Elected officials often project one image to the world and another to those who know them intimately. When those two images collide, the effect can be quite jarring. Just ask Dallas Morning News reporter Craig Flournoy. One can only imagine Flournoy’s shock and/or glee when he learned that his office…
For one Richardson family, the wait for the sun to set on a recent Saturday seemed particularly long. It was the weekend last month that the Tom Thumb Food & Pharmacy chain was opening its newest store, at the corner of Coit and Campbell roads. The Richardson family members, who…
Kid critic As the staff of the Florence Art Gallery sat down to read the article “Kid Cubist” by Christina Rees [June 4], we were amazed, to say the least. The Dallas Observer is truly fortunate to have augmented its staff with a writer of such diverse talents. Not only…
He taught himself how to fight, how to duck, how to win. He had his share of trainers, but nobody knew more about boxing than he did. Nobody could tell him how to dance in the ring; nobody could tell him how to throw punches, or how to take them…
In the early-morning darkness, Kathy Krasniqi, a stout woman in a pretty print dress, waits on the front porch of her Richardson home. Her feet swollen like sausages from working double shifts at a hospital cafeteria, she gingerly makes her way to the car. With her hobbled gait, puffy eyes,…
The secrets of Jones vs. Clinton are beginning to out, and in the darnedest manner: Through friendly fire. On June 10, U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright released letters that Paula Jones’ former lawyers, Joseph Cammarata and Gil Davis, sent their client last summer. The letters, which concern an attempted…
Last week, Plano-based snack-food giant Frito-Lay and consumer-product behemoth Procter & Gamble Co. coasted through three days of federal hearings in Washington, D.C., that scrutinized what is shaping up to be the most lucrative food ingredient ever developed: P&G’s fat substitute olestra, marketed under the trade name Olean. Fifteen members…
Home again Itinerant former city council candidate Brenda Reyes found a new place to hang her hat earlier this week–jail. Police hauled Reyes to the slammer June 22 after they were called to an eye-scratching fight between her and her husband, Phillip Brooks Gould. The question remains whether Reyes plans…
Savage regrets I can hardly believe it. I’m reading Dish on a regular basis. I once wrote about Mark Stuertz that he was as gracious as Jack the Ripper and would commit journalistic suicide like the ex-local sportswriter whose name I won’t mention if he kept bashing every restaurant he…
Wanda Holloway, the so-called “Cheerleader Mom,” is nowhere in sight. But in the air-conditioned hallways of a Plano junior high school this past Saturday morning, her kind of zealotry for pompom competitions wouldn’t be out of place. Holloway was the Houston mom convicted in 1991 of hiring a killer to…
George who? As the millennium comes to a close, it’s good to know that American democracy rests firmly in the hands of a contented and thoroughly confused electorate–at least among Republicans and non-Texans. But of course. For evidence, we look to last Sunday’s New York Times and an article on…
Writer in progress As a former Dallas Morning News employee who had the privilege to get to know Patricia Anthony, I found your article on her to be quite interesting [“Science friction,” June 11]. I remember mornings when Pat (as I knew her) would excitedly come over to my desk…
John Wiley Price did most of the talking, holding forth grandly on his reasons for supporting Mayor Ron Kirk’s Trinity River Plan. Clad in a typically natty outfit–tapered jacket, gleaming cuff links, high-collared shirt–Price appeared at ease, in control. He handily outshone the four men beside him, the collection of…
Hers is a transformation as amazing as the shape-shifting you’ll find in the pulpiest of science fiction. To witness it is to be astonished at the writer emerging from the cocoon; it’s like a creature springing fully formed out of a pod until it walks, talks, and looks like the…
The early results are in. And preliminary indications are strong that Laura Miller’s transition from longtime Dallas columnist to neophyte Dallas City Council member will not necessarily be smooth. It will be interesting. But not smooth. And who thought it would be? Miller’s 15-year journalism career in Dallas and New…
The smell test Maintaining a healthy level of cynicism is not as easy as it looks. Life, especially here in Dallas, especially at 1500 Marilla Street, has a nasty way of meeting and surpassing our most paranoid suspicions, of confirming our doubts about others’ motivations. You think you’re being cynical,…
For most people charged with a petty misdemeanor such as speeding, showing up at the drab courtrooms of Dallas Municipal Court is an annoying experience. Long waits generated by the glutted city bureaucracy are not made any easier by coming face-to-face with municipal judges, whose heavy caseloads sometimes inspire them…
Moaning about LeAnn Rhimes I agree totally with you about LeAnn Rimes [“‘Blue’ it,” May 28]. I am a C&W keyboard player who has worked with several name acts over the past seven years. I worked with several musicians who have worked or are working with Ms. Rimes. It’s ironic…
It was a disappointment, as far as protests go. Animal rights activist Lydia Nichols had sent out a press release promising a “major disruption that could get confrontational” outside the downtown Neiman Marcus on September 27, 1997. But the media didn’t show up, and neither did the protesters–save for her,…
It is 5:15 p.m. on May 7 in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-eight.XOrdinarily, it would be quitting time for the hardworking denizens of Big D. But this Thursday is no ordinary weekday, and this moment is more than just the beginning of the evening traffic jam…
Fahim Minkah doesn’t know what to tell the children. They were counting on him, believed in him, and now they don’t think he can deliver. The former Black Panther, auto mechanic, and community organizer promised the children in South Oak Cliff that he would help make their lives better. He…
Doin’ the Wright Shuffle We don’t know who the author is, since the fax that Buzz received was unsigned, but we wanted to share this letter purportedly sent by a Dallas air traveler to Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Phil Gramm and U.S. Rep. Dick Armey: “Please accept my donation…
