Texas Monthly articles from February 2005

Texas Monthly archives from February 2005

Food for thought.(Roar of the Crowd)(Liza Lee)(Irma Rangel Young Women's Leadership School)(Interview)
February 1, 2005... As I toured the new Irma Rangel Young Women's Leadership School with Liza Lee, I felt a sense of cognitive dissonance. At 62, Lee is tiny, silver-haired, and, in her sensible pumps and robin-red blazer, a little old-money. She looks like what...

Food for thought.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2005... Girl, you be a Yankee or some such?! No one can know much of anything about Mexican food a la Tejas until one motors past the 610's and the MoPacs to where the real food hangs out ["Some Like It Picante," by Patricia Sharpe, December 2004]. So...

CHIP shots.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2005... December's article on the Texas CHIP program left out some important facts and information ["Cutting Deep," December 2004]. Today more children receive health insurance from the State of Texas than ever before. Currently, about 36 percent of...

Choice words.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2005... I, like Gary Cartwright, have searched my soul about the abortion issue ["My Choice" December 2004]. Cartwright suggests that both sides find some middle ground, but let's face it--is that possible? Life either begins at conception or it...

Editor's note.(Roar of the Crowd)(Correction Notice)
February 1, 2005... EDITOR'S NOTE: In the January issue of TEXAS MONTHLY a "high school principal from Andrews" was incorrectly identified as a client of prostitutes in Odessa ["'She Had Brains, a Body, and the Ability to Make Men Love Her'"]. The initial source...

02.04.2005.(Around the State)
February 1, 2005... In the early seventies, when Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, of the Washington Post, were taking down the president of the United States, I was taking down towers of Lincoln Logs--I was barely in grade school. But thanks to classroom tales of...

Around the state: wheelchair accessibility key.
February 1, 2005... (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...

Andy Goldsworthy.(Get A Load Of This / More than you'd ever want to know about ...)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Andy Goldsworthy will make you look twice at sand castles. Elevating the simple concept of mud-pie construction to an art form, the British artist painstakingly renders sculptures out of bamboo spires, stones, willow leaves, blocks of snow, and...

Hay fever.(Get A Load Of This / More than you'd ever want to know about ...)
February 1, 2005... Dana Friis-Hansen (right), the executive director and chief curator of the AMOA, reflects on the Goldsworthy style: "Throughout the course of the exhibition, we've been encouraging people to create their own nature-inspired artworks in...

Leave your heart in ...(On The Road / Oh, the places you should go.)
February 1, 2005... The Hill Country This Valentine's, lead your sweetie astray--on the Texas Hill Country Wine Lovers' Trail. During the weekends of February 11-13 and 18-20, sixteen wineries in the Hill Country will open their doors to the public for...

Little Las Vegas: just two years ago the town of Kingsville boasted more than a dozen eight-liner game rooms and had staked its claim as Texas's unofficial gambling capital--until the authorities showed up. Now locals are angling for another spin.(Reporter)
February 1, 2005... At about eleven o'clock on a Monday night in early November, more than two dozen men and women were sitting inside the Texas Internet Cafe, a cavernous, computer-filled room housed in an old movie theater in the South Texas town of Kingsville....

Hazard pay: I went to work in war-torn Afghanistan to help support my family, I nearly gave up my life in the process.(As Told To / Stories from Texans in their own words.)
February 1, 2005... In 2003 I was working on a project as a construction engineer in Houston at the Bush Intercontinental Airport, and my job function eventually played out. I was scrambling around looking for a job when a friend of mine, a headhunter in...

Texas myth # 714.(Encyclopedia Texanica)
February 1, 2005... Q: Who wrote "The Yellow Rose of Texas"? A: The original lyrics were scribbled on a scrap of paper sometime in the spring of 1636, around the time of the Battle of San Jacinto, signed only with the initials "J.K." Because the song...

15 More Original Hits.(Previews + Reviews)
February 1, 2005... Texas lost a founding father of tejano when Bishop native ISIDRO LOPEZ passed away last August. Lopez, whose half-Apache blood earned him the nickname El Indio, was a born star; his chiseled good looks, seductively warm sax sound, and...

