Eight Is Enough

Spit happens. Sometimes saliva mixes with chewing tobacco and is expectorated into the bottom of a Coke can. Sometimes the pungent concoction is left sitting in the can long enough to begin coagulating. Sometimes that almost-empty can gets set down right beside the almost-empty one you are drinking from. Sometimes…

Oh, c’mon

Oh, c’mon: It probably doesn’t bode well for a budding politician when the first question a reporter asks about his plans to run for Dallas mayor is: “Dude, seriously?” To be fair, Buzz had pretty much the same reaction when we heard George W. was running for president, so perhaps…

The End Is Near

Room 115 in Stearns Hall on the campus of Dallas Theological Seminary could be a classroom at any American college. The long, pale blue countertops dotted with laptop-friendly outlets are arranged in tiers rising away from the lectern at the front of the room. Most of the 70 padded seats…

Software Bug

At six stories high and with just more than 95,000 square feet, the beige box of a building that houses the Dallas Central Appraisal District on Stemmons Freeway is, at best, uninspiring. You get the impression that what goes on inside isn’t unlike certain scenes in Mike Judge’s film Office…

Long Road Home

It was still dark on Tuesday morning when Lawrence Crader got on the bus and settled in for 20-plus hours on the road. He was eager to get started, though the destination wasn’t the one he’d prefer. The two buses leaving from East Dallas, loaded with around 80 Hurricane Katrina…

Money Down the Loo | Alarming Government | more

Money Down the Loo Un-Wizetrade: Thanks for exposing the utter charlatans that hawk this junk to unsuspecting and ignorant investors (“Wize Guys,” by Craig Malisow, February 2). It’s about time someone did it. I’ve personally tried to save at least a dozen people from making this costly and foolish mistake…

Play It Forward

What if Jose Cortez made the field goal? You know the one, the 29-yard chip shot that would’ve given the Cowboys a 10-point lead over the Seahawks late in the game back on October 23. Instead of losing 13-10, Dallas wins 13-10. And that whopping 180 is merely a link…

Wize Guys

GlobalTec doesn’t want you to read this, so you probably should. The Dallas company peddles investment software on infomercials, luring naïve customers to seminars in hotel rooms throughout the country, where evangelistic salespeople preach the gospel of get-rich-quick. GlobalTec’s flagship software, Wizetrade, purports to make users rich by telling them…

Testy

Testy: The 5th District Court of Appeals last week sided with the Dallas Observer and rejected a civil suit filed by a man who claimed we violated state law by revealing that he is HIV-positive. Roger Stanley, a worker at the Cathedral of Hope, had sought in excess of–get this–$1…

The Disappeared

By now, the sad story of Walter Mann is well-known. The 69-year-old, schizophrenic and homeless, was held in a Dallas County jail for more than a year for not paying a $50 fine. During his 15 months behind bars, he never saw a lawyer or had a visitor. Each time…

Mike Rhyner’s Penis | Butt-Rock Beating

Mike Rhyner’s Penis And other trivial matters: The Ticket may be great entertainment for IQ-challenged frat boys who flunked out of community college, but for die-hard local sports-talk fans? (“A Dirty Dozen,” by Richie Whitt, January 26.) The Ticket is as much about sports as Brokeback Mountain is about herding…

Truly Alarming

It sounds like a burglar’s vision of paradise. Starting next Wednesday, February 1, you can break into any business in Dallas, trip up the alarm and the police won’t rush to the scene. Thanks to a new law passed by the Dallas City Council, the city’s finest will no longer…

Dear Mr. President

In the 17 months that Susana Loera worked at the Mexican Consulate in Dallas, she was horrified by what she saw. She and others at the diplomatic mission say that her boss, Mexican Vice Consul Luis Lara, regularly advised his compatriots charged with crimes in the United States to flee…

A Dirty Dozen

He wears bikini briefs. TiVos The View. Spends alarming time with his morning mirror, caressing his hair with extravagant product and bathing his skin with lush lotion. And when he’s not acting like our city’s most sensitive woman, Mike Rhyner is one of Dallas radio’s most powerful men. He can…

Stacked Deck

They may have worked at one of the most prolific real estate development companies in Texas, but they behaved more like awkward teenagers jilted by the object of their affection. Twice a week for months, employees at Southwest Housing had been asking Ruth Steward to lunch. Each time, the Oak…

Persistence is a virtue

Persistence is a virtue: Laray Polk is conducting what she calls an “intervention.” Dressed in black from head to toe, Polk is perched on the curb outside a downtown parking garage, pleading with two young Hispanic men hurriedly getting into a sleek black government sedan. The driver, a military recruiter,…

Yee-haw, Y’all!

Yee-haw, Y’all! Hook ’em, fakehorns: You could not be more right about Dallas jumping on the yee-haw bandwagon that is UT (“Tex-cess,” by Richie Whitt, January 19). Yeah, I was born and raised in Texas, but why should I be celebrating the Longhorns’ win? I guess Dallas really does suck…

Lights, Camera, Play!

Alex Winn’s bedroom was crammed with a dozen teenagers. The smells of old pizza, rank sneakers and sweat hung in the sweltering air. Empty boxes of Goldfish crackers littered the floor and peeked from under the rumpled bed. Against one wall, emitting incredible heat and a blue glow, stood a…

Bounced

He has been such an icon for so long he is known only by a nickname given to him some 36 years ago when he was a student at North Texas State University. Back then, they called him “Armpit,” because he apparently looked like “one hairy armpit,” he recalls now…

Horse Opera

As one of only three horse rendering plants in the country, Dallas Crown in Kaufman provokes its share of horror stories–and while some are undeniably true, including its abysmal sanitation record with the city of Kaufman, others are harder to prove. Now, though, a division of the U.S. Department of…

“Exuberantly shallow”

“Exuberantly shallow”: Perhaps you missed this gem, reported in The Dallas Morning News on December 10. Emily Ramshaw, staff writer for the Dealey Daily, take it away: “With a glimmering Dallas skyline behind them and a serene, russet riverbed before them, state and local officials joined renowned Spanish architect Santiago…

Tex-cess

How ’bout them Dallas Longhorns! What a great story. Vince Young, raised on the tough streets of Oak Cliff, survives to star at Carter High School and eventually matures into the leader of the nation’s No. 1 college football team. Wow! And it all happened here in our own backyard…