Legal Upchucking This is in reference to Christine Biederman’s article on the Michael Irvin-Erik Williams-Nina Shahravan-Marty Griffin imbroglio [“Payback time,” August 21]. Excellent article, well-researched with solid background work. This is much better than anything from the fluffy one-size-fits-all approach of your crosstown behemoth rival, The Dallas Morning News. The…
Eight-year-old Veronica Martinez is calculating the cube root of 474,552 in her head. At the same time, she is attempting to devour a cheese sandwich–between gulps of water from a tan-rimmed coffee cup. It takes less than eight seconds to consume the mathematical problem, slightly longer for the sandwich. She…
A hazy orange sun is inching above the Dallas skyline as I dodge through early-morning traffic on Interstate 30. It’s 6:35 a.m. on a Monday, I have a date, and I am miserably late. So I weave between lanes, pushing 80, hoping those stealthy Grand Prairie cops are lingering somewhere…
Problems continue to multiply for management of the Dallas County Community Action Committee, the anti-poverty agency that is big on hiring relatives and even better at making tax money disappear. When allegations of mismanagement, waste, and nepotism first surfaced [“Family first,” July 31], the agency’s director, Cleo Sims, and board…
The McKinney doctor who slashed a man’s throat during a 1996 barroom brawl has escaped a felony conviction, but he is no longer allowed to practice medicine in Texas. The Texas State Board of Medical Examiners indefinitely suspended Dr. John Hargett’s medical license because of Hargett’s “intemperate use of alcohol…
When last we checked with the Friends of Greenwood Cemetery, they were furiously writing letters, making phone calls, and gathering photos, faxes, maps, and traffic studies. Their mission? To convince Dallas City Council that a powerful Uptown neighborhood developer has no business building a tony apartment complex on top of,…
Beguile, bedazzle, be gone Buzz usually gets depressed when some other newspaper or magazine goes belly up. It’s sort of like losing a member of the family. But the demise of Dallas/Fort Worth’s Life Style magazine brings more of a sense of relief, like a merciful death for a long-suffering,…
All Lisa Riley Richardson wanted was a chance to work in a photographer’s studio, to earn a living taking and developing pictures. She thought her childhood dream would have been fulfilled by now. Yet despite training at a Dallas trade school seven years ago, today Richardson is no closer to…
Reprehensible Rose Rose Farley’s article on Bill Simpson [“Mr. Nobody,” August 14] was a classic example of the Dallas Observer’s characteristic writing style: reprehensible. At every word and turn of the page, Simpson was sneeringly portrayed as some sinister and meddlesome “do-gooder.” He was even brazenly labeled a “Mr. Nobody.”…
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed against the Dallas Observer almost two years ago by former Dallas Independent School District trustee Dan Peavy. U.S. District Judge Jerry Buchmeyer ruled last week that the Observer cannot be sued for printing a transcript of secretly recorded telephone conversations in which…
Sand between his ears You might already be of the opinion that Texas Land Commissioner Garry Mauro is a bit daft, having decided he’ll try to dislodge George W. Bush from the governor’s mansion next year. Even Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock–good Democrat that he is–has driven a stake into the…
Mr. Nobody Just when I think the world is being overrun by those so far to the right that they’re wrong, here comes Rose Farley with “Mr. Nobody” [August 14]. What a hoot! People like this Bill Simpson guy live for the spotlight, but only if they can have their…
Rick Duffield is a quiet, understated man, not one to gloat. He claims he hasn’t even been inside a Target store recently. But if he had, Duffield certainly would feel a wee bit of glee at what he saw. Barney, the reigning champion of children’s television, is being supplanted on…
The car is a beauty, no doubt. A 1975 slant-nose Porsche, painted white. Brown leather seats, deep and snug. Its round rear end fitted with a spoiler, creating an image of speed and mobility. Freedom, really. The car’s driver also is a beaut. Robin Cook. A tall, slender man with…
Eleven-year-old Chris Ballew is trying to talk about Jesus. Blood and laughter keep getting in the way. Chris is giggling in the men’s restroom at God’s Place International alongside his 11-year-old cousin and fellow Dallasite David Riddle because he’s bleeding. Big bubbles of dark red blow out of one nostril,…
The summer daylight is just beginning to fade as Andy Emmons’ pickup rumbles down a quaint residential street toward downtown Waxahachie. There isn’t much traffic this evening, but what little there is gawks as Emmons goes by. Passing drivers do a double-take, and the eyes of Waxahachie’s porch dwellers follow…
The lawsuit was just one of hundreds pending before State District Judge John McClellan Marshall, a nasty but unremarkable business dispute over a fee from a real estate deal. Its title–Berins vs. TRT Holdings–betrayed little of the acrimony involved. Each side dug in, refusing to settle their differences, and it…
If the facts are on your side, trial lawyers say, argue the facts to the jury. If the law is on your side, argue the law to the judge. And if you don’t have either?XBaffle the insurer with your bullstuff. Victoria Phillips doesn’t know which approach won $1.1 million apiece…
It’s 5:30 on Monday morning, and Alvaro Vallecillos is preparing for work at the East Dallas apartment he shares with his brother. He throws on some jeans, grabs a quick breakfast, and heads for his place of employment: the street. Vallecillos is a laborer who has a different boss each…
Be like Ross Improbable though it may seem, Buzz is pondering the possibility that Ross Perot is–as he has long assured us–smarter than the rest of us. Sure, it’s been easy for the past few years to dismiss Perot as a ranting jug-eared lunatic. But new evidence of Perot’s latent…
Lynda McDow concedes that her proposal to convert an old church into a public school could cause some flak, but that doesn’t bother the Dallas Independent School District trustee. “Yeah, it’ll be controversial,” McDow says of her plan, scheduled to go before the DISD board in late August. “But that’s…
Long live Ann I personally want to thank journalist Ann Zimmerman and the Dallas Observer for the story “Dumped On” [August 7]. Our community is grateful for the story, which was well investigated and well written by Zimmerman. We love and thank her for speaking out in the defense of…
