A three-judge panel of the 5th District Court of Appeals has granted the Dallas Observer summary judgment in a libel suit brought by restaurateur Dale Wamstad. That means we won, though it’s too soon to tell whether Wamstad will appeal. This is good news for Buzz, since we edited the…

Each year, the Press Club of Dallas passes out scads of bronze statues of a semi-naked woman–called the Katie Awards–for excellence in local journalism and public relations. Buzz, while not a member of the club (see Groucho Marx’s comment re: clubs, membership in), would like to suggest a special prize…

This much we know is true: (PRIZM!) Youth OUTreach is a local organization for gay, lesbian and transgendered young people. On May 2, members of the group decided to get together in the food court in Town East Mall in Mesquite. They sat at tables. They ordered food. They talked…

One of Buzz’s favorite episodes of the TV show South Park introduced characters called “underpants gnomes.” They’re dim, vulgar pixies who steal little boys’ underpants as part of a grand business strategy. The plan? Step 1: Collect a big pile of underpants; Step 3, the profits. The joke is that…

Here’s a rhetorical question for you, apropos of nothing, really: How many pictures of dead Iraqi soldiers did you see during the media’s wall-to-wall coverage of the war? Buzz watched roughly 40 hours of TV news during the heavy fighting and saw lots of pictures of artillery pieces firing, tons…

On occasion, assorted persons–our friends, family and co-workers, chiefly–accuse Buzz of being a cynic. This wounds our heart deeply. Tears on our pillow, etc. etc. How can we be considered cynical, we ask in aggrieved tones, when people generally behave just about as badly as we expect they will? We’re…

Here’s a little inside Dallas Observer baseball for you: Our writers have quotas. They’re expected to write so many stories a year in exchange for continued employment. On occasion, our hardworking reporters find the quota system a bit burdensome. (By “on occasion” Buzz means “always,” and by “bit burdensome” we…

Finally, Buzz brings you some sort of good news. The state of Texas, in its all-too-finite wisdom, has bowed to eons of mammalian evolution and decided that breast-feeding your child is not a sign of unfit parenting. This is particularly good news for Jacqueline Mercado and her boyfriend, Johnny Fernandez,…

Here’s a lesson in standard journalistic etiquette for those of you who aren’t part of the media elite. (And by “elite,” Buzz of course means anyone who knows where to find the chilé-lime fried pork rinds at Kroger.) Often, after you write a story about someone, that someone will call…

You would think that if someone were to build the world’s largest zoo in Denton and announce plans to have it open this summer, the public would have noticed by now. It’s hard to be stealthy when you’re moving lions, tigers and elephants into a suburb. It’s even harder when…

A youth group that calls itself the Young Conservatives of Texas is taking some credit for the recent firing of a Fort Worth Star-Telegram business writer who called them “anti-intellectual little fascists” in an e-mail. The missive upset the group, though Buzz isn’t sure why. Maybe they didn’t like being…

Texans have to bear the burden of a number of stereotypes: Texas men are brash, gun-loving bubbas; the women are over made-up, big-haired shallow shoppers; we’re all materialistic, right-wing, anti-enviro religious freaks. In reality, none of those descriptions is more than 60 or 70 percent true, tops. Still, the tarring…

Well, isn’t this just peachy? For years now, Buzz has made it known that we are amenable to a little journalistic bribery. Cheap bribery, too. Our soul, we’ve advertised, can be bought for $1.89. Cash or check. Granted, it’s a bit frayed, sort of a fixer-upper, but still cheap at…

Exactly how bad will Dallas’ curbside trash recycling program have to perform before anyone with city government acknowledges that it just ain’t right? Pretty bad, apparently, judging by the latest numbers in a national survey. The survey published last month by the trade publication Waste News found that only 2.2…

So, have you laid in your supplies of plastic sheeting and duct tape to prepare for the next inevitable terrorist attack? Feeling more secure now? No? Not to worry, citizen. Fortunately, the Texas Legislature is way ahead of the feds and is taking its own steps to combat “terrorists”–at least…

A plan to allow Mesquite to operate soccer fields at Dallas’ troubled Samuell Farm (“Farm Teams,” February 6) appears to be rolling right along. We’d like to tell you more about what that plan entails, but it’s a secret. You, Dallas taxpayer, should just butt out and mind your own…

A Buzz reader wrote in to suggest that we make some comment on a Dallas Morning News report last week that the Sheriff’s Department somehow lost 50 keys that could be used to start about 180 cop cars. “Surely this deserves some commentary, preferably of a more flippant variety,” the…

So what, Buzz wonders, would Martin Luther King Jr. make of the war fever gripping certain parts of the country, specifically that part residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.? Young people putting on uniforms and taking up guns to march: Would King approve? And what if they were marching in a…