Texas Monthly articles from August 2004

Texas Monthly archives from August 2004

War stories: George W. Bush and John Kerry can each tell you what he did--or didn't do--during Vietnam. (So, for that matter, can I.) Why should that be an issue in the presidential race?(Vietnam War, 1959-1975)
August 1, 2004... The decisive issue in the presidential race, all the savants agree, will be how voters view the war. But which war? There are so many to choose from. The fighting goes on in Iraq, the hunt for Osama bin Laden proceeds in Afghanistan, and the...

Coastal disturbance.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
August 1, 2004... I loved "Coasting," by Suzy Banks, and noted the sting in its tail--that one should visit Seabrook's Pine Gully Park in a hurry because a giant container port at nearby Bayport threatens to overwhelm the area [June 2004]. But maybe not, Bayport...

Ed lock.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
August 1, 2004... Much of Paul Burka's analysis of the special session on school finance ["An F for Effort," June 2004] was accurate, but his conclusions of "hate" motives were way off the mark. He claims that I personally hate "education advocates." That is...

The yolk's on him.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
August 1, 2004... I cannot believe Jan Jarboe Russell called a Harvard professor an "egghead" ["Viva la Diferencia," June 2004]. Here in the Rio Grande Valley we have a much lower opinion of him. We are about 90 percent Mexican American, and we struggle to make...

Dave rave.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
August 1, 2004... In the early days of quality country-music journalism, Dave Hickey's byline was a beacon for discerning fans. Then he went off and became a big-time art critic. Now, seeing his name once again on a Waylon Jennings essay ["His Mickey Mouse...

Salad days.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
August 1, 2004... Anne Dingus's article about Jell-O, "Going for the Jiggler," brought back some fond memories (and some not so fond) of Jell-O salads my mother concocted back in the fifties [June 2004]. Ms. Dingus must have lived on the "rich" end of Pampas...

August: people, places, events, attractions.(exhibition of Anne Frank: A Private Photo Album)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... 08.05.2004 More times than not, Anne Frank is the singular face, doe-eyed and smiling, we use to represent the whole of the Holocaust tragedy, the one that stands in for more than 11 million faceless others. This month, however, with the...

Around the state: wheelchair accessibility key.
August 1, 2004... (W) The place is accessible to wheelchairs: The main entrance is at least 32 inches wide and there are no steps; restrooms, however, are not accessible. (W+) The place and its restrooms are accessible. No symbol: This place is not...

Catching air.(kitesurfing training)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... Whether you call it kiteboarding or kitesurfing, riding a surfboard while strapped to a kite is not for the timid. As Jeff Chilcoat, of Corpus Christi Kitesurfing, told us, "On a good day, my kite can pull a car." We recommend proper...

Wake up, Texas.(wakeboarding)(Brief Article)(Interview)
August 1, 2004... Billy North finished sixth in overall point standings in the Outlaw Division at the DallasWakeboarding.com 2004 Tournament Series. The twenty-year-old Austinite plans to compete in the Vans Triple Crown of Wakeboarding event in Indianapolis...

Fancy footwork.(2004 Barefoot Water Ski National Championships)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... In 1947, three years before Cypress Gardens hosted the first barefoot waterskiing competition, Dick Pope Jr. (right) became the first person to step off a ski. Well, maybe. Some believe that honor goes to A. G. Hancock. There's no disputing,...

Down in the valley.(Gloria Estefan's national tour)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... When the Queen of Latin Pop takes the Dodge Arena stage, in Hidalgo, on July 30, the small border town will have pulled off a musical coup. How often does a big-time performer like Gloria Estefan kick off a national tour in the Rio Grande...

Hilary Duff.(tour)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... Hilary Duff is on her first national tour, and as luck would have it, she'll be performing in Austin, Grand Prairie; and Lubbock this month...

Los Lonely Boys.(tour)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... San Angelo's Los Lonely Boys, the new wunderband, is on another national tour (sorry, no Texas dates scheduled in August)...

Willie Nelson.(tour)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... Willie Nelson is on his millionth national tour (no Texas dates as of yet) but this time with Bob Dylan at--believe it or not--minor league baseball stadiums. (See pages 22, 24, and 44.)

