So you say your double-wide manufactured home has been socked with a higher property tax appraisal this year, meaning heftier taxes for you and more meals of Hamburger Helper, sans hamburger. (That would be “Helper.”) Oh, quit whining, you big baby. It could be worse. You could be rich. Turns…
It’s not as though we didn’t already have the two most challenging kids in the world. Max is 5, a Harry Potter clone; he’s an exhausting, whirling dervish of a child, a cultural sponge who soaks up the latest media images–Spider-Man, Anakin Skywalker, Otto Rocket–assuming they can be reduced to…
Michael Flemons was like a lot of tough bosses. As president of MDF Enterprises, a Dallas company that provided “trauma” therapy to Medicaid patients here and in Houston, Flemons always kept one eye fixed on the company’s bottom line and the other open for opportunities that could help him reach…
Low-income housing developer Virginia McGuire has resigned from the troubled nonprofit that paid her and her husband’s company roughly $500,000 to buy an aging East Dallas apartment complex. In late April, on the same day the Dallas Observer published a story about the big fees McGuire and her family collected…
Sanchez: Photo by John Anderson
For years, I had a yellowed, slightly torn “Calvin and Hobbes” newspaper comic strip attached to my refrigerator with a magnet. In it, 6-year-old Calvin held open a book. In a soliloquy to his stuffed tiger, Hobbes, he explained his frustration with the process of acquiring information: “The more you…
Up in ArmsCall out the Army: Mr. John MacCormack has written an insightful essay on the plight of Americans who live along the Rio Bravo in the Vega Verde area (“Open Season,” May 30). I would like to comment that I cannot understand why armed U.S. forces are not placed…
The rank odor of filth and death can be detected in the parking lot outside the Oak Cliff animal shelter, located on a dead-end street next to the Dallas Zoo. The stench settles into clothes, and it grows stronger inside the building. The employees here have been guilty of failing…
DEL RIO, Texas–To the young Mexicans with baggy jeans who regularly prowl the rocky bank of the Rio Grande, the isolated Vega Verde neighborhood just across the river is an American wonderland of large well-furnished homes, satellite dishes and SUVs. It is also traditional easy-pickings for thieves, and when three…
Twice in the life of 60-year-old Jose Antonio “Tony” Villegas there have been epiphanies that pointed the course for the mission he now religiously pursues. First, had the man in the leather coat not fired a shot that shattered his car window on that Chicago night back in 1979, he…
Buzz loves Movie Trading Company for lots of reasons: the rent-before-you-buy policy, racks full of cheap secondhand DVDs and videos (a lot of which are hard to find), its lenient rental policy, the fact it’s a local chain with a familiar and friendly neighborhood vibe. OK, so mostly we like…
Dallas’ Recycling JokeRecycling can work: I was in awe to read about what Charles Siderius uncovered about the rip-offs such as double weighing, etc. (“Garbage In, Garbage Out,” May 16). That is wonderful investigative journalism, and we need to have more such in all of our media. However, he lost…
During nearly 20 years in the news business, Buzz has had to ask otherwise innocent people all sorts of nosy personal questions. But never, until this week, had we ever asked anyone the following: “So, how are your nuts?” This might have been embarrassing, except that the person we asked…
There’s nothing like a dirty movie to get County Criminal Court No. 4 talking about sex. Especially when the title is Euro Angels #20, Anal Retentive–contents exactly as advertised–and it’s about to be unreeled in the obscenity trial of the hapless clerk who sold it. The court stenographer is cracking…
It won’t help Steven Spiritas resurrect his once-thriving ground-beef company, but it seems his costly court battle with the U.S. Department of Agriculture has forced the agency to change the way it conducts meat inspections, he says. “I am pleased that the USDA finally got rational with their new proposed…
Zac of KittensHe gets it: If nothing else, Zac Crain’s “Sack of Kittens” addition to his Scene, Heard column has certainly given local musicians and local music fans something to talk about. The most common complaint is that Mr. Crain’s column is tainting the cohesive image of the local music…
The Dallas Observer spent the better part of a week calling state District Judge Margaret Keliher to ask her why she hadn’t resigned from the bench five months ago when she started running for county judge. The state “judicial canon of ethics” says judges have to quit if they run…
On January 4 at Community Waste Disposal’s recycling center off Northwest Highway, driver Israel Esparza pulled his truck onto the scales, fresh from his route in the Walnut Hill area with a load of bottles, cans and newspapers retrieved from the city’s loyal recyclers. He used a keypad linked to…
You’d almost have to be stoned to mix pot and politics, particularly if you were running for prosecuting attorney. If elected, it would be your job to uphold the very law you had a fondness for breaking. But Stephen Hale doesn’t believe he’s being hypocritical when he stumps for district…
Angry at the Belo stupids this week. I know, big shock. Critics of this column (whazzup, Frisco) say I harp on the suits at Belo to the point of absurdity. Truth is, I try to write about other media happenings in this town, but the monopoly players always seem to…
Discordant MeowsWhen beauty is ugly: Let me start by saying I’ve been a big fan of the Dallas Observer for many years and appreciate the role it’s played in the Dallas music scene. I’ve been a musician in the Dallas scene for 17 years, and I’ve always looked forward to…
Why does downtown Fort Worth suck way less than Dallas? Still the investigative reporter at heart, Mayor Laura Miller wagon-trained west last week to find out, and Buzz suspects she may not have liked at least part of the answer: because the people there are willing to pay for it…
