On July 20, 1994, former Dallas resident Roosevelt Lampkin learned the city had bulldozed his rental house at 2330 Britton Street in Oak Cliff. The news came as quite a shock to Lampkin, who had retired in Milton, Florida. He had been in constant contact with city officials ever since…
Virtually every day, a guy named Joe Bob Burkleo climbs onto a DART bus, rides into neighborhoods he doesn’t live in, and pokes around in vacant houses and shabby properties that belong to people he doesn’t know. After cruising Dallas’ residential streets most of the day, he’ll end his journey…
The church ladies fell in love with the old church house the minute they laid eyes on it. The Lord had blessed them yet again, this time with a home on South Dallas’ Dryden Avenue for their fledgling ministry, which they intended to call Church of the Living God Youth…
Politics, doggy style It appears City Hall’s Doggygate is alive and kicking. You’ll remember gadfly Frank Bodzin blasted the city for harassing a widower while trying to collect on a $7 bounced check from the man’s dead wife, who had written the check–when she was alive, of course–to register her…
Sahar Ayad cried when she first learned about the plight of Sam and Kathy Krasniqi, the Albanian Muslim couple from North Dallas who lost their children to the state amid child-abuse charges (“Tell Mama Why You Cry,” Observer, Nov. 17, 1994). Sam was ultimately acquitted of those charges, but the…
In the midst of Oak Cliff’s Bishop Arts warehouse district, a stone’s throw from the Oak Cliff Coffee House, sits an unusual shop. It’s not the store’s collection of lovely antiques that makes it unique, or the relatively low cost of the well-maintained furniture crammed inside, although visitors constantly remark…
President Clinton made a good speech in Austin last week on this country’s worst problem. Clinton on race is always worth listening to; it’s his best thing, and he does it as well as anyone walking. For those who could see or switch between Clinton’s speech and the Million Man…
In remembrance Thank you, Peter Elkind, for the story on Brian Keith Thomas [“The forgotten man,” October 12]. I grew up in Richardson, graduating from Richardson High School. My husband is a former RISD English teacher. I grew up respecting J.J. Pearce. I still respect him, but… Ever since hearing…
When the National Militia Commanders Council opened its second congress earlier this month on a farm at Mountain Springs, a spot in the road about 50 miles northeast of Dallas, Jim Adams, the regional chief of the FBI, was on hand. The representative of the agency responsible for the bloody…
Father Jim Balint was nervous when he stepped into the Loews Theater on February 10, 1991. The seats were filling up fast, and he knew the theater would only hold 550. The priest had scheduled three masses for that morning–the most he could squeeze in before his makeshift church had…
For the third time in five years, an African-American attorney has been nominated to the federal bench in the North Texas District. And for the third time, that nomination has stalled–again a victim, insiders say, of partisan politics. Cheryl Wattley, a former federal prosecutor now in private legal practice in…
Making a silk purse outta Dan We’re glad that someone is taking seriously Buzz’s suggestion that the Dallas School District name a school after spectacularly profane former trustee Dan Peavy. If you remember, we suggested the board pass up suggestions for school names like Arthur Ashe or Anne Frank to…
Dallas Observer staff writer Miriam Rozen has won the Dallas Bar Association’s 1995 Stephen Philbin Award for excellence in legal reporting. Rozen’s prize in the Division I newspaper category, open to all area newspapers, came for “This Boy’s Life,” her October 12, 1994, Observer cover story about a 15-year-old drug…
Rowlett’s broadcast blues Venerable WFAA-Channel 8 anchor Tracy Rowlett last week selected a very public forum–a Dallas Bar Association media awards luncheon–to take aim at a very surprising target: local television news. And he did not spare his own station. Rowlett, keynote speaker for the annual Stephen Philbin Awards, told…
When televangelist Pat Robertson, leader of the Christian Coalition, sponsored a 1994 food giveaway in Fair Park as part of a 17-city charitable tour called “Operation Blessing,” Dallas politicians eagerly paraded themselves at the event. But so did a less likely group of volunteers: managers and owners of several of…
In the midst of Oak Cliff’s Bishop Arts warehouse district, a stone’s throw from the Oak Cliff Coffee House, sits an unusual shop. It’s not the store’s collection of lovely antiques that makes it unique, or the relatively low cost of the well-maintained furniture crammed inside, although visitors constantly remark…
Better not left unsaid Sometimes The Dallas Morning News misleads by what it prints. And sometimes the News misleads by what it doesn’t print. Two fairly recent examples suggest how Dallas’ Only Daily can skew its coverage. The first involved the violence-tinged Detroit newspaper strike. On Sunday, September 24, a…
The weekend was warm in Colorado, the type of weather that puts a jingle in the cash register of anyone with something sweet and cold to peddle. Customers lined up out the door of Doug Gunn’s I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt shop. The frozen yogurt racket had proved a tough…
If a $7 bounced dog license check doesn’t strike you as the stuff of political intrigue, you haven’t been to City Hall lately–where Dallas’ blame game has dipped to an absurd level. Before Checkgate–or Doggiegate, if you prefer–was over, Mayor Ron Kirk had received a racially insulting letter, and fired…
$25 million kids Deion Sanders’ Cowboys contract may be in jeopardy, but another, equally controversial, if underreported Deion deal–this one with Dallas’ prestigious Greenhill School–is on solid ground. Deion’s daughter has made the Greenhill cut. Parents learned the news last week when teachers called to alert them that security would…
Miller wins Mencken prize; McVea takes NABJ honor Observer columnist Laura Miller has won the coveted H.L. Mencken Writing Award, given by the Baltimore Sun. The award, which includes a $5,000 cash prize, is presented annually to the newspaper writer whose opinion column “best captures the power of Mencken’s public…
Tuesday’s cartoon in the Chihuahua city paper showed President Ernesto Zedillo bustling toward a particularly frazzled-looking Mexican Everyman, saying, “I must recognize those who have paid the costs of the economic crisis.” The frazzled citizen wearily sticks out his hand to say “Muchas…” and then is left alone saying “…gracias”…
