There’s nothing unusual about the small brick house on Legend Drive. Nothing striking or noteworthy, except its owner, M.T. A’Vant, the Garland man once widely regarded by the press as a prominent black militant. His place looks just like the next house; the trimmed lawn blending into a suburban scene…
Dale Wamstad, operator and manager of the enormous III Forks restaurant in North Dallas, has sued the Dallas Observer and staff writer Mark Stuertz for libel. In his suit, filed last month, Wamstad claims that the Observer’s March 16 cover story, “Family man,” misrepresented Wamstad’s relationship with his ex-wife Lena…
Rock bottom Jim Schutze’s article regarding the closing of the pool at Arcadia Park (“The shallow end,” April 27) hit home with me like no other. Long have I spoken to others outside this city about the ills that are inflicted on it by a city council with a personal…
Studio portraits of the mayor and 13 council members decorate a side wall in the cavernous, glass-and-concrete atrium at Dallas City Hall. There should be 14 council photos, but behind a strategically placed fig tree, there’s only an empty spot where the smile of District 8’s longtime councilman, Al Lipscomb,…
With Christmas just 10 days away, the petite blonde sat at her computer screen, engaged in her night-owl habit of checking e-mails and responding to chat-room questions posed by a growing collection of fans she’d never expected to have. True-crime author Barbara Davis, at 49 a latecomer to her profession,…
WACO — Standing at the top of the slight rise called Mount Carmel, it is almost impossible to imagine a tank charging up its slope. The windswept hill grants a serene view of the rugged landscape, the normally quiet Double E Ranch Road, and two small ponds so tranquil, they…
Lewis Wood was — and is — a hell of a fighter. A hard-hitting bruiser from Houston, his combination of stone hands and quick feet saw him rise in the ranks of the amateur boxing world. In June 1992, many thought he was bound for the Olympics, save for a…
All he wants to do is sue OK, let’s be up-front. Buzz is not what you would call a fan of The Eagles. In our cosmology, hell’s radio station plays only two songs: “Hotel California” and “Lyin’ Eyes.” Given a choice between hearing them perform a reunion concert or getting…
Lee Hancock was flushed and furious as she stomped through the Jasper courthouse early last year. The Dallas Morning News reporter, in Jasper to cover the murder trial of one of the young racists who dragged a black man to his death, had just come from a meeting with the…
I love boldfacing random words Nationally syndicated cartoonist Ted Rall wasn’t talking about the Fort Worth Star-Telegram when he recently said, “Daily newspapers [are] totally wussified,” but he might as well have been. Rall made the point that “Daily newspapers are really chickenshit. They live in dire fear of cancellations…
Dallas Observer writers — an eclectic bunch themselves — recently won honors from various organizations for reporting on issues ranging from thuggishness in education to slumlords, criminal injustice, and hurricane victims. Observer columnist Jim Schutze won the Texas State Teachers Association’s School Bell Award for education reporting for “Da thug,”…
Friends in high places Because Mr. Schutze so unfairly concluded what my intentions were as they related to a political contribution to Ronnie Kendall (“The art of the touch,” April 13), I feel it is necessary to write this letter. I’ll preface my comments by noting that I am proud…
It’s 10 a.m., and all is quiet on the battlefront. Conditions breezy and cool, water calm. The thin, dead stumps of the Black and Amber forests poke baldly from the surface. An occasional logging truck laden with tapered trunks grinds across the Highway 147 bridge, temporarily breaking the silence. A…
Dallas’ garment industry has all but died, but critics say Plano-based J.C. Penney still has a connection to one of that sector’s most notorious practices. The national department-store chain is one of four major retailers that has yet to settle class-action lawsuits alleging sweatshop conditions in factories owned by their…
It’s February 2000, the primary season is in full tilt, and busy worker bees from both parties are delivering their yard signs, marking their turf, extending their reach. A lone Jeep Wrangler rolls into the parking lot at Martin Weiss Park and Recreation Center, looking as if it were about…
The shallow end Imagine how bitter the taste of defeat must be for Laura Miller on her wading pool deal, especially since it looked like she had the thing won. Miller, trying to keep two city wading pools open in poor neighborhoods in southern Dallas, persuaded the ExxonMobil Foundation to…
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The view of Denton from Parks Olmon’s kitchen window has changed over the years. He speaks wistfully about the rolling countryside he used to see while eating breakfast. But these days, his view is not of lush oak trees or acres of crab grass. Every morning, Olmon gets an eyeful…
I survived Adamson High As a teacher at a feeder school to Adamson High School (“Lost and found,” April 6), I will have to beg that you not publish my name. No surprise there. No surprises in your article also. I have so much respect for many of the teachers…
As lambs to slaughter they come, pitiful men with middle-age paunches, clueless characters with bad teeth, tortured souls who have emotionally abused their wives and are now prepared to sacrifice themselves on the altar of daytime television. Just why they come seems incomprehensible: A trip to foggy Chicago in mid-March?…
By now, it hardly matters whether Elián Gonzalez wants to return to Cuba. The law has spoken. He’s going back. But well before Attorney General Janet Reno upheld the Immigration and Naturalization Service ruling, everyone — from politicians to pundits to people on the street — knew, it seemed, what…
ennifer Mallett flips through photos of her late boyfriend, Juan Carlos Oseguera, seeking a good one to send to his parents in Honduras. She laments that there isn’t one showing the couple together. “I know my father has a videotape with both of us on it,” she says listlessly. “He…
