At 4:30 on a Wednesday afternoon, 11 grade-school kids sit quietly at metal desks in a borrowed classroom. The only sounds are the scuffing of pencil on paper and occasional sighs. Heads bent in concentration, the children mow down pages and pages of math problems while their teacher paces unobtrusively…
Until the early afternoon of November 24, 1963, Dallas police chief Jesse Curry had been everything the media asked of him. He was courteous, impossibly patient, willing to answer their questions–every damned one of them. At 50, Curry–a burly, soft-spoken man who looked like the smartest football player in the…
When former Dallas city election manager Jeff Watson announced 14 months ago he had accepted a job as elections administrator for Denton County, he thought the new position was an opportunity he just couldn’t pass up. The new gig came with expanded responsibilities in a considerably larger political arena, which…
At press time, paroled killer Michael Lee Davis, also known as Walter Waldhauser Jr., was being held in the Collin County Jail without bail. In the 1970s, Waldhauser arranged the contract murders of four Houston residents, including a 14-month-old boy. Though Waldhauser was convicted of three counts of capital murder…
If at first you don’t succeed… So Jesse Diaz is all set to attempt yet another ascent up the greasy pole and run for the Dallas school board seat so quickly vacated by Don “See ya later” Venable. That leads to the obvious question–no offense to Diaz–Is this the best…
PTA split The Dallas Council of PTAs (DCPTA) board of managers voted not to support the districtwide Sirota survey [“Trojan horse,” November 12] based on its belief that the survey would promote a voucher system and that the survey would not be owned by the district but by the Sirota…
Bart Sipriano sits on the hood of a run-down pickup truck parked outside his shack and takes in a slice of East Texas he’s proud to call his very own. There’s a meadow, flowering weeds and tall grasses rippling in the breeze. There’s an old barn, exposed to the elements…
Call it the little airline that could–if someone only would let it. Legend Airlines basically had its wings clipped before ever taking to the sky. The airline that launched a thousand lawsuits after announcing plans to fly long-haul service out of Love Field has been caught in the acrimonious, costly…
Walter Waldhauser Jr., the middleman in one of Houston’s most infamous greed-driven murder-for-hire plots who is apparently still attempting to make money off the deaths of others, could soon find himself behind bars again. Following an October 22 article (“Death merchant”) that appeared in the Dallas Observer and its sister…
The Thrilla on Marilla, Part 2 Buzz is not a regular at Dallas City Council meetings, but after sitting in on last week’s session, that may change. This isn’t because of any newfound fascination with City Hall, we’re ashamed to say. It’s because we’re swine, and we would hate to…
The guy who loves the Mavs Fantastic article on Kevin Sullivan [“Hoop dreams,” November 12]. I grew up in Dallas just as the Mavs were born. As a nine-year-old, I remember attending the team’s first pre-season game. When I read about Sullivan’s passion for the Mavericks, it didn’t strike me…
As Albertson’s readies for the biggest zoning battle Dallas has seen in 20 years–a fight prompted by the grocery giant’s plan to build a mammoth, suburban-style store in East Dallas despite objections from many who live there–the company’s local team is learning how important it is for them to get…
Beverly Hills wine retailer Dennis Overstreet is animated. He enters the dining room of Lone Wolf, the restaurant-cigar lounge he operates with Texas television and film star Chuck Norris and actor Jim Belushi, wearing a dark suit with a long scarf hanging from his neck. He stops by one table…
It is Saturday in Plano, a day when droves of well-heeled suburbanites gather at the mall or on the soccer field. As usual, Mali Subbiah is not among them. Instead, the Indian immigrant toils in a drab, crowded room in his suburban office suite. A “cheesy little sign,” as one…
We hardly knew ye The Irrelevant Party, formerly known as the Texas Democratic Party, held a series of wakes around Austin on election night. The Republicans, on the other hand, gathered all their statewide candidates together for a single huge election-night celebration at the Austin Convention Center. (Buzz will refrain…
Dallas public school moms are mad as hell. Not all the mothers who send their children to DISD, mind you, and not even all the moms who serve on the PTA, those tireless saints who give their blood, sweat, tears, and baked goods to their children’s schools. No, the moms…
It’s Friday night when Lynn Kopp opens the door of her small single-story house off Story Road in Irving. Seeing a reporter, she doesn’t even ask what it’s about. “I have not seen him since October 2, 1992, after his father died,” says the 60-year-old former sales secretary, cutting to…
The deepest cut There are numerous inaccurate claims in the article “Prime cut” [November 5]. Let me comment only on your statements that male circumcision may be “mutilating” infant boys, and allegedly has no health benefits. Curious about the recent appearance of so many newspaper and magazine articles that denigrate…
DJ EZ Eddie D is late. It’s three minutes after 5 p.m., three minutes after his weekly radio show on KNON-FM (89.3) should have started, and he isn’t here. If Eddie D were the host of any other radio show, his tardiness wouldn’t be such a big deal. But Eddie…
On a gray Sunday morning at the Eldorado Country Club in McKinney, Rabbi Michael Rovinsky stands in a high-ceilinged back room that’s nearly empty except for a few chairs. He’s a mohel (the Yiddicized pronunciation is “moil”), a rabbi authorized by Judaic certification to perform the bris milah, the Jewish…
Every community in the world has some small subset of busy bees who work behind the scenes to make things happen, but in Dallas it’s always been much more than that, almost as if the delicious, exciting, vaguely sleazy appeal of secret power is the city’s dark and fatal flaw–the…
I shall whine no more forever Noisy activist-type guy Lee Alcorn gets to stay in the race for president of the NAACP’s Dallas chapter–for now, anyway. But the stage is set for a potentially nasty dispute if he manages to win the November 21 election. The national NAACP has been…
