News

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…

Belo bashing Burl Osborne’s interference in the News’ reporting on the Trinity River plan as recounted by Jim Schutze is disgraceful, but it is not surprising [“Unfairness doctrine”, May 14]. The leopard has not really changed its spots. I have never subscribed to the News in my 29 years living…

If boys could fly, the world would look like Eisenbergs. Scores of boys on in-line skates, skateboards, and BMX bikes are perched atop enormous plywood ramps like crows on a cliff. The place reeks of young men, slick with sweat, ostentatiously stoical in their Teutonic skate helmets and gladiator pads…

Venable ego-watch Washington at Valley Forge. Travis at the Alamo. Venable at DISD. That’s right, history buffs. Dallas’ own education gadfly Don Venable is the Man with the Stand on the Dallas school board, sacrificing himself and standing by his principles. At least, that’s his story. According to Venable, he…

The spectacle that took place two weeks ago at the home of Charlotte Parkhurst, a.k.a. the Mulch Lady, was awe-inspiring. An army of city officials–representing code enforcement, streets, sanitation, fire, and neighborhood services–occupied the 7200 block of Eccles drive in Pleasant Grove as part of a five-day blitzkrieg designed to…

A mini-revolt is brewing among Dallas Morning News reporters who believe the paper’s coverage of the Trinity River bond election was dishonest. At an angry newsroom meeting last week, reporters told top editors they felt the News’ so-called “fairness” policy had become a “euphemism for watered-down coverage and kowtowing to…

“This was a masterpiece, wasn’t it?” Steven Russell says with a laugh, on the phone from a Florida jail. He is referring to his latest escape. A fast-talking pathological liar, Russell recently pulled off his fourth illegal exit from a Texas prison or jail. This spring, for the second time…

Buzz off Regarding the “Buzz” last week about NAACP [leader] Lee Alcorn: Your suggestion that Lee Alcorn “staged” his “painful-to-watch” appearance at the City Council meeting on April 22 was not paranoid but absurd and mean-spirited, and reflects laziness on the part of your staff. First, having watched his speech,…

The classroom signs promote happy thoughts, visions of love and work and well-being. “Wanted,” one poster says. “Someone to love me for me.” The teacher, Wanda Evans, a middle-aged Lockheed Martin worker, has even tacked up one of her own messages: “A lot of good things will come out of…

As he speaks, it is easy to forget that Carnell Johnson is sitting inside the north tower of the Lew Sterrett jail, caught safely in the hands of the Dallas County sheriff. On this Monday afternoon, Johnson is remarkably happy and, for just a moment, the white brick cell doesn’t…

Discussing gang presence in Deep Ellum with Dallas police or a merchant from that area is a dance of verbal negotiation and qualification. They will use the “g” word only if pushed. They will only reluctantly admit that the Deep Ellum Association has paid to redirect traffic on Friday and…

One born every minute Buzz isn’t quite sure what possessed us to stop by last week’s book signing for self-professed medium James Van Praagh, whose book of happy talk about the afterlife–Talking to Heaven–is a bestseller. Maybe it’s his claim that he can chat with the departed spirits of animals…

You lose some About the article on the Trinity River Plan [“Flood money,” January 22]: Are you guys biased very much? Is that what you call responsible journalism? Well, at this point it does not really matter: The Trinity Plan has been passed by the voters, and Dallas is well…

Behind a glass wall in the high-tech North Dallas offices of ABC Radio Networks is what pretends to be a live broadcast featuring a large cast of characters all interacting with each other in the same studio. But the radio players who are doing political commentary, comedy sketches, running gags,…

The Dallas Observer does not exist to create a local music scene, not even to foster one: It’s survival of the fittest out there, baby, and audiences will pony up the dough regardless of a few kind or harsh words in a newspaper. (After all, Deep Blue Something and Jackopierce…