News craps out At its best, a newspaper editorial page serves as a beacon for a community. Newspaper editorial writers have the opportunity to cut through rhetoric and sloppy thinking–to stake out a clear position on a difficult or complex issue, and make persuasive arguments to support it. It is…
Ticketgate was about to unravel in Coppell. Late one night in early June, Arthur Kwast, the resident gadfly of this shiny suburb northwest of Dallas, was sitting in his house when the phone rang. The caller, talking in furtive tones, detailed how a prominent merchant in town had gotten a…
Back into the tar pit The holiday season is looking bleaker than the Pleistocene Era for the folks who unleashed Barney the Dinosaur. After a $500-million sales year, the smarmy carnivore failed to lumber onto this year’s “Hottest Toys” lists. It’s bad enough to be stomped by the Power Rangers,…
If reports that Dallas is booming again are true, the real test might be a stalled downtown housing scheme. After falling months behind schedule, a city-backed plan offering federal loan and tax incentives to transform office buildings into hip apartment dwellings finally has begun to show promise. In December last…
You don’t expect to uncover any revolutionaries at the D-FW Airport Hilton — especially ones who are plotting against the dysfunctional automobile culture of American suburbia. The Hilton epitomizes the placelessness of modern planning: it sits in the middle of nowhere, accessible only by car or airport shuttle, ready to…
Criticizing the critic Professional chefs and restaurateurs continually balance the flavors of their food, quality of their service, and desired atmosphere each and every day. It is unfortunate that Observer reviewer Mary Brown Malouf does not seek similar balance in her review writing. The staff at Amici and I, as…
Someone in the Dallas city manager’s office is not telling the truth. Fabricating. Covering up. Dissembling. Lying. And almost no one seems to care about it. That’s disturbing–because it’s not a lowly clerk or mid-level stiff who’s bending the truth. It’s city manager John Ware and his top deputies, first…
I listen to Republican rhetoric about how power should be returned to “the states” with some degree of alarm. It sounds so good in the abstract–by George, gummint should be closer to the people, those beanbrains in Washington don’t know anything about our problems here. But then one realizes what…
On a ridge overlooking the scrub and pinon country of northern New Mexico, Clifford Sinclair crafted a monument to his own felonious ingenuity. From a federal prison cell, the confessed swindler directed construction of a house in an exclusive subdivision outside Santa Fe. It would be the home Sinclair retired…
Louise Elam sat on the floor next to a copy machine last Thursday morning, trying her best to fish a jammed piece of paper out of a document feeder with a pair of scissors. Elam, her terra cotta-colored pantsuit rumpled after only two hours at work, jabbed at the copier…
Tuned out The abrupt announcement that veteran evening talk-show voice Karen Denard will depart in January has left KERA-90.1 FM mulling over a replacement. Some at KERA view Denard’s departure as a splendid opportunity to try to lure Bob Ray Sanders back to public broadcasting. Sanders, KERA’s brightest local light…
Federal auditors are urging the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to terminate longstanding contracts with a Dallas company that operates some of the area’s worst apartment complexes. The company, Pioneer Management, Inc., based in Oak Cliff, ran the Prince Hall Chambre Apartments in South Dallas until November 1…
With the program over, the image of a couple enjoying their pots and pans flashes on the TV screen. This is All-Clad cookware, the voice-over informs us, “the great conductor, available at Dillard’s.” Welcome to public television–Dallas style. For decades, public television has billed itself as “listener-supported” and “commercial-free.” But…
Death to Dallas Life The Dallas Morning News has put a long-suffering stepchild out of its misery. On Monday, November 14, a one-page memo was posted in the paper’s newsroom, announcing the demise of Dallas Life Magazine. The Christmas Day issue will be its last. In the memo, News executive…
Adventures in waste I read with interest your article “The Trashing of Ferris, Texas” [November 10] and noted several similarities between Ferris’ experiences with Waste Management and that of the City of Garland. During 1993, while I was a member of the city council, Waste Management attempted to reopen negotiations…
Huntville, Texas Well, big-city politics has once again reared its ugly head, and I note it is once again at our expense. I refer, of course, to the new sports arena. The articles written by Laura Miller [“Arena Wars,” October 13 and October 20] have been both informative and infuriating…
Sheesh. Sest lah vye, Mabel. I’ll say one thing for the results of Tuesday’s plebiscite: it is sure as hell going to be interesting for the next couple of years. What an utterly fabulous cast of characters. Strom Thurmond, 92, chairman of Armed Services. Jesse Helms, chair of Foreign Relations…
Throughout the fall, the Krasniqis diligently abided by the court order. Krasniqi rented an apartment and attended a sexual offender’s group treatment program run by Chester Grounds, a staff psychologist with DHS. Grounds said in court that Krasniqi originally admitted in group that he had sexually abused his children, including…
Most of the houses in this quiet, middle-class Richardson neighborhood look alike –wide, one-story, brick homes with small, manicured front lawns. The home of Sam and Kathy Krasniqi has one distinguishing feature: rain or shine, several pairs of men’s and women’s shoes can be found lined up on the porch…
Stephan the Red In the last few months, Dallas-bred fantasy novelist Stephan Grundy has been the subject of plenty of ink, from a cover story in Dallas Observer (July 21) to reviews in Publisher’s Weekly and the fantasy magazine Locus of his first novel, the Norse epic Rhinegold–a number-one bestseller…
Bad memory chip? The East Dallas reader of The Dallas Morning News thought what she was reading seemed familiar–suspiciously familiar. Veteran News editorial-page columnist Ann Melvin was weighing in on the debate over whether books on computer will someday make the paper-and-ink version obsolete. Absolutely not, Melvin opined, in a…
Rabbi David Shawel is not an imposing figure. Standing only five feet and four inches, he talks fast and rarely stands or sits in one place for long. But lately it is Shawel who has had powerful grocery chains hopping. Shawel is The Man–that’s The Macher in Yiddish–in Dallas when…
