TRINIDAD–Alicia Gray, a pistol strapped to her right hip and extra ammunition in place around her thin waist, squinted into the blistering noonday sun and made her point with neither histrionics nor anger. Leaning against a padlocked gate bearing signs warning trespassers on her family’s property to beware, she said…
The platter of Swedish meatballs told the whole story. Each ball was chewy and just the right size to pop into your mouth at a political function and still be able to work the room with no fear of spillage. Yet these balls were too abundant, a mountain of meat…
Three years ago, Cathy Bonner stored her dream in a Tupperware container as she lugged it to prospective benefactors; next month, the 50-year-old Dallas native will swing open the doors of that fantasy: a women’s history museum in a restored Fair Park building. As board president and founder of what…
SEEDless: Conventional wisdom says that if something isn’t broken, don’t fix it. Sadly, conventional wisdom isn’t so conventional at Dallas Independent School District headquarters, and a good, working program will soon be broke. The new DISD budget likely will slash funding for Project SEED, an 18-year-old program that brings top…
Kiss your butts goodbye Mr. [Dick] Simkanin (“Taxing Situation,” August 10) will soon be going through a living hell, and he’ll deserve every painful moment. In fact, he belongs in a very special level of IRS hell for dragging his poor employees behind him. Even though his employees should know…
When Bill Price entered a room full of politicians, his droopy eyes would light up, his blasé demeanor would turn commanding. The same thing happened when a TV camera started rolling or a reporter questioned his mission or his motives. Off camera, he spoke softly, measuring his words, but stick…
Cloaked in darkness, 10 Drug Enforcement Administration agents close in on a rickety trailer in rural Navarro County. They’re about 55 miles south of Dallas just off Interstate 45 in a typically barren, woodsy section of North Texas, unspectacular in its rustic appeal–or its drug problem. Like any other county…
It’s peak season down at the Dallas Farmers Market, and the peaches are tasty. Melons are huge and choice, tomatoes ripe and plump, and the flowers are blooming. But not everything is peaceful in the garden. Far from it. The vendors have organized for the first time and have drafted…
Like the lure of downtown parks to pigeons, the city of Dallas can’t stop attracting litigation from topless clubs angered by increasingly restrictive laws against their businesses. The latest lawsuit comes from a strip club that, until now, hasn’t been a starring player in Dallas’ long-running titty-bar wars, yet its…
John Forsyth was less than thrilled when he got the news. Forsyth, editor of the Fort Worth alternative paper FW Weekly since Day One in April 1996, had heard rumors that the newspaper was about to be sold to those evil bastards from Phoenix–widely reviled New Times Inc., the largest…
Surprise, surprise: So former Dallas NAACP President Lee Alcorn developed a taste for his foot last week regarding the nomination of “Jew person” (Alcorn’s phrase) Joe Lieberman as the Democratic vice presidential candidate. Someone tell Buzz, What exactly was so surprising? Was it that Alcorn might harbor anti-Semitic feelings in…
Money for Nothing Ron Kirk, Esquire: I am a Summer Associate at a prominent Dallas law firm. My firm is often compared to Gardere & Wynne, although we are a little bigger and, I think, better. There is a lot of truth to the article (“Conspicuous Presumption,” August 3), in…
Cold embrace How confusing it must be for old-school, pro-family, Christian-right Republicans now, watching the GOP lurch toward the center, toward inclusiveness, toward sodomy. Some longtime GOP faithful must be feeling like the devoted wife suddenly cast aside for a younger woman — or man, as the case may be.For…
“Hey, lookit — Superman’s got a boner,” says The Joker, giggling beneath his white makeup. “Hey, Superman! Is that kryptonite in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?” The Joker keeps laughing, and suddenly, beneath the green hair and purple suit, he sounds like a 12-year-old girl, perhaps…
The business used a lot of cable and amplifiers and low-tech electronic gadgets with names like “load isolators” and “heliax.” That much is evident on the videotape his daughter’s attorney shot a few weeks after Randy James Angle went on the lam.Inside Angle’s shop in an industrial section of Garland…
Dick Simkanin lights a cigarette, leans back in his chair behind the desk in his office, and casually speaks the words that could ruin his business and land himself and his employees in jail.”We at Arrow Custom Plastics choose not to withhold any federal income taxes from our employees,” he…
Louis Farrakhan was in pain. He had lost six units of blood, and his doctor feared the worst. But the Nation of Islam leader somehow survived his ordeal with prostate cancer, and by December 1999 he was telling reporters that he was a new man.”We must try to end the…
Where Did Our PLUR Go? Raving mad: I think this article is absolutely disgusting. I am new to the rave scene (“The Straight Dope,” August 3), but this is not why I go to raves. I can honestly say that I and more than 100 of my closest friends go…
The Russian musician who played at The Old Warsaw restaurant impressed Jim Blythe. When the music stopped, the Russian and the rest of his quartet took a break, sitting at a table near Blythe’s group.An immigrant, the Russian lamented that his job at a grocery store paid little and occupied…
Mike Looney vividly remembers his most nerve-racking day as a parent. It happened in early February of last year, when his oldest daughter, Sloan, made an unlikely life transition, officially leaving the exclusive milieu of private education in Dallas, a thriving industry not known for defections, for the less heralded…
Charlie Whitney wasn’t thinking about personality tests last month when he walked into Dave & Buster’s looking for work as a bartender. His previous experiences with interviewing and job hunting were exceptionally humane: references from acquaintances, informal meetings with bar owners, and a firm pressing of palms as a contract…
They love rave, these 10 teens at Irving Mall’s food court. Seated with them around some tables, “party kid” Trey Mosmeyer is talking about starting a local chapter of DanceSafe, an organization based in Berkeley, California. He’s seen ravers get too loaded at parties and agrees with DanceSafe’s tactics: providing…
