Priorities, priorities: Man, Buzz needs a vacation. Here we are about to tell you that the Collin County District Attorney’s Office is preparing to start requiring all persons accepting felony plea bargains to provide DNA samples, and our lefty knee isn’t even twitching, let alone jerking. We must be tired…

Making book: As a young senator, John F. Kennedy wrote Profiles in Courage, about various courageous characters who had served in the Senate. Buzz hasn’t read it, but we understand it’s a “classic” in the political genre, meaning it’s one of those books everyone has heard of but no one…

Unnatural selection: As a general rule, Buzz tries to stay away from the evolution vs. creationism debate. We also try to avoid getting into heated talks with people on buses who are convinced aliens are beaming messages through their fillings, and for much the same reason. If you sincerely believe…

Wusses: We suppose we should be grateful. Since Mayor Tom Leppert and the new host of city council members came on board last summer, things have been so civil at City Hall. No weekly blow-ups at the council chambers. No Mayor Laura Miller vs. everyone else. With one notable exception—how…

Untouchable Hodge: Well, crap. Gray January is upon us. We’ve said goodbye to pro football in Dallas, and Hollywood’s writers are still striking, so a bleak horizon stretches ahead. What’s left to entertain us? Oh, you know the answer. Does Buzz really have to say it? Fine, we will: It’s…

Dog pile: Frisco’s Michael Morford could be the poster child for the “If Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade Society.” A 34-year-old employee of an investment bank, Morford says he went through a period of deep depression in 2006, which he endured with the help of a friend, coming out…

In da house: Excuse Buzz while we kick off the year with a little in-house news, because we know Dallasites are endlessly fascinated with every little thing media folk do—even though most media folk we know personally are, not to put too fine a point on it, boring. At least,…

A maverick female city council member challenges the powers that be at City Hall all by her lonesome. Voters trek to the polls to decide the fate of the Trinity River project: Will it be a park or an expressway? The feds are sniffing around alleged corruption among southern Dallas…

Making crime pay: Because nothing says “Happy Holidays” like raging paranoia that faceless criminals are coming for you, we’d like to close out 2007 with a shout-out to our pal, Avi Adelman, who has started up a new business that aims to keep Dallas residents apprised of crime in their…

Aw, shit: If, like Buzz, you grow weary of all the canned holiday sentimentality—in other words, you’re a misanthropic SOB who thinks your fellow humans are, generally speaking, bastards—then hang on. We have a story just right for your Christmas: Once upon a time—a couple of weeks ago—Ginger Reid, an…

Picture this: Should we feel violated or famous? Out there on the Internet, for the entire world to see, is a fuzzy photo of a man outside the Dallas Observer’s offices at Maple and Oak Lawn avenues. It might not be Buzz, but since the blurry man appears to have…

Help wanted: Here’s a little inside Dallas Observer baseball stuff for you: Our editor, Julie Lyons, is departing in January to write a book; Girl on Top Andrea Grimes is leaving to attend graduate school at UT-Austin and continue her work as a stand-up comedian; staff writer Matt Pulle is…

Dear Very Important Person: On behalf of UT Southwestern Medical Center’s staff, I wish to offer our sincere apologies for The Dallas Morning News’ recent publication of our list of 6,400 people guaranteed special treatment in the event they become patients at any of our facilities. We want to assure…

Divided we stand: Short of reading that the United States has invaded Iran (God forbid) or that Tony Romo broke a leg (God, Allah, Buddha and L.Ron Hubbard forfend), Tuesday’s Metro headline in The Dallas Morning News is about the grimmest thing you’re likely to see in a long, long…

Crock the vote: By the time you read this, the votes in an election called “the most critical in city history” will be counted, and it’ll be left to the jabbering classes to tell you What It All Means. Buzz, who is a member of that class (we sit in…

Recently, I got a call from a public call center in Mexico. I could tell because the second after I answered, I heard a voice say in Spanish, “They will speak to you now,” the formal call center etiquette used anywhere from Laredo to Tierra del Fuego. “Who is it?”…