Mari-Lena Ochoa had it all figured out. “I want to be a teacher,” the 19-year-old explained earnestly, leaning over the empty seat between us to talk. “I really want to make a difference. White, Hispanic, Oriental, black–I want to help.” Nice sentiments. Wrong venue. What better place to squash one’s…
We really, really apologize Clearly, your reference to me in the recent edition of the Dallas Observer as a “lawyer” is beyond the pale [“It’s all a matter of power,” January 23]. You have referred to me as a Government Watch Dog and as a “Killer Gadfly” in the past,…
On a mid-February afternoon in 1995, the nine members of the Dallas Independent School District board were holding a work session, one of their regular informal gatherings to hash out the particulars of pending business. Among other things that day, the board faced the question of establishing permanent committees–small groups…
Dallas attorney Brian Loncar vows in his hard-to-miss TV commercials, “I’ll fight for you.” Of course, that presumes he’ll show up when the judge calls your case, and not send some coffee-fetching flunky who doesn’t know a pleading from a Post-it note. That’s a presumption you might not want to…
Is this some kind of hoax? Buzz loves it when The Dallas Morning News gets all fuss and feathers over something. And, hot damn! the editorial board–or whoever writes those unsigned opinions representing the codger’s voice of the paper–had her/his/its knickers in a bunch about the Cowboys-topless dancer hullabaloo. You…
Dallas Observer investigative reporter Laura Miller will be taking an extended break from column writing so that she can devote more time to her family. Miller, 38, will remain a member of the Observer staff and will continue to work with other writers and editors. Her weekly column will return…
Looking back, that briefcase episode should have been the first sign of trouble. It was October 1995, and I was slated to return to my job at the Dallas Observer after a 10-week maternity leave. I wasn’t anywhere near ready. As only the Secret Society of New Mothers knows, the…
More kudos for Benji I’ve been a reader of the Dallas Observer for quite a while, and I’ve come to expect quality articles that are truthful and sincere. I have felt that your articles are well thought out and researched. However, I was very disappointed in your recent article, “The…
In a small pocket of Oak Cliff, the twin steeples of Sunshine Elizabeth Chapel once rose above a neighborhood unlike any other in Dallas, signaling passersby that they had entered an area known collectively as Tenth Street. The street which gives the neighborhood its name still winds up hills, upon…
How ’bout the “Greyhound?” As any expectant couple can tell you, it’s a big, big decision: What to name the new baby. Dallas Area Rapid Transit Authority apparently didn’t realize just how big a decision. When DART’s bouncing baby, the gleaming train service between Dallas and Irving, was belatedly born…
Like their counterparts in the Dallas area, Preston Hollow Elementary School educators were excited to be selected in 1995 as a model site for the new, much-ballyhooed Voyager Expanded Learning Inc. after-school program. Instead of going home to empty houses when the regular school day ended, or killing time in…
The college football faithful may finally rest easy. The Texas Attorney General’s office has spoken, and an Aggie cannot read the Longhorn playbook. The University of Texas football team’s playbook is exempt from the state’s open records law, according to a recent ruling made by Assistant Attorney General Kay Guajardo…
If there’s one theme that emerged from the cast of characters who graced this page last year, it was cluelessness. At least that seemed to be the defense of choice for everyone from the mayor to that role model in the floor-length fur coat: ignorance, confusion, denial–and when that didn’t…
A vote for Paul I am still shaking my head as I re-read the lead article about the Honorable Paul Fielding [“Should Paul Fielding go to jail?” December 26]. You should be pleased to know your publication is so carefully read; I’ve been over this copy six or seven times…
Like Joe Greed the Ford peddler and Widetrack the Pontiac hound, attorney Brian Loncar is almost universally recognized in North Texas. A half-million dollars a year in tacky TV ads will do that. One doesn’t have to know a thing about automobile collision claims, or what a plaintiffs’ lawyer actually…
As electronic technology advances, video is increasingly becoming the most accessible and personal mass medium. Even the lowest-budget film is an arduous exercise–in terms of both technology and expense–compared to making a video. In video, there’s no painstaking development of negatives, no tiresome editing of celluloid strips, and–particularly for emerging…
Conservative politicians and district attorneys across the country always seem to be waging battles to shut down sexually oriented businesses. But the largest and most successful adult newspaper in Texas is finding its worst enemies have come from within. The Metroplex Sundown, a Dallas-based weekly that circulates throughout the state,…
Patrick Bahr and David Michelini have spent a considerable amount of time this holiday season wondering what is wrong with people. Bahr and Michelini own and operate the Antique Bahr on lower Greenville Avenue, and they had a lot of spirit going into the Christmas season. An apparent upswing in…
Evolutionary thought Being new to Texas, this spring marked the first of many trips to Glen Rose and Dinosaur Valley State Park. During our second trip to Glen Rose and the park, we visited the Creation Evidences Museum [“Footprints of fantasy,” December 12]. Indeed, it is located in a doublewide…
The word went out quietly in August. A choice little wedge of land in Uptown Dallas, the trendy neighborhood around McKinney Avenue where real estate speculation is in high fever, was being made available to the highest bidder. Only a handful of the city’s wealthiest developers were invited to tender…
When veterinarian Dr. Claudia Alldredge first saw the tiger, she was shocked. Too weak to roll over or stand up, all the four-month-old cub could do was lie in a little orange heap on the examining table and whimper an almost inaudible m-r-o-w-r. Suffering malnutrition, the cat had been dumped…
A Las Colinas-based company has agreed to plead guilty to five felonies and pay a $4 million fine to settle federal criminal charges that one of its rendering plants polluted a Minnesota stream. The fine Darling International Inc. has agreed to pay is the largest ever assessed for environmental violations…
