Teenagers have a favorite word, one they deploy frequently. An easy way to ensure its arrival in conversation is to bring up sex education. “The abstinence stuff is awkward,” says a teenage girl, rolling her eyes. Whenever the teacher breaks it out in class, “everybody’s laughing.” It’s an overcast afternoon,…
HB 3520 designating a portion of US 75 the George W. Bush Expressway just passed. #txlege #txgop— Dan Branch (@TexansForDan) May 8, 2013 When State Representative Dan Branch introduced his proposal to change the name of a seven-mile stretch of Central to George W. Bush Expressway, we thought it might…
The final chapter appears to have been inked in the long, sorry saga of flow control, a moneymaking scheme that placed City Hall’s imprimatur on the idea that southern Dallas isn’t much more than a trash receptacle for the rest of the city. This week U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor…
The Morning News played it straight when it reported that dulcet-voiced crooner Barry Manilow (Editor’s note: “dulcet-voiced crooner” are Eric’s own words. Have at him, commenters.) is giving away tickets to his May 17 in exchange for lightly used musical instruments that he will pass along to Dallas ISD. WFAA’s…
It’s pretty frequent these days to experience Impotent Facebook Rage (IFR), in which the social media giant does something so profoundly irritating or angry-making that you immediately vow to get off the site altogether. And yet, you don’t cancel your account cold turkey (or at least I don’t), probably because…
Last fall, Huawei, the Chinese telecommunication giant whose U.S. base just happens to be in Plano, was the subject of intense scrutiny over fears that it might serve as a Trojan horse for cyber-spies in Beijing. Huawei, for its part, did little to allay fears by dummying up during a…
On Sunday, The Daily Show’s Jessica Williams donned a novelty sombrero and festive pink dress and came to Dallas in search of an authentic Cinco de Mayo fiesta. What she found instead was a few thousand disappointingly sober people gathered downtown to march for immigration rights. Instead of drunken debauchery,…
You know the building, even if you don’t know its name. It’s a neon silhouette that juts from the downtown skyline like a radioactive thumb. My 3-year-old calls it The Pickle, because that’s kind of what it looks like, but its official name is the Bank of America Tower. Since…
Prosecutors recently dropped charges in one of the high-profile cases that spurred SMU to take a long look at its often baffling handling of sexual assaults. Last night, a week-and-a-half before another student is set to go to trial on charges that he raped a classmate in a dorm room,…
Every week, managing editor Patrick Williams disappears into his office and reemerges a cranky, nicotine-addicted, third-person-referring superhero we like to call Buzz. Well, hey, would you look at that? There’s an actual bona fide Dallas City Council election this Saturday. Sure doesn’t seem like that’s been getting a lot of…
On Sunday night, four men tried to rob Pepe’s Grocery on Bernal Drive in West Dallas. One of them was carrying an assault rifle, but the manager of the closed store drew first, hitting his target with two shots from his .38. The would-be robbers fled, leaving a trail of…
Filing a federal employment discrimination lawsuit is easy. All you need to offer up a not-transparently bullshit claim that you were discriminated against because of race, gender, age, disability, et cetera, is a right-to-sue letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and to pay your filing fee. The bar is…
You’d think the race for the Tarrant Regional Water Board would be a sleepy affair. Ensuring that Fort Worth and its environs enjoy an adequate water supply is undeniably important work, but not the kind that stirs the passions. As you can see from the mailing above, which was uploaded…
Last Thursday, Alicia Moore’s friends and family members braved the rain for a somber vigil to call for the 16-year-old’s killer to step forward. The murderer’s identity was a mystery. She had last been seen alive on the afternoon of November 2 stepping off the school bus near her family’s…
The above photo comes courtesy of Leslie Minora, a freelance journalist and former Observer-er. I’ll let Leslie explain: My newspaper has been stolen every day for over two weeks. I finally asked customer service to put my name on it, then I half-jokingly asked if I could include a threatening…
Plano must have taken a hit when Dallas voters approved citywide beer and wine sales two-and-a-half years ago. No longer were the good people of Far North Dallas forced to drive north of the Bush Turnpike to stock up on beverages. They could simply go down the street to the…
Burton Knight is declaring a qualified victory in his battle with City Hall over his water-friendly lawn. “I was able to negotiate keeping the cactuses and not the boulders,” Knight said. “I think that I’d rather have the biodiversity and the pleasures that cactuses bring than the rocks, even thought…
SMU has come under fire in recent months for its “non-adversarial” process for handling on-campus sexual assaults, but it’s the actions of another local university that have earned censure from the federal government. The U.S. Department of Education just levied an $82,500 fine against the University of Texas of Arlington…
Dallas Area Interfaith held a news conference this morning at Temple Emanu-El, where more than a dozen faith leaders from the Dallas area gathered to support Medicaid expansion. Since Friday, 60 clergy members from Catholic, Protestant and Jewish congregations have signed a letter calling on state lawmakers to opt in…
The Boy Scouts of America is proposing to lift its ban on gay youths, but to leave it in place once those gay Scouts become gay adults. This compromise — gays Scouts, no gay scoutmasters — apparently is an assault on the very foundations of scoutdom. The Family Research Council…
Tucked at the bottom of a hill off Highway 175 in southern Dallas there’s a spring. That it hasn’t been paved over is remarkable. That you can still cup your hand and drink from it without getting dysentery or guzzling a toxic chemical stew is little short of miraculous. This…
Pretty much every serious national news organization has at least a skeletal presence in Dallas. The major networks, as well as CNN, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press, all have a Dallas bureau. Partly it’s that Dallas is a thriving commercial and cultural hub, partly…
