On his way out the door, departing City Manager John Ware is setting up a sweetheart tax-dollar giveaway to former Governor Bill Clements and oilman Ray Hunt that will make his Trinity River and sports-arena deals look like sound government policy. Impossible? Consider this: Clements and Hunt, both hugely wealthy…
In the end, history will judge the events that took place on Main Street, in the heart of Grapevine, on September 14. Maybe this time history will get it right. On that sweltering Sunday, thousands of wine lovers savored the final hours of the annual GrapeFest, a three-day celebration promoting…
Peter Schmidt shouldn’t even be here now. Here is Matt Pence’s home studio in Denton, and now is December 1997, not so long after it appeared that Schmidt had finally given up on music for good. By now, Schmidt figured, the record he has been making for months–months that seemed…
Info:Correction Date: 07/30/1998 Info: Buzz By Patrick Williams Where’s Gopher and the gang? OK now, everybody sing! “The l-o-o-ove bus Soon will be making another round…” Oh, skip it. We’ve been trying to see DART’s stretch limos as hotbeds of passion and romance–Love Boats of the road–ever since we first…
The woman in manager Reginald Giles’ office at Frankford Townhomes was looking for a nice apartment to rent in North Dallas–clean, safe, and miles from the inner city. Little did she know when she approached Giles last week that she was standing in the middle of a public housing project…
Naughty Ron That was one hilarious exchange between Ron Kirk and his aide [“Mayor Potty Mouth,” July 2]. Too bad you people didn’t have the common sense to enjoy the moment and keep it to your damn selves. We all talk bad at times, don’t we? At least he wasn’t…
Massachusetts Georges Bank lemon sole in a macadamia-nut crust. Grilled fillet of Alaskan halibut with avocado quenelles. Sweet corn-crusted gulf redfish fillet. Pyramid of Atlantic swordfish. Found on the new summer menu at Dallas’ acclaimed seafood restaurant Fish, these dishes are aimed squarely at diners’ growing appetite for distinctive seafood…
Mexican-American leadership in Dallas has pretty much resolved the question of whether the city’s new city manager, Ted Benavides, is Hispanic. It has been decided that he is. The debate now has moved more to the question of how Hispanic. Nobody knows. And some people are even beginning to ask…
The tryouts begin Please, would someone explain to Buzz how George W. Bush has become the Republican front-runner for the 2000 presidential nomination? It’s not that we don’t like him, you understand. Any man who’s a baseball fan and fesses up to a hard-drinking youth has gone a long way…
Travesty of justice What happened to the Krasniqis [“A mother and child reunion,” June 25] is a travesty of justice. To hear that such a thing could happen puts fear into every parent–that the court would so cavalierly dissolve a family based on the testimony of strangers. There is little…
Erica Sheppard had decided she wanted to die. For three years, she had been on death row, convicted of the murder of Marilyn Sage Meagher, a Houston real estate agent and mother of two. Although Sheppard would later claim that she didn’t receive a fair trial, she confessed to her…
In late May, when Dallas AIDS activist John Thomas learned he was infected with a microbe called cryptosporidium parvum, he finally decided to conclude his private battle with death. Thomas had earned national respect over the last two decades for his leadership in the global battle against death by AIDS…
Tripping Daisy’s rehearsal space has hardly any space at all. It’s nothing more than a shack behind the house that Tim DeLaughter and his girlfriend of more than 15 years, Julie Doyle, share near Lower Greenville. An air-conditioning unit–plugged into the side and blowing meekly, as though embarrassed that it…
And your point is? So former House Speaker Jim Wright–whom we love like kin; read last week’s Buzz–says that Fort Worth and Dallas liked the restrictions on Love Field when he pushed them through Congress in 1979. Wright’s comment came earlier this week during a court hearing on Fort Worth’s…
Earlier this month, the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport Board awarded a $95,000 contract for an outside financial audit of its books and accounts to KPMG Peat Marwick. The accounting firm then subcontracted 25 percent of the work to two minority firms–in keeping with the airport board’s goal of trying to spread…
Elected officials often project one image to the world and another to those who know them intimately. When those two images collide, the effect can be quite jarring. Just ask Dallas Morning News reporter Craig Flournoy. One can only imagine Flournoy’s shock and/or glee when he learned that his office…
For one Richardson family, the wait for the sun to set on a recent Saturday seemed particularly long. It was the weekend last month that the Tom Thumb Food & Pharmacy chain was opening its newest store, at the corner of Coit and Campbell roads. The Richardson family members, who…
Kid critic As the staff of the Florence Art Gallery sat down to read the article “Kid Cubist” by Christina Rees [June 4], we were amazed, to say the least. The Dallas Observer is truly fortunate to have augmented its staff with a writer of such diverse talents. Not only…
He taught himself how to fight, how to duck, how to win. He had his share of trainers, but nobody knew more about boxing than he did. Nobody could tell him how to dance in the ring; nobody could tell him how to throw punches, or how to take them…
In the early-morning darkness, Kathy Krasniqi, a stout woman in a pretty print dress, waits on the front porch of her Richardson home. Her feet swollen like sausages from working double shifts at a hospital cafeteria, she gingerly makes her way to the car. With her hobbled gait, puffy eyes,…
The secrets of Jones vs. Clinton are beginning to out, and in the darnedest manner: Through friendly fire. On June 10, U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright released letters that Paula Jones’ former lawyers, Joseph Cammarata and Gil Davis, sent their client last summer. The letters, which concern an attempted…
Last week, Plano-based snack-food giant Frito-Lay and consumer-product behemoth Procter & Gamble Co. coasted through three days of federal hearings in Washington, D.C., that scrutinized what is shaping up to be the most lucrative food ingredient ever developed: P&G’s fat substitute olestra, marketed under the trade name Olean. Fifteen members…