Good company.(Coming attractions / The month in music.)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... John Ritter, best known for his role in the TV sitcom Three's Company, might seem an unlikely dedicatee for this year's TEXAS COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME INDUCTION CEREMONY, in Carthage. But in fact, the homage makes perfect sense. For years...

First in flight: last March, when Army private Brandon Hughey, of San Angelo, deserted to Canada, some Texans openly called for his execution. But three months later, Hughey is very much alive--and hoping more soldiers will follow his lead.(Letter From Canada)(Biography)
August 1, 2004... St. Catharines, Ontario, a town of 130,000 residents twenty minutes northwest of Niagara Falls, New York, is no stranger to fleeing Americans. It was the first stop for slaves brought into Canada by the Underground Railroad in the 1800's....

Orange crush: will the Longhorns finally win another national championship? And if not, will we stop loving Mack Brown before Saturday?(Conference call / A candid conversation with the experts.)
August 1, 2004... KEYES: I'll get right to it: Can the Longhorns win a national championship this year? BOHLS: Absolutely. I think the pieces are in place. They may have had better Texas teams since Mack Brown has been here, but I think he probably has the...

Por Vida: a Tribute to the Songs of Alejandro Escovedo.
August 1, 2004... 1 Since ending his leather-clad rocker days as one of Austin's incendiary True Believers, Alejandro Escovedo has more or less crafted his own genre of introspective, mystical, and musically wide-ranging solo work. He's also played almost...

Drag It Up.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... 2 Sneer at pretty boys like OLD 97'S front man, Rhett Miller, if you must. All dimples aside, he's every inch the real thing. So's the band. The revved-up Dallas country-rockers went on a brief hiatus while Miller dabbled in solo pop...

Rift.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... 3 "Spooky action at a distance" was Albert Einstein's delightfully nontechnical description of quantum entanglement, the complex subatomic phenomenon that has been in the news of late and could someday enable matter to be teleported from...

Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... 4 UT-El Paso professor BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ's author bio dubs him a fronterizo, "a person of the border," and his sweetly gritty novel SAMMY AND JULIANA IN HOLLYWOOD (Cinco Puntos Press) is indeed a loving tribute to Chicano culture in the...

Dirty Sally.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... 5 DIRTY SALLY (Viking), the full-throttle detective noir from onetime Austin probation officer MICHAEL SIMON, transforms Texas's famously laid-back capital city into a dank pit of crack, prostitution, and murder. This fictional walk on...

Numbers game: do polls accurately reflect how we feel about the upcoming presidential election? It depends on who's conducting them--and who's spinning the results.(FAQ / Christopher Keyes in the story behind the story.)
August 1, 2004... It seems like a new presidential election poll is released every three days. Do the numbers mean anything? "In the right hands, a poll is a really useful tool," explains Missouri City native Paul Begala, a veteran political consultant who is a...

Signs of trouble: can the embattled Democratic congressmen targeted by Tom DeLay's congressional redistricting plan save their seats? Well, what are their "Dewhurst numbers"?
August 1, 2004... On a recent campaign swing through West Texas, Democratic congressman Charlie Stenholm was dressed in standard-issue Texas politico wear: button-down shirt, tie, slightly fraying khakis, hand-tooled black belt, and black cowboy boots. But not...

The rat unpacks: up to my eyeballs in horny toad figurines and Grand Prize Beer bottle openers, I've decided to part with my collection of vintage Texana. Anybody want a Davy Crockett hanky?(personal narratives)
August 1, 2004... I'm just a girl who can't say no. To anyone who asks--male or female, rich or poor, young or old--I can barely get a "yes" out fast enough. I accommodate friends, of course, as well as the occasional total stranger. My cheeks flush, my knees...

White like me: as a middle-class teenager growing up in Carrollton, I didn't think much about race. Then I read John Howard Griffin's searing account of crossing the color line.
August 1, 2004... When the Supreme Court handed down its groundbreaking Brown v. Board of Education decision fifty years ago, I was working on my curveball and didn't notice. There were other momentous events of 194, of course--the McCarthy hearings, the various...

