Writer in progress As a former Dallas Morning News employee who had the privilege to get to know Patricia Anthony, I found your article on her to be quite interesting [“Science friction,” June 11]. I remember mornings when Pat (as I knew her) would excitedly come over to my desk…
John Wiley Price did most of the talking, holding forth grandly on his reasons for supporting Mayor Ron Kirk’s Trinity River Plan. Clad in a typically natty outfit–tapered jacket, gleaming cuff links, high-collared shirt–Price appeared at ease, in control. He handily outshone the four men beside him, the collection of…
Hers is a transformation as amazing as the shape-shifting you’ll find in the pulpiest of science fiction. To witness it is to be astonished at the writer emerging from the cocoon; it’s like a creature springing fully formed out of a pod until it walks, talks, and looks like the…
The early results are in. And preliminary indications are strong that Laura Miller’s transition from longtime Dallas columnist to neophyte Dallas City Council member will not necessarily be smooth. It will be interesting. But not smooth. And who thought it would be? Miller’s 15-year journalism career in Dallas and New…
The smell test Maintaining a healthy level of cynicism is not as easy as it looks. Life, especially here in Dallas, especially at 1500 Marilla Street, has a nasty way of meeting and surpassing our most paranoid suspicions, of confirming our doubts about others’ motivations. You think you’re being cynical,…
For most people charged with a petty misdemeanor such as speeding, showing up at the drab courtrooms of Dallas Municipal Court is an annoying experience. Long waits generated by the glutted city bureaucracy are not made any easier by coming face-to-face with municipal judges, whose heavy caseloads sometimes inspire them…
Moaning about LeAnn Rhimes I agree totally with you about LeAnn Rimes [“‘Blue’ it,” May 28]. I am a C&W keyboard player who has worked with several name acts over the past seven years. I worked with several musicians who have worked or are working with Ms. Rimes. It’s ironic…
It was a disappointment, as far as protests go. Animal rights activist Lydia Nichols had sent out a press release promising a “major disruption that could get confrontational” outside the downtown Neiman Marcus on September 27, 1997. But the media didn’t show up, and neither did the protesters–save for her,…
It is 5:15 p.m. on May 7 in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-eight.XOrdinarily, it would be quitting time for the hardworking denizens of Big D. But this Thursday is no ordinary weekday, and this moment is more than just the beginning of the evening traffic jam…
Fahim Minkah doesn’t know what to tell the children. They were counting on him, believed in him, and now they don’t think he can deliver. The former Black Panther, auto mechanic, and community organizer promised the children in South Oak Cliff that he would help make their lives better. He…
Doin’ the Wright Shuffle We don’t know who the author is, since the fax that Buzz received was unsigned, but we wanted to share this letter purportedly sent by a Dallas air traveler to Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Phil Gramm and U.S. Rep. Dick Armey: “Please accept my donation…
Chicken-fried staff writer Hey, Christina Rees writes like a beautiful white-trash poet. Her big article on our little joint [“Rock bottom,” May 28] will be quoted (probably incorrectly) for weeks around here. And sure, it was lofty and exaggerated and a little too romantic to be Denton-esque, but it was…
In early November 1993, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport was about to take a small but important step. The board members presiding over the world’s second busiest airport were poised to approve its first direct contract with a retail business owned by a person of color. It was a significant gesture…
On a balmy late night in a historic town square, the welcoming glow of a pizza parlor beckons the hungry and the bored. Inside, a tidy row of tables, a soda fountain, and polished wood paneling reflect the smooth operation of a modest business; the guy working behind the counter…
Do it yourself We hate to say it, but Buzz thinks Tom Hicks and Ross Perot Jr. did just fine picking David Schwarz as architect for the new arena. Before you pick up a pen and fire off a letter claiming that we’re: a) dumb as a box of rocks…
For the second time in four months, a woman charged with fracturing the skull of a 21-month-old infant while in this country illegally is sitting in a Mexican jail, awaiting extradition to face murder charges in Dallas. But plugging the legal loophole that allowed her to escape justice in the…
The latest move by a Dallas anti-poverty agency in its fight with state regulators has come to nothing. Attempting to sideline state investigators, the Dallas County Community Action Committee this spring asked the federal government to cut the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs out of its business altogether…
Rangers revisionism? Enjoyed your story on the pre-Texas Rangers history [“A bush league of their own,” May 21]. But as I recall, the Texas Rangers have never played in Dallas! Nor have they ever claimed to be the Dallas team. They have been an Arlington team since the beginning. As…
It takes Lambert Dalton Meyer a while to remember things–he is like a cold car in the dead of winter that needs to warm for a while in the driveway before it can get going. At first, he does not even remember when he played in baseball’s major leagues, as…
Call it the riddle of the Fords. For almost a year, Tarrant County Sheriff David Williams let five brand-new Crown Victoria patrol cars collect dust in a Fort Worth parking lot. His people just never bothered to pick them up. While the $100,000 worth of cars sat, the sheriff yuppie-lusted…
The information-technology employees at Walgreens, the drugstore chain, didn’t need government statisticians to tell them about historically low unemployment rates. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this month that the unemployment rate had fallen to 4.1 percent nationwide, the lowest it has been in 28 years. But at Walgreens, the…
Winning friends, influencing people It sounds like such a good idea: a big, wealthy, downtown law firm opens up a storefront office in South Dallas to serve the black community gratis. You know, noblesse oblige…among lawyers, no less. Nice plan, but its execution by the firm of Bickel & Brewer…
