Texas Monthly articles from December 2004

Texas Monthly archives from December 2004

TexasMonthly.com.
December 1, 2004... THIS MONTH'S CODE TO ACCESS STORIES ONLINE * LONESTAR Hot Plates Senior editor Patricia Sharpe, who wrote this month's cover story, talks about Texans' love affair with Mexican food. "Just Hit It" Contributing editor Turk...

Why Bush won: the war in Iraq is going badly, and the economy isn't much better, but the president's victory proves the wisdom of an old political adage: you can't beat somebody with nobody.(Behind the Lines)
December 1, 2004... I voted for George W. Bush for president. This will hardly come as a surprise to regular readers of this magazine; earlier this year, when I wrote about how disappointed I was that President Bush had not governed like Governor Bush, I concluded...

Damage control.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2004... Please correct your headline and story by Anne Dingus ["A Texas Survival Kit," October 2004]. Fire ants do not bite--they sting It is amazing how many people think ants, wasps, and bees bite. They can carry or hold on to an object with their...

Excitations.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2004... How can people so easily kick a family that has already been knocked so low ["Good Vibrations," October 2004]? It wasn't enough that the leadership of our city government was so moved by gossip that, instead of talking to me, they decided to...

Parent trap.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2004... I get home from work at five o'clock. If I am lucky, dinner is ready by five-thirty. Since the bus comes at a quarter till seven in the morning, the kids need to be in bed by seven each night or their behavior is horrible the next day. This...

School daze.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2004... Americans have a habit of giving up on complex, painful problems unless there are simple solutions. The dropout issue is no different, and Mr. Burka appears to have thrown in the towel with the rest of us [Behind the Lines, "Incomplete,"...

Seeing green.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2004... After the University of Texas's 51-21 victory over Texas Tech on October 23, Mack Brown and Bob Stoops should be the lucky recipients of ten years' worth of subscriptions to your fine publication, courtesy of Mr. Brian Papworth, "no questions...

Wonderland of Lights.(People, Places, Events, Attractions)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... 12.2004 The sparkling Old Harrison County Courthouse may be the crown jewel in Marshall's WONDERLAND OF LIGHTS, but it's certainly not the whole tiara. Almost everybody in town gets into this festival, festooning homes and businesses with...

Around the state.(People, Places, Events, Attractions)(Calendar)
December 1, 2004... Austin Music/Dance DEC 2: DOLLY PARTON With more than ZOO shows lined up for her current tour, Hello, I'm Dolly, Ms Parton seems artistically recharged this past decade, returning to her bluegrass roots with a series of...

Dreaming of a Gruene Christmas.(Play dates: for kids and the kid in you.)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... He goes by many names--Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas--but he prefers to be called Cowboy Kringle when he's in Gruene. And, whaddaya know, he'll be there December 4 and 5 for the GRUENE CHRISTMAS MARKET DAYS, when nearly one...

Great expectations.(Play dates: for kids and the kid in you.)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Considering all the misery one finds in a Charles Dickens novel, it's often easy to overlook the scribe's more jovial sentiments. Except, of course, when it comes to the holidays (think of the rhapsodic "Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us...

Sunny days.(Play dates: for kids and the kid in you.)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Nothing says "Happy Holidays" quite like a sixty-foot nylon Big Bird. The friendly fowl from the Sesame Street block, along with a cast of much-loved characters like Bob the Builder, Strawberry Shortcake, and Elmo (with fishbowl), will fly high...

Michael Martin Murphey.(Coming attractions: the month in music.)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... The "Wildfire" singer-songwriter will be playing in Austin. Fort Worth, Waco, Wichita Falls, and five other cities in Texas on his 2004 Cowboy Christmas tour. How would you define a "cowboy Christmas"? It's a Western-style event that shows...

The caves are alive.(Coming attractions: the month in music.)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Before yet another rendition of "Frosty the Snowman" threatens to push you over the edge this year, take preemptive action and embrace the season's classics. On the first three Friday and Saturday nights in December, Natural Bridge Caverns,...

