On a ferociously hot day in July, Harold Cox carefully affixes aluminum siding to his modest home on a hilly, tree-shrouded street in Pleasant Grove. His two young grandchildren look on as Cox, with rivulets of sweat running down his face, patiently explains to the boys how to post the…
Sucking up to Sam Purported writer Ann Zimmerman’s bitter attack on City Attorney Sam Lindsay weaves a few threads of fact into a tapestry of falsehood [“Jurist imprudence,” July 17]. Zimmerman’s characterization of Lindsay as “mediocre” is patently untrue and simply not supported by an objective look at Lindsay and…
Yvonne Gonzalez, whose short tenure as superintendent of Dallas schools has been a whirlwind of press conferences, spent much of last week insisting she had no idea that recent renovations to her office suite cost taxpayers $62,000. Gonzalez called a press conference, of course, to protest her ignorance after the…
If Mary Biermann believed in omens, she would have turned around and left on the spring day in 1994 when she reported for work and learned that her office at the Dallas Inter-tribal Center came with a waterfall. As the newly hired director of the center’s medical and dental clinic,…
Jim Lites was startled when he walked into the handsome University Park home of a new business associate two years ago. Lites, president of the Dallas Stars hockey team, was among a handful of sports and business executives invited to a small cocktail party at the $2.5 million home. He…
At the Dallas County Community Action Committee, charity really does begin at home. Cleo Sims, executive director of the government-supported anti-poverty agency, set up her daughter, a convicted cocaine dealer, with a $25,000-a-year contract to manage two agency apartments in drug-infested parts of South Dallas. She put her son to…
When Dallas schools superintendent Yvonne Gonzalez started remodeling her office suite at the district’s downtown headquarters this spring, she justified the expense by pointing to her predecessors. Chad Woolery, whom Gonzalez succeeded as superintendent, had added wallpaper. And his predecessor, Marvin Edwards, had turned a closet into a toilet. But…
Equal opportunity trashings I find it a bit confusing that the Dallas Observer has chosen to contradict itself on a very important issue in the Dallas area. First, you soundly trash cement kilns and the ogres who run them [“Ill wind blowing,” June 12, “Something in the air,” June 19]…
A Harvard Club of Dallas luncheon should be a cozy enough setting for Paul Edward Coggins Jr., Harvard Law ’78. But even on this welcoming turf, 39 floors up in the Texas Commerce Tower, a question can fly in the window. Coggins, who for the past four years has been…
Mellow drama So exactly who is Dallas school superintendent Yvonne Gonzalez afraid of these days? Last week, the head honcho of the embattled school system–weary from months of firing administrators, holding press conferences, and rooting out fraud and corruption at DISD–decided to take an evening off and attend the Shakespeare…
Lillie Gallatin was 100 years, six months, and two days old when she quietly passed away last summer. A blood clot finally got the best of the spry woman, who worked in her garden right up until she departed. Gallatin’s passing was a terrible loss, but her daughter, Cora Barnes,…
Five-year-old Diana Garcia can’t sit up, eat, or do much of anything by herself. Confined to a wheelchair, she eats formula through a little tube in her stomach. Neurologically, she’s at the level of a newborn and will likely stay that way the rest of her life, her doctor says…
Cheap drugs This is one hell of a story with interesting reporting [“Busted,” July 10]. I happen to know Special Agent Julio Mercado personally. Mercado is one of the most decent men I have ever known. I would do anything to work for him. If someone can clean up and…
Folks like Larry Schone and his wife, Ruth, thought 60 miles would be far enough away from Dallas to enjoy the peace and quiet of country life. Now, they’ve gone and founded a damn town, ensuring that nothing will be quiet for a long, long time. The Schones and others…
The horse had an ungainly name, and was a tough ride besides. I Are Sharp was rank and willful, with a bad habit of picking some inopportune moment during a race to take a breather. A jockey who didn’t figure that out might think his mount had run out of…
Misty Murphy was terrified. It was her very first trial in her short career as a defense attorney, and she was facing a jury in the courtroom of municipal Judge Faith Hill. To say that the strawberry blonde Murphy was inexperienced is an understatement. After all, she’s only 15 years…
Rufus unhinged Buzz was perusing a recent column by Rufus Shaw in the black newspaper Elite News and was struck when Shaw described a worker at Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson’s office thus: “Ms. Simiawsky, who is Jewish, was a unique and welcome experience for me.” Meeting a pleasant Jewish woman…
Batting zero When well-known information is reported inaccurately, I always question the veracity of information that isn’t common knowledge. To wit, Pete Geren is a Democrat, not a Republican, and Don Nelson coached the Golden State Warriors, not the New York Knicks. What other misinformation is in Miriam Rozen’s would-be…
In a corner office of the anonymous concrete bunker off Harry Hines Boulevard that houses the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Dallas headquarters, Julio Mercado, the new man in charge, is squirming like a worm on a hot plate. It’s hard to say exactly what is making the 48-year-old former New York…
It’s so damned hot in Austin on this Saturday that condensation forms on your skin before you’re all the way out the door. You’re like a cold-drink bottle just taken from a frigid icebox. Your clothes are damp, sticking to your skin until they become your skin. You do not…
Samuel and Helen Woodson live on a homey cul-de-sac in southeast Denton. Their kids grown and gone, they keep themselves busy working and playing with their five grandchildren. Two weeks ago, the Woodsons found a flyer on the front door of the home where they have lived for 10 years…
Lawyer run amuck! We’re gonna go ahead and blame Jerry Buchmeyer for this one. Buchmeyer is the reigning chief federal judge in Dallas, the top dog of the black-robe set down at the federal courthouse. For a jurist, Buchmeyer possesses a rare talent–he can write. In fact, Buchmeyer authors some…
