Because it's early and we have a long day ahead of ourselves, we'll leave it to you to read precisely why Barking Dog Avi Adelman and Whisky Bar owner Jim Slaughter have a beef with each other. Us, we're not really that interested in the whys and hows, only in...
Dallas' Connie Tipado, who took in dozens of Katrina evacuees Local filmmaker Ginny Martin spent the past two years exploring the impact of Hurricane Katrina through the lens of one African-American family. She followed them as they tried to find their way after losing their homes and community when the...
Take her off the bench and Sharon Keller is funny, smart and personable, if a little shy. People genuinely like her. One of the most powerful judges in Texas plays gin every week with a group of Austin friends and enjoys sharing drinks with lawyers who've just tried to persuade...
That stench—horribly foul, like excrement sprinkled with cheap, rosy perfume. It had been 24 years since she smelled it last, but the odor was unmistakable. Someone had spread powder all over Joy's front porch. That's where the odor was coming from. She refused to touch it. Rain would wash the...
Well, I think I’m going to miss our Trinity River toll road campaign, though I can’t explain why. As in, why was it so contentious to decide whether to build a road we’re not entirely sure we can build through a park we’re not confident we can have? Somehow, this...
A few weeks ago, backstage at the Granada Theater during the Dallas Observer Muic Awards, I mentioned to Paul Slavens how much I love his Sunday-night show on KERA-FM (90.1). Then I spent the next 20 minutes bitching about how it's such a damned shame that KERA doesn't play music...
"You don't meet the book when you meet the writer," the novelist William Gibson has said. "You meet the place where it lives." A relatively uncontroversial remark about the people who vent their imaginations on the page — no one should expect Philip Roth to sound exactly like Nathan Zuckerman...
Lyfe Jennings is living proof that convicts actually can be rehabilitated. At 15, the R&B artist from Toledo, Ohio, was ordered to serve between two and 10 years for arson. With good behavior, Jennings could have been released in two, but his turbulent nature resulted in his serving the whole...
Even The Dallas Morning News yesterday called for the governor to stop Thursday's scheduled execution of Kenneth Foster. The September issue of Texas Monthly features a long story by Michael Hall on Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, who is “rethinking the concept of guilt and innocence.” (The story deals,...
The "world" section at your local music retailer is just a way to pile together all the stuff that isn't from America or the U.K. It really isn't fair that bossanova joints can be found right next to some Riverdance jams, but English-born Sri Lankan M.I.A.'s latest, Kala, truly deserves...
The Pillowman is a creepy name for a play. It makes me think of the super-creepy chief antagonist in those Saw movies. Or maybe the Pillowman is like the Spoon Man in that Soundgarden song—some scary street performer who does weird things with pillows. Actually, though, this play is more...
It was conceived a decade ago as a one-off event—wham, bam, phew. It didn't even have an official name: Most knew it at the time only as Good/Bad Art Collective Benefit 22, the latest link in the heavy chain of events staged by Chris Weber, Martin Iles and the rest...
As of today, Greg Wallis is suing everyone he believes responsible for his wrongful imprisonment. For the second time in two weeks, a Dallas County man exonerated with DNA evidence has filed a federal civil rights and malicious prosecution lawsuit. And this one has a couple of twists. Greg Wallis,...
Mark Graham Sequina Moore lives in the Pleasant Village Apartments, one of two Dallas complexes bought by a Portland-based property management company. Two issues ago we spotlighted the efforts of a Portland, Oregon-based property management company that's attempting to turn around one of the worst apartment complexes in Dallas. To...
Brian Harkin Because we'll be damned if this picture, which goes with this item, isn't the first thing you see all weekend. We've already awarded it a Pulitzer Prize, a Nobel Peace Prize, the Humanitas Prize and, of course, four Katie Awards. See ya tomorrow, or whenever the city secretary...
In the new Neil Jordan movie, Jodie Foster plays New York talk radio DJ Erica Bain, who survives a vicious Central Park mugging and becomes an urban crusader devoted to cleaning up the city—with a Glock instead of a broom. Yes, The Brave One is that movie: the one with...
The thing you most want to do on a national holiday? We surveyed 137 imaginary Dallas-area people and came up with these results: 47 percent said sleep, 32 percent said some combination of or something similar to "drink beer, watch Jerry Springer and Oprah" [if on a weekday, we assume]...
Read The Dallas Morning News' coverage of the Minnesota bridge collapse closely for the story you will not see: What is the truth behind the claim of the Trinity toll road/signature bridge boosters that all of the major freeway bridges in downtown Dallas are slated for replacement, anyway? I’m so...
It was the kind of day when even a quick dash across a parking lot means a sticky, sweaty shirt and glistening hairline. Despite the heat, Shelly sat in her car, her hands gripping the steering wheel, her heart pounding. For 30 minutes, the blond, beautiful woman sat shaking. The...
Craig Watkins sure is putting the "DA" in "DNA." This week's Observer cover story on DNA exonerations will be available shortly, but recent news about the case of Clay Chabot proves that these revelations of dubious convictions are just going to keep on coming. And, as District Attorney Craig Watkins...
Late at night, alone in the woods, a group of film students at work on a no-budget horror film called The Death of Death are interrupted by — the death of death. Reports of animated corpses feeding on human flesh come over the radio and are met with nervous skepticism;...
Flood, Karen Kunc (2002) Cheat Sheet on Petition Signatures Total number of signatures collected by TrinityVote: 91,000 Of those, total number certified by City Secretary Deborah Watkins as valid: 52,500 Total number required by law to call a referendum on the Trinity Toll Road: 48,000 Surplus of certified signatures: 4,500...
