Ministry of hate Regarding your story on Dallas’ Nation of Islam leader Jeffery Muhammad [“Black man’s burden,” August 10]: as with all hate-based groups, there will be some who may want to overlook the damage these groups do in favor of the positive aspects of the group. They may say:…
Jimmy Lewis White ran a red Volkswagen Beetle off the side of Highway 820 on Jan-uary 15, 1995. The Bug apparently flipped and rolled, killing driver John Marcellus, an off-duty Fort Worth police officer. Tests after the accident pegged White’s blood alcohol level at .25–more than double what the law…
You can skedaddle, but you can’t hide Keeping up with Dallas’ Jet Set can be a chore. Take the Crow family. When its members aren’t smuggling the treasury minister for a murderous dictator into town [see “The Crow-Qadhafi Connection,” December 1994], they’re cavorting with the uncreme de la creme of…
Arlington businessmen Charles Biney and Eric Owusu disagreed mightily about what to name their magazine. Both natives of Ghana, the men had worked hard to put together a distinct, informative publication about the African continent for readers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. They began bouncing around a title. Biney came…
Mad as hell–we think Wonder why you haven’t seen much investigative reporting in Dallas’ Only Daily lately? Why Dallas Life shut down? Why the “Today” section is crammed with wire-service copy? It’s because The Dallas Morning News is devoting its energy, staff, and millions to really important stories–like this week’s…
When you’re right, you’re right As the old saying goes, “Two out of three ain’t bad.” Ann Zimmerman’s article in the August 3-9 issue is headlined “Angry Right Men.” I agree that from the perspective furnished by the Observer, I am to the political right and I am a man…
Heads up, team; sneak play ahead. The deliriously misnamed Coalition to Save Medicare is about to join the national debate about health insurance programs for seniors. What we have here, hiding behind those Foster Grants, is a coalition of huge corporations and insurance companies out to loot Medicare to pay…
Window-shopping for trouble Neiman Marcus, Dallas’ proverbial arbiter of taste, likes to make fashion statements. But last week the upscale retailer inadvertently produced a political statement–and a messy one at that. Who’d have thought a department-store window display could be a hotbed of agitprop? Neiman’s blames it all on a…
Fired News sports staffer entangled in federal kiddie-porn sting A fired editor in The Dallas Morning News sports department is at the center of an interstate child-pornography sting operation, BeloWatch has learned. The former editor is George Woods, 41. Woods lost his job in early July, BeloWatch has been told,…
It’s summertime–and the living for a City Hall reporter is easy. Primarily because we haven’t heard much about the new sports arena. But don’t get your hopes up. No news is not necessarily good news. It’s just that we’re in something of a stall mode right now. The hangup lies…
Scandal academy I’m sincerely hoping the Dallas Observer becomes accustomed to covering positive topics, like we saw in the article by Julie Lyons [“Virgin Academy,” July 20-26]. Though it was evident that Ms. Lyons was mocking the idea of teenage girls attempting to maintain some honorable values in this screwed-up…
AUSTIN–I could be wrong, but I think the Bob Packwood problem is actually simple. Suppose–just suppose–that Bob Packwood was a predatory homosexual. Normally a decent enough guy after having a few drinks, but suppose he was given to grabbing men a lot smaller than he is, kissing them and sticking…
Throw the book at ’em It had to happen. The information revolution has collided with the last bastion of the printed word. Fed up with the disturbance to its more literate patrons, the Renner-Frankford branch of the Dallas Public Library has expelled cellular telephones. The Far North Dallas library has…
BeloWatch and Tatum The most recent BeloWatch, which reported the public lewdness arrest of Henry Tatum, associate editor of The Dallas Morning News editorial page, drew a number of angry letters–and at least one threatening phone call. Several letters came from people who know and respect Tatum, who has worked…
Steve Salazar had a birthday last week. Salazar is a freshly minted Dallas city councilman. This means that he’s still scoping out men’s room locations, never mind figuring out where all the political land- mines are buried at Dallas City Hall. Which is precisely why he never would have expected…
Who’s indecent? I was very surprised and disappointed when I read your BeloWatch column of July 27 [“Editorial error”]. I expected better of the Observer. Since when is an editorial writer at the News such a high-profile person that he deserves to have his personal problems–his arrest for public lewdness–publicized…
So why should you care if Mega-MonsterMedia merges with MultiMam-mothMovies? No skin off your nose, is it? Look again, Bubba. That’s blood on your proboscis. How are you going to like living in a city where one company owns the newspaper, two TV stations, several radio stations, the phone company,…
Preparations “…The sad reality is this: they wanted a big one. They wanted a spectacular one.” -David Koresh As the morning sun inched into the rain clouds over the blackland prairie on Sunday, February 28, Special Agent Sharon Wheeler braced herself for the raid that was about to begin. Her…
Get loaded Like most Texans, you’ve probably been wrestling with those sensitive, personal questions that you’re just too embarrassed to ask: When can I shoot to kill? How old do my kids have to be to “bear arms?” and Is there anywhere that I can’t carry my gun? Help is…
In a tiny office at the end of a sterile, white corridor that stretches across the fifth floor of the University of Texas at Arlington’s Life Sciences Building sits a white-bearded professor who says he has developed the decisive weapon in the war on crime. Using arcane secret formulas and…
Life in the ant farm The Indian in the Cupboard. What the hell were the producers thinking of when they thought to go with that title? You don’t see Hollywood making movies called “The Jew in the Cupboard,” or the Chinese, or the Mexican. What’s the deal with miniaturizing an…
Editorial error On Wednesday, June 7, the weekly column by Henry Tatum, associate editor of The Dallas Morning News editorial page, appeared as usual, accompanied by his photograph, on the paper’s “Viewpoints” page. It was typical Tatum. A former City Hall reporter and 25-year News staffer, Tatum, 52, had written…
