News
Drones or Gitmo?
It’s a false choice.GWYNNE DYER
John Bellinger is the last person you’d expect to criticize President Barack Obama for making too many drone strikes. It was he who drafted the (rather unconvincing) legal justification for targeted drone killings when he was...
Watching the Door
Two bills to limit cities’ power over the gas industry aren’t moving now — but they might.PETER GORMAN
It’s a truism of the Texas Legislature that killing “bad” legislation is as important as passing the “good” kind. Under that theory, it would seem that critics of the shale gas industry would be celebrating the fact t...
Cellar Dwellers
A local filmmaker documents a historic Fort Worth music club.KRISTIAN LIN
With the Cellar, what’s legend and what’s real …” said Giles McCrary, trailing off, implying that they’re hard to tell apart. He’s made it his job to figure that out, though. The genial, bearded 60-year-old wasn’t...
Numb and Dumber
STATICA simple reason explains why Fort Worth Weekly was among the country’s first news media to point out that fracking by natural gas drillers could threaten water supplies, and yet regulatory agencies weren’t paying attention....
Hooked
Legislators can’t shake the lottery habit.DAVE McNEELY
Ah, the lottery. Texas House members recently voted to kill it, some posturing to curry favor with anti-gambling constituents. But everyone was surprised — including some of the posturers — when the sunset review bill to co...
Home, Home on the Landfill
Thirty years of trash later, a Westside hill welcomes back wildlife.JEFF PRINCE
Westbound motorists on I-30 enjoy a lovely view near the Linkcrest Drive exit in far west Fort Worth. No, not the honkytonks, boarded-up liquor store, and adult video store whose big yellow “XXX” sign is missing half an X. ...
Answering the Call
Randal Goodwin lost both legs fighting fires more than 20 years ago, but he headed to West to help anyway.ANNABELLE MASSEY MALLOY photos by Mike malloy
When Randal Goodwin heard the rumble outside his home in rural Cleburne, just before 8 p.m. on April 17, he thought it was thunder. “We were edgy,” Goodwin said. “We were still reeling from the Boston bombing on Monday an...
Opposition — like the Tar Sands — Runneth Over
STATICAs the tar sands spill in Arkansas — brought to you by Exxon — continues to poison the neighborhood, wetlands and now parts of formerly bucolic Lake Conway, news coverage of the spill and cleanup effort has diminished to al...
Bad Choices
’Twixt the devil and a big hot world.GWYNNE DYER
There are, we are told, only two options: We stop burning fossil fuels before our carbon dioxide emissions drive the planet’s average temperature up by a full 2 degrees Celsius, in which case we will push the world into the b...
Persevering for Prairie
Part of the long-sought park is now protected.JEFF PRINCE
Teenagers from a Fort Worth homeless shelter climbed out of a van and looked across what seemed a vast prairie to their urban eyes. They were at the Fort Worth Prairie Park to get some fresh air and a change of scenery. Leading...