David Carr: the 24-year-old quarterback of the Houston Texans on faith, family, fame, and what it's like to get sacked over and over and over again.(Talks)(Interview)(Cover Story)
August 1, 2004... So the rumors about your hair are true: You won't cut it until the Texans win two consecutive games. Actually, I got it trimmed a couple of times. My wife made me. It started out because I was frustrated that we hadn't ever won two in a row. My...

Wheels of fortune: to the delight of automakers in Detroit and elsewhere, there's only one vehicle that matters to every single Texan: the pickup. And no wonder. Whether it's a West Texas ranch hand or a suburban soccer mom behind the wheel, the pickup says a lot about who we are--and who we'd like to be.(pickup trucks)
August 1, 2004... If pickups are a religion in Texas, Red McCombs is the missionary who took the gospel from the sticks to the city. In 1958 McCombs quit peddling Edsels in Corpus Christi and moved to San Antonio to become partners in a Ford dealership with a...

The man with the plan: long before the Texas legislature did battle over redistricting, Tom DeLay knew exactly what he wanted: the defeat of five to seven white democratic congressmen by appropriately conservative, sufficiently loyal republicans. And he knew how to get it.(Biography)
August 1, 2004... Tom DeLay has a rare gift for planning ahead, for being able to conceive a chessboard and a sequence of moves that sprawls across years. Then the majority whip of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Sugar Land Republican decided he was going...

Bombshells away: sixty years ago, WWII serviceman decorated the noses of their airplanes for power and good luck. With the largest collection of their artwork now assembled--and permanently on display in Midland--there's little doubt where they found their inspiration.(World War II serviceman)
August 1, 2004... IN 1946 MINOT PRATT was the general manager of an aviation salvage company in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas. It was the end of World War II, and the Aircraft Conversion Company, as the enterprise was called, was charged with breaking down thousands of...

The daughter also rises: the Bush-Richards wars in Texas were supposed to have ended ten years ago--and we all know who won. But with Ann's daughter Cecile overseeing the most well-funded effort to unseat a presidential incumbent in history, any talk of a cease-fire is officially over.(Biography)
August 1, 2004... THE MOST MEMORABLE quote of the 1988 Democratic National Convention came from Ann Richards, then the Texas state treasurer and one of the party's brightest rising stars. "Poor George," she said in the keynote address, referring to George H. W....

Dad vs. the dress code: when I was in the sixth grade in San Marcos, my rabble-rousing father fought the rules that dictated what I could wear to school. My hip-huggers survived, but I almost didn't.(personal narratives)
August 1, 2004... In 1971, when I was a sixth grader at Lamar Intermediate School, in San Marcos, my homeroom teacher handed her students a document titled "Student Dress and Grooming." It had to do with skirt lengths and hair lengths, shirttails and socks....

Pat's pick: Fireside Pies.(August: restaurants, cafes, bistros, joints)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... What, me praise a pizzeria? Two months ago I would have questioned my sanity. But that was before I discovered distinctly un-cheesy Dallas newcomer Fireside Pies. This place has the right stuff: crisp, hand-stretched crusts, classy toppings,...

The Dining Guide: policies and definitions.
August 1, 2004... The Dining Guide is a service to our readers. The magazine accepts no advertising or other consideration in exchange for a listing. Reviews are written by resident critics in the cities that we list. The reviewers' identities are kept anonymous...

Hep cat.(The basics / Flavors and foods you can use.)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... Big lips, wiry whiskers, a questionable lifestyle: The catfish is like that distant uncle at your family reunion--peculiar-looking, a little shady, and uninspiring at mealtime. Relegated to the culinary backwaters as a bottom feeder, even...

The wedding partyer: at the Mexico City nuptials of a mutual friend, between swigs of tequila, I bonded with--of all people--Pat Green. I now pronounce us friends for life.(personal narratives)
August 1, 2004... The last place you'd expect to begin a beautiful friendship with Pat Green would be at a Jewish wedding in Mexico City. But there he was, looking like the Jolly Green Giant, trying to open a bottle of tequila while repeatedly adjusting the...