Early one morning this spring, Chris Lawler accidentally kicked a coiled rattlesnake slumbering in a row of grape vines. The rattle didn’t shake. The snake didn’t strike. It barely moved. The reptile was immobilized by the chilly desert air. This same air is why Lawler thinks he can move Texas…
If You Can’t Argue the Facts… County commissioners go to comical lengths to suppress jail study Last March, George Rodrigue, the managing editor of The Dallas Morning News, received a rather stern letter from a high-paid private attorney representing Dallas County. Aggrieved that reporter Jim O’Neill documented the blistering findings…
Just because you’re paranoid: So Buzz and the missus were doing our monthly shopping at Sam’s Club this weekend–bottled water, beer, toilet paper. When we got to the checkout, the clerk told us that our account had changed. We could no longer use a debit card but had to pay…
A year ago David Cunniff was not the same person he is today. If you met him then, you would have seen a tall, rugged guy, something of a ladies’ man, with a handsome face weathered by the sun and an aimlessness that suggested, at 44 years old, he might…
Jerry Wayne Mooney sat and shivered in the Dallas County jail. He was a grotesque sight: Several gunshot wounds, exchanged in a bizarre shootout with Irving police more than a year earlier, had shredded his abdominal muscles, causing his guts to push into a bulging, wrinkled sac of pink and…
Intercoursing the pooch: Buzz has always believed the motto over the door of The Dallas Morning News should be, “THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS: Let Sleeping Dogs Lie.” Even when they’re trying to tell us what’s going on, they’re afraid to tell us what’s going on. Take the hate-crime attack on…
Balls: Mr. Schutze, not only did you hit the nail on the head (“Balls for Brains,” July 14), but sir, your article on the punk shows that you have something that is severely lacking in journalism today. Fucking Balls. Thank you. Carter L. Kolodny, D.D.S. Arlington Talkin’ trash: I have…
Emily Dowdy walks into the small cinder-block room and, using her left arm to lift her right, shakes hands. At 5 feet 8 inches and 120 pounds, Dowdy appears skinny and slightly hunched, her blue eyes a bit wary. Her hair is no longer blond but brown, chopped off and…
Let’s get physical: I wonder if maybe the point of the article should be sour grapes (“The Year of El Gato,” by Rick Kennedy, July 14)? The fact is that soccer is a physical game. They do not have physical players in many of the South American and Latin American…
It’s a Dirty Job… DPD Sergeant Ricardo Terrones learns the pitfalls of investigating fellow cops PITY THE MAN who must investigate his bosses’ wrongdoings. Nothing but trouble will come his way. So it is with Ricardo Terrones, a sergeant with the Dallas Police Department working in Internal Affairs–a job in…
We here at the Dallas Observer want to say “thank you” to D magazine for naming Jim Schutze “best muckraker” in the mag’s upcoming August issue. Or, instead of “thank,” maybe we mean another word ending in “k,” because D’s compliment was backhanded. The magazine’s editors said Schutze’s column was…
Mario Torres doesn’t look like a publicity stunt. With unruly, spiky hair, a crooked grin and freckles, he doesn’t come off as a role model, either. In fact, the 23-year-old’s wiry frame hardly seems sturdy enough to support his own dreams, let alone those of Dallas’ Hispanic community and its…
More Cops for UTDDorm University president moves to help troubled Waterview Finally, action. After years of student complaints, the new president of the University of Texas at Dallas has ordered the school to fix security problems at Waterview Park, the nation’s largest private dorm. Dr. David Daniel said last week…
Where’s the love? Your regular Buzz correspondent travels out of town for a week’s vacation, and only then Dallas decides to hold one of its most absurd political farces in the past decade. OK, we’re overstating it. The farcical comes fast and frequently from City Hall. Still, the sight of…
Governor Friedman? Nuts for Kinky: What a treat to pick up the Dallas Observer and find your article (“Seriously Kinky,” by Robert Wilonsky, June 30). I was one of the 200 present June 17 at Kinky’s book signing and had on my Kinky button yesterday when I came across your…
Over here, in the corner, is Charlie Hatley, whaling away. “Unhhhhhhhhhhh,” he groans, jaw slack. The boxing dummy bucks, sways, threatens to fall over from Hatley’s blows. The kids outside the ring stare, saucer-eyed. They love Hatley, 19, the superstar of the place, ranked second in the nation at 141…
The Tao of Cowboy Horse guru Robert Liner says he’s never met a horse he couldn’t train Fresh from the corral, Robert Liner wipes beads of sweat from his temple and drapes his arms across the back of the couch, trying to soak up a little air conditioning in the…
If Southern Dallas African-American politics gets any sadder, Buzz may have to stop reporting on it. You may see headlines here in the weeks ahead: “News on Dallas black politics too sad to report.” Today’s story is about five Wellbutrins’ worth of pathetic news. The black ministerial group Clergy for…
Edge Gripefest Monopoly matters: I just returned from my stint on the Warped Tour and picked up this week’s Dallas Observer with all these letters (June 30) to Sam Machkovech regarding the state of local music on 102.1 The Edge…So I popped up the article (That Infernal Racket, June 23)…
Only when pushed, and then prodded and then finally pinned, will Richard Friedman explain why he’s running as an independent candidate for Texas governor. Initially, he will offer only the glib, catchy one-liners that befit the songwriter nicknamed Kinky who once proclaimed, “They ain’t makin’ Jews like Jesus anymore.” He…
She wasn’t the problem, the lawsuit claims. It was the lieutenants and sergeants below her who for months, years even, covered up how nasty things were in narcotics. Supervisors–all of them men–who should have reported to her, a 28-year veteran with no less a title than assistant chief of police,…
First the bad news, at least for the media: Since the U.S. Supreme Court declined this week to hear an appeal by two reporters found in contempt of court for refusing to reveal the names of confidential sources, journalists, especially in Texas, have scant protection from prosecutors who want to…
