Back in the last century, when Buzz was in college learning all the important things an aspiring newspaper person needs to know–how to glom onto free drinks and food, how to type, how to slyly spread the hidden liberal agenda of the media elite–we were hired to help edit the…
The good news, according to the Texas Freedom Network, is that more people than ever paid attention to the debate over school social studies textbooks that recently concluded before the State Board of Education, thus dampening the influence of small numbers of religious zealots. That means that the book of…
For those of you not from these parts, the preceding phrase–yippie etc.–is cowboy talk for “Hooray!” At least we think it is. It could very well mean something else, like, “Hey, honey, show me them there panties you’re wearin’.” Or it could be the sound a plaintiff’s lawyer makes when…
Ah, yes. We remember it like it was yesterday. Taking a mid-afternoon break from high school, tooling down a two-lane blacktop doing 96 mph in a classmate’s jacked-up Chevy SS, smoking a fatty and listening to Skynyrd blaring on his cassette deck. Of course, where we’re from–the backwoods of the…
So is David Spence, who resigned this month from his seat on Dallas’ plan and zoning commission after being reprimanded by the city’s ethics panel, a bad guy or a good guy done wrong? Seeing how Dallas Observer staffer Rose Farley broke the story of his alleged ethical lapse, which…
“When I was a child, I spake as a child… but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” So the New Testament says, and like many passages in what Homer J. Simpson aptly describes as “a preachy book,” that passage sidesteps an important question, namely: Why? Why…
Your regular Buzz correspondent is back from a week’s vacation, rested and ready to tackle weighty issues, provide pithy commen…OH, DEAR GOD, WILL SOMEONE PLEASE SHUT THAT KID UP! So sorry. It’s Election Day, four days after deadline–when Buzz usually starts writing–and half a block down the street, outside Ron…
Last week, Buzz asked if anyone out in reader-land really cared that much about the fake-drug scandal that has tainted the Dallas Police Department and district attorney’s office over the past year. Pretty nasty business, we suggested, what with police paying an informant thousands of dollars to make cases against…
Since news of the Dallas police fake drug scandal broke not quite a year ago, Buzz has been struggling unsuccessfully to understand something, and maybe you, dear reader, can give us an answer: Where’s the outrage? Where are the pickets, the protests, the raucous calls for someone’s head on a…
Someone once said that it pays to be nice. Someone was full of crapola. You might expect Buzz to say this, seeing how we’re well compensated for being not nice, but this week we have extra cause to be peevish. Thank you, Premiere Video. The store, a nearly perennial Dallas…
The former leader of a Western democracy is found to have had an extramarital affair with a woman of questionable taste, and members of the press are sharpening their long knives. Surprise! It’s not Bill Clinton. At least not this week, so far as we know. Nope, this round the…
“You can’t put a dollar value…on keeping our regular teachers in the classroom,” said Dallas school board President Ken Zornes in a Dallas Morning News story about efforts to reduce growing absenteeism among teachers. Laugh, cry or cuss–what exactly are we supposed to do when we’re told that teachers in…
We once heard a boxing commentator suggest doing away with fight judges and replacing them with 10-year-old boys. Where a panel of adults can watch two guys slug it out for 12 rounds and still not agree who won, your basic fourth-grader–having presumably more firsthand experience with the action–tends to…
Like many of you, Buzz has been keeping close watch on our 401(k) investment account in this troubled economy, and we’re happy to report that despite recent setbacks, we’re still on track for a comfortable retirement. At age 135. Barring any unforeseen changes at the Dallas Observer, or a winning…
Ah, eBay, is there any sort of assorted crap that can’t be purchased at the online auction house/flea market? Perhaps. Buzz went looking for our misspent youth there, but a search turned up only a book and a couple of CDs with those words in the titles; apparently, the days…
Prior restraint are words used to describe the actions of a judge or some other government official who tries to tell the press that it’s forbidden to print or broadcast something. They’re also fightin’ words for people in the news biz in America, where we are pretty much free to…
To avoid any unnecessary angry letters that even vaguely anti-hunting comments tend to stir up in this state, allow us to say this up front: Buzz doesn’t hunt. We find it distasteful. Whoa there, big fella, put down that pen. We said distasteful–as in not our cup of tea–not immoral…
Don’t you just hate it when columnists get lazy or run short on ideas and resort to answering their mail in print? You do? Well, turn the page, bub, ’cause this week, Buzz gots a letter. Joan Covici of Dallas didn’t appreciate our item last week where we purported to…
So Mayor Laura Miller, The Dallas Morning News reports, was vacationing in La Jolla, California, last week, just blocks from Tom Hicks’ “summer retreat” offices. Miller wanted to take the opportunity to discuss renegotiating the no-compete clause that the city’s Reunion Arena has with Hicks’ and Mark Cuban’s Center Operating…
Through no fault of our own, it seems that Buzz has become one of the countless hated e-mail spammers clogging the Internet. This would be a cause for shame for our dear old mother, but let’s be honest: Maternal pride hasn’t exactly been swelling her bosom since we chose newspapering…
Fort Worth Weekly reporter Betty Brink has racked up a respectable number of journalism awards for the paper, most recently being named Print Journalist of the Year in the under-100,000-circulation category by the Houston Press Club. She’s been a stalwart for the weekly, and some of her excellent work has…
After racking up an impressive record of about a dozen wins and no losses defending low-level Dallas porn-store clerks accused of violating anti-obscenity laws, lawyer Andrew Chatham’s winning streak is tapering off. That’s not because he’s losing, mind you, but because the cases appear to be drying up. That’s called…
