Too Cool for School Child neglect by any other name: Give me a goddamn break! A mother who lets her kids run wild for 18 years with no formal education is worthy of some sort of praise? (“Wild Child,” by Glenna Whitley, October 27.) She should be in jail for…
Let’s see, Yao Ming is overrated, Shaquille O’Neal is jealous and Erick Dampier is an All-Star. Damn. And you thought the Mavericks center wouldn’t be ready for the NBA season. A billion Chinese usually aren’t wrong. But Dampier, despite last season’s inconsistent and frustrating performance, inexplicably maintains that he’s better…
Bring back Chan Gailey! There, I said it. Now it’s official: I have a severe case of Mad Cowboy Disease. If you’ve suffered through Dallas’ three excruciating losses, you, too, have likely been infected. The symptoms? General grouchiness. Specific sinning. My black lab is in a body cast. Replaced our…
I learned about unschooling from Linda and Dan Jacobs, my sister and her husband. I knew they home schooled their twins, Ryan and Austin, 11. When they moved back to Houston from California last year, I noticed the kids read a lot but had no curriculum. They stayed up late…
Last May, the city of Forney, a tiny but growing bedroom community 20 miles east of Dallas, played host to a election for mayor that featured switched ballots, confounding results and the undue influence of a crony of the incumbent. If not that, then challenger and self-made millionaire Rick Wilson…
Say I don’t: Hope, they say, springs eternal. Unless you happen to be a Texas voter of the progressive or liberal bent, in which case all hope was beaten out of you about the time Ann Richards cleaned out her desk in the governor’s mansion. So it was with low…
Cotton Bowel Dallas’ loss, Arlington’s gain: After reading this article, I had to laugh (“Fair-Well,” by Richie Whitt, October 13). It exemplifies a complete and utter lack of understanding for how royally Laura Miller has @$%ed Dallas over. UT and OU do not by any means need the Cotton Bowl…
When Quinn Eaker dropped out of a Colleyville high school in the second month of his senior year, his mother was so happy she threw him a huge party. A hundred guests descended on their home to celebrate Quinn’s return to the freedom in which he’d been raised: days on…
A former accountant, prosecutor and judge, Margaret Keliher doesn’t seem like the type of person to daydream idly. Still, you have to wonder if she looks at Harriet Miers, the president’s besieged nominee for U.S. Supreme Court justice, and thinks how that could have been her had she ever met…
Wing and a prayer: Honestly, the bar scene is getting monotonous for the hot babes of the Dallas Observer. Night after night, it’s the same old lines: “Please bear my children,” “I can’t imagine my life without you,” “Can I buy you a drink?” Sadly, they’re usually only good for…
Stoner Chic The herbal life: I would like to thank you for publishing this story (“The Other Farmers Market,” by Anonymous, October 13). It’s a great way to open people’s eyes to the truth about marijuana. I’m a 19-year-old university student, and I’ve recently made the switch to the herbal…
Sitting at his locker following the Cowboys’ overtime escape from the Giants, he put on a gaudy cross necklace that would make P. Diddy blush, then put in perspective a tardiness to a team meeting that evaporated his running back role from 20 carries in last week’s second half to…
Ashok Padmanabahn is nobody’s fool. He’s a computer engineer, working on the next generation of display technology at the large Texas Instruments campus off of Forest Lane. He owned his own technology company in India before he signed a two-year contract to come to the United States in 2004, and…
It’s 9 o’clock in the morning when “Ace” begins his regular “wake and bake” routine of brushing his teeth, brewing a pot of coffee and rolling a joint. Today he has a job to do, and he won’t have to leave his home to do it. In a spare bedroom…
What’s in Store Can Urban Market make downtown relevant? After roughly three months, the numbers aren’t adding up. The ink smudges on the profit and loss statements are red instead of black. Still, Urban Market President Manuel Zambrana is thrilled. Why? Women stroll from across the street or from the…
Truth be told: When U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers takes the oath to tell the whole truth to the Senate Judiciary Committee next month, you might see former Texas Lottery Executive Director Lawrence Littwin in the gallery, smiling. He tried to get Miers to testify under oath six years…
Extend your pointer and pinkie for “Hook ’em Horns.” Turn it upside down for “Boomer Sooner.” Retract those two and proudly display your middle finger for a reminder to snobby, greedy officials from both Texas and Oklahoma that “Playing in the Cotton Bowl during the State Fair of Texas is…
The Truth About Harriet Born-again bias: While reading “Die-In” (by Jim Schutze, October 6), I could not help but notice that everyone who is quoted in the article praising Harriet Miers as a politician does not seem to grasp the fact that if she is appointed to the U.S. Supreme…
The sun hung in the sky behind the 400-year-old oak trees that surround Thee Hubbell House. Tim Carmichael, round and bearded, paced the front lawn of the historic bed and breakfast in Winnsboro, mowing the grass. It had been six weeks since he’d seen Paul, and his hope hadn’t run…
Wailing on Each Other A musical feud hits the accordion world About a minute after the first caveman began banging two rocks together in rhythm, another caveman came along and called him a sellout for commercializing the avalanche sound. Since then, no genre of music has been without its bitter…
No DeLay: Until last week, only one publication–this one–had written a word about Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck’s documentary The Big Buy, about Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle’s investigation into the doings of the Texans for a Republican Majority political action committee (TRMPAC), which, during the 2002 election season,…
Ties were created for Troy Dungan, calf ropin’ and Anna Kournikova’s brother. So by replacing overtime draws with sudden-death shootouts, the NHL got one right. One down, infinity to go. In case you’re one of the oblivious millions, the Dallas Stars are back in business and desperately searching for fans…
