The Right Steals A Page From The Left’s Playbook And Scores

Copy cats: You’d think the activist folks on the left of the political spectrum would be pretty chapped right about now. After all, they’ve been in the protest and civil disobedience game for decades, speaking out against everything from war to the death penalty to environmental rape. And now we…

Smokey dare: Maybe it’s time to regulate marijuana like cigarettes

Smoke ’em if you got ’em: Craig Johnson, executive director of ProtectYouth.org, a Dallas-based nonprofit and lobbying group, doesn’t smoke marijuana himself, he says. He doesn’t think your kids should be smoking it either. No drug dealings in the neighborhood; none in the schoolyard either. But he and his group…

If Pay as You Go Works for City Council, Why Not Everyone?

Immodest proposal: Buzz has yet to weigh in on the draconian budget cuts facing City Hall, which could spell layoffs for 840 city employees, because, frankly, no one at City Hall has offered us an exorbitant fee for our advice. Given the way city government operates, as revealed at the…

Judging Judges

Oh, sure, Mr. Private Sector Wage Slave, you probably get formally evaluated by your boss every year. That annual review by your boss—that idiot—is a painful, tedious, unfair rite of passage annually. Well, if it makes you feel any better, you can take comfort from the fact that local judges,…

Recipes In The Rough

There’s plenty of shooting and fishing to be done at Rough Creek Lodge & Resort in Glen Rose–lots of trails to ride, an enormous swimming pool, and a climbing and rappelling tower. Oddly, though I’ve been there a few times for weekend getaways, I’ve never done much of the outdoorsy…

Those New Smart Electricity Meters May Be Too Damned Smart

Too smart: Buzz, being a geek, was pretty excited about the rollout of new-fangled “smart meters” in Texas by Oncor, the giant electric transmission company. A new gadget that allows us to see exactly how we’re using electricity by measuring consumption in 15-minute increments and even allows us to monitor…

More Cops Means Less Service?

Dallas two-step: Buzz has been a crime victim four times in Dallas: one car break-in, two break-ins of a shed and one home burglary that cleaned us out. The number of times Dallas police have been at our house? Zero. Now, Buzz is a realist, so we understand that the…

The Germans Declare Victory is Theirs

Victory smells: It is wrong to kick a man when he’s down or rub salt in another’s wounds. Very un-Christian. But what the heck? It’s fun, and Buzz has never been baptized. So we can’t help but resurrect (heh) this quote from Ross Perot Jr., given to USA Today back…

Go On, Have Sex. Do It for Big D.

Just do it: This can’t be right. A highly unscientific “Trojan Pleasure Survey” undertaken by the condom maker finds that Houstonians are a bunny-like people and have sex on average 101 times a year, making it the No. 1 do-it town in America, far surpassing D-FW’s paltry average of 73…

Avi Exposes Another Troublemaker on Greenville — Himself

Going batty: Buzz has always been kind of fond of Avi Adelman—a position not common among many of our readers, who would prefer to do their drinking on Lower Greenville Avenue without being hassled by Adelman. It’s not that Buzz agrees with Adelman’s efforts to drive the bars from his…

Remember the Alamo, But Forget That Whole Kennedy Thing, Please

Stand and deliver: On behalf of Dallas, Buzz would like to make the following statement: Listen, world, we’re sorry about that whole Kennedy assassination thing. Real sorry. Now, can we just move on? Apparently not. A new Web site—a sort of photo sharing, socializing spot called www.stoodthere.com, based in the…

Magnetic Reaction | A Day Time Curfew

Magnetic Retraction By Jim Schutze, May 14 Messing with Success The magnets are not only “islands” of excellence, cut off from the larger world around them. They provide a crucial role in allowing a sense of possibility and aspiration to permeate the entire district—to kill them is to kill that…

Art Is Risen

Well, how about that? All these years you were making art and didn’t even know it. That Chianti bottle you turned into a candle holder? Art. Those milk crates you converted into bookshelves to display your candle holder? Heck, call that art too. OK, really, really primitive art…tacky even. You’re…

A Daytime Curfew? What’s Next, Making Kids Wear Mao Jackets?

Save Ferris: Elsewhere in this week’s paper, Jim Schutze is mounting a spirited defense of DISD’s magnet schools for talented and gifted students. The district’s magnets and its learning centers for disadvantaged students were threatened with staff cuts thanks to a federal funding formula that requires each DISD campus to…

Everyone’s Favorite Color

Hey, have you heard this? You can help the planet by recycling, saving energy, composting, going organic, etc. It’s true! We read that somewhere. OK…we actually have read it pretty much freakin’ EVERYWHERE, all the freakin’ TIME! Gotta do our part to save the planet! Do it! Do it now,…

Watertight BFFs

We know what you’re thinking, right-wing worrywarts, but it’s cool. Frog and Toad are just really good friends. Your marriage is safe, and no one is “indoctrinating” your children. Well, maybe Casa Manana Children’s Playhouse is trying to teach them a thing or two about the joys of best-friendship with…

The DMN Buries the Lede and Common Sense

Lost in translation: Wow. That was some piece of reportage The Dallas Morning News produced this Sunday about Richard Allen’s inland port project in southern Dallas County. Reporters Kevin Krause and Gromer Jeffers Jr. spent two months reviewing allegations that a coterie of southern Dallas pols and businessmen tried to…

Free Jenny

Free Jenny Thank goodness Margaret Morin hasn’t given up on Jenny—without hope, there often is nothing. If Jenny knows, she appreciates it. Morin has a wonderful vision for Jenny, and she won’t give up. We need more people like Morin who fight for what is right, even when the system…