Lonnie Barber, janitor-driver for the New London School, watched as young children climbed aboard his bus, laughing and horseplaying. The elementary school students–released 10 minutes earlier than their junior high and high school classmates–were in particularly high spirits that springlike Thursday afternoon of March 18, 1937. The next day had…
Political insiders always suspected that ballots mailed to certain parts of Southern Dallas were for sale. They knew the blind, the elderly and the infirm–mostly black–were told how to vote by friendly and helpful campaign workers. And they knew the ballots were sent to and collected from at-home voters by…
Now that Laura Miller has climbed to the top of Dallas’ greasy political pole, what, Buzz wonders, will happen to some of the little people who helped hoist her up there? Specifically, what will become of Web masters such as Sharon Boyd (www.dallasarena.com) and Avi Adelman (www.barkingdogs.org), who turned their…
Like Father, Like SonThe greatest newsmen: I worked with Bert Shipp for years and agree he was one of the greatest newsmen who has worked in this market. The first time I saw his son Brett (“Sail On,” February 14) on the air, I called his dad and told him…
They are known by many names, some of which are endearing, silly or downright demeaning, none of which adequately describes our cultural obsession with them. We call them boobs (too whimsical), mammaries (too medical), teats (too Shakespearean), honkers (too Man Show), jugs (too Pamela Anderson), melons (too horticultural), ta tas…
The Shipp boys were, arguably, the coolest kids in elementary school who didn’t have access to a stack of Playboys. Their dad, Bert Shipp, was a local newscast legend, having worked as a reporter and news director at Channel 5 and, beginning in 1961, at Channel 8. The other kids…
Until now, Dallas residents haven’t had to think about how to get electricity. It always came from TXU, a stodgy monopoly that was regulated by the state. All that changed on January 1, when new state laws took effect and opened up the retail energy market to other companies. Those…
They’re the Gentle Musers–said so right on Laura Miller’s T-shirt. But on Tuesday morning, George Dunham and Craig Miller, the morning-show hosts on sports-talk station KTCK-AM (1310), played gatekeepers of local politics. The highly rated Dunham and Miller show gave way to the–oh, dear God, no–“Dunning and Miller Show” as…
Vote for Dad Cookie-cutter pol: Thank you, Mr. Schutze! Thank you for reminding me why I vote (“The Envelope, Please,” February 7). I am in my mid-30s and am ashamed to say I just started voting with Clinton’s last presidential race. Now, however, I make sure that my voice is…
Late in the afternoon of July 31, 2000, a who’s who of Republicans–Texans as well as national party officials–jammed into elevators of a downtown Philadelphia office building, a few blocks from the GOP National Convention. When the doors slid open on the 50th floor, they spilled into the Top of…
At first, “The Freedman’s Memorial” 10-page workbook and teacher’s supplement looks harmless enough. A kid is depicted on the cover with his hand on his chin, head cocked, looking up thoughtfully. Inside, the books have drawings of old Dallas and a description of the long-vanished black community known as Freedman’s…
Buzz has always prided itself on being able to laugh at pretty much anything. So we expected to guffaw ourselves into incontinence when we heard that Tom Dunning’s mayoral campaign was going “urban” and had produced a rap ad being aired on KKDA-FM. Then we heard the ad. We didn’t…
Pants on Fire Something smells: I never expected to become a Laura Miller supporter in the race for Dallas’ next mayor, but something smells in Dallas, and I believe it’s Domingo “The Liar” Garcia (“Someone’s Lying,” January 31). Clearly he doesn’t expect that we (the voters) are all so shallow…
Eamonn Bowles was lying in the white Florida sand, sharing a bottle of champagne with friends, when he heard The Voice rumbling behind him. “Which one of you guys is Eamonn Bowles?” bellowed the large approaching figure, who spoke the way volcanoes erupt and strutted like the world’s most powerful…
Technically, Dallas County residents will be able to cast a vote in two local judicial races–one for the 68th civil district bench and the second for County Court at Law No. 5–in November. Not that it matters; the winners already have been selected. “If you have a case in court,…
Buzz has been a bit afraid to go to sleep lately. For decades we’ve been a proud, left-leaning, pro-choice, social-program-supporting, anti-drug-war liberal, but apparently there’s something in the water in Dallas that takes perfectly normal people of the Democratic stripe and turns them into (shudder) Republicans. It’s happened with mayoral…
You Retard KKK diatribe: Can you be any more bigoted, Wilonsky? OK, you don’t like Sean Penn as a person or actor (“Sam I Slam,” January 24). Fine. You think a movie about people with autism is needless pandering for an Oscar, maybe. But when you refer to people with…
Bill Wisener’s right index finger is stained a ghoulish shade of orange. It gleams almost Day-Glo against the starched white of the Carlton cigarettes he chains together in one seamless series of puffs. To his right is a black-and-white monitor with the screen broken into four quadrants, his eyes on…
Rick Day has dedicated his life to two causes: marijuana and barbecued beef. Although he has smoked both–the latter as an award-winning caterer, the former as a die-hard stoner–it’s pot that has ignited his political conscience. He has shouted down Drug Enforcement Administration agents at local high school drug forums,…
I have a theory. This conjecture involves former colleague Laura Miller, who is running for mayor, and the executives at The Dallas Morning News, who hate her. The theory is simple. It’s the horny churchgoer theory. In other words, the paper will do anything it can to screw Miller, so…
Naim Alasaad would like Buzz to deliver the following message to mayoral candidate Laura Miller and anyone else with bright ideas about breathing life into downtown: This is Texas. It gets hot in the summer. That’s obvious, you say? You suspect she already knows that? Then why, oh why does…
Let the Madwomen Rule True grit: Where did you dig up this Dave Vance (Letters, January 10)? He must have been living in a cave for the past 100 years. The North Dallas businessmen who have been running this city since my advent in ’57 have driven it into the…
