In 1997, a trio of consumer groups with an agenda to embarrass legislators set out to prove what everyone around the Capitol had long suspected: The business interests that lobby state legislators are also the chief contributors to their campaigns. The groups deployed teams of college students to sift through…
On New Year’s Day, when A.H. Belo Corp. launched its 24-hour, all-news cable television station, it touted the enterprise as a statewide effort, hoping to cover the news of Texas for every Texan with a cable box on his set. But there is a hole in that claim that stretches…
The political hush over the Ross Avenue headquarters of the Dallas Independent School District in the last week is no harbinger of peace. Things are quiet only because various business and political leaders are trying to make up their minds whether to do a bombing run. The good thing, or…
Ahem. We don’t mean to brag (big lie), but if you take a close look at the federal corruption indictment against city council member Al Lipscomb and cab company owner Floyd Richards, you may notice that the Dallas Observer receives a little credit. On page 15, the indictment notes that…
Language gap I had just finished reading a Web page release concerning the state of Idaho’s recent certification of six Spanish-language interpreters after their having passed a test given by the national Consortium for State Court Interpreter Certification when a friend e-mailed me about Ms. Christine Biederman’s thought-provoking article [“Lost…
Things hadn’t been right in the Kastler household for quite some time. Building a new life in suburban Los Angeles, raising a family, growing a business–none of this seemed to matter to Samantha Kastler anymore. During her and her husband’s years in the Dallas Police Department, she was the one…
Ralph Mendez stood before a dozen or so low-ranking politicos with his arms spread wide, his thin mustache unable to contain his toothy grin. “Good morning, and welcome to Old MacDonald’s Farm.”XX X XFor many members of the city park board, it was their first visit to this sizable chunk…
To county clerks around Texas who are tracking legislation in Austin, the show is turning into a sort of campy horror flick. Call it Courthouse Dracula Returns or The Bill That Wouldn’t Die. What’s troubling the clerks is the re-emergence of a proposal that would increase filing fees for public…
Waiting for George-o How long can George W. Bush run for president without running for president? By forming an exploratory committee, Bush can start raising money for his inevitable presidential run yet continue to avoid those annoying tasks that a presidential candidate must perform–campaigning, for instance. Bush, the Mario Cuomo…
Some people have been known to sniff that when it comes to culture, Dallas ain’t New York or Washington, D.C., or Chicago. But a new traffic study undertaken by the city suggests that may soon change–for better and for worse. The good news is that if a city-proposed deal to…
Well embarrassed John MacCormack’s piece on Danny Fry [“The case of the headless, handless corpse,” February 18] began by describing a “handless” body in the first paragraph. The second paragraph described the corpse as that of “…a man…well manicured.” If MacCormack were saying, tongue in cheek, that handless is the…
Liquor led to argument, argument to guns, and guns to murder. It began in the wee hours of October 9, 1997, at El Que Paso on South Lamar Street, one of the dozens of bars that draw lonely Hispanic men to the shadows of southern Dallas’ freeway underpasses. Angel Santiago…
The Kowbell hardly fits its billing as “the rodeo capitol of the world.” On a recent Saturday, when the amateur, small-stakes rodeos are held, about 200 spectators are sprinkled among the 1,500 tattered red seats–or the empty spaces where the seats used to be. Outside, the bulb lighting the hand-lettered…
Round 2 Think Albertson’s effort to build a humongous grocery store in Old East Dallas died when the City Plan Commission voted unanimously to reject its rezoning request last month? Think again. The grocery store chain has already sewed up one influential ally in its bid to have the city…
The Freedman’s Cemetery Memorial, just south of Lemmon Avenue on the southbound Central Expressway service road, is already three-quarters complete. The memorial, whose front façade rises oddly from the rubble of the unfinished expressway like a wall left standing after war, will be an enclosed “pocket” park when completed. The…
The nerve I had to laugh when I read your article about the supposed decline of Texas Monthly [“Texas Monthly’s midlife crisis,” February 4]. First of all, I thought it highly presumptuous that a publication like the Dallas Observer would take potshots at what has been and continues to be…
Info: The Case of the Headless, Handless Corpse A reporter’s tip helped detectives identify a mutilated body dumped along the Trinity, but finding the man’s name led to a deeper mystery — the disappearance of atheist gadfly Madalyn Murray O’Hair By John MacCormack An old man prospecting for aluminum among…
In a tiny recording studio on the eastern edge of Deep Ellum, a pair of young Texas filmmakers are combining the movie resources of two very different cities, Austin and Dallas. Gathered in the control room of The Listening Chair, Austin filmmakers Lance Larsen and Jas Shelton are screening their…
On the afternoon of February 7, Elizabeth Moier waited for her two daughters to return home from school, then thetheir daily ritual–walking the half block to y embarked on Curtis Park, a beloved neighborhood sanctuary. Just south of Lovers Lane near Turtle Creek Boulevard in the heart of University Park,…
Dallas’ most wanted Buzz is resting a lot easier tonight, knowing that men like Brad Lapsley can’t escape the reach of Dallas law. At 71, Lapsley, a former missionary in Ethiopia who once served on the Dallas school board, may not look like a hard case–except for that school board…
If plans by the African American Pastors Coalition succeed, some 250 to 300 new middle-class homes will pop up soon in the heart of South Oak Cliff, a neighborhood that conventional residential real estate developers typically consider akin to the moon because of its poverty. “We are trying to take…
Unstoppable churches Terrific piece on the St. Ann’s landmark case [“On holy ground,” February 4] and the larger issue of George W. Bush’s so-called religious freedom bill (by the way, Steve Wolens is a co-sponsor). Almost without exception, the courts have thrown out landowners’ suits claiming property damage–including diminution in…
