News

Injured pride and prejudice Some things are even hard for Buzz to discuss, but not, thank God, for the judicial system. Consider a recent Texas Court of Appeals decision in a case of an aggravated sexual assault of a child. The defendant had hoped to overturn his 16-year sentence on…

Two weeks ago, Kathy Krasniqi collapsed at her job, gasping for air, her chest pounding with pain. After a week of tests, doctors have determined that she suffers from serious heart and lung disease. Albanian Muslims from the former Yugoslavia, Kathy, 41, and her husband, Sam, lost custody of their…

The last time I saw Ray Carboni, he was sprawled out on the gymnasium floor of our high school, carefully penning his goodbyes into my yearbook. It was 1976. “Well, here it is, the moment I’ve dreaded and feared all year, the moment that I have to capsulize four years…

The wrath of God In response to your article, “Classless act” [January 25], regarding the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s reassignment of gay journalist Todd Camp, I want you to know you are the classless act. But what did I–and everyone else–expect? The Observer is undoubtedly the worst pro-pot, pro-gay, and pro-Clinton…

We live in a nation that has just sentenced a 12-year-old boy, less than 5 feet tall with an IQ of less than 60, to a maximum-security juvenile facility. It is not a proud day. No matter what your view on either the necessity or the appropriateness of this measure,…

Exploitation first WFAA Channel 8, the “Family First” station, rushed to remain at the head of the ratings pack in hosting a February 3 town meeting in Arlington tied to the slaying of Amber Hagerman. Call BeloWatch cynical. But what public purpose did this session serve? Venting outrage before the…

The boys should have been having a ball. It was a sunny autumn day, and on the greensward that is Garland’s Winters Park, the culmination of everything for which the Genesis ’85 boys soccer team had worked so hard all season lay before them. They were at the annual Celtic…

Patrick Owen sits on his stool, gently cradling his acoustic guitar in his long fingers. Running through an impressive rendition of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” Owen plucks and pulls at the instrument’s strings, bending them until they almost break. Though it’s early in the night, his…

It’s barely daybreak on the 1996 political horizon, but maverick Wise County Attorney Stephen Hale is already facing opponents who want to assure his political sunset. Since shortly after taking office in January 1993, Hale, who prosecutes misdemeanor crimes in this rural county of 36,000, about 40 miles north of…

Cowed Town daily The Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s embarrassing and shameful overreaction to a right-wing Christian group went national this week in a lengthy article in the The New York Times. S-T Executive Editor Debbie Price, as you’ll recall from the Observer’s January 25 story, booted openly gay editor Todd Camp…

It was the night of Domingo Garcia’s annual Christmas party, but not every guest was in a festive mood. In fact, Sylvana Alonzo couldn’t stand the idea of attending her third holiday party in three nights. “Roberto, do we have to go tonight?” she said tiredly as she was getting…

News: graceless under pressure Talk about lack of class. No, not “Da Boys,” as The Dallas Morning News’ intensely unhip editorial page habitually–and ludicrously–refers to them. BeloWatch is speaking, of course, about Dallas’ Only Daily. In a January 26 pre-Super Bowl editorial headlined “Da Boys–It’s time to show class as…

I was walkin’ along, mindin’ my own bidness the other day, when Our Man Phil Gramm popped up and announced to the world that he’s a “blue-collar Republican.” So now I know how Jessica-who-fell-in-the-well felt. I went home to lie down from the shock, and then class warfare broke out…

Winners and whiners Julie Lyons, get real! You’re just another whining Green Bay Packer fan [“Evil’s triumph at Texas Stadium,” January 18]. Sounds to me like you’re also another one of those people that is jealous of the Dallas Cowboys, “America’s team.” Thought you might like to know who named…

Barbara Jordan, whose name was so often preceded by the words “the first black woman to…” that they seemed like a permanent title, died Wednesday in Austin. A great spirit is gone. Jordan was the first black woman to serve in the Texas Senate, the first black woman in Congress…

In the early-morning hours of July 8, 1995, Sky Callahan staggered through the dark and unfamiliar streets of Guatemala City, his mind and body reeling from a brutal beating. Two men whom he believed to be government agents had kidnapped the Dallas documentary filmmaker, forced him into their car at…

It began with the battle of the big men–a bloody scrap they’d still be talking about months later. In one corner was David “Tank” Abbott. A 280-pound 6-footer, Abbott looked the part of the classic barroom brawler–big, with an enormous beer belly, buzz-cut hair, and no discernible neck. His martial…

D and Bartlett to make match? Hot publishing buzz has unprofitable D magazine, just out with its (yawn) “How to marry a millionaire” issue, about to hook up with a new set of monied mates. The word is that owner Glen Solomon, who restarted the moribund monthly, will step down…

A campaign targeting gay journalists launched last month by the Christian, conservative American Family Association has chalked up its first victory. Responding to a complaint from an AFA member, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has transferred a gay editor out of a job that occasionally required him to work with schoolchildren…

Go ahead, touch that dial I feel like I have just lost a very good friend. I feel like I should be in the middle of some kind of “identity crisis,” because I don’t know where I fit in at KERA radio [“Stop the music,” January 11]. I am a…

Sitting in one of those hard seats in the cavernous central jury room of the George L. Allen Sr. courts building in downtown Dallas, I knew only two things for certain: That my day was shot to hell; and that I was bored out of my mind. Well, things change…