Conor’s Crying Game The wanker in the mirror: Turn around, Rob Harvilla (“Turn Around, Bright Eyes,” June 2). I’m always impressed with the Dallas Observer’s many stories on various artists and make it a point to pick up the latest copy for that reason. The Dallas Observer truly is a…
“Let me set up a, what do you call it, a hypothetical for you,” Dawn Nettles says in her Texas drawl, her voice roughened around the edges by her daily pack of Misty menthols. “Let’s say you’re the boss of a company, and you give one of your employees a…
Death for a Killer A 21-year-old woman gets death sentence for couple’s murders “Please don’t kill us, girl.” From a distance, the letter looked like it could be a high school note, a young woman’s bubbly handwriting sprawled across the page. What appeared to be a heart was drawn on…
Being the suspicious, cynical sort, Buzz couldn’t help but salivate a little bit when we heard that Mayor Laura Miller’s chief of staff, Crayton Webb, quit his job not long after the strong-mayor proposal was defeated. Not to paint an unduly harsh picture of Webb, who’s always been friendly, helpful…
The Scarlet “S” Social castration: This is a brief version of my full rant–I’m supposed to be working–but I just want to thank you so much for publishing this article and giving solid examples of how the current system harms individuals while failing to give adequate information to parents and…
Amid the Christmas rush at the Mall of the Mainland in Texas City, Ruth Pavelko’s back scrunched into a prickly knot. The 49-year-old mom stumbled through the Foley’s parking lot to her Pontiac, her lungs feeling as if they were filled with Jell-O. Three blocks down the street, Pavelko lurched…
First the good news: Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is all over the bureaucratic SNAFU that allowed convicted sex offenders to receive Viagra and other sex-enhancing drugs through the state’s Medicaid program. State Senator Florence Shapiro has agreed to attach an amendment drafted by the AG’s office to another bill…
Lucas on Love Luke, you insult me: Hey, Luke Y. Thompson, if you’re going to review a movie, i.e., the new Star Wars episode (“Sith Is It,” May 19), then stick to reviewing movies, not making judgment calls about adopted people and their families. You pointed out that George Lucas…
These sex offenders, they’re all perverts, right? Pedophiles. Rapists. Sick freaks, the whole lot of ’em. Lock the bastards up for life. And good riddance, by God. And in the cases where we can’t lock ’em up, where these sickos are showing off their weenies to little girls or some…
You couldn’t miss him: a teenager dressed always in black, with Elvis sideburns and a hard-charging way of bounding up the stairs, as if life were moving too slowly for him. In the same class as my oldest son at the Science and Engineering Magnet at Townview, occasionally at our…
Narrow EscapeAsylum seekers find the door to the U.S. is closing With a sly smile, Daniel Komayombi shows off his drawings of Texas cowboys and snow-covered African volcanoes. Some of his pictures are remarkably complex for a second-grader. All six Komayombi children–Nadia, 18; Rosine, 17; Jean Yves, 15; Grace, 12;…
Buzz is in Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective, mode this week, trying to get to the bottom of several mysteries: Who was the driver of the car that fled from the scene of a traffic accident involving Ricardo Medrano, brother of District 2 city council candidate Pauline Medrano? Why was political…
Cop Land I’d had enough: As a former resident of South Dallas (1928 S. Akard St.), I am writing to say Mr. Davenport is a brave man (“Kickback City,” by Jim Schutze, May 12). The neighborhood is a horror–everybody knows that–but what truly makes it intolerable is the attitude of…
At the Ralph Lauren store in NorthPark Center, there are certain questions to which you can expect answers. What looks good with pink chinos? When is the fall line coming in? Are pocket squares really back in fashion? Do you have this sweater in another size? That sort of thing…
Stairway to Heaven For high-tech designers, all that glitters is carbon It was a given that when Brad Edwards got up to speak that day in March 2002, the crowd would be skeptical. The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics is home to many of the country’s most distinguished physicists and chemists,…
A quick note to those of you who think the media conspire to wield undue influence on politics: You can stop now. As apparent from the past weekend’s butt-beating of the strong-mayor proposal–supported by The Dallas Morning News, us and other media folk–we couldn’t influence our way to an order…
Voices From Hell It’s all true: I have lived at Waterview Park (“The Dorm From Hell,” by an investigative reporting class at SMU, April 28) for about two years, and I am counting the days until my lease is up. The apartment is expensive, and it takes them sometimes months…
The musicians you see on these pages were not chosen by me. For the first time, we opened up the nomination process to the public, resulting in one of the most eclectic, and representative, ballots ever. Longtime bands this paper has never nominated–The Feds, Fair to Midland, Olospo–stood proudly alongside…
Undiplomatic A whistleblower in the Bolton nomination learns the power of the blogosphere On a warm, windy morning last week, in front of a neighborhood coffee shop, Melody Townsel asks herself the question that hangs in the air. “Would I do it again?” she says. She doesn’t know the answer;…
Dallas leaders often cite Houston as a city with ideas worth copying. Houston has a strong-mayor system, for instance, and its local government corporations and municipal management districts–private/public entities used to redevelop neighborhoods–are considered by some a pattern for redeveloping Dallas’ downtown. Now comes this little gem: banning BO. Last…
Waterview Sucks No lie: Great job! Finally some light is being shed on the deplorable living conditions at UTD’s Waterview Park (“The Dorm From Hell,” by an investigative reporting class at Southern Methodist University, April 28). Having lived here for three years, I am counting the days until I move…
Prathap Rajamani had been looking forward to this day. The chemical he’d ordered online had just arrived. Chloroform, a colorless liquid with a slightly sweet taste, is used today to produce Freon. But in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was used as an anesthetic. That fit Rajamani’s…
