How to site a Nuclear- waste dump–for just $50 million

1) Ignore scientific consultants. In 1983, the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority hired Los Angeles-based engineering consultants Dames & Moore to conduct a siting study for the proposed facility based on state guidelines. After looking at all of Texas, the consultants excluded much of Hudspeth County–the authority’s current choice…

The artful dodger

“I want to bring the artists back to Deep Ellum,” declares developer Don Blanton, referring to the halcyon (and sometimes hyperbolized) days of the mid-’80s. Those were the days when yuppies stayed away from Deep Ellum because of the perceived skinhead threat, and musicians, painters, and performance artists were crammed…

Buzz

Pay up and shut up Get ready. Buzz has located the nation’s newest persecuted minority: the filthy rich. That’s their claim, anyway, judging by comments from two members of the metroplex’s moneyed class, who say they were harassed by “Nazis” who (gasp!) demanded that they pay their taxes. A few…

Letters

Death Row railroad “Deathtrap” [July 9] was well-written, carefully considered, and needed to be written. The criminal “justice” system needs a free and vigilant press. Somehow, such things seem to work better when the media “looks” at them. Thanks for doing this one. Maurice Healy Via e-mail I read your…

Getting dumped

In the stark, Wild West landscape of the Trans-Pecos region, a rancher and a baker kick up dust in the bottom of a trench 32 feet deep, 210 feet wide, and 400 feet long. The rancher, shielded from the blazing sun by a cowboy hat, scoops a small pebble of…

Raw deal

On his way out the door, departing City Manager John Ware is setting up a sweetheart tax-dollar giveaway to former Governor Bill Clements and oilman Ray Hunt that will make his Trinity River and sports-arena deals look like sound government policy. Impossible? Consider this: Clements and Hunt, both hugely wealthy…

Whine capital of Texas

In the end, history will judge the events that took place on Main Street, in the heart of Grapevine, on September 14. Maybe this time history will get it right. On that sweltering Sunday, thousands of wine lovers savored the final hours of the annual GrapeFest, a three-day celebration promoting…

Schmidt happens

Peter Schmidt shouldn’t even be here now. Here is Matt Pence’s home studio in Denton, and now is December 1997, not so long after it appeared that Schmidt had finally given up on music for good. By now, Schmidt figured, the record he has been making for months–months that seemed…

Buzz

Info:Correction Date: 07/30/1998 Info: Buzz By Patrick Williams Where’s Gopher and the gang? OK now, everybody sing! “The l-o-o-ove bus Soon will be making another round…” Oh, skip it. We’ve been trying to see DART’s stretch limos as hotbeds of passion and romance–Love Boats of the road–ever since we first…

Welcome to the neighborhood

The woman in manager Reginald Giles’ office at Frankford Townhomes was looking for a nice apartment to rent in North Dallas–clean, safe, and miles from the inner city. Little did she know when she approached Giles last week that she was standing in the middle of a public housing project…

Letters

Naughty Ron That was one hilarious exchange between Ron Kirk and his aide [“Mayor Potty Mouth,” July 2]. Too bad you people didn’t have the common sense to enjoy the moment and keep it to your damn selves. We all talk bad at times, don’t we? At least he wasn’t…

Fish story

Massachusetts Georges Bank lemon sole in a macadamia-nut crust. Grilled fillet of Alaskan halibut with avocado quenelles. Sweet corn-crusted gulf redfish fillet. Pyramid of Atlantic swordfish. Found on the new summer menu at Dallas’ acclaimed seafood restaurant Fish, these dishes are aimed squarely at diners’ growing appetite for distinctive seafood…

Hispanic enough

Mexican-American leadership in Dallas has pretty much resolved the question of whether the city’s new city manager, Ted Benavides, is Hispanic. It has been decided that he is. The debate now has moved more to the question of how Hispanic. Nobody knows. And some people are even beginning to ask…

Buzz

The tryouts begin Please, would someone explain to Buzz how George W. Bush has become the Republican front-runner for the 2000 presidential nomination? It’s not that we don’t like him, you understand. Any man who’s a baseball fan and fesses up to a hard-drinking youth has gone a long way…

Letters

Travesty of justice What happened to the Krasniqis [“A mother and child reunion,” June 25] is a travesty of justice. To hear that such a thing could happen puts fear into every parent–that the court would so cavalierly dissolve a family based on the testimony of strangers. There is little…

Deathtrap

Erica Sheppard had decided she wanted to die. For three years, she had been on death row, convicted of the murder of Marilyn Sage Meagher, a Houston real estate agent and mother of two. Although Sheppard would later claim that she didn’t receive a fair trial, she confessed to her…

Death on tap

In late May, when Dallas AIDS activist John Thomas learned he was infected with a microbe called cryptosporidium parvum, he finally decided to conclude his private battle with death. Thomas had earned national respect over the last two decades for his leadership in the global battle against death by AIDS…

Getting the business

Tripping Daisy’s rehearsal space has hardly any space at all. It’s nothing more than a shack behind the house that Tim DeLaughter and his girlfriend of more than 15 years, Julie Doyle, share near Lower Greenville. An air-conditioning unit–plugged into the side and blowing meekly, as though embarrassed that it…

Buzz

And your point is? So former House Speaker Jim Wright–whom we love like kin; read last week’s Buzz–says that Fort Worth and Dallas liked the restrictions on Love Field when he pushed them through Congress in 1979. Wright’s comment came earlier this week during a court hearing on Fort Worth’s…

Conflict? What conflict?

Earlier this month, the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport Board awarded a $95,000 contract for an outside financial audit of its books and accounts to KPMG Peat Marwick. The accounting firm then subcontracted 25 percent of the work to two minority firms–in keeping with the airport board’s goal of trying to spread…

Mayor potty mouth

Elected officials often project one image to the world and another to those who know them intimately. When those two images collide, the effect can be quite jarring. Just ask Dallas Morning News reporter Craig Flournoy. One can only imagine Flournoy’s shock and/or glee when he learned that his office…

Kosher war

For one Richardson family, the wait for the sun to set on a recent Saturday seemed particularly long. It was the weekend last month that the Tom Thumb Food & Pharmacy chain was opening its newest store, at the corner of Coit and Campbell roads. The Richardson family members, who…