He is the single most controversial black political figure in the nation. He is adored, deplored, revered, and feared. And last week, Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan looked down on the 2,500 African-Americans gathered in a South Oak Cliff church with a warm and loving smile. “Powerful black man,” breathed a…
Yemen is a meager country, cobbled together from rock and sand on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula. A sporadically volatile confederation of tribes that predates recorded history, Yemen still is not sure of its exact borders. It is a bit player in the Middle East, a political punk…
Matthew McQuater has lived in quiet obscurity for more than two decades in a modest, slightly run-down home in a modest, slightly run-down section of Oak Cliff. It’s a quiet enough neighborhood, sandwiched in between beautiful homes and a golf course to one side and shotgun shacks on the other…
Media reports of a DISD trustee’s comments offended an entire city. His exact words are even worse Editor’s note: What follows is the full three-page transcript of comments by Dallas school trustee Dan Peavy–remarks that have scandalized the city, even though few people have had the opportunity to actually read…
Part-time Jew, fulltime kvetch You remember, of course, back in August when city council member Paul Fielding sent Mayor Ron Kirk a scathing memo complaining that a meeting had been scheduled for the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. “It saddens me, this insensitive policy,” Fielding wrote, putting the needle to…
Colin Powell’s popularity doesn’t mean we’ve made progress on race issues The media, having created the Colin Powell Bubble, are now having a wonderful time bouncing it around. Recall, if you will, the heady spring of 1992, when all the polls showed that the leading contender for the presidency was…
Chief impostor This is in regard to your recently published article “Lost tribe” [September 21]. You are to be commended for exposing a true impostor along with other impostors. Based on the information outlined in your article, it is quite obvious that these gentlemen know very little and could care…
Investigation on ice A major investigative project by The Dallas Morning News’ top guns–now slated for imminent publication–has been sitting on ice for months, producing a slow burn in the paper’s newsroom, BeloWatch has learned. The project reportedly probes the banking and real-estate dealings of U.S. congressman Ralph Hall, a…
In a move that seems to disregard citizen crime concerns and the complaints of the city’s police union, the city of Dallas will turn down $2.85 million in federal funds for additional police officers. Dallas was in line to get $5.25 million as its share of the federal Cops-Ahead program…
Henry Clayton is a short, plump man with a sharp, angular nose. He wears a pearl-button western shirt, a beaded necklace and ties his hair back in a pony tail. He looks, at least, like what he claims to be–the chief of the largest Indian tribe in Texas. A 48-year-old…
It’s been too much for one poor man to bear. First, David L. Park watched the city of Dallas twist itself into knots trying to build a new downtown sports arena. Then Park decided to put the city out of its misery by offering to give Dallas a brand spanking…
Taking a stand In a recent long-winded column, the publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Arlington edition explained the paper’s refusal to take NC-17 movie advertising, an issue that came to a head with the opening this week of MGM’s Showgirls. Mac Tully explained the difficulty a bastion of free…
Four years ago, writer-director Todd Haynes was the toast of the American indie scene, having earned the prestigious Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for his feature debut Poison–as well as the ire of Congressman Jesse Helms. Poison had received a very small portion of its budget from the National Endowment…
No sacred cows–not even Nate Reader Lindell Singleton [Letters, September 7] must expect affirmative action to extend into a writer’s mind. Not only does he chastise Jennifer Briggs’ excellent, non-cliched observations regarding Nate Newton [“Secrets From Cowboys Camp,” August 17], but then tries the old tired reverse psychology that is…
Lawsuit? What lawsuit? It is a remarkable fact that Dallas’ daily of record has yet to publish a single word about the lawsuit three TV stations owned-like the News itself-by A.H. Belo have filed against David Goldberg, the news director of rival KDFW-Channel 4. Dallas station WFAA-Channel 8, along with…
Republicans are aiding and abetting denial of the worldwide shift in climate Seeing yet another story in the newspaper about global warming doesn’t make much of an impression unless, of course, some storm has just knocked out your electricity for three days and your acquaintance with the greenhouse effect is…
Bad reception I read with great interest your piece on KERA [“Pulling the Plug,” August 31]. If the slant of the article had not been so petty, it would not have held my interest for the length of time it took to read the article. As one of the three…
The 1992 bond election passed by a 2-1 margin. The TEA audit had found no illegality in the use of the ’85 bond funds. But Finlan and Venable were just getting started. “We had to establish a sense of paranoia in government,” explains Finlan. “They had to be afraid of…
Don Venable gulps down a cup of coffee, looking a bit bleary-eyed before court this August morning. Venable had stayed up late the night before with Rick Finlan, his partner in gadfly-ism. They were hoping to divine a trial strategy to convince a judge to take the unusual step of…
Count on DART You may have missed the ad in The Dallas Morning News classifieds. Under the headline “WEEKEND JOBS,” the ad seeks people to “ride public buses & count passengers.” Does this sound like a cushy job or what? Kick back on a DART bus all day, watch the…
Last of the great dull stories The Dallas Morning News published a story that makes 15 minutes spent watching cement dry seem compelling. The article, by urban affairs writer Chris Kelley, celebrated the retirement of some of the state’s most noteworthy and heroic road builders. Yup. Road builders. You knew…
On the theory that it is sometimes helpful to point out the obvious, may I enter the debate on family values by pointing out that there are a lot of unhappy families in the world? Miserable, in fact. Some sociologists study unhappy, unsuccessful families trying to figure out why their…
