Until a couple of weeks ago, this particularly dismal frame home in West Dallas was a two-bedroom place. Valued on county tax rolls at little more than the price of a decent chicken coop–$8,020 total for the 768-square-foot house and the lot–it’s worth far more to its owners and managers,…
Walter Cruz sits down on the rocky river bank in Nuevo Laredo, watching the Rio Grande, his back turned to Mexico and to the long trail leading to his native Honduras. He feels cold–gripped by a familiar hunger that comes from weeks of uncertain meals and days of hiking through…
For agent Tase Bailey, the transforming moment came as they unearthed the victims, dumped together in their rural grave. The FBI man had seen many dead bodies before, but never a bullet-riddled mother and her little boy, curled up in his pajamas, murdered for no reason at all. Suddenly, what…
Tom Caton, a 29-year veteran of the Dallas Fire Department, did not decide to become a firefighter to get rich. Far from it. He put his life on the line battling blazes as a public service and a labor of love. The only thing he expected to get in return…
The bones of the Great Atheist are out there, possibly somewhere west of San Antonio near the remote Hill Country town of Camp Wood, where normally the only break from the rural routine is the fall invasion of deer hunters. Federal authorities believe that in 1995, Madalyn Murray O’Hair and…
If Houston or Dallas has vaulted ahead of six other U.S. cities bidding to host the 2012 Olympic Summer Games, it has the Texas Legislature to thank or blame, depending on one’s perspective. The U.S. Olympic Committee is smiling down on the two cities because Texas is well on the…
Nothing to crow about When I worked as an armed security guard at an Oak Cliff shopping center six years ago, it seemed obvious to me that the multiracial security staff there was far more concerned about drug dealers and smash-and-grabs than they were about either roosters [“Fowled out,” May…
Love for sale Coming up with high-quality, industrial-strength humor week after week is not easy. It takes wit. It takes diligence. It takes bribes. But sometimes God and the fax machine provide the straight lines just when the well runs dry. The latest manna from heaven comes from “soul mate…
It started with a lady in the clouds issuing you a challenge in a 30-second TV commercial. “As you look at your next phone bill,” she said as dark billows moved rapidly across the sky behind her, “try and make sense out of the fact that it’s more expensive to…
Good morning, children, and welcome back to class. You may have noticed that a new student has joined us. Or, actually, quite a few new students. About 60 million, to take a quick guess. Say hi, everybody. Now, they might look familiar, they might look a little like the teenagers…
Is everybody happy? It took some time, some help from Dallas City Councilman Al Lipscomb, and complaints from one royally P.O.’d resident, but at last someone at City Hall has decided that having semis rumbling through a city park is not a good idea. Seems obvious, you say? You poor…
Earlier this month, alarm bells sounded within the small, increasingly skittish world of Texas historic preservationists when they learned that city officials in Waxahachie were planning to raze eight shotgun houses that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The houses, whose owners live in Dallas, have become…
Spot the hypocrite Did anyone else notice the irony here? Even as the Dallas Observer seeks solutions to Plano’s problems with youth and drugs [“Bad trip,” May 6], the publication places an ad for a head shop selling “body detoxifiers” and “[rolling] papers” alongside the text of the article on…
Consider the challenge: It’s your job to sell a presidential hopeful who, compared with his rivals, possesses only the skimpiest national resume. Even magazine publisher Steve Forbes, running for vanity, notoriety, whatever, has driven around the block once before as a presidential candidate. But your guy, despite his youthful good…
Waiting for the city to fix your street? Waiting for them to help your elderly neighbors with basic home repairs? To do anything at all to improve your neighborhood? Don’t hold your breath. The money’s there–$22 million in federal funds. The problem is, the city council and the mayor have…
Spare the rod and spoil the rider Buzz has never understood the love affair Texans have with their cars. (Now in their cars–that’s a different story.) We’ve also never been one to snub mass transit, particularly since the old Buzzmobile is about as sexy as a pair of Dr. Scholl’s…
One angry mom Apparently Christopher Brown’s potshots at the media blunders in the Routier trial have rubbed off on the Dallas Observer’s very own Ann Zimmerman. Her attempts at ridiculing the people who are involved in the Darlie Routier case were not amusing to me [“The cult of Darlie,” May…
If Oak Cliff were its own state, the rooster might be its state bird. That, or the finger, extended with pride and pointed north across the Trinity River, where like-minded creatures phone one another on Nokias as they tear across a concrete landscape in their Lexus RX 300s. At least…
INS barks back I note that your recent article about the INS office [“Huddled masses,” April 8] has generated several letters to the editor that echo reporter Juliana Barbassa’s “totally objective” piece. As the acting district director for the Dallas office for nearly one year and a 33-year veteran of…
Milan Michael Malina wasn’t the first Plano youth to die of a heroin overdose. In the endless game of death and law enforcement that we call the war on drugs, it’s hard to tell what number he rolled. According to The Plano Star-Courier, he was the eighth of 15 deaths…
If they start throwing chairs, you’ll know you’re on the wrong set.” With such sage advice, my 11-year-old daughter bid me adieu before I jetted off to Los Angeles on less than a day’s notice to appear on the Leeza Gibbons show, the outer ring of TV talk-show hell. On…
Dallas Observer staff writer Jim Schutze has been named a winner of a 1999 Unity Award for political reporting. The Unity Awards in Media, sponsored by Lincoln University of Jefferson City, Missouri, honor outstanding reporting on issues concerning minorities. Schutze won for his April 16, 1998, cover story, “Saint Al,”…
