We usually think of the effects of downsizing on those who get laid off. The blizzard of pink slips hits not because the company is in trouble or even because its profits are down, but because downsizing is the corporate vogue. The company’s stock goes up, the shareholders are happy,…
Doug Hamilton, a 43-year-old Southwestern Bell manager, left work early on a wet, stormy October day in 1994 to attend a conference with his daughter’s kindergarten teacher. When the meeting ended, Hamilton began driving his wife and three young children home to Mesquite, but decided, two blocks from the house,…
Officials of financially beleaguered Kimberly-Clark have some big problems to solve. But last month they proved they could deftly handle a small but embarrassing squabble over a $156,000 jobs-creation grant with Palm Beach County, Florida, and come out smelling like a paper rose. Never mind that the diaper giant had…
Big D spirit We realize this was not the Freedom Train, but did anyone else notice that the Cowboys’ parade floats were–there’s no polite way to put this–segregated? Coincidence you say? Amid quickly muzzled accusations of racism involving Troy Aikman and former defensive coordinator John Blake, Buzz found it mighty…
Three years ago this Sunday, Lewis was secured in a special cell reserved for those about to receive the deadly cocktail of muscle relaxants and surgical anaesthesia that will kill them. Lewis, who was sentenced to death on June 2, 1987, by a Dallas jury for killing a young man…
Lies, lies, lies This is in response to Laura Miller’s article, “Politics makes strange enemies” [February 1]. One of the reasons so many people dislike politics is not only because of the negative campaigning, but also because of trash columns like that of Mrs. Laura Miller-Wolens. For those of you…
Belo family values The Dallas Morning News has waxed holier than thou yet again. It happened on Wednesday, February 7, when Dallas’ Only Daily became one of just five papers in the country–out of 210 nationwide that run it daily–to censor an installment of the “Non Sequitur” comic strip. The…
Last Christmas, while Americans feasted on turkey and roast beef, the French celebrated the season by devouring approximately 22 tons of snails. During the Christmas and New Year’s holidays alone, the Parisians eat 200 tons of snails; over the course of the year, they eat over 25,000 tons of snails…
Picture a gangly 10-year-old kid–his brown hair tousled, his face dusted with freckles, and looking more than a little like Beaver Cleaver–walking the azalea-lined streets of Highland Park, hawking his own newspaper. He writes the stories and sells the ads, mostly to Highland Park Village merchants thoroughly charmed by the…
Injured pride and prejudice Some things are even hard for Buzz to discuss, but not, thank God, for the judicial system. Consider a recent Texas Court of Appeals decision in a case of an aggravated sexual assault of a child. The defendant had hoped to overturn his 16-year sentence on…
Two weeks ago, Kathy Krasniqi collapsed at her job, gasping for air, her chest pounding with pain. After a week of tests, doctors have determined that she suffers from serious heart and lung disease. Albanian Muslims from the former Yugoslavia, Kathy, 41, and her husband, Sam, lost custody of their…
The last time I saw Ray Carboni, he was sprawled out on the gymnasium floor of our high school, carefully penning his goodbyes into my yearbook. It was 1976. “Well, here it is, the moment I’ve dreaded and feared all year, the moment that I have to capsulize four years…
The wrath of God In response to your article, “Classless act” [January 25], regarding the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s reassignment of gay journalist Todd Camp, I want you to know you are the classless act. But what did I–and everyone else–expect? The Observer is undoubtedly the worst pro-pot, pro-gay, and pro-Clinton…
We live in a nation that has just sentenced a 12-year-old boy, less than 5 feet tall with an IQ of less than 60, to a maximum-security juvenile facility. It is not a proud day. No matter what your view on either the necessity or the appropriateness of this measure,…
Exploitation first WFAA Channel 8, the “Family First” station, rushed to remain at the head of the ratings pack in hosting a February 3 town meeting in Arlington tied to the slaying of Amber Hagerman. Call BeloWatch cynical. But what public purpose did this session serve? Venting outrage before the…
The boys should have been having a ball. It was a sunny autumn day, and on the greensward that is Garland’s Winters Park, the culmination of everything for which the Genesis ’85 boys soccer team had worked so hard all season lay before them. They were at the annual Celtic…
Patrick Owen sits on his stool, gently cradling his acoustic guitar in his long fingers. Running through an impressive rendition of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” Owen plucks and pulls at the instrument’s strings, bending them until they almost break. Though it’s early in the night, his…
It’s barely daybreak on the 1996 political horizon, but maverick Wise County Attorney Stephen Hale is already facing opponents who want to assure his political sunset. Since shortly after taking office in January 1993, Hale, who prosecutes misdemeanor crimes in this rural county of 36,000, about 40 miles north of…
Cowed Town daily The Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s embarrassing and shameful overreaction to a right-wing Christian group went national this week in a lengthy article in the The New York Times. S-T Executive Editor Debbie Price, as you’ll recall from the Observer’s January 25 story, booted openly gay editor Todd Camp…
It was the night of Domingo Garcia’s annual Christmas party, but not every guest was in a festive mood. In fact, Sylvana Alonzo couldn’t stand the idea of attending her third holiday party in three nights. “Roberto, do we have to go tonight?” she said tiredly as she was getting…
News: graceless under pressure Talk about lack of class. No, not “Da Boys,” as The Dallas Morning News’ intensely unhip editorial page habitually–and ludicrously–refers to them. BeloWatch is speaking, of course, about Dallas’ Only Daily. In a January 26 pre-Super Bowl editorial headlined “Da Boys–It’s time to show class as…
I was walkin’ along, mindin’ my own bidness the other day, when Our Man Phil Gramm popped up and announced to the world that he’s a “blue-collar Republican.” So now I know how Jessica-who-fell-in-the-well felt. I went home to lie down from the shock, and then class warfare broke out…
