Slouching toward Hollywood

Jimmy Caaaaaaan! Luke Wilson was thrilled. It was November 1994, and the star of The Godfather, Thief, and Misery, icon to two generations of aspiring young actors and a walking template of life’s rougher passages, was jogging beside him on train tracks near a downtown Dallas factory. A film crew…

Letters

From men II boyz As an ex-employee (of my own volition) of the Dallas Cowboys, I was greatly amused at Jennifer Briggs’ tell-all tale on the “plowboys” [“Secrets from Cowboys camp,” August 17]. It was great for someone to finally spill some of the beans on America’s Team. However, it…

Giving good book

Ella Patterson labored long and hard to write, print and distribute her sex manual, Will the Real Women…Please Stand Up. The former Dallas schoolteacher immersed herself in her project, running her business from an upstairs guest room in her DeSoto home. Between the book and about four hours of sleep…

Buzz

Lookin’ for love Last week on a KLIF talk show, former Mayor Steve Bartlett tore into Observer columnist Laura Miller. Of course, Miller hadn’t been invited to defend herself, but why quibble? What Buzz found interesting was Bart-lett’s parting shot–that the personal ads in the Observer were more accurate than…

It’s a woman’s world

Happy anniversary, women of America! Happy anniversary to us. Hasn’t it been fun to hear all the wonderful foremothers quoted and to see all the doughty old dames marching in the demonstrations of 75 years ago? Abigail Adams, of course, is always quoted on the famous letter to her husband:…

Buzz

Put him on a trading card In the wake of Mickey Mantle’s wake–enlivened as it was by tales of his drinking and skirt-chasing–we have all realized, once again, that our sports heroes are no angels. Still, it never ceases to amaze Buzz what obnoxious creeps they can be. Gil Brandt,…

BeloWatch

News strikes out In an August 25 editorial, The Dallas Morning News finally weighed in on the manipulations of Baylor Hospital doctors in the case of Mickey Mantle. The editorial first quotes an ethicist to offer a helpful definition of “lying.” (“That is, a statement that says X occurred when…

The all-O.J. channel

Following the downward trajectory of television news Warning! O.J. content within. Let’s “stipulate,” as Marcia Clark says, that if the media had spent as much time on what the Republicans in Congress are doing to environmental laws and regulations as they have on O.J. Simpson, we’d all be on the…

Strange bedfellows

So…The Dallas Morning News is getting into the weekly newspaper business. According to an August 23 “media advisory,” Dallas’ Only Daily has entered into a “consulting relationship” with The Met, Not Dallas’ Only Weekly. So much for being an “alternative to the alternative”–The Met is now part of Dallas’ Evil…

Letters

Ministry of hate Regarding your story on Dallas’ Nation of Islam leader Jeffery Muhammad [“Black man’s burden,” August 10]: as with all hate-based groups, there will be some who may want to overlook the damage these groups do in favor of the positive aspects of the group. They may say:…

Who’s afraid of Robert rose?

Jimmy Lewis White ran a red Volkswagen Beetle off the side of Highway 820 on Jan-uary 15, 1995. The Bug apparently flipped and rolled, killing driver John Marcellus, an off-duty Fort Worth police officer. Tests after the accident pegged White’s blood alcohol level at .25–more than double what the law…

Buzz

You can skedaddle, but you can’t hide Keeping up with Dallas’ Jet Set can be a chore. Take the Crow family. When its members aren’t smuggling the treasury minister for a murderous dictator into town [see “The Crow-Qadhafi Connection,” December 1994], they’re cavorting with the uncreme de la creme of…

Out of Africa

Arlington businessmen Charles Biney and Eric Owusu disagreed mightily about what to name their magazine. Both natives of Ghana, the men had worked hard to put together a distinct, informative publication about the African continent for readers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. They began bouncing around a title. Biney came…

BeloWatch

Mad as hell–we think Wonder why you haven’t seen much investigative reporting in Dallas’ Only Daily lately? Why Dallas Life shut down? Why the “Today” section is crammed with wire-service copy? It’s because The Dallas Morning News is devoting its energy, staff, and millions to really important stories–like this week’s…

Letters

When you’re right, you’re right As the old saying goes, “Two out of three ain’t bad.” Ann Zimmerman’s article in the August 3-9 issue is headlined “Angry Right Men.” I agree that from the perspective furnished by the Observer, I am to the political right and I am a man…

Couldn’t Medicare less

Heads up, team; sneak play ahead. The deliriously misnamed Coalition to Save Medicare is about to join the national debate about health insurance programs for seniors. What we have here, hiding behind those Foster Grants, is a coalition of huge corporations and insurance companies out to loot Medicare to pay…

Buzz

Window-shopping for trouble Neiman Marcus, Dallas’ proverbial arbiter of taste, likes to make fashion statements. But last week the upscale retailer inadvertently produced a political statement–and a messy one at that. Who’d have thought a department-store window display could be a hotbed of agitprop? Neiman’s blames it all on a…

BeloWatch

Fired News sports staffer entangled in federal kiddie-porn sting A fired editor in The Dallas Morning News sports department is at the center of an interstate child-pornography sting operation, BeloWatch has learned. The former editor is George Woods, 41. Woods lost his job in early July, BeloWatch has been told,…

Arena games

It’s summertime–and the living for a City Hall reporter is easy. Primarily because we haven’t heard much about the new sports arena. But don’t get your hopes up. No news is not necessarily good news. It’s just that we’re in something of a stall mode right now. The hangup lies…

Letters

Scandal academy I’m sincerely hoping the Dallas Observer becomes accustomed to covering positive topics, like we saw in the article by Julie Lyons [“Virgin Academy,” July 20-26]. Though it was evident that Ms. Lyons was mocking the idea of teenage girls attempting to maintain some honorable values in this screwed-up…

Unkindest cuts

AUSTIN–I could be wrong, but I think the Bob Packwood problem is actually simple. Suppose–just suppose–that Bob Packwood was a predatory homosexual. Normally a decent enough guy after having a few drinks, but suppose he was given to grabbing men a lot smaller than he is, kissing them and sticking…

Buzz

Throw the book at ’em It had to happen. The information revolution has collided with the last bastion of the printed word. Fed up with the disturbance to its more literate patrons, the Renner-Frankford branch of the Dallas Public Library has expelled cellular telephones. The Far North Dallas library has…