One Ranger.(Previews + Reviews)
February 1, 2005... As a memoir, ONE RANGER (UT Press) is all over the map, but, oh, the places you'll go in this collection of anecdotes from retired Texas Ranger H. JOAQUIN JACKSON, with DAVID MARION WILKINSON. Jackson serves as a folksy but savvy tour guide to...

Delirium Tremolos.(Previews + Reviews)(Sound Recording Review)
February 1, 2005... When word arrived that Dallas-reared Redneck Mother RAY WYLIE HUBBARD Was releasing an album made up almost entirely of covers, anticipation set in. Hearing artists break from their modus operandi to creatively interpret the works of others can...

As Hot as It Was You Ought to Thank Me.(Previews + Reviews)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Secrets are hard to keep in a small town like Pinetta, Florida, and a devastating hurricane further lays bare the private lives of Pinetta's families in AS HOT AS IT WAS YOU OUGHT TO THANK ME (Back Bay Books), a jewel of a novel by Austinite...

Send Me Home.(Previews + Reviews)(Sound Recording Review)
February 1, 2005... Like the singer Gillian Welch, Austinite DAO STROM's stark and lonesome music seems to haft from the Appalachians, though both she and Welch were raised in California, The similarities end there, however. Strom was born in Saigon (she fled the...

The White League.(Previews + Reviews)
February 1, 2005... In THOMAS ZIGAL's sophisticated thriller THE WHITE LEAGUE (Toby Press), New Orleans coffee magnate Paul Blanchard peeks beneath the Mardi Gras masks of his fellow captains of industry and discovers a secret society still fighting for...

(Much) higher education: does tuition deregulation mean that UT and A&M cost too much? It's all a matter of degrees.(University of Texas)(Texas A and M University)
February 1, 2005... Growing up one of eight kids in a Houston family of modest means, I came to realize that an article of faith in our household decreed that all of us would graduate from college. And so we did: seven from the University of Texas and one from Sam...

Message in a bottle: why do so many Texas women want to be blond? Once upon a time, I was dyeing to know.
February 1, 2005... For many Texas women, there are three basic stages of hair color: original (natural childhood hue), blond (official state preference), and eventual (late-in-life silver). Some lucky ladies experience a natural overlap between numbers one and...

Fallen heroes: Walter Prescott Webb's The Texas Rangers tarnished his reputation, just as the lawmen's actions during the Border War tarnished theirs. It's time to revisit the history--and the historian.
February 1, 2005... Like the Alamo, the Texas Rangers embody the idea of Texas exceptionalism, the notion that the Lone Star State (there it is again) is different from the rest of the U.S. Almost everybody recognizes the iconic group, but only historians or the...

Marsha sharp: the 52-year-old Women's Basketball Hall of Famer on knowing how to win, the best player she ever coached at Texas Tech (guess who?), and why rabid fans are a recruiter's secret weapon.(Texas Monthly Talks)(Interview)
February 1, 2005... You've racked up more than 540 wins at Texas Tech over 23 years, and the only consistent element in that time has been you. The key to success in college basketball must be the coach. Recruiting is the single most important thing you do from...

Power.(powerful Texans)(Editorial)
February 1, 2005... Power is the ability to make things happen. The political system is so unwieldy, so rife with nuance, so studded with procedural obstacles, so vulnerable to popular whim, that power brokers are essential to the process. The 25 people on our...

1: how did Tom Craddick become the most powerful Speaker ever--and the most powerful Texan today? Let us count the ways.(Biography)
February 1, 2005... TOM CRADDICK'S HOUSE IS A FINE, TRIM LITTLE RANCH-STYLE on a fine, spotless little street in northwest Midland with swaying oaks and picket fences and flags--American and Texas--flying from flagpoles. It is made of light-brown brick, has a...

2: his name is on everyone's lips in Austin and Washington. Ronnie Earle finds that amusing. The politicians and corporations he's investigating most certainly do not.
February 1, 2005... ONE MORNING IN DECEMBER, a district judge named Mike Lynch stepped on a courthouse elevator in Austin and gawked at the last hero and hope of Texas Democrats. Ronnie Earle, the Travis County district attorney, has gray-black hair, a nose...

