On the same day a grand jury handed down indictments accusing former Kaufman County Justice of the Peace Eric Williams and his wife, Kim, of capital murder, she filed for divorce. According to a petition filed Thursday in district court, Kim Lene Williams is seeking to end her 17-year marriage,…
Now that the euphoria that followed Wendy Davis’ Senate filibuster two nights ago has faded, Democrats are back to facing the likelihood that the Republicans’ death grip on state government isn’t going to loosen easily or soon. As the Texas Tribune’s Jay Root explains, Republicans embarrassed themselves, but Governor Rick…
The iron railing surrounding Nicholson-Hardie’s plant nursery on Lovers Lane is as much rampart as it is fence. It’s called the Impasse Gauntlet, and its only slightly less intimidating than it sounds — eight feet tall and topped with fearsome tridents. Owner Josh Bracken invested in it a decade ago…
There was going to be a rally last night one way or the other. Local activists had scheduled the Dallas Day of Decision Rally for 7 p.m. of whatever day the Supreme Court issued its ruling on Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act, and depending on how those…
In this week’s Dallas Observer we profile 30 of the metro area’s most interesting characters, with new portraits of each from local photographer Stanton Stephens. See the entire Dallas Observer People Issue here. Imagine sitting down with media company execs today and making this pitch for a show: a shout-free,…
Starting an under-the-radar business selling bogus Viagra and calling it “Erection Connection,” as 48-year-old Charles Anthony Johnson of Dallas did, kind of sounds like a joke. The federal government, however, isn’t laughing. Johnson was charged last August with a dozen counts of conspiring to traffic in counterfeit goods and peddle…
It was something of a surprise when Parkland Hospital officials announced that, though they’re finishing construction on a brand new $1.27 billion facility, the decaying old campus across Harry Hines would need to remain open as an outpatient medical clinic. It was an costly proposition. Parkland would have to spend…
Dr. Christopher Duntsch didn’t last long as a doctor in Texas. Two and a half years after the state awarded him a medical license, the founder and chief surgeon of the Texas Neurosurgical Institute in Plano had it indefinitely revoked by the Texas Medical Board, which decided he posed a…
There are many layers of absurdity that surround the abortion debate at the state Capitol over the past several days. There was state Representative Jodie Laubenberg’s claim that rape kits clean out pregnancy and Republican senators’ flimsy rationale for ending Wendy Davis’ epic filibuster. There was the deafening, 15-minute roar…
Last June, we published our first-ever People Issue, photographing and profiling 30 of our most interesting fellow humans — everyone from well-known Olympians and All Stars to unrecognizable faces that nevertheless make the DFW landscape more colorful. It flew off the stands, was nominated for an industry award and we…
The dust still hadn’t settled on the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a key part of the Voting Rights Act when Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott dispatched a press release announcing that the state’s voter ID law, which the courts had up put on hold, would “take effect immediately.”…
Max Kalhammer seems like he was a much chattier guy when he first arrived at City Hall in 2009 as the city’s first-ever bike coordinator who didn’t think cyclists should be forced to fight traffic. He talked frequently with the media and worked closely with advocacy groups like Bike Friendly…
In this week’s Dallas Observer we profile 30 of the metro area’s most interesting characters, with new portraits of each from local photographer Stanton Stephens. See the entire Dallas Observer People Issue here. Gordon Keith is sitting in a restaurant he’d prefer you not know the name of. It’s not…
Last night, Senator Wendy Davis’ epic filibuster against an antediluvian piece of abortion legislation was ended because Roe v. Wade apparently isn’t “germane.” So, the “unruly mob” up in the gallery finished the job for her. The votes could not be counted in the din before the special session ended…
The stretch of Harry Hines Boulevard between Walnut Hill and LBJ would seem to be a smoker’s paradise, packing at least three full-service smoke shops into a mile-and-a-half stretch of road. Each offers a wide array of tobacco and tobacco-smoking accessories, from cigarettes, cigars and e-cigarettes to grinders, water pipes…
Even before Fort Worth Democrat Wendy Davis took the Senate floor late Tuesday morning and launched into the filibuster that would ultimately grab the nation’s attention and kill attempts to railroad abortion restrictions through the state Legislature, she was at the top of Texas Republicans’ hit list. Davis, they realized,…
In this week’s Dallas Observer we profile 30 of the metro area’s most interesting characters, with new portraits of each from local photographer Stanton Stephens. See the entire Dallas Observer People Issue here . There’s something different about state Representative Jason Villalba, something that makes him stand out from his…
In this week’s Dallas Observer we profile 30 of the metro area’s most interesting characters, with new portraits of each from local photographer Stanton Stephens. See the entire Dallas Observer People Issue here. “I’m going to play all 16.” It was just a quote, the kind of nothing platitude DeMarco…
In this week’s Dallas Observer we profile 30 of the metro area’s most interesting characters, with new portraits of each from local photographer Stanton Stephens. See the entire Dallas Observer People Issue here . It’s an early spring day in Dallas’ pretty, tree-lined M Streets, and Angela Hunt is still…
In this week’s Dallas Observer we profile 30 of the metro area’s most interesting characters, with new portraits of each from local photographer Stanton Stephens. See the entire Dallas Observer People Issue here. She makes it sound as obvious as retying a loose shoelace. “I had a problem that I…
Picture yourself in a glass-walled cage. Tiny creatures, strangely hairless and unbelievably shrill, keep parading by, screaming and pointing and generally demonstrating an offensive lack of refinement. The pressure inevitably builds until, one day, you snap. Luckily for the gawking children in the video, this gorilla at the Dallas Zoo…
The McClelland Gun Shop has been arming East Dallas since the 1970s from its nondescript shop by the railroad tracks on Centerville Road. And it offers just about what you’d expect from a Texas gun shop: a mix of hunting equipment, handguns, and Second Amendment rhetoric. It was where, during…
