One of Parkland Memorial Hospital’s new mothers recently showed up with her husband to collect their 6-week-old infant daughter. Like the thousands of mothers who give birth every year at the busiest maternity ward in the United States, the young couple was poor. Weeks of hospital visits while their prematurely…
You think I’m mean. That hurts. I know I’ve written some not-so-nice things this year about reporters and Belo executives and Cuecats and such. But it’s the holiday season, and I’m infected…sorry, I mean filled…with the spirit of joy. I will no longer mock the 42 f-‘in MILLION BUCKS those…
Snob Sister On a rampage: Christine Biederman, in the December 14 Dallas Observer (“How the Grinch Stole Feminism”), you described going into various galleries and imagining objects and images you found there to be words and concepts–forms of expression in which you are, evidently, more fluent. Then you announced your…
Calling Jesse Jackson: The race wasn’t even close, but some black leaders in Dallas are as furious as a Florida Democrat over what they claim is another stolen election–this one the recent Smith vs. Wallace race to head Dallas’ dissension-plagued NAACP chapter. Victor Smith, a community relations officer for DISD…
Today is Soapbox Day, a great day, a day when I get to tell the local media suits why I am so smart and they are so dumb. It is, in fact, my favorite day of the year, with the exception of the rarely celebrated Box Day, a discussion of…
Editor’s note: One thing you will notice about this story is the relative lack of information from the “other side,” in this case, the USDA. During six weeks of reporting, the Dallas Observer made repeated attempts to obtain comment from the federal agency concerning its new testing procedures and its…
Ed, the lawyer, was prone one second, ramrod straight the next. It was a hazy hour between November 7 and 8. His face was slack with drink, with bloodshot eyes and sallow skin that made his cheekbones jut out like volcanic rocks from the surf. “What the hell?” he asked,…
Just before Trina McReynolds was carjacked, she remembers being in the crowded drive-through lane at the Cityplace Whataburger. Things were going down that could only happen at 2:30 a.m., during the after-the-bars-close Saturday night rush. A young woman in the BMW in front of her was leaning out the driver-side…
Problem Witnesses Just a screwed-up family: I grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness but am no longer practicing, so I picked up a copy of the Dallas Observer to read the cover story (“Sects and Lies,” December 7). I was outraged that the religion was shown in such a negative…
Ah, the bourgeoisie and the quiet lives they live. Here in Bachman Lake, homes with neatly trimmed lawns line the streets, as do cars and Christmas lights and…condoms. Condoms? These days, many beleaguered Bachman-area residents–already sick of the strip clubs and other sexually oriented businesses (SOBs) that proliferate in the…
Buh-bye Belo: The revolving door is spinning again at Channel 8. City Hall scoopdog Dave Evans left for WABC-TV in New York months back. Then three bigwigs–Robert Riggs, Alan Berg, and Vince Patton–bolted Belo earlier this month. And if you think they’re the only big-time talents who will be leaving…
“Violence always marks the end of a relationship…” –from the journals of convicted murderer Ira Einhorn On days like this, when the wintry skies signal a chill, she stands at her kitchen window looking out onto the rolling Tarrant County pasture where a couple of mares leisurely feed on the…
Experience has made Haifa Bale tough. She can speak about being beaten by her first husband, about being separated from her sick mother, about being denied access to her native country, and about the grim reality of living through an arranged marriage without any self-pity. She won’t cry until she…
Let’s say you’re a disgruntled employee working for corporation, and your boss, the CEO, really pisses you off. You’ve grown weary of his sharp business practices, his wasteful spending, his penchant for young women. Let’s say you are sitting at home in front of your computer, and you decide to…
SONORA–After a four-day trial that laid open the Cardwell family closet, Cody Cardwell was acquitted of murdering his older brother Bill in a confrontation on the family ranch more than three years ago. The verdict brought to a close a case that has bitterly divided one of Kimble County’s pioneering…
Killer Raisin Stem Or whatever it was: My first big mistake was believing I was protected by the FDA food safety standards and could safely purchase and eat an Otis Spunkmeyer cookie during an afternoon break (Buzz, November 30). The errant stem was sent to the laboratory of Otis Spunkmeyer’s…
It spread like some contagion, ruthlessly ravaging the wardrobes of lawyers across the city. First there was the occasional “casual day.” Dressing down became a reward for a job well done, a celebration when a law firm’s billable rate topped $400 an hour. Then things got more habitual. Every Friday…
His looks could not have helped. That’s the first thing you think as you watch Edward Lee Stevenson lower his large, lumpy frame onto a visiting-room stool. His face appears narrow and squirrel-like, compressed as it is by goggle-size bifocals and limp, gray-black hair. His teeth, noticeably misaligned and punctuated…
Here we are at the wheel of a black SUV in the dark of night, splashing through dirt ruts in a driving rain, faking our way past sullen security guards–the height of derring-do, in other words–all of it in search of the fabled Lost Loza. The Lost Loza? Come now…
On this Thursday afternoon, Ronnie Wilson holds up the latest clue–the most recent footprint, really, left by the person or persons who got their mitts on her identity eight months ago and have been on an illegal $10,000 shopping spree ever since. It is a letter, arrived today, from Dillard’s…
Last Saturday, while thousands of Dallas residents tended the traditions of the season by cheering a downtown Christmas parade or assaulting neighborhood malls, others with an appetite for things a bit more hard-edged gathered to tour the dark side of the city’s history. It was not Santa the busload of…
Never mind the upcoming opening of DART’s CityPlace light rail stop; the events that have DART employees buzzing lately are unfolding in Houston, where former DART exec Shirley DeLibero, now head of that city’s Metropolitan Transit Authority, is demonstrating how not to handle a sudden career crisis. For weeks now,…
