So I guess this is the new post-ECAOBM era at the Dallas Observer, in which ECAOBM stands for Eric Celeste’s Article On Bob Mong (“Snooze Alarm,” February 13). Celeste, a talented young editor, a former student of mine at SMU who regularly addressed me as “Professor Schutze,” now one of…
Three weeks ago I get a call from an old friend who also happens to be a friend of the police chief. He reminds me that I wrote positive things about Terrell Bolton in 1999 when he was made chief of police in Dallas, and he says Bolton wants a…
At first the debris field was exciting. Normal people don’t have precedent for dealing with spaceships exploding over their heads. Driving southeast from Dallas down U.S. Highway 175 a few hours after the crash, you could see it in people’s eyes–the alert panoramic gaze of shock and anticipation. But late…
At first the debris field was exciting. Normal people don’t have precedent for dealing with spaceships exploding over their heads. Driving southeast from Dallas down U.S. Highway 175 a few hours after the crash, you could see it in people’s eyes–the alert panoramic gaze of shock and anticipation. But late…
I was unable to get Councilwoman Mary Poss to call me back to confirm or deny this story, so let’s take it as one man’s version and assume there are two sides: Over a period of a year or more, Robert Reynolds, a senior city auditor, had appeared before Poss…
This is Dallas, a conservative bastion. But the county government is setting up a system for spying on private citizens that would have turned old Joe Stalin green with envy. The county has signed a $40 million contract with a French multinational corporation to take over all of its information…
No one–least of all Ed Sebesta–would argue that Ed Sebesta of Oak Cliff brought down Trent Lott. But I can make a pretty good case that Lott would still be majority leader of the Senate if Sebesta had never been born. I have written about Sebesta before: A computer engineer…
Let’s do this. Let’s not talk about all the big things that happened at City Hall in 2002. To be honest, there weren’t any. Nothing happened. As usual. So what about this? Why don’t we talk about what should have happened? Let’s say, for example, that a strange green gas…
Let’s say some guy–we’ll call him Derwood the Philosopher, a made-up person–has worked out his own private philosophy, Derwoodology, the bottom line of which is that it’s OK for Derwood to go back on his word. He even tells you about it. “Thanks to my philosophy, I can go back…
Today’s pop quiz: How do you accuse the police department of anti-black racism, when the chief is the city’s first black chief and most of his senior staff are minorities? Veeery carefully. Last week a coalition of African-American organizations appeared before the city council and put on a powerful, angry…
Architecture, I don’t know. Good taste, not my department. But I think I am capable of recognizing a really bad media butt-kicking when I see it coming, and this idea of messing with the Kennedy Memorial would be A-number-one on my list. The idea is to move the assassination memorial…
So you think nobody likes a bully. You’re wrong. I think bullies may be getting popular around here. Over the last two years we’ve been reporting in the Dallas Observer on a campaign by Belo Corp., owners of The Dallas Morning News, to refashion its metastasizing campus of land at…
Look, I’m a Laura Miller fan. I was thrilled when she got elected mayor. Her victory was a sea change. But lately I’ve been a little seasick. I know you’ve been watching the potholes on your street as closely as I have on mine, patiently awaiting the arrival of the…
The Dallas system–weak mayor, strong city manager–is supposed to be businesslike. So why is the city in the financial ditch so badly? If Dallas City Hall is so businesslike, why wouldn’t it have seen the economic downturn coming and hedged its bets just a little? Maybe nothing is businesslike about…
Assistant Dallas City Manager Charles W. Daniels has not returned my phone calls concerning the potential of an explosive and toxic waste dump on city of Dallas property on the shores of Lake Ray Hubbard and within a few hundred feet of a hotel. I notice that over the course…
The fake-drugs scandal, in which the Dallas Police Department and the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office used faked-up narcotics evidence to make cases on innocent Mexican immigrants, is scary because it illustrates a total disregard for the law. But maybe it seems far away from the average citizen, way over…
How can this picture be hard to get? Put yourself in it. You’re a kid. You and your little brothers live with your two devoted parents. Your dad is a hard-working guy who owns his own small business. You love your dad. He and your mom are the pillars holding…
Last week I wrote a column saying that some of the more extreme claims made by police representatives during the recent debate over police pay didn’t ring true. It’s hard to believe they’re starving to death on the average $60,000 a year we’re paying them when so many of them…
I’m confused. We’re all confused. Most people honor the cops. Dallas police officers put themselves between us and bullets. Common decency requires that we honor and respect somebody who does that for us. But what about this police pay business? C’mere: Get in the car. I’ve been thinking about the…
In June the Dallas plan commission totally slam-bammed Wal-Mart’s zoning request for an in-town superstore. Next month Wal-Mart is going before the Dallas City Council to get the plan commission’s unanimous no-vote overturned, but things look no better for them. So how smart is Wal-Mart? I have a clue. When…
I predicted projectile vomiting at the last Dallas City Council meeting. So I was off by maybe 20 percent. Instead of projectile vomiting, the Dallas City Council whipped out a big old rusty-bladed knife and stuck it in the ribs of the Palladium deal. I told you there was strangeness…
Something very weird is going on at City Hall. People are speaking in tongues. Maybe the budget crunch has crunched them. We may need to send in a rescue team with Prozac. It’s all about a major proposed reorganization of the staff that nobody wants to talk about publicly yet…