3: (through) 25: the 23 other most powerful people in Texas politics.
February 1, 2005... THE FIXERS BUDDY JONES 54, Austin RUSTY KELLEY 52 Austin BILL MESSER 54, Benton MIKE TOONEY 53, Austin A nineteenth-century Washington correspondent once described the lobby as a monster that inhabited the U.S. Capitol:...

Happily Enron after.(Comic)
February 1, 2005... HI, I'M TEXAS MONTHLY EXECUTIVE EDITOR MIMI SWARTZ IN 2003 I 2003 I WROTE A BOOK ABOUT THE FALL OF ENRON, POWER FAILURE, WITH THE COMPANY'S NOW-FAMOUS WHISTLE-BLOWER, SHERRON WATKINS, SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED SINCE THEN THAT I THOUGHT IT WAS TIME...

Where to eat now 2005: at this year's crop of the best new restaurants in Texas, you can dine amid rustic charm or industrial austerity on food that's down-home or upscale--or both at once. And the fish is delish.(17; T'afia; George; Lanny's Alta Cocina Mexicana; Shade; Resca on the River; Hector's on Henderson; 7; El Chile Cafe y Cantina; Fireside Pies)(Restaurant Review)
February 1, 2005... LIKE MOST PEOPLE, I'M A PUSHOVER for a new restaurant. As soon as a sign goes up saying "Coming Soon," I can't wait to be the first in line. For someone with this attitude, last year was a good year. But it wasn't, in the words of the song, a...

He's Daniel Johnston, and he was gonna be famous.(Broken Dreams)(Biography)
February 1, 2005... BROKEN DREAMS HE BURST FROM THE busboy's closet near the kitchen, maneuvered his way through the crowd as though he were late, and stepped behind the microphone on the tiny stage. Then he began playing, so nervous he looked like he was...

The dining guide: policies and definitions.
February 1, 2005... 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...

Pat's pick: Strip House.
February 1, 2005... Innuendo is definitely on the menu at the Strip House, a New York import that is Houston's latest purveyor of prime beef. The red flocked wallpaper evokes a classy bordello, languorous French burlesque dancers gaze from vintage photos, and at...

The beat goes on.(Liquid Assets / These are a few of our favorite drinks.)(Mexican hot chocolate)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... The Beat Goes On Steaming, cinnamony, sweet as your darling's kiss, MEXICAN HOT CHOCOLATE might be the perfect twist on the traditional box of candy this Valentine's. For each serving, heat a cup of water, milk, cream, or any combination...

Museum president is as multifaceted as the gems he curates.(Profiles In Texas)(Interview)
February 1, 2005... JOEL A. BARTSCH, PRESIDENT Houston Museum of Natural Science Houston Houston Museum of Natural Science board of trustees chairman William C. Montgomery would like to congratulate Joel A. Bartsch on his appointment as president of...

New TCU business dean sees Texas-size future.(Profiles In Texas)(Interview)
February 1, 2005... DANIEL G. SHORT, DEAN M. J. Neeley School of Business at TCU Fort Worth The M. J. Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University welcomes its new dean, Dr. Daniel G Short. Dean Short held numerous high-level...

Texas's most-celebrated chef.(Profiles In Texas)(Interview)
February 1, 2005... STEPHAN PYLES, CHEF Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center Grapevine After more than 25 years in Dallas's restaurant circuit, Stephan Pyles is known as the founding father of Southwestern cuisine and the creator of New Texas...

Dr. Robert Ivany: educating leaders of faith and character.(Profiles In Texas)(Interview)
February 1, 2005... DR. ROBERT R. IVANY, PRESIDENT University of St. Thomas Houston With his formal inauguration as the eighth president of the University of St. Thomas, Houston, on January 25, 2005, Dr. Robert R. Ivany brings international...

Joel Allison: bringing together ministry and health care.(Profiles In Texas)(Interview)
February 1, 2005... JOEL T. ALLISