Since news of the Dallas police fake drug scandal broke not quite a year ago, Buzz has been struggling unsuccessfully to understand something, and maybe you, dear reader, can give us an answer: Where’s the outrage? Where are the pickets, the protests, the raucous calls for someone’s head on a…
Protect and ServeOne of the lucky ones: Years ago, I had one of my college instructors tell my class that it is very unwise to get into a writing war with people who buy ink by the trainloads. He was referring to fighting with the media. However, I feel a…
Someone once said that it pays to be nice. Someone was full of crapola. You might expect Buzz to say this, seeing how we’re well compensated for being not nice, but this week we have extra cause to be peevish. Thank you, Premiere Video. The store, a nearly perennial Dallas…
Hilda Fernandez looks north from her perch on the 27th floor of the county government center. From here, it is easy to see the massive efforts to revitalize downtown coming together. Off to the right, the brand-new American Airlines arena gleams beneath the morning sun–a jump shot away from the…
The grainy security video has been shown ad nauseam over the television airwaves. The young blond mother exits the Kohl’s store with her pigtailed little girl, walks to her white SUV and glances over her right shoulder. She then plants her child in the backseat and begins to smack her…
There is a small child outside the window. He’s maybe 5 or 6, and he has a basketball tucked under his arm. It’s almost as big as he is. He’s looking through the glass–his nose is pressed against it, leaving a snotty smudge–just trying to catch a glimpse of Magic…
“I’m Jed from Survivor,” is how he introduced himself, flashing the proud pearlies of a Baylor College of Dentistry student who practices what he preaches. No last name was needed, of course, no introductions necessary. Well, we needed one, sure; we haven’t seen an episode of Survivor since we discovered…
No One’s LaughingSomething stupid: What were you guys thinking? Silly me, but I thought that “Best of Dallas” meant something (September 26). As the 2000 recipient of “Best Gay Bar,” we were proud of the selection. It was also good for business, because people do read your picks. Is it…
The former leader of a Western democracy is found to have had an extramarital affair with a woman of questionable taste, and members of the press are sharpening their long knives. Surprise! It’s not Bill Clinton. At least not this week, so far as we know. Nope, this round the…
It was a hot, humid night in Atlantic City two years ago, the kind of evening that grafts damp fabric to skin. Ralph “Pete” Hunter was working at Trump Plaza as a valet. This was the summer before his senior year at Virginia Union University, a long while before the…
Harold Holigan and his son Michael, who have ridden a nationally televised home-improvement show to minor Dallas celebrity, are being accused by their equally well-known investors of diverting proceeds from the show and using them to build a huge Preston Hollow mansion. Olympus Real Estate Partners, which was founded by…
I am not–repeat, not–a band-aid. Little Grizzly and I are just friends. Really, really good friends, because somehow we survived 72 hours in a van with no air conditioning, playing two packed shows and mostly sleeping on floors. Little Grizzly wasn’t even almost Almost Famous when it left Denton for…
Choking on AsbestosCourthouse parade: Our country’s economic recovery is being shaken by yet another generation of asbestos litigation (“Enough to Make You Sick,” September 26). Over the years, dozens of companies have been forced to file for bankruptcy, erasing thousands of jobs. Yet the courthouse parade shows no signs of…
Coming up with the Best of Dallas issue you hold in your hands is not an easy task. Using vigorous testing and complex statistical analysis, our highly paid team of expert critics combs the city, carefully computing myriad factors that determine which nominees deserve the coveted title “best.” OK, so…
Little did Ronald Bailey know that his handiness and inquisitive mind would one day kill him. The Fort Worth native had a knack for understanding mechanical things. So as an engineering student at the University of Oklahoma in the early 1960s, he took what he thought was a great work-study…
CEDAR HILL–On ordinary days as the arrival of autumn begins its faint whisper through south Dallas County, they go about their lives like most in this slow-moving suburban community of 30,000. Dr. Paula Brumit welcomes patients who arrive at her small strip-mall dental clinic with a smile and first-name greeting,…
The cell phone crackles some as he drives down the highway, and there’s a foreign beeping noise muddling the conversation at times, but that doesn’t stop him from merrily rolling through an account of his post-career résumé. After a few unfortunate years away from the Mavs, Derek Harper has finally…
“You can’t put a dollar value…on keeping our regular teachers in the classroom,” said Dallas school board President Ken Zornes in a Dallas Morning News story about efforts to reduce growing absenteeism among teachers. Laugh, cry or cuss–what exactly are we supposed to do when we’re told that teachers in…
StoopidGangstas, yours and mine: First off, thank you, Jeff Liles, for telling me what I, as an African-American, thought of N.W.A. (“Straight Outta Left Field,” September 12). I know you guys at the Dallas Observer don’t like The Dallas Morning News, but don’t use one of their articles as an…
Goofy Golf Most writers long to golf or have a cushy TV job for a living. David Feherty, who lives in Dallas, went the opposite route: After golf, he became a CBS Sports commentator, columnist for Golf magazine and now, with A Nasty Bit of Rough, a novelist. Feherty, unlike…
Inside offices at the 60-year-old Dallas Naval Air Station, insulation and tiles dangle from holes in the ceilings of buildings ruined from years of neglect. Books, old manuals, papers, overturned desks and obsolete equipment clutter unused offices. Yellowed directives from the 1990s are tacked to fallen bulletin boards. From the…
One August morning last year, a woman heading out to fish along the banks of the Trinity River stumbled upon a partially buried human skull. Dallas police and a representative from the medical examiner’s office soon were at the scene, looking at the skull. The medical examiner dug up the…
