Do it yourself We hate to say it, but Buzz thinks Tom Hicks and Ross Perot Jr. did just fine picking David Schwarz as architect for the new arena. Before you pick up a pen and fire off a letter claiming that we’re: a) dumb as a box of rocks…

Winning friends, influencing people It sounds like such a good idea: a big, wealthy, downtown law firm opens up a storefront office in South Dallas to serve the black community gratis. You know, noblesse oblige…among lawyers, no less. Nice plan, but its execution by the firm of Bickel & Brewer…

Venable ego-watch Washington at Valley Forge. Travis at the Alamo. Venable at DISD. That’s right, history buffs. Dallas’ own education gadfly Don Venable is the Man with the Stand on the Dallas school board, sacrificing himself and standing by his principles. At least, that’s his story. According to Venable, he…

One born every minute Buzz isn’t quite sure what possessed us to stop by last week’s book signing for self-professed medium James Van Praagh, whose book of happy talk about the afterlife–Talking to Heaven–is a bestseller. Maybe it’s his claim that he can chat with the departed spirits of animals…

Ron’s pal If Buzz were conspiracy-minded, here’s one we could peddle with the Kennedy assassination freaks: Lee Alcorn’s opposition to the Trinity River plan is all a scam, a setup he arranged with Mayor Ron Kirk to actually sell the project. A touch paranoid, you say? Well, how else to…

The scoop on Paula Buzz generally tries to avoid those mendacity festivals known as news conferences–the hard questions never get answered, and statements that should draw a horselaugh go sailing by. But even we were lured out of our comfy chair to the Fairmont last week to get a peek…

Free at last Someone may have sent the managers of Regis Square Apartments a copy of the Constitution, with its pesky allowances for free speech and assembly. Anyway, something motivated them last week to drop trespassing charges against Texas Tenants Union housing activist Dina Levy. As the Dallas Observer reported…

April fools We’d like to say it was a deliberate April Fools’ joke, but even Buzz, with our sometimes–ah–imaginative interpretation of the facts, can’t carry that one with a straight face. We’re referring to last week’s Dallas Observer cover story, “The Jones Boys,” about Paula Jones’ Dallas lawyers, who, we…

Life doing a bad imitation of art When Buzz ran across the name Delvin J. Diles as one of two suspects charged in the abduction and murder of Plano stockbroker Frank Meziere, we did a double take. Delvin J. Diles. Where had we heard that name before? As it turns…

Look for the slavery label Congress has scheduled its first hearing on Saipan’s sweatshops, those bastions of free-market economics and indentured servitude so strongly endorsed by House Majority Leader Dick Armey. [“Our man in Saipan,” February 19]. On March 31, the Senate Energy and Resources Committee will hear the Clinton…

Run, Jesse, run? If things have been a bit too quiet lately on Dallas’ racial front, here’s a piece of news that promises to warm things up: Jesse Diaz is planning to run against County Commissioner John Wiley Price. Diaz, an activist with the League of United Latin American Citizens,…

That’s ho—m’fo—bik Like many, Buzz, uh, forgot to vote in this week’s primaries. It’s not that we don’t care about good government. It’s just that all those Republicans look alike to us. Fortunately, the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance is a little more attentive. They monitor the races and send…

Have rubbers, will travel It was a nice gesture. DISD board members, who’ve come under fire in the past for their supposedly excessive travel at district expense, received rather handsome green travel bags from the Dallas Rotary Club at a luncheon last week in Union Station. When Don Venable got…

Garbage in One man’s trash is another’s news story, at least at The Dallas Morning News. On Tuesday, the News devoted 47 column inches to an article and photo about an Irving man, Jesse Rincon, who believes he has found a historic homestead on a vacant lot behind his house…

Making amends Buzz has just been all torn up inside since colleagues here at the Dallas Observer wrongly accused FOX 4 anchor Ashleigh Banfield of performing a Linda Ronstadt song and, of course, made fun of her singing with the band Tommy Hyatt & the Haywires. So when we read…

Conspiracy du jour They were all in one place, sitting in a stuffy back room at DISD’s Environmental Education Center in Seagoville: Matthew Harden. Kathleen Leos. Don Venable. Shirley Ison-Newsome. What do all of these folks have in common? Lawsuits, of course. Big, messy ones–sprinkled with tales of racism, sexual…

The dog never smells its own DISD board member Don Venable has a tendency to attach himself to nitpicky legal issues like a rabid chihuahua, running, yapping, ripping, and biting till he manages to score a bloody chunk of flesh. Venable has sued the district several times over the years,…

Tanks a lot, Mr. Loncar Tank-driving attorney Brian Loncar doesn’t see the inside of a courtroom that often. After all, as Dallas Observer staff writer Thomas Korosec revealed in his January 9, 1997, cover story “Smash ’em and smile,” Loncar essentially ran a lawsuit mill–where untrained, underpaid staff churned personal…

Winners and whiners Buzz has conducted its own statistical analysis and concluded that at least 1,643 pro-arena votes–last Saturday’s margin of victory, plus one–can be attributed to the ghastly presence of Sharon Boyd, treasurer of the It’s a Bad Deal! campaign. In numerous interviews, and most notably in a televised…

Parting shots The fat lady is warming up her voice, and by the time Buzz rolls around again, the Mavs and the Stars will be laying plans for a new Dallas arena or reserving a U-Haul to move out to the sticks. So, here it is, our last chance to…

Thin air Enough is enough. In the past, Buzz has tried to show compassion when KERA radio talk show host Glenn Mitchell dragged out his intro or lingered over an anecdote a little too long, obviously trying to fill what otherwise would be dead air. But this week, Mitchell hit…

Back of the line, pal Add Matthew Harden’s name to the list of people queued up to get their hands on the infamous Peavy Tapes. Lawyers representing the embattled DISD chief financial officer surprisingly came one step closer this week to hearing selections from the two-year-old tapes of former school…