Taking a stand In a recent long-winded column, the publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Arlington edition explained the paper’s refusal to take NC-17 movie advertising, an issue that came to a head with the opening this week of MGM’s Showgirls. Mac Tully explained the difficulty a bastion of free…
Four years ago, writer-director Todd Haynes was the toast of the American indie scene, having earned the prestigious Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for his feature debut Poison–as well as the ire of Congressman Jesse Helms. Poison had received a very small portion of its budget from the National Endowment…
No sacred cows–not even Nate Reader Lindell Singleton [Letters, September 7] must expect affirmative action to extend into a writer’s mind. Not only does he chastise Jennifer Briggs’ excellent, non-cliched observations regarding Nate Newton [“Secrets From Cowboys Camp,” August 17], but then tries the old tired reverse psychology that is…
Lawsuit? What lawsuit? It is a remarkable fact that Dallas’ daily of record has yet to publish a single word about the lawsuit three TV stations owned-like the News itself-by A.H. Belo have filed against David Goldberg, the news director of rival KDFW-Channel 4. Dallas station WFAA-Channel 8, along with…
Republicans are aiding and abetting denial of the worldwide shift in climate Seeing yet another story in the newspaper about global warming doesn’t make much of an impression unless, of course, some storm has just knocked out your electricity for three days and your acquaintance with the greenhouse effect is…
Bad reception I read with great interest your piece on KERA [“Pulling the Plug,” August 31]. If the slant of the article had not been so petty, it would not have held my interest for the length of time it took to read the article. As one of the three…
The 1992 bond election passed by a 2-1 margin. The TEA audit had found no illegality in the use of the ’85 bond funds. But Finlan and Venable were just getting started. “We had to establish a sense of paranoia in government,” explains Finlan. “They had to be afraid of…
Don Venable gulps down a cup of coffee, looking a bit bleary-eyed before court this August morning. Venable had stayed up late the night before with Rick Finlan, his partner in gadfly-ism. They were hoping to divine a trial strategy to convince a judge to take the unusual step of…
Count on DART You may have missed the ad in The Dallas Morning News classifieds. Under the headline “WEEKEND JOBS,” the ad seeks people to “ride public buses & count passengers.” Does this sound like a cushy job or what? Kick back on a DART bus all day, watch the…
Last of the great dull stories The Dallas Morning News published a story that makes 15 minutes spent watching cement dry seem compelling. The article, by urban affairs writer Chris Kelley, celebrated the retirement of some of the state’s most noteworthy and heroic road builders. Yup. Road builders. You knew…
On the theory that it is sometimes helpful to point out the obvious, may I enter the debate on family values by pointing out that there are a lot of unhappy families in the world? Miserable, in fact. Some sociologists study unhappy, unsuccessful families trying to figure out why their…
Jimmy Caaaaaaan! Luke Wilson was thrilled. It was November 1994, and the star of The Godfather, Thief, and Misery, icon to two generations of aspiring young actors and a walking template of life’s rougher passages, was jogging beside him on train tracks near a downtown Dallas factory. A film crew…
From men II boyz As an ex-employee (of my own volition) of the Dallas Cowboys, I was greatly amused at Jennifer Briggs’ tell-all tale on the “plowboys” [“Secrets from Cowboys camp,” August 17]. It was great for someone to finally spill some of the beans on America’s Team. However, it…
Ella Patterson labored long and hard to write, print and distribute her sex manual, Will the Real Women…Please Stand Up. The former Dallas schoolteacher immersed herself in her project, running her business from an upstairs guest room in her DeSoto home. Between the book and about four hours of sleep…
Lookin’ for love Last week on a KLIF talk show, former Mayor Steve Bartlett tore into Observer columnist Laura Miller. Of course, Miller hadn’t been invited to defend herself, but why quibble? What Buzz found interesting was Bart-lett’s parting shot–that the personal ads in the Observer were more accurate than…
Happy anniversary, women of America! Happy anniversary to us. Hasn’t it been fun to hear all the wonderful foremothers quoted and to see all the doughty old dames marching in the demonstrations of 75 years ago? Abigail Adams, of course, is always quoted on the famous letter to her husband:…
Put him on a trading card In the wake of Mickey Mantle’s wake–enlivened as it was by tales of his drinking and skirt-chasing–we have all realized, once again, that our sports heroes are no angels. Still, it never ceases to amaze Buzz what obnoxious creeps they can be. Gil Brandt,…
News strikes out In an August 25 editorial, The Dallas Morning News finally weighed in on the manipulations of Baylor Hospital doctors in the case of Mickey Mantle. The editorial first quotes an ethicist to offer a helpful definition of “lying.” (“That is, a statement that says X occurred when…
Following the downward trajectory of television news Warning! O.J. content within. Let’s “stipulate,” as Marcia Clark says, that if the media had spent as much time on what the Republicans in Congress are doing to environmental laws and regulations as they have on O.J. Simpson, we’d all be on the…
So…The Dallas Morning News is getting into the weekly newspaper business. According to an August 23 “media advisory,” Dallas’ Only Daily has entered into a “consulting relationship” with The Met, Not Dallas’ Only Weekly. So much for being an “alternative to the alternative”–The Met is now part of Dallas’ Evil…
Ministry of hate Regarding your story on Dallas’ Nation of Islam leader Jeffery Muhammad [“Black man’s burden,” August 10]: as with all hate-based groups, there will be some who may want to overlook the damage these groups do in favor of the positive aspects of the group. They may say:…
Jimmy Lewis White ran a red Volkswagen Beetle off the side of Highway 820 on Jan-uary 15, 1995. The Bug apparently flipped and rolled, killing driver John Marcellus, an off-duty Fort Worth police officer. Tests after the accident pegged White’s blood alcohol level at .25–more than double what the law…
