Will it call collect? In another sign of the collapse of American civilization, Buzz received an information packet on a new communications service being offered locally by The Computer Services Group in Dallas. What’s offered is a high-tech solution to that time-consuming, tedious, not to mention incredibly annoying, task of…
Chez canard Mary Malouf’s review of Chez Gerard [“French, seriously,” June 27] is hard to take seriously: “You have to cultivate your relationship with this restaurant to truly enjoy it.” Let’s see–they overlooked her reservation, she and her guests received inattentive service, and she had to track down her check…
The first time I saw David Rivera, he was standing behind the lipstick-smudged glass of a jail visiting room, head bowed as if in prayer. Guards had led the 38-year-old Fort Worth printer there from Tank 30, Unit 59D–better known as the “pervert pod.” Through the glass I noted Rivera’s…
Mark Linnear Hays sat beside his defense attorney in federal court two weeks ago, arms folded across his chest, face drawn and sullen. So far, it had not been a good day. It was halfway into his trial–U.S. vs. Hays–and a string of forensics experts had spent the morning testifying…
Loe blow Passing off someone else’s words or ideas as your own is a basic taboo among writers, yet it’s amazing how casually transgressions are tolerated at newspapers, including, apparently, The Dallas Morning News. An allegation of intellectual theft has been brought to the attention of the Observer by Stephen…
A standoff that is bizarre even by newspaper-management standards has been playing out for the past month at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, leaving reporters and editors curious about just who is in charge of the paper’s newsroom. Vice President and Executive Editor Debbie Price, through an attorney, contends that she…
Sweat Jesus Thanks for Kaylois Henry’s excellent story about Bishop T.D. Jakes [“Bishop Jakes is ready. Are you?” June 20]. Having watched his show on TBN several times recently, I wondered about his background and his apparent rising status in the TV-preacher business. Henry’s well-written piece answered my questions, and…
After two years of enduring suspicion that she helped murder her husband, Joan Ridgway finds herself once again a suspect in what authorities are now describing as a murder-for-hire scheme against former Dallas Cowboys punter Colin Ridgway. Joan Ridgway, 53, has not been charged in the murder, but the arrest…
Jayne Loader is too modest to admit it, but she was one of a trio that irrevocably changed American pop culture’s perception of the Atomic Age. Fourteen years ago, she, Kevin Rafferty, and Rafferty’s brother, Pierce, premiered The Atomic Cafe in New York City. Celebrities, including Richard Gere, Christopher Reeve,…
Gary Lewellyn sits behind a massive wooden desk holding a telephone to his ear, but says nothing. From his Carrollton warehouse, the chairman and chief executive officer of Performance Nutrition, Inc. is a guest on a nationally syndicated USA Today Radio Network talk show, “Here’s To Your Health.” But even…
When he was running an insurance-fraud scheme out of his North Dallas office, Jeffrey H. Reynolds III would sometimes pass himself off as the Secretary of Commerce for a fictional country called the Dominion of Melchizedek. But Reynolds’ phony diplomatic title earned him no grace when he finally stood before…
All the news that fits and then some Because The Dallas Morning News would bristle if Buzz characterized its coverage of the Rowlett child murders as sensationalism, we’ll pick a less crass journalistic term. How about “reportorial carpet bombing,” or “vomitous volumes,” or that old favorite, “pointlessly excessive.” Hell yes,…
The mayor wasn’t eating. This was noteworthy for several reasons, not the least of which is that our mayor, if nothing else, is a man of enormous appetites–for politics, for the spotlight, for animated conversation, for a rousing ball game on TV, for good food and drink. So it was…
Laura is jolly I was appalled to read Laura Miller’s article [“Power houses,” June 13] in the Observer. Obviously, Miller was concerned that maybe some people take her seriously. Miller’s article should alleviate that concern. Miller disdainfully comments that Gloria Campos’ home belies her “folksy” image. If Miller knew anything…
With a public-relations extravaganza fit for a Royal Divorce, DART inaugurated its zippy new $900 million train set last week, finally bringing commuter-rail service to Dallas. There were opening-day parties, bevies of dignitaries, television specials, and fawning newspaper accounts. Journalists, in particular, were inundated with mounds of information on the…
When U.S. Attorney Paul Coggins began putting together one of the nation’s first and largest health-care fraud task forces two years ago, criminal defense lawyers were salivating. They dreamed of a business boom like the one that followed the prosecution of the savings-and-loan bunglers by a similar high-profile task force…
It takes a village idiot It only takes a bumper sticker-reading comprehension level to figure out that the first lady is about as popular in Texas as road construction. So when Paul Hoffman wore his Hillary Clinton T-shirt to a recent political gathering, he was more than a little anxious…
Ann’s a snob In her recent article [“Kiss and tell,” June 6], did Ann Zimmerman really need to wield such a snobbish, cruel poetic license? “Weather-beaten cottage…?” Zimmerman couldn’t have been describing Harry Preston’s immaculately kept home. Did she miss the sculpted English garden that fills Preston’s backyard, and the…
It was really a lot like a Marx Brothers movie–except that these guys had guns. “Get him out of here, man, before I put a cap in his ass,” said Rollie Dean Brazier, defense minister of the New Black Panther Party. Brazier–formerly known as Rolan de Brazier and more recently…
Tonight the shoes of Bishop T.D. Jakes are a three-toned reptilian affair. They are dark gray around the sides and white on top; their laces are speckled prominently with red. Jakes himself is a big man, tall and wide, with a booming voice and perspiring presence that is vibrating through…
Sitting in my car, staring at the modest, one-story house, I figured I was in the wrong place. According to Dallas County tax records, this was supposed to be cosmetics queen Mary Kay Ash’s house. But there was nothing pink–or queenlike–about it. The house was white. The 1996 Cadillac in…
Artists Alan Govenar and Kaleta Doolin aren’t the most obvious pair: While he speaks with the rapid cadences of his Boston boyhood, hers are the measured rhythms of a native Dallasite. He projects an active, external hustle–a sense of always leaning toward you–while she suggests hidden currents, processes that continue…
