That sorry sidewalk Congratulations to Juliana Barbassa and the Dallas Observer for highlighting the situation at Dallas’ INS building [“Huddled masses,” April 8]. As a recent immigrant from England, I have had the “pleasure” of lining up overnight on that sorry sidewalk on six occasions over the past three years…
Rhett Miller sits on a couch in the Driskill Hotel’s mostly deserted, overdecorated ranch-styled lobby. A bright red baseball cap tugs awkwardly over his eyes; his lanky frame is engulfed by an even brighter lime-green button-up. He thrusts his head forward attentively as he speaks into the tape recorder of…
A lineup of heavy hitters was on hand for the Dallas Breakfast Group’s March 9 candidates forum at the Crescent Hotel. Real estate mogul Vance Miller was there, along with representatives of Texas Instruments, Southwestern Bell, and Hunt Oil Co., among other executives. They nibbled on eggs and fruit as…
For the last few months, Dallas County Community College District professors have exchanged a series of angry e-mail messages lambasting The Dallas Morning News for what the professors characterize as a greedy, monopolistic move that they believe is hurting their students. It seems Dallas’ Only Daily has a pretty high…
Model citizen Proving that nothing inspires good citizenship like running for office, District 2 city council candidate Pete Vaca has finally paid off more than $1,800 in back taxes to the city. Vaca, whose name means “cow” in Spanish, hoofed it (rim shot) down to the city tax office on…
The rising sun does little to disperse the cloying damp of this foggy morning, but dawn does bring some comfort to the long line of people curling around Dallas’ Immigration and Naturalization Services building: They know the office will open soon. Some have been here since midnight, their jackets wrapped…
This wasn’t the hardball question, the kind a reporter slips in at the end of a dull conversation, hoping to catch the city council candidate off guard. But it stumped District 4 hopeful Elijah McGrew. The patter stopped, all the easy talk in that soothing baritone voice about fixing streetlights,…
Say, that’s a good idea So Betty Culbreath thinks that as long as a public official is not stealing from the taxpayers, anything goes [Letters, April 1]? Sounds like the next investigation should be of the Dallas County Health and Human Services Department. Name withheld Via e-mail Vote for cutie…
On March 2, three months after zookeeper Jennifer McClurg was attacked and repeatedly bitten by a gorilla at the Dallas Zoo, she sat down with park department officials to tell them what she remembered of her terrifying 40-minute ordeal and explain how the animal got loose. The Dallas Observer obtained…
Steve Kahn thought the raid was routine. After all, agents from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission had paid him a fistful of visits at the Dragonfly over the past few months, checking out the kinds of problems every nightclub encounters–liquor-law violations, intoxicated customers. He suspected he had raised the ire…
For the third consecutive year, the Dallas Observer has been named a winner of the national Benjamin Fine Award for Outstanding Education Reporting. Observer Editor Julie Lyons won in the editorial writing category for her November 27, 1998, column “Bad boys,” about the election runoff between DISD board candidates Don…
Wishful thinking If you can’t beat him, find him a new job. That seems to be the strategy among Mayor Ron Kirk’s opponents, who continue to float Kirk’s name for a variety of jobs–other than mayor, of course. The Dallas Morning News last week reported rumors that Kirk is considering…
In a perverse coincidence, federal agents and Dallas County sheriff’s deputies chose March 24, David Roland Waters’ 52nd birthday, to descend upon his Austin apartment to execute a search warrant. For Waters, a former office manager for missing atheist leader Madalyn Murray O’Hair and an old buddy of Danny Fry,…
Jim Wyatt gingerly picked his way through the thorny, dry North Texas brush, careful of the loose, sharp rocks that made the uneven terrain treacherous. With only half an hour left before sunset on a hot summer day, Wyatt strained his eyes looking for…what? He wasn’t quite sure himself. He…
Free Al Lipscomb I do not care who gives Al Lipscomb [Buzz, March 18] money; he has not stolen anything from the taxpayers. Al Lipscomb has given his life to Dallas for free, so if someone cared enough about him and his family to give him a monthly allowance, shame…
All the workers at the Dallas Zoo know that Hercules has an attitude problem. You can see it in his menacing eyes, which are always alert whenever a human is near, in the way he cautiously patrols the habitat, and in the permanent scowl on his leathery face. Of the…
PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla.–So much for the Rafael Palmeiro interview. Spring training isn’t a week old, and the Texas Rangers’ newest old first baseman is limping around the Charlotte County Stadium facilities like a man whose right leg is a foot shorter than his left. It’s 4 p.m. on March 6,…
Beginning last summer, Samuell Farm Park–the city-run petting zoo and favorite field trip for local schoolkids sent to commune with nature–became a severe migraine for the Dallas Department of Park and Recreation. Piles of rotting trash revealed illegal dumping amid the wildlife. Buried beneath the land was even more garbage,…
Punching Rocco’s Ticket It didn’t take long. Less than a week after the Dallas Observer’s story about KTCK-AM (1310) appeared (“Talking up The Ticket,” March 18), Ticket noon-to-3 p.m. talker Rocco Pendola was fired by station management. Not that the Observer story had anything to do with the talk-jock’s firing…
Homeschool hooky I just read your hatchet job on homeschooling [“No place like home”] in the March 18 issue. I understand that you think you’ve found a major problem brewing in Texas society and with education in the state. In some ways you have. However, did you once wonder where…
The lawyer who successfully defended Candace Montgomery never quit, until his end.
What follows are brief reviews of some highlights from the Dallas Video Festival, arranged chronologically. The festival runs from Thursday, March 25, through Sunday, March 28, in four different areas–the Electronic Theater, Video Cabaret, Video Lounge, and Video Box–at the Kalita Humphreys Theater, 3636 Turtle Creek Boulevard. Installations of video…
