Page Pageant

The annual SportsPage beauty contest is sure to be a cultural event—if your idea of culture is skanky women in bikinis talking about what professional athlete they’d like to be stranded on a deserted island with. In a gathering of the dim that should be taking place in Mesquite rather…

The Strong Arm of the Law

Life in Dallas politics can be nasty, brutish and short when ambition, outrageous rumors and bitter rivalries turn a low-key election into primordial combat. But even in this uncivilized context, Karl Smith was shocked to find a police report dropped off at his Oak Cliff home that detailed a charge…

Republicans Heart the Defense

A Republican candidate for Dallas County district attorney, Dan Wyde talks on his Web site about his Southeast Texas family that emphasized “faith in God” and “duty to country.” Now a judge, Wyde also boasts about his conviction rate as a former prosecutor and his efforts to convict a major…

Pole Prowlin’

I can’t quite understand the timing here, but on Valentine’s Day a local gentleman’s club called the Lodge is offering a class on how to “strip for your lover.” It would seem that if you actually had a lover, you’d prefer to spend the evening in a more romantic setting…

Cowbell Blues

If you’re planning on catching the sold-out Blue Oyster Cult show at the Granada, here’s some advice. Don’t ask the band to explore the studio space. Don’t ask about Gene Frenkle. And please, absolutely, positively do not ask for more cowbell. It’s not that the band hates the eternally funny…

Stacked Deck

They may have worked at one of the most prolific real estate development companies in Texas, but they behaved more like awkward teenagers jilted by the object of their affection. Twice a week for months, employees at Southwest Housing had been asking Ruth Steward to lunch. Each time, the Oak…

Truly Alarming

It sounds like a burglar’s vision of paradise. Starting next Wednesday, February 1, you can break into any business in Dallas, trip up the alarm and the police won’t rush to the scene. Thanks to a new law passed by the Dallas City Council, the city’s finest will no longer…

Amphi-Theatre

The amphibians are kicking it one-on-one at the Heard Natural Science Museum and Wildlife Sanctuary, 1 Nature Place in McKinney, as an animal education specialist breaks down the animal kingdom’s most impressive hybrid for kids of all ages. The specialist will showcase toads, frogs, salamanders and sirens in a live…

PC Rockin’

If you think that Radiohead’s Kid A is a trifling collection of pop ditties, then why rock down to Electric Avenue for an experimental music concert presented by the University of North Texas Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia? We’re not even close to recommending this as a date. In…

Horse Opera

As one of only three horse rendering plants in the country, Dallas Crown in Kaufman provokes its share of horror stories–and while some are undeniably true, including its abysmal sanitation record with the city of Kaufman, others are harder to prove. Now, though, a division of the U.S. Department of…

Ballot Boxed

Forney residents began early voting on Monday after a judge ordered a new election for mayor following a highly charged eight-day trial that saw more than 170 witnesses take the stand. In his order, visiting District Judge Andrew Kupper cited “clear and convincing evidence” that last May’s city elections were…

Justice Delayed

For the crime of driving with a suspended license, Rhenia Chavers lost the ability to walk. She’s usually confined to a wheelchair, although on a good day she can navigate her mother’s apartment with a cane. Nine months ago, Chavers’ misdemeanor offense led her to spend six days at the…

Toy story

Toy story: It’s hard to say what’s more embarrassing for Dallas vice officers: that they would go through the trouble of conducting an undercover sting on a man who was selling lingerie and sex toys or that the defendant would walk away two years later paying a mere $50 fine…

Burn Baby Burn

Last fall at a fire conference in Houston, Dallas Fire-Rescue Deputy Chief Michael Price allegedly yelled at a woman to show us your tits during a skit. His colleagues would later tell department internal affairs investigators that they were startled, mortified and embarrassed by his remark. They also said that…

Blue Balled

Blue Balled Vice officers under investigation after alleged pimp turns the tables On a late Friday night in May, Dallas vice officers arrived at the windowless corner of a one-story building and knocked on the wood doors of the Acapulco Spa. Tucked away in a run-down strip mall a mile…

Premature Election

Last May, the city of Forney, a tiny but growing bedroom community 20 miles east of Dallas, played host to a election for mayor that featured switched ballots, confounding results and the undue influence of a crony of the incumbent. If not that, then challenger and self-made millionaire Rick Wilson…

The Lone Ranger

A former accountant, prosecutor and judge, Margaret Keliher doesn’t seem like the type of person to daydream idly. Still, you have to wonder if she looks at Harriet Miers, the president’s besieged nominee for U.S. Supreme Court justice, and thinks how that could have been her had she ever met…

Cell Disease

Four days into his short stint at Dallas County’s jail at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center, Mark McLeod talked with his public defender about a plea agreement that could set him free the next afternoon. The attorney remembers that her new client talked slowly as his wide, dark eyes offered…

Our House

The best NBA team that plays in a city you’d actually want to live in (yeah, Detroit, that was for you), the Dallas Mavericks, convene Saturday to take on the underachieving Minnesota Timberwolves, who may or may not have retained the services of disgruntled Pacer All-Star Ron Artest by then…