Best Gadfly/Activist 2000 | Anne Carlson, Dallas County chair, Common Cause Texas | Best of Dallas® 2020 | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Dallas | Dallas Observer
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She might look like your benevolent aunt, but Anne Carlson is a pit bull. Her quiet but determined approach to uncovering the sleaze of City Hall politics is a refreshing change from the E-histrionics of Sharon Boyd or the eco-tinged good government babble of the Green Party types. They are her allies, but she puts the best foot forward with a more professional approach. She knows the fight isn't about herself but her issues, and she sticks to them tenaciously. As a champion of electoral reform and government ethics, she seldom misses an important meeting and always has coherent material to back her positions. Combine that efficiency with her smarts and even temper (even when goaded), and you have a badass gadfly who could possibly drive real change in Dallas politics. The odds are stacked against her, but hell, we can dream, can't we?

Hmmm...This category was impossible to nail, because we had to choose between the four-screen Inwood Theatre and the two-screen Cine. Both bring the latest in independent and foreign cinema to Dallas and are much appreciated by their patrons. Aesthetically, however, Inwood is tops. You have to give props to Landmark Cinema for keeping a beautiful vintage theater like Inwood in good working shape. But Inwood suffers in the comfort factor. The legroom upstairs leaves much to be desired. The Cine has more than enough legroom, and bless them for it, but lacks the architectural heritage (and full bar). Regardless, we're willing to deal with missing legroom to see our favorite films, and there is always something good at one of the two theaters. Until Landmark builds its proposed new mega-art house on McKinney, or the Lakewood dips full-tilt into the huge pool of edgier fare that never makes it to Dallas, these will be our haunts.

This was a tough category. Exactly how, we asked ourselves, should we judge Dallas' top news anchor? We finally nailed down our criterion: Whoever doesn't put us to sleep on the couch. Gloria Campos, practically a Dallas institution, has been around for a while, but she still fronts the most smoothly professional newscast in Dallas, even if it has gone softer in recent years by switching to a fuzzy, "Family First" focus. We're not going to chirp about how much we like her hair, make-up, or voice, but we think she's an engaging pro who has a genuine bond with her audience. While her handsome henchmen John McCaa and Scott Sams are both able TelePrompter readers (the three switch during the week), watch out when McCaa and Sams anchor the news together sans Campos! The Hunter-Brinkley thing just isn't working. We're catching Zs before weatherman Troy Duncan makes it onscreen.

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