As we reported here, people made homeless by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita had faced looming deadlines to return paperwork necessary to keep getting rental assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. We say “had,” because FEMA has now extended the deadlines for tens of thousands of households counting on government…

I have such fond memories of Girl Scout Camp. S’mores, songs around the campfire, ghost stories told in creaky bunks. Good times. Now I am at Theater Critics Camp in Connecticut, a two-week indoctrination into a cult that worships the three S’s: Shaw, Shakespeare and Sondheim. Did you see that…

If, as expected, the iron hand of the U.S. Justice Department forces the beleaguered Dallas County jail to revamp how it administers medical care to its most troubled inmates, it won’t come a moment too soon. In just the last two weeks, three inmates have passed away while wards of…

Remember back when Jim Schutze reported on Behrouz Nahidmobarekeh? No? Don’t recall the story of a man that not only dried, grated and sprinkled his own feces on pastries at Fiesta, but smeared the non-dried variety on book spines at the Dallas Library? I’ll wait for your “Oh, riiiight, that…

I was always very good about playing well with others. Until I was 35. After that, my give-a-shitter about group dynamics plumb gave out. Here at Theater Critics Camp in New England, I’m reminded of the saying from Sartre: Hell is other people. Amend that: Hell is other people who…

� Danny Moloshok/Blue Pixel for MBP 2006 If we wanted our rock stars to be boring, Patrice, we’d listen to Radiohead. Last night’s Rock Star: Supernova was a lesson in feisty dialogue with co-host Dave Navarro. The guy was definitely showing some post-break-up angst when he exchanged his usual sticky-sweet…

Back in the late 1980s, I wrote magazine stories about crimes, murders mostly. Grisly murders where one spouse kills another in a way that leaves scorch marks on the garage floor or bloodstains splashed across the kitchen ceiling. I sometimes interviewed the accused, giving me access to county and state…

Many of the folks who washed up in Reunion Arena after Hurricane Katrina could wind up displaced again. Hurricane Katrina displaced them once, now a failure to send in the proper paperwork could force thousands of evacuee families living in Texas to move again. Federal Emergency Management Agency officials said…

Just looking at a screenshot of Luxor makes us want to play it. If games like Grand Theft Auto are the gansta rap of videogame genres and Quake the death metal, then Luxor would fit, ahem, squarely in the niche for adult contemporary music–polite, nonviolent, familiar and comforting. Sorta like…

No one has ever accused us of having good taste. Literally. No one. Not ever. Still, even we know some things don’t mix. Tan shoes and navy blue slacks. White wine and five-alarm chili. Executions and fun guess-the-celebrity games. That last one comes from the Texas Moratorium Network, a statewide…

Gut feelings: Why would two Plano women decide to spend July Fourth fasting? The likely answers seem obvious enough: swimsuit season, too many mochafatass lattes at Starbucks, an anorexia relapse. But to protest the Iraq war? Looks like we’ve found the progressive contingent in Plano. Their names are Julie Cuniglio…

No, trust this: Buzz has a deal for you, Dallas voter. For free, we will come by your house and do an inventory of things that need to be repaired, replaced or added. It’ll be a long list–face it, if you’re letting Buzz inside your home, it’s a dump–but we’ll…

The U.S. Supreme Court decision on Texas redistricting is out, and by almost any measure it’s a Republican victory. A 5-4 decision isn’t exactly crushing, but the effects certainly are: DeLay’s 2003 map, known as Plan 1374C, is left almost intact, as is his new tactic of redistricting whenever power…

Congratulations are certainly in order for Sheriff Lupe Valdez after she passed her mandatory state law enforcement exam on her second try yesterday, knowing that if she flunked it would generate another round of ugly headlines for her department. Still, rather than modestly announce the good news and move on,…

Ink erasure: Too many tattoo parlors in Deep Ellum? Is that possible? Apparently, yes. The city council last week approved an ordinance that mandates at least 300 feet between parlors in the neighborhood, now home to a half-dozen such shops, most packed together on Main Street. In 18 months someone’s…

Rick Kennedy Whoopsie-daisy Our constant vigilance here at Observer World Headquarters was rewarded moments ago when, just across the street, we noticed this innocuous maroon compact popping the baddest-ass wheelie we had ever seen. Except that it was just sitting there. Further investigation showed that in fact the car had…