Between a Boulder and a hard place More than a year ago, feminist Karen Ashmore said goodbye and good riddance to Dallas. Ashmore, who co-founded the Dallas Rainbow Chapter of the National Organization for Women, said she was burned out on Big D’s provincialism–especially when it came to race relations…
Gold Rush! Yee-haw! Look at them settlers lashin’ their teams and bouncin’ their wagons in an all-out scramble to stake a claim in Electronville. The telecommunications bill is the Gold Rush of 1996, an industry free-for-all, a wild, pell-mell greed-stampede. All the settlers have pretty fair grubstakes to start with;…
On the eve of Armageddon, my grandma sat on the living-room sofa and considered this theological conundrum: Was it right to pray for the Green Bay Packers to win? Was it right to beg divine intervention on behalf of the more virtuous, if less talented, team? If Jesus were here…
Any real-estate agent worth his listings knows staying ahead in the business these days means getting a piece of the hottest property around, cyberspace. But just how to go about getting a presence on the Internet has caused a schism among Realtors. Nationwide, agents are bickering and even competing among…
Granbury’s jewel on the square During the summer of 1989, I was fortunate enough to direct a production of Kander and Ebb’s musical Chicago at the Granbury Opera House. I had met Jo Ann Miller on a previous visit, and was enthusiastic about working with her and my old friend…
Julie Mote–whose name, I assure you, would not ring any bells at Dallas City Hall–was sitting in her North Dallas home with her husband two Wednesdays ago, eating baked chicken and asparagus, when something unusual happened. The couple began discussing city politics. “We don’t usually talk politics in this house…
Daisy Duke dreams Is it some kind of colossal I.Q. test? Buzz learned last week that Texas Motor Speedway officials have been “overwhelmed” by interest in the condominiums they plan to build at the stock-car racetrack under construction north of Fort Worth. If the interest turns into deals, the condos,…
On January 5, KERA-FM music director and disc jockey Gabrielle West was not returning phone calls, nor would she for the next several days. Her voice-mail message at the public radio station explained why: “We’re going through some serious changes that will involve everybody–including you, as well,” she offered callers…
So long, 1995; what a year you were. Bob Packwood, the Republican “revolution,” O.J. Simpson, Oklahoma City–ah, yes, we remember it well. Onward we march, through the accumulating history of human folly, greed, bad manners, and general goofiness, with the touching faith that next year will be better–a faith founded…
Susan Campbell takes pride in knowing a chameleon from an anole. (It’s an anole running down your backyard fence.) She has been known to spend 100 hours designing a box of skulls and bones and animal teeth for children to paw through, and her idea of a good time is…
“I do not like to put ladies in jail,” Judge Leonard Hoffman told Tonjua Benge. In her 31 years, the soft-spoken single mother of two has never been convicted of a crime. But on this day in February 1995, on the Texas visiting judge’s orders, she had just completed four…
Final curtain As an old friend and admirer of Jo Ann Miller, I must congratulate Mark Donald on his outstanding article about the way this remarkable woman has been ousted from the Granbury Opera House by an ambitious actress and a shortsighted board of directors [“Suspense! Intrigue! Betrayal!” December 28,…
The Kimberly-Clark News Psssst. BeloWatch has a tip for local businesses that really want the kid-gloves treatment in The Dallas Morning News. Not the standard News kid-gloves treatment. The extra-special, deluxe, we-drool-at-the-mention-of-your-corporation’s-name kid-gloves treatment. The tip: Put Belo CEO Robert Decherd on your board. Irving-based Kimberly-Clark did it late last…
Ron Kirk was being uncharacteristically subdued. He was standing up against a wall, a good distance from the political action, arms folded across his perfectly pressed denim workshirt, lizard boots planted firmly on the floor. This was last May, two weeks after he’d surprised the city of Dallas, not to…
The gloriously, infuriatingly eclectic Dallas Video festival continues to entertain–and bore The nature of any festival, whether it’s centered on food or film, is usually hodgepodge–an eclectic confluence of the sweet and the bitter, the fatty and the lean. It’s no surprise that the 9th Annual Dallas Video Festival possesses…
In mid-November, journalists and editors from across Texas gathered at a downtown Dallas hotel for the annual rite of self-congratulation known as the Katie Awards. Seats cost $50. Valets parked cars. A chocolate pate dessert followed dinner. Free wine flowed as the assemblage settled in for a marathon presentation by…
After the protests, the lawsuits, the scathing editorials, and the state Legislature’s disdain when Texas Woman’s University was forced to go co-ed last year, the last thing the members of TWU’s board need now is to testify before a Denton County grand jury for allegedly destroying public records. But, thanks…
Fresh ink Will Cowtown cotton to another newspaper? Local journalist-cum-entrepreneur Robert Camuto apparently thinks so. Camuto has resigned from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram to launch his own alternative weekly. Camuto has a solid journalistic background as a reporter at the defunct Dallas Times Herald, then covering education, Fort Worth politics,…
The taxidermy issue requires advanced autopsy by the serious political ethicist. Not that the scholars at the Texas Ethics Commission have been derelict–indeed not. Their December decree that Texas lawmakers may henceforth disburse campaign funds in order to stuff animal heads, thereafter to reside upon their office walls, is positively…
Editor’s departure opens succession struggle at News As in all closed governmental systems, there is intense speculation among the proletariat about the succession struggle at The Dallas Morning News. The need for a new leader came with the formal announcement late last month of the departure of longtime managing editor…
Furry beasts I would like to take this opportunity to voice my disgust with Kirby Fry and Inger Myhre, the villains of the Permaculture article [“Hugging the tree gently,” December 21, 1995]. I am outraged that any people could be so cruel and self-centered as to starve kittens to within…
Act II The year is 1988. The scene is Granbury, now brimming with free enterprise, country charm, and overpriced antiques. After the Opera House began playing to sold-out houses, a new merchant class had come to town, snapping up every stone-slab building on the square. This sleepy farming hamlet was…
