Humorless: It's not that Buzz is getting a big head or wishes to take credit--or blame--where none is due, but we can't help but feel a little responsible for some of the foulmouthed picketers who gathered outside City Councilwoman Laura Miller's house twice this week.
Last week, writing about how Al Lipscomb's grandson referred to Miller and fellow Councilwoman Donna Blumer as bitches at a council meeting, we wrote that Buzz welcomed his attempt to "lower the level of civic discourse to what you might find at a drunken domestic dispute at a trailer park."
Well, we were only kidding, and we'd like to apologize to trailer owners everywhere. No self-respecting trailer park would welcome the sort of pinheads who gathered outside Miller's Oak Cliff home with signs, bullhorns and whistles twice this week, doing their best to bring the "level of civic discourse" even further into the gutter.
According to an e-mail message from Miller, about 30 protesters led by Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price and former local NAACP head Lee Alcorn were there to protest Miller's continued call for a more thorough investigation into allegations of misconduct by police Chief Terrell Bolton. The picketers believe that Miller, Blumer, local FBI chief Danny Defenbaugh and The Dallas Morning News are all racist for whatever parts they've played in questioning Bolton's integrity.
Which doesn't exactly explain why some of their signs referred to Miller as a "whore" and "bitch" (her children were home both times) and called News staffer Todd Bensman and Defenbaugh "homosexuals."
That last one seems to be a particulary strange "insult" to be hurling at someone in 2001--not that there's anything wrong with that, you know. Regardless, Buzz has it on good authority that both men are straight, though Bensman, who has been covering Bolton's woes for the News, reportedly invited Defenbaugh to dinner and a movie after learning of the signs. Neither man would comment for Buzz.
Alcorn--whose own sign simply asked, "Is racism a disease?"--did. He says the real issue is what he believes are baseless attacks on the character of Dallas' first black police chief.
"When you have a demonstration...there are a number of people who come and join, and it's difficult to police...that's one of the downsides of protesting," he says. "I wouldn't carry a sign saying that...[but] I'm not responsible for anybody's behavior."
Except your own, Lee, and if you lie down with dogs...
Nevertheless, Alcorn says more protests are to come, though for her part Blumer says she doesn't expect them at her house, and they won't affect her behavior either way.
"We don't have any small children to terrorize," she says.
--Compiled from staff reports by Patrick Williams
