Don’t let the doorknob…: Oh, such warm, moist sighs of sadness swept the city last week over the end of state Representative Terri Hodge’s political life. What a shame. What a tragedy. What a load of crap. Quick show of hands, readers. Before she pleaded guilty to federal tax fraud…
Here’s a quick Monday-morning discussion question for you Friends of Unfair Park: Have you stopped or cut back on taking the Dallas North Tollway in these lean times? My monthly bill recently hit $120, so it’s Stemmons Freeway — go, Speed Racer! — for me until some bills are paid…
There are no flying back-kicks. No multi-car pile-ups or explosions. No gee-whiz special effects. But for our money–and by the account of countless film critics–there’s no better suspense movie than The Third Man. Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) is a naive American pulp Western writer who travels to the cesspool of…
Tolls for thee: Buzz is broke. All Buzz’s friends—both of them—are broke. The feds are broke. The state is broke. All God’s children are broke. So who’s going to pay for all the new roads a growing Dallas County needs? Well, you will, assuming you’re not too broke to drive…
After a couple of weeks playing phone tag, Unfair Park finally managed to connect with George M. Clayton, the District 12 State Board of Education candidate opposing incumbent Geraldine “Tincy” Miller in Tuesday’s GOP primary. Clayton has been something of a mystery man to the Republican Party folk and state…
Trend surfing: You might as well start practicing right now, so you can get used to it. Say these words: Governor Rick Perry, four more years. Why is Buzz predicting the return of Mr. Hot Hair to office? Well, he’s leading the polls in his primary race and, so far,…
Buzz kill: Oh, no, no, no. This can’t be correct. Could it really be that the young Earthers, the intelligent designers and assorted Christian right-wing whackjobs who have made the Texas State Board of Education such a reliable source of amusement could be facing…extinction? Speaking as someone who neither has…
Well, who knew? The eyes of Texas have been focused on the GOP primary race between Governor Rick Perry and challenger Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison as the ultimate throwdown between far right and somewhat-less-than far right Republicans. In the meantime, while we weren’t looking, “moderates” may slip in the backdoor…
Forget that today’s pirates live in soul-crushing poverty in places like Somalia and occasionally wind up getting shot by U.S. Navy snipers. Who needs grim reality when you can see How I Became a Pirate at Dallas Children’s Theater beginning Friday, January 22? The musical, based on the children’s pop-up…
Clearing the smoke: Every two weeks or so, we wander into our publisher’s office and flip through copies of our company’s sister papers in Denver and California, where medical marijuana is legal. “Wow, they must be raking in the ad dough,” we say, looking at the advertisements for medical pot…
All’s fair: Well now, that hardly seems fair. Those wily Dallas County Republicans are out soliciting campaign contributions, and they’re landing some really low blows to do it. They’re accusing county Democrats of behaving like, gasp!, Democrats—that is, being blindly loyal to their own party members whenever they’re not busy…
Is it safe to come out yet? Is this horrifying, recessionary, alien-anal-probe of a year finally—finally!—over? Whew! It is! We made it through the last year of a less-than-auspicious decade. Let’s all get some “I Survived ’09” T-shirts and have a party. Maybe while we’re all together, we can make…
Brand control: Self-restraint has never been high on Buzz’s list of virtues, as anyone who has ever seen our nicotine-stained fingers and fat gut can attest. Still, we appreciate virtue in others when we (very rarely) see it, so we kind of admire Eric Johnson, the lawyer running in the…
Burn, baby: Well, that’s distressing. Here Buzz is, due to dispense our bit of weekly wisdom/news/crapola, but we just can’t get into it. Really, what’s the point? See, we just got off the phone with a reader, who was upset with our column last week suggesting that the city should…
Pay to stay: If Emma Lazarus were alive and living in Dallas these days, she’d probably throw up. Lazarus—for those of you who were sleeping in civics class—is the author of “The New Colossus,” the poem that adorns the Statue of Liberty. Why would she be a nauseated Dallasite? Well,…
Let’s end the week with a little journalistic quiz for all your Friends of Unfair Park out there. First, a little background.In October, D magazine published a lengthy feature headlined “The Woman-hating Culture Inside the Dallas Fire Department,” by Gretel C. Kovach. The story included copious details about how hard…
Well-mannered: Well, that was awkward—one of those embarrassing breach-of-etiquette moments, like when some guy on the bus asks to borrow your comb. You want to be generous, do the polite thing, etc. but geez… In our case, the uncomfortable moment involved U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn, who presided over the…
True confessions: Many of us carry some secret shame, a memory of youthful indiscretion that we’d rather no one else know. Maybe you shoplifted or felt up a cousin at a family reunion. Hey, it’s cool. We understand. Even Buzz has an ugly secret, but since we have no shame,…
You have to give the organizers of the Chile Pepperama Festival at Old Town Shopping Center credit. They don’t shy away from asking the hard question, as in: Who makes the best chili in town? This is Texas, after all, and no question short of “Who has the best religion?”…
Governor nutso: So, whaddya think? Is Governor Rick Perry crazy like a fox or just plain crazy? Dallas Morning News editorialist William McKenzie posed a similar question in his column Tuesday…well, sort of similar. “What is Rick Perry doing?” McKenzie asked about the governor’s recent gutting of the Texas Forensic…
“Perry sets up pay for recruiters”—headline in The Dallas Morning News about Governor Rick Perry’s Amway-like campaign program that pays cash incentives to “volunteers” who recruit additional “volunteers” Coming soon to a cable channel near you: Perry, dressed in an electric-blue dress shirt, white belt and tan slacks, rushes from…
Don’t blame the system: We’ve been hearing a lot of chatter from commenters on the Observer’s Web site about how former city council member Don Hill’s trial on charges of corruption is, in fact, an indictment of the city’s 14-1 council system. Under 14-1, created under federal court order in…