O little town.(Coming attractions: the month in music.)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Though the beloved "mare" of Luckenbach was replaced with a more formal "manager of oversight" three years ago, the town where everybody is somebody still draws many for its annual COWBOY HOLIDAY BALL. Now, we warn you: Nobody here dons green...

Shock therapy: this August, talk-show psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw arrived in Elgin promising to tape a year's worth of shows that would make the Central Texas town "a shining example on the American landscape." Then the first episode aired--and suddenly it's the host who has all the issues.(Letter From Elgin)
December 1, 2004... It seems everybody in Elgin is keeping tabs on what Jim Dunaway is eating these days. Wherever the 49-year-old city manager goes to dine--whether its a sit-down restaurant or a busy to-go joint--his neighbors are watching him with an air of...

Groundbreaker: some people who meet me still can't believe I was a real Texas Ranger, but I'm used to that. I've been surprising people all my life.(As told to: stories from Texans in their own words.)
December 1, 2004... I've spent almost my entire career being one of the only women in my profession. First it was being in the Army Reserves after I finished college in the seventies, then it was being the third woman overall, and the first African American, to...

Loop Group.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... 1 Magic Clary misses her womb. After 58 whole-bodied and even-keeled years living in the Hollywood bungalow where she was raised, a hysterectomy has dumped her into a state of quiet despair. None of life's usual pleasures--shopping with...

Oval Room.(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
December 1, 2004... 2 BLAZE FOLEY, the itinerant Austin songwriter immortalized by Lucinda Williams ("Drunken Angel") and Townes Van Zandt ("Blaze's Blues"), was a caring soul whose spare told simple songs drilled to the core of human emotions. He was also,...

Freaks & Fire: the Underground Reinvention of Circus.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... 3 What's in a name? Irony, humor, and nostalgia for the seedy traveling shows of old in the cases of Circus Contraption, Zamora the Torture King, and the Yard Dogs Road Show--just three of the ten or so alternative circuses masterfully...

It Always Will Be.(Sound Recording Review)
December 1, 2004... 4 Not a blues, reggae, alternative rock, or children's CD, not a TV-special soundtrack of endless hackneyed duets nor a just-another-night-on-the-road live tape but an honest-to-god WILLIE NELSON recording. You'd have to go back to 1998's...

The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered.(Sound Recording Review)
December 1, 2004... 5 Those around Austin in the eighties heyday of what came to be cynically labeled the "New Sincerity" movement probably recall an omnipresent gawky kid thrusting his cassettes into their hands. If you got through the amateurish musical...

Texas myth# 454.(Encyclopedia Texanica: Anne Dingus solves the state's greatest mysteries.)
December 1, 2004... GENE AUTRY WROTE "RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER." Fortunately, that's not why the original singing cowboy will go down in his-to-ree; the Tioga native merely performed this novelty tune. The songwriter was Johnny Marks, of New York, who...

The old gray mayor: weary of youth and inexperience, San Antonians talk about needing to put a grown-up in charge--namely, septuagenarian Phil Hardberger. But the real problem at city hall is the strictest term-limits law in Texas.
December 1, 2004... San Antonio's mayoral races tend to be long-running telenovelas--pitched battles with stark choices, high stakes, roiling emotion, and plenty of drama. Past elections have pitted Anglos against Hispanics, Republicans against Democrats, and...

My choice: when Norma McCorvey, America's most famous pro-life activist, asked me how I could be a Christian and still support legalized abortion, I realized I didn't have an answer. So I went looking for one.(Interview)
December 1, 2004... I had intended to write this month about Norma McCorvey, a.k.a. Jane Roe, of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that decided a woman has the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. But I got sidetracked by my own ambivalence: I knew...

Cold play: why have so many Texans fallen in love with the national sport of Canada? It's simple: Hockey--the nonlocked-out minor league variety--offers us everything that's missing from our other favorite sports.
December 1, 2004... Most nights, L. J. McCoy gets to the Dodge Arena in Hidalgo before warm-ups, decked out in an orange hunting vest and a floppy hat, homemade signs--"You've been Shmyred" reads a favorite--in one hand and a bullhorn in the other. The McCoy...

