The advertisements on the back of DART buses displayed a photograph of a cherubic child and asked, “Is it wrong to feed a Palestinian child?” Hmm. No, that wouldn’t be wrong, but sending the money as a reward to families of Palestinian suicide bombers might be, and some Dallas motorists…
The book tells how to make bombs and invisible ink, how to mix filth and food to make poison. More basically, it retells an older and uglier lesson: How to mix bad theology and twisted history with rage to create a terrorist. As with so many descriptions of real terror…
The State Fair of Texas operates as a tax-exempt nonprofit outfit because its mission supposedly is “educational.” With that in mind, Buzz dug up his old Abercrombie & Fitch baseball cap and frayed chinos and headed out for a day of post-graduate research at Fair Park University. Technically, Buzz doesn’t…
Don’t Be a Wimp Bring on the gas: In regard to Jim Schutze’s story “Fear Itself” (October 4), I personally have seen so much death in my lifetime that death itself is one thing I am no longer afraid of. The loss of my father, sister and countless friends over…
It’s not yet last call at the Lounge, the beloved bar adjacent to the Inwood Theater. On August 8, the bar’s owner, Theresa Alexander, was told by Landmark Theaters, which runs the theater and controls the Lounge’s lease, that she had 60 days to vamoose. The reason: Landmark wanted to…
A few miles east of Lake Ray Hubbard, deep in the heart of the orderly suburb of Heath, a halogen beam cuts into the darkness surrounding Barry Jordan’s two-car garage. There, amid the glow, Jordan hosts another session of Robot Builder’s Night Out, attended, as usual, by his partners Eric…
Alzheimer’s had faded Iris Carnathan to a wisp of her former self. The British-born nurse, who came to Texas as the wife of a World War II GI, could no longer tend to her beloved cats or endeavor to raise an English garden in the Texas heat. When the disease…
For Dallas homeowners and apartment dwellers, the dawn of electricity deregulation on January 1 will bring an immediate 6 percent rate cut and the chance to sign up a company besides TXU that can beat the former monopoly by a few dollars a month. But for the working poor and…
WHARTON–As the recent terrorist attack struck the Pentagon and New York’s World Trade Center, Texas pilot Jim Folks was where one would have expected him to be–in the air, enjoying the peaceful solitude and quiet satisfaction of a job he’s been doing for more than two decades. Never caught up…
Caged Animals Kill vs. no-kill: We were flattered to once again receive your Reader’s Choice award for “Best Place to Get a Pet” (Best of Dallas, September 20). We also congratulate Operation Kindness on its critics’ choice award from the Dallas Observer as “Best Place to Get a Pet.” However,…
The boy knew rage. A troublemaking, dope-smoking misfit, “Brad” was in and out of trouble with the law, and more in than out. He ran away from home, stayed out all night, stole. Then there were the fits of blinding anger, a symptom of his bipolar disorder. Doctors prescribed medication,…
-It is still there. The Dr Pepper can, the one that was in that precise spot on the end table two weeks earlier. Pat James, mother of twin teen-agers, warned it would be there, and sure enough, it is, deposited by 16-year-old Jessica. Her brother, Trey, isn’t home right now,…
Rachel wanted some pretty things for her new baby. She didn’t have money or a job, so she bought her infant’s new clothes with a stolen credit card. Even though at 16 she’s already a mother of two, by law Rachel is a juvenile, which was about the only good…
Beef industry insiders say that the federal government has backed away from a stringent new meat-inspection policy that a local beef producer claims forced his company into bankruptcy last year. Dallas’ Supreme Beef, which once provided one-fourth of the nation’s ground beef for school lunches, challenged in court the U.S…
Watching smoke billow from the World Trade Center on their new compact-car-sized high-definition TV only made the morning of September 11 seem more real, if that were possible. The TV was a gift from Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, a fan of the sports-talk station at KTCK-AM 1310 known as…
Sure, Buzz likes good city disputes, but it’s easy to nod off when they turn out like the topless bar brouhaha: official bungling followed by endless, hydra-headed court action. Before long, the whole thing becomes a muddled jobs program for lawyers. It’s too early to say for sure, but this…
Hatred’s Two-Way Street Warning to infidels: I appreciate Jim Schutze’s admonition against bigotry (“All God’s Children,” September 13). Hatred for the enemy is a great temptation in war but is no less a sin for that. In the current situation, however, the problem is not our hatred for Muslims, something…
When it was over, the August meeting of the Greater Dallas Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors appeared to have come and gone as if it were just another blasé gathering and there was no trouble whatsoever brewing in the nonprofit organization’s waters. Shortly after 6 p.m., chairman Jim…
It seems an eternity ago: On July 5, 2000, the Dallas school board’s abrupt firing of short-lived Superintendent Bill Rojas again plunged the Dallas Independent School District into uncertainty and disorder that has only recently abated. More than a year after his departure, however, records obtained by the Dallas Observer…
A fine line separates indefatigable optimism from loopiness. Buzz, whose sense of optimism abandoned us about the same time we started losing our hair many years ago, isn’t certain exactly where that line is, but we’re pretty sure that Bobby Wightman-Cervantes, once and future Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, has…
The Horror Our terrible national tragedy: Thank you, Jim Schutze, for your article “All God’s Children” (September 13). It was beautifully written and expressed many of my feelings in the aftermath of our terrible national tragedy. I, too, have a teen-age son. He just turned 16. One of my first…
Editor’s note: It’s impossible to pin down an exact moment, a single violent death or drive-by shooting, but sometime in the late ’80s and early ’90s, something strange and terrible seemed to happen in Texas and across the country. Suddenly, we were afraid of our children. A stream of news…
