His voice sounds so familiar–deep, resonant, dweebishly articulate–as he defends George W. Bush in front of a swarm of stinging reporters. His face is also hard to forget, though the years have wrinkled his brow and doubled his chin. He looks rounder in the middle, yet at 52, former Dallas…
David Dean says he was fighting for justice, equity, and due process–that and the right to build a new closet wherever he damned pleased. The Swiss Avenue Historic District homeowner ended up proving that with friends in high places, a good lawyer, a public relations pro, and a willingness to…
Swine Among Pearls A truly pants-wetting piece: Hysterical. Thank you very much for that absolutely fall-on-the-floor funny Pearl Jam article (“Shut Up, Jeremy!” October 12). Now we know that there was another curse upon man that God (or whoever’s in charge) intended. And I thought George Carlin had it all…
Jaws: Occasionally, Buzz has been known to indulge in a little lawyer bashing, going so far as to suggest that some lawyers are less than honest. No, wait. We’re lying. We frequently suggest that it’s common for lawyers to lie like a rug. But not this week. We have found…
Having grown up Jewish in Dallas, I rarely read the Texas Jewish Post–OK, one time when my sister got married and the newspaper ran her picture, and another time after I had heard a rumor that the weekly had extended birthday wishes in its pages to a dead guy. It…
The brick house on Good Shepherd Drive in the West Texas town of Brownwood seems an unlikely place for the headquarters of a minority-owned Dallas company with a big city contract. A wreath of plastic sunflowers hangs on the front door, two Cadillacs fill the garage, and a six-foot satellite…
On a normal fall afternoon at the Dallas Nature Center, the only sounds one expects are those made by the resident wildlife and the rustle of wind-teased leaves. Today, that gentle chorus is being interrupted by the buzz of saws and drills and the groan of a small tractor straining…
Fire ants continued to roam the beds of Flower Mound nursing home residents nearly two months after the state ordered the place cleaned, a state report obtained by the Dallas Observer late last week shows. Fire ants repeatedly stung a Cross Timbers Nursing Home resident while she lay in bed…
Whoa, Baby Too easy to blame the lawyer: I think Jim Schutze’s article about Dan Peavy (“Big Man Bites Back,” August 17) may have been too harsh on Paul Watler, Belo’s outside lawyer, who has a long and distinguished career representing First Amendment interests. As you correctly note, the lynchpin…
Carolyn Osborn vividly remembers the day in July two years ago when the nurse from Cross Timbers Care Center in Flower Mound telephoned. We have a little bit of a problem with your mother, the nurse said. She has a couple of ant bites. Don’t worry though; your mother is…
This is not the place you’d expect to find a physicist. It’s early September, and John Hagelin stands before nearly 400 roaring delegates and supporters in a hotel conference room in suburban Washington, D.C., accepting the presidential nomination of the obscure Natural Law Party. It is roughly one month since…
With only a cursory glance at the two teams sparring on the parched field, you could predict the outcome of my 9-year-old daughter’s first soccer game this fall. In the first five minutes of play, the opposing team scored five goals. My daughter’s Blue Angels scored zip. The other team,…
When Lee Jackson interviewed for the job of Dallas schools superintendent two weeks ago, minority advocates picketed, angrily blasting the board’s consideration of the Dallas County commissioner and former state lawmaker. Jackson apparently lacked a certain je ne sais quoi. Something just wasn’t right about the Dallas County judge, something…
The music was too loud for anyone else to hear the stripper crying. She was weeping, begging the coked-up humor columnist for more money because her car was about to be repossessed. The columnist, high and drunk, felt sorry for her and ordered that a lap dance be given to…
Wake up, Dallas: The article Jim Schutze wrote about DISD (“They Walk by Night,” September 28) is one of his best. I retired from Dallas last year and was sitting at my desk here in New York, just thinking about the crazy politics in Dallas. I clicked onto the Dallas…
AUSTIN–It’s an unseasonably hot Sunday in August, and the roaring air conditioner in the cavernous building that houses Redeemer Presbyterian Church is struggling to keep the congregation cool. One by one, church programs are turning into fans along the rows of folding chairs that serve as pews, and the sun…
DEL RIO, Texas–In the moments before the trial began, the small blond girl sat close by her grandmother on a hard oak courtroom bench, chatting nonchalantly about Creed and getting a troublesome artificial nail filled. “Why should anyone be nervous? Lots of people want to know my story,” she said,…
It was just before 5 p.m. last week when KXAS Channel 5 anchorman Mike Snyder answered his phone, his voice hoarse from giving interviews. He’d spent the better part of the day as a news subject instead of a newsreader, talking to newspapers from across the country about that day’s…
INDIA DMZ, 2022–The first mine exploded under an armored personnel carrier. It went up with a bright orange flash and a miserable chorus of faint shrieks. The fire and the cries faded fast. Cursing the Americans, the Taliban commander ordered his armored column to halt and backtrack, waiting for the…
Buzz is always a little uncomfortable when the subject of our attention is the Dallas Observer’s parent company, Phoenix-based New Times Inc., because Buzz likes our paycheck, and those mortgage payments aren’t going away anytime soon. But Buzz is what Buzz is: an annoying little fly, strangely and helplessly attracted…
Vendyl Jones certainly looks like an archaeologist, or at least like an aging, Hollywood back-lot version of one, as the tall Texan stomps about the desert near Jordan dressed in leather boots and hat, a tan shirt and tan slacks held up by snakeskin suspenders. Balding and bearded, Jones puffs…