Gordon Bethune: the compulsively candid, famously profane 63-year-old CEO of Continental A irlines on stepping down, managing up, life after 9/11, and why employees are like selfish fish.(Talks)(Chief Executive Officer)(Interview)
December 1, 2004... I imagine it must be weird for you to be stepping aside, on December 30, after a decade as CEO. I've been trying to frame it. There are going to be days when I'll wake up in the morning and I'll really want to go to work--I'll miss the hell out...

Some like it picante.(Cover Story)
December 1, 2004... ONCE UPON A TIME, WE WERE PART of Mexico, and if you look at what we like to eat, you would think we still are: Breakfast tacos get us going in the morning, fajitas sustain us at lunch, and truck-stop enchiladas restore us after a night on the...

Cutting deep.
December 1, 2004... Imagine having to choose between paying your electric bill and taking your sick daughter to the doctor. That's the kind of dilemma facing working-class families these days in Texas, where the state budget has been balanced on the backs of more...

The good doctor: with a third book set to arrive in stores next year, Abraham Verghese has established himself as one of the most gifted writers ever to make Texas his home. Then again, writing is just a hobby compared with his somewhat more ambitious day job: changing modern medicine as we know it.(Interview)
December 1, 2004... FIRST IMPRESSIONS CAN point to the most important diagnoses," said Abraham Verghese, leading the way through a warren of drab hospital corridors in San Antonio this summer. We were hustling toward an appointment with medical students of the...

The shot not heard round the world: the way Elmo Henderson tells it, his entire life can be boiled down to a single moment in 1972, when he stepped into the ring in San Antonio and knocked out the greatest fighter on the planet. But honestly, that's just where his story begins.
December 1, 2004... THERE IS A QUIET, inviting light in the gaze of Elmo Henderson, the look of a charming man who knows he's charming. He's clearly from another time, still tipping his hat to the ladies, peppering his speech with "ma'am's" and "sir's" and "oh,...

Pat's Patrick: Hector's on Henderson.(Restaurants, Cafes, Bistros, Joints)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... I love a restaurant that's a personal statement, and Hector's on Henderson is just that. Hector Garcia, a longtime fixture on the Dallas dining scene (general manager at the Riviera, co-owner of Iris), has his own place now, and you can see his...

The dining guide.(Restaurants, Cafes, Bistros, Joints)(Directory)
December 1, 2004... Austin ATHENIAN GRILL Downtown workers have an economical new midday option The Athenian salad comes generously topped with chicken sliced from a vertical spit and tart house dressing. in the evening, the pleasant room makes an...

Spirits of the season.(Liquid assets: these are a few of our favorite drinks.)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... To paraphrase the words that open Little Women: Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without something sweet. Which is why this is the perfect time to explore Texas' small but admirable roster of homegrown ports. In lieu of dessert, have a glass or...

Boscia.(Great Gifts)
December 1, 2004... Give the gilt of gorgeous skin. boscia's preservative-free skincare is perfect for stuffing stockings. Try Purifying Cleansing Gel ($18) and Fresh Blotting Linens ($6). boscia is available at Nordstrom (Austin), Sephora (San Antonio and...

Luxury travel redefined.(New Next)
December 1, 2004... A new way to see the world is certainly one of the hottest trends in luxury travel Charter a private yacht from Koch, Newton & Partners and be on your way to exploring exotic locales, savoring exquisite cuisine, and experiencing flawless...

Keep Gomorrah weird: the rest of Texas vilifies Austin as a breeding ground for long-haired hell-raisers. To me, it's an open-minded, open-hearted, magical little town--and always will be.
December 1, 2004... In the fifties I moved from Houston to Austin, which didn't seem like that much of a cataclysmic cultural leap at the time. Compared with Houston, Austin was a sleepy, beautiful little town in which I went to high school and formed my first...