“Hair is not just expression It’s a form of oppression regardless of what ignorant justifications they’ve taught you to think We all scared of the kink…” –from “Madam CJ” by Dallas-born poet Von, from The Slave Tree, Balance Books, 2000 It is a rite of passage for an African-American girl,…
Now the largest ethnic group in Dallas, Hispanics fought hard recently for a city-sponsored holiday to commemorate one of their own: farm labor organizer Cesar Chavez. Union and civil rights leaders, who see the late Chavez’s legacy akin to that of Martin Luther King Jr.’s, joined Latino supporters in seeking…
Just Plain Mean Pure, inexcusable evil: I truly enjoyed Jim Schutze’s article chronicling the metamorphosis of his book to a movie (“My Day of the Locust,” June 21). I admit to liking most of his work, but this particular story really needed telling. Mr. Schutze is right. Hollywood is afraid…
Don’t have a cow: At the end of a tidy yet depressed street in Pleasant Grove chock-full of pawnshops and ethnic restaurants, a shuttered Army-Navy store bordering Interstate 30 awaits demolition. A new Golden Arches is going up here. Maybe. Plans for McDonald’s in this quiet neighborhood face resistance from…
A song has been written as part of the massive marketing effort under way to lure the 2012 summer Olympics to Dallas. It’s called “Our Time to Shine,” and the title suggests that the city, along with North Texas, is ready to bask in the international glow the games bring…
In case you’re wondering–and lots of stockholders/employees at Belo Corp. are–there were plenty of people who knew the CueCat was a ridiculous investment. Mark Cuban said as much. Newsroom grunts who were asked to evaluate its worth said, in the kindest terms possible, that the digital scanner cat-lookin’ thingie was,…
For the Birds Remember the passenger pigeon: In Charles Siderius’ article about the grackles in Carrollton (“La Cage Aux Folles,” June 21), Jack Moravits of Hoover Landscaping is quoted as saying, “To me, they are June bugs; there’s plenty of them.” That’s what everyone thought about the passenger pigeon and…
Sean Anderson wanted to throw an intense, all-night rave featuring the pulsating electronic dance rhythms of techno music–plus his favorite DJs and friends. So last March, the 21-year-old promoter and turntable jockey rented the Forest, an old movie theater near Fair Park that regularly holds concerts ranging from rap to…
Channel 4 investigative reporter Becky Oliver makes it look easy. The ambush, that is. But ambushing somebody is harder than it looks, especially for a first-timer like myself and especially if the target is Becky Oliver. On paper, Oliver is the winner of countless awards for investigative reporting. On TV,…
Mike Carter Field sits off Front Street, just past the convention center and the rose garden. Across the way is the football field where Earl Campbell played during high school. Earl’s old haunt, much like Tyler, Texas, has seen better days, idling in a state of disrepair, a fading memory…
As a boy growing up in postwar Vietnam, Lai My Truong was different. At school in a peasant village near Ho Chi Minh City, teachers and other children harshly ridiculed him, causing him to drop out by the fourth grade to work in a rice field. Because of Lai My,…
It wasn’t as though she asked for much: a warm bed, a full belly, a squeaky chew toy. Of course, she had needs. What dog didn’t? But Missy the Chihuahua never complained. She had a good home, a big back yard and the unconditional love of her two parents–Karen and…
Administrators at Trinity Medical Center in Carrollton just wanted the grackles out of the pear trees. The sometimes annoyingly loud crowlike birds were defecating on the cars in the parking lot and sidewalks. It wasn’t a health issue; the falling poop was just a smelly nuisance and a mess, says…
Digging in: To Buzz, it doesn’t look like much–the tunnel on Good-Latimer Expressway on the northwest corner of Deep Ellum. It’s dim, the traffic lanes are narrow, and the mural art lining it…well, it may be good for all we know. It’s just hard to see it when you’re whizzing…
Vote Cheaters Keep reading: Basically, I think you guys are a bunch of knuckleheads, and then out comes an article like Jim Schutze’s piece on Dwaine Caraway’s run for a seat on the Grand City Council of Knuckleheads (“The Real Cheaters,” June 7). It’s what keeps me reading. Lee Fischer…
On a table inside the offices of the Latino media organization Grupo Vida, a modest shrine with candles is dedicated to a man named Arturo Partida. Two photos of Arturo stand next to each other. On the left side, he’s a teen-ager in a tuxedo who resembles a shaggy-haired Matthew…
“The murderer of Miss Florence Brown may be caught within the next five minutes, he may be arrested during the next six months; he may never be deprived of his liberty…” –The Daily Times Herald, 1913 The cemetery caretaker was at first reluctant, concerned about the disturbance he feared the…
NACOGDOCHES–Joe R. Lansdale’s days of busting his butt at the nearby aluminum-chair factory or toiling in the brain-baking heat of East Texas rose fields are far in the distance now, faded memories he resurrects only to assign to an occasional character in one of his novels or short stories. Gone…
Last November, inmate Erik Indian stood before the latest group of candidates to enter the InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI), the faith-based prison program operated at the Vance Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, just outside of Houston. “I have been here 14 months straight, and I have never…
Fighting fire: On June 5, a long-running lawsuit against the Dallas school district hit a wall. Now the people who filed it may have their backs against one. The case began March 10, 2000, after the school board voted 5-4 to hire a private company, Edison Schools, to run up…
Pave the Damn Street Forget those Calatrava bridges: What an interesting article about Dallas City Council members Elba Garcia, Laura Miller and Mitch Rasansky and the changing political landscape in Dallas (“Brave New City,” May 31). My analysis of Dallas politics is quite similar. I think most middle-class taxpayers are…
Moments before stepping to the podium in an august New Orleans courtroom, defense attorney Billy Ravkind jotted a few more notes on his yellow legal pad. The pad–and a plastic pen–were all Ravkind carried with him Tuesday while appearing before a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of…
