on Northwest Highway near Garland Road, revving their high-performance motorcycles as if to announce their "Hey, look at...
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Feature
Just Get Married!
Bells will be ringing as a new pro-marriage, anti-poverty plan takes root in Texas
By Mark Donald
Published: May 29, 2003
"Then there was the guy who loved his wife so much, he almost told her." --Anonymous It seems a bit bizarre and a lot ironic that the Army, part of the mightiest military...
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Feature
Absent Without Leave
Think cutting class is child's play? Tell it to the judge.
By Mark Donald
Published: April 24, 2003
There is something about the boy's eyes--half-shut and lifeless--that may hold the clue to his truancy. They mirror a depression driven by emotions too big and confusing for...
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News
Passing the Plate
Proposed new license tags weigh in on the abortion debate
By Mark Donald
Published: April 24, 2003
The specialty license tags issued by the Texas Department of Transportation are a benign bunch really, offering little to raise the hackles of citizens on either end of the...
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News
It Doesn't Suck.com
Not for a cyber-griper who won a legal victory against his corporate nemesis
By Mark Donald
Published: February 20, 2003
Hank Mishkoff tries hard to convince you he isn't a chronic complainer--some high-minded crank who thrives on conflict and refuses to back down. But the 53-year-old Dallas...
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News
Slave Wages
The fight for slavery reparations takes on a local twist
By Mark Donald
Published: February 13, 2003
The lawsuit reads more like a lesson in black history than it does a class action in federal court. Its pleadings tell the sad tale of Andrew Jackson Hurdle, a 10-year-old...
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Feature
Get on the Bus
For one fellow traveler, the road to an anti-war protest in Washington is paved with good intentions and bad politics
By Mark Donald
Published: February 6, 2003
It's hard to know how to dress for the peace protest in Washington, D.C.: warm gloves, ski parka, sensible shoes, a gas mask. My wife has unwittingly packed some snacks into a...
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News
Party Time
Even in defeat, local Dems find a little Christmas cheer
By Mark Donald
Published: December 19, 2002
It wasn't just another obligatory holiday party, the kind of work-related seasonal gathering only made palatable by good liquor and plenty of it. On December 7, most of the...
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Feature
Lethal Rejection
Jeanette Popp still mourns her murdered daughter. Now she's become a compelling voice in the debate over the death penalty. Guess which side.
By Mark Donald
Published: December 12, 2002
Ever since her daughter's funeral, she had been stalked by the same nightmare: Nancy is in the Pizza Hut in Austin, stripped naked in the washroom, shoved to her knees on the...
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News
Steppin' Out
Former Cowboy Mark Stepnoski tackles a new role--leading the charge for marijuana reform
By Mark Donald
Published: October 31, 2002
He knows it won't be easy--coming out of the "smoky closet," as one marijuana advocate puts it. After all, he has been a professional football player for 13 years, a five-time...
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Feature
The View From the Bottom
What's it like surviving the telecom bust? Numbers alone don't tell the story.
By Mark Donald
Published: October 24, 2002
One morning in July he starts to cry and can't stop. There is no money left; he has sold or hocked nearly everything he owns and is still $30,000 in debt. Gone are his two...
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News
Bench Warmers
In many contested judicial races, the Republicans are grabbing all the incumbencies they can
By Mark Donald
Published: August 29, 2002
Being a Democrat, a Latino, a woman, Sara Saldaña believed she had chosen the right election cycle to run for civil district judge in Dallas County. With George W. Bush...
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