Oh my word. Oh my, oh my. I am looking at this. I don’t want to see it. It just came in the mail. This is scary. A couple weeks ago in the course of some reporting on Dallas County Judge Jim Foster, I asked his assistant, Bob Johnston, for…
It’s a different city now. Fundamentally. Here’s why. Last weekend the city secretary ruled that a citizens group had met the legal test for calling a referendum on building a major high-speed, limited-access toll road through the proposed river park downtown. But don’t get all lost in that. You’ll hear…
Last week, thinking about how great the newly opened Old Red Museum is downtown—and then thinking about the fact that it’s under the Dallas County Board of Commissioners—I was reminded of a favorite Bible verse, Matthew 7:6. “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your…
I waited two weeks. Maybe in that time, I thought, the city’s big-hair media (The Dallas Morning News editorial page, D magazine, PaperCity) might acknowledge that they were totally wrong. At the end of last month TrinityVote, the group seeking a referendum on building a toll road in the river…
Trust your eyes. Go with common sense. If you’ve seen pictures of the Trinity River flooded from levee to levee in downtown, believe your gut: It’s a fat angry cottonmouth snake inside your house. If you have driven over the river, I don’t have to tell you: That slimey thick-shouldered…
According to the owner, Pawn Gallery decided to give Detroit artist Topher Crowder his first big Dallas show, “so he wouldn’t start hacking people up with a machete,” if that gives you an idea how edgy this guy is. Crowder’s ink-on-paper images are huge on the wall but draw the…
I can’t stand reading The Dallas Morning News because it gives me a gigantic headache. Why would I pay to have something delivered to my doorstep every day when I always wind up wanting to hurl it back at the guy who threw it at me? Four days before the…
OK, I know you already think I think I’m some kind of East Dallas Mahatma Gandhi or something. I really am not. I believe in profit and private property and free enterprise and all that junk. But it’s just sort of nice and a little refreshing once in a blue…
The Leppert touch: Buzz believes the devil is not the only one in the details. You can find politicians in there too. That’s why Buzz was interested to learn that Dallas’ new mayor, Tom Leppert, apparently took time during the final weeks of his campaign to call Dale Davenport, the…
Only in Dallas. Ed Oakley, the Democrat in the June 16 mayoral runoff election, is running on a platform of tax giveaways for the rich, highways in the parks and demolition of housing for the poor. And he’s the liberal. Tom Leppert, the Republican, is running on the divine right…
I have to tell you this story because it’s three things: 1) an appalling example of arrogance and sleaziness at City Hall, 2) a stirring example of integrity and courage at City Hall, and 3) it’s about Laura Miller. This guy owns a business that has been in his family…
Carol Reed, the political consultant, told another staff member here at the Dallas Observer that I was “a man without a country” because nobody I liked for mayor got into the runoff election. I like it. Call me the “Flying Dutchman of Bryan Parkway.” It’s because I made the horrible…
The World O’Crap blog has called conservative commentator and first-time novelist Tamara Wilhite a Michelle Malkin/Ann Coulter wannabe who “doesn’t have the hair or the legs” for the job. Real conservative blogs like Bushcountry.org, on the other hand, love her. Maybe you can decide for yourself by seeing her at…
OK, I approach a polling place in Far North Dallas on Frankford Road where I see a representative of Mayor Laura Miller out front. He appears to be fast asleep. The Laura Miller representative is sprawled loosely over a lawn chair in front of the door to a city rec…
Dallas Mayor Laura Miller has conceded to me that the toll road under design for the Trinity River project is a bad road. “The city manager and I have complained to the North Texas Tollway Authority and told them to fix it,” she said in an exchange of e-mails. “We…
In recent weeks the call for a referendum on the Trinity River toll road has come to the center of the Dallas mayoral election. At the end of last week, The Dallas Morning News said in an editorial that Tom Leppert and Sam Coats were the two top contenders, but…
District 9 city council candidate Jill Kotvis called me after I wrote a snarky item on the Dallas Observer’s blog, Unfair Park, taking her to task for obfuscating charges related to a 20-year-old drunk driving arrest. It was sporting of her to call. I didn’t beat up on her for…
Woonerfs have appeared to me, and now I understand the universe. Even more amazing, for the first time I understand Ed Oakley. Sort of. Ed Oakley. Dallas City Council member. Candidate for mayor. Chairman of the Trinity River committee. Mr. Woonerful. Let me say this about that: At least symbolically,…
We need to get a few things out of the way right here at the top. Please tell me that I am thin-skinned. Thank you. Now I would like you to tell me this is all just sour grapes. Great. And finally, please tell me I’m just jealous. Hey, that…
Dallas Observer columnist Jim Schutze will speak Wednesday at the Lakewood Library on “Pictures I have of Laura Miller that could get her in a whole lot of trouble.” Schutze lied to the Lakewood Library Friends, hosts of the event, and said he would be speaking on the Dallas mayoral…
One of the things you hope you get to see every once in a while in a democracy—at least catch glimpses of—is democracy. Those of us who are over 21 and have attended a county fair or two know better than to expect to find it just lying around on…
The history of jazz in North Texas is long and deep—there’s Scott Joplin, Hot Lips Schutze, Jack Teagarden, T Bone Walker, Harry James and Charlie Christian, just to name a few, all of which you can see on display in a collection of photographs at the J. Erik Jonsson Central…
