The gloriously, infuriatingly eclectic Dallas Video festival continues to entertain–and bore The nature of any festival, whether it’s centered on food or film, is usually hodgepodge–an eclectic confluence of the sweet and the bitter, the fatty and the lean. It’s no surprise that the 9th Annual Dallas Video Festival possesses…
In mid-November, journalists and editors from across Texas gathered at a downtown Dallas hotel for the annual rite of self-congratulation known as the Katie Awards. Seats cost $50. Valets parked cars. A chocolate pate dessert followed dinner. Free wine flowed as the assemblage settled in for a marathon presentation by…
After the protests, the lawsuits, the scathing editorials, and the state Legislature’s disdain when Texas Woman’s University was forced to go co-ed last year, the last thing the members of TWU’s board need now is to testify before a Denton County grand jury for allegedly destroying public records. But, thanks…
Fresh ink Will Cowtown cotton to another newspaper? Local journalist-cum-entrepreneur Robert Camuto apparently thinks so. Camuto has resigned from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram to launch his own alternative weekly. Camuto has a solid journalistic background as a reporter at the defunct Dallas Times Herald, then covering education, Fort Worth politics,…
The taxidermy issue requires advanced autopsy by the serious political ethicist. Not that the scholars at the Texas Ethics Commission have been derelict–indeed not. Their December decree that Texas lawmakers may henceforth disburse campaign funds in order to stuff animal heads, thereafter to reside upon their office walls, is positively…
Editor’s departure opens succession struggle at News As in all closed governmental systems, there is intense speculation among the proletariat about the succession struggle at The Dallas Morning News. The need for a new leader came with the formal announcement late last month of the departure of longtime managing editor…
Furry beasts I would like to take this opportunity to voice my disgust with Kirby Fry and Inger Myhre, the villains of the Permaculture article [“Hugging the tree gently,” December 21, 1995]. I am outraged that any people could be so cruel and self-centered as to starve kittens to within…
Act II The year is 1988. The scene is Granbury, now brimming with free enterprise, country charm, and overpriced antiques. After the Opera House began playing to sold-out houses, a new merchant class had come to town, snapping up every stone-slab building on the square. This sleepy farming hamlet was…
Bye-bye, Houston Oilers. Used to luv ya, Blue. Lost ’em to Nashville, Tenn., for a $292 million state-of-the-art stadium with 82 luxury suites, 9,600 premier “club seats” and 42,700 season tickets–plus a $28 million “relocation fee” and other goodies. Break Bum Phillips’ heart. Rams, Raiders, Browns–same story. Now if all…
When Kimberly Tracey called the city to complain about her East Dallas apartment complex, she had a list of gripes. Maintenance was poor, the linoleum on her kitchen floor concealed rotted wood, and the roof leaked in several places. The entire building was a mess, she said. City inspectors eventually…
The saga of Sam Krasniqi, an Albanian Moslem who was acquitted of molesting his son and daughter but was nonetheless unable to regain custody of his children anyway (“Tell Mama Why You Cry,” Nov. 17, 1994), took a strange turn last week when Krasniqi was indicted on three counts of…
Don’t get kinky Texans learned long ago that Texas Jewboy Kinky Friedman is an acquired taste. But recently, because of the success of his series of detective novels and a new CD, From One Good American to Another, the Kinkster’s horribly politically incorrect humor has been reaching a diverse audience…
What a difference a year makes. And if we only knew then… For example. Last winter, the majority of the Dallas city council balked at the idea of letting the voters decide whether or not to build a sports arena. It was a ridiculous idea, they said, a stupid concept,…
Home sweet Hope House I loved the article “Young, gay, and thrown away” [Nov. 30] by Johnathon Briggs. I found an old issue today and read that touching story. When I was done reading it, I just sat there and thought about how hard life is for some people, especially…
They arrived without invitation one fall night, five parcels of fur and bones and screaming lungs, crying desperately and unceasingly for milk and shadowing Kirby Fry and Inger Myhre’s every move. The kittens, ranging in color and shape from a pair of emaciated black runts to a plump, white-faced tabby,…
Whitewright, Texas, appears to be an uncontroversial place. It is what it is: a former railroad town, whose main industry now is the Carl’s Sausage plant on Bond Street. Grand Street is lined with shops, city hall, the library, and the police department. The side streets of this town 60…
Two weeks before Christmas, on a nippy Monday night, there was a party at the Belo Mansion on Ross Avenue downtown. But as I entered the back door, I figured I had come on the wrong night. There was no activity in the back of the house, nothing happening in…
If you are 7-and-a-half years old, halfway through the second grade, and living on a steady diet of CD-ROM and Nickelodeon’s “Weinerville,” very little slips by you. Such is the case with Caitlin, who has already shattered some of the most sacred myths of childhood. First, she is already hip…
Did Ray Hunt support Mandela? We learn more about Mayor Ron Kirk every day. Last week, for instance, the mayor, who announced he would lead a trade mission to South Africa, told The Dallas Morning News, “I cannot escape the symbolic parallels of being the first African-American mayor of Dallas…
Like businesses throughout the city celebrating the holiday spirit, the office of Intertect Relief and Reconstruction Corporation held a Christmas party last week in the Oak Cliff home of one of its staff members. It was a bittersweet affair, to be sure, because Fred Cuny, the founder and director of…
Channel 8 gives Rene Syler the boot Eager to head off a lawsuit, A.H. Belo Corp. attorneys are negotiating with a lawyer for dumped Channel 8 anchor Rene Syler, BeloWatch has learned. Syler, who worked as a field reporter and as co-anchor for WFAA’s noon news broadcast, was summoned into…
Hopeful house I am very unhappy with the way the article on Hope House was written [“Young, Gay, and Thrown Away,” November 30]. The tone is very sensational, there are many things stated that are just not true, and some things Johnathon Briggs wrote are plain rude and offensive. When…
