A fine line separates indefatigable optimism from loopiness. Buzz, whose sense of optimism abandoned us about the same time we started losing our hair many years ago, isn’t certain exactly where that line is, but we’re pretty sure that Bobby Wightman-Cervantes, once and future Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, has…
The Horror Our terrible national tragedy: Thank you, Jim Schutze, for your article “All God’s Children” (September 13). It was beautifully written and expressed many of my feelings in the aftermath of our terrible national tragedy. I, too, have a teen-age son. He just turned 16. One of my first…
Editor’s note: It’s impossible to pin down an exact moment, a single violent death or drive-by shooting, but sometime in the late ’80s and early ’90s, something strange and terrible seemed to happen in Texas and across the country. Suddenly, we were afraid of our children. A stream of news…
The young man is slumped over, dimly visible in his steel-mesh cage. He mumbles when he speaks, and the words that make it through the metal are plain and crude and soaked in a back-alley drawl. Billy Ray Dennis Jr., sentenced to life in prison for killing a Dallas teacher,…
Watching the mold debate unfolding at the Texas Department of Insurance, Texas homeowners might be inclined to think their neighbors have gone stark raving mad, that they’re overcome by “public hysteria” fueled by the media, not to mention greedy plaintiffs attorneys, and have begun filing so many mold-related claims that…
So City Council member Laura Miller says she never said those mean things about untidy, code-violating Hispanic businesses in Oak Cliff that the Dallas Observer quoted her as saying in our August 30 edition. Here’s what she says she didn’t say: “I’m going to go up and down that motherfucking…
Makes Me Holler Rolling in their graves: My money won’t buy a Fred Baron full-page response, but here’s my two cents’ worth on “Absentee Minded” (August 30). Leave it to the Dallas Observer to mischaracterize a position that I have long held publicly and for which I speak clearly and…
This is the discussion going on several times a month at The Dallas Morning News: Highly paid, award-winning writer: “Hi, boss person, whazzup?” Midlevel editor: “Hello, longtime faithful employee. I just needed to alert you to a few changes in your job description.” HPAWW: “Great! Will I be working from…
Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios is located in an industrial area of Denton, nestled against the railroad tracks, across the street from the Denton Concrete Company and in the shadow of the Morrison’s Corn-Kits sign that serves as the city’s meager skyline. If you drove by the building during the day,…
The lingering legends of Jim Thorpe, perhaps the most talented and honored athlete in American history, are as colorful as they are numerous. So varied were his gifts that he won track meets single-handedly. His speed and agility on the football field enabled the tiny all-Indian college he attended to…
Just over a year ago, the small Texas Panhandle town of Tulia made national headlines when police rounded up more than 10 percent of the city’s African-Americans and jailed them on drug charges. All of the arrests and charges were based on the uncorroborated word of one officer: Deputy Tom…
Crimson-faced: Never let it be said that Buzz will miss an opportunity to make fun of Okies. Why? Because Buzz–at least this week’s author–grew up in the land of red dirt and 3.2 beer, and we will forever harbor deep psychological scars because of it. So it’s surprising to hear…
Ganging Up Bile and disdain: Did Jim Schutze (“Absentee Minded,” August 30), Thomas Korosec (“Vamoose”) and Mayor Kirk (Dallas Business Journal) get together and decide that this is “kick the crap out of Laura Miller week?” I am a bit disconcerted over the bile I picked up from all three…
Here’s an offer you can’t refuse: For less than $12,000 paid to the right people, you can buy the early and absentee ballot vote in eight precincts in Southern Dallas–just enough votes, it turns out, to win you a $125 million taxpayer subsidy for your new sports arena or a…
Fermin Vazquez’s widow is not certain her husband’s zoning fight with neighbors of his North Oak Cliff business and their City Hall allies was the ultimate reason he put a .380-caliber handgun to his chest last month and fired a bullet into his heart, but she says there are clues…
It had all the makings of a trend. The new global economy–the one driven by the Internet, e-commerce and multinational corporations, the one that keeps three shifts running 24/7, that enables us to bank at 2 a.m., trade stock at 3 a.m. and get fit at 4 a.m.–seemed to need…
They came because they were curious, because they were committed. They came because they were fed up. On August 15, more than 30 lawyers, Democrats all, gathered in the Oak Cliff courtroom of Justice of the Peace Luis Sepulveda to talk politics and decide just how serious each of them…
Damned faint praise: A herd of Pegasuses…Pegasi…whatever…have started cropping up on downtown streets, drawing swift reaction from some of our more aesthetically picky co-workers, specifically: “Gack! What is that?” “That” is the first among a planned 200 brightly decorated, 6-foot-tall, fiberglass winged horses being placed about the city center by…
Rubbernecking A little bit of Texas died: So I heard the news today about the Toadies (“Hell Freezes Over,” at www.dallasobserver.com). I feel like a little bit of Texas died in that 45-second “acknowledgement” the radio DJ was so gracious to give us. A little bit of Texas, and a…
You go south from Fort Davis until you come to the place where rainbows wait for rain, and the big river is kept in a stone box, and water runs uphill. And the mountains float in the air, except at night when they go away to play with other mountains…
ODESSA–On a recent summer afternoon, long after the temperature had climbed past the 100-degree mark and even the dust devils seemed to weave and dance with lackluster effort, it was all but impossible to imagine how things once were. Standing amid the parched mesquites and the rhythmic nodding of the…
Six days into her 10-day jail sentence, Megan Lewis had found a novel way to win friends behind bars. A vegan who eats no animal products, the 24-year-old animal-rights protester gained some popularity among her cell mates at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center because she was willing to trade the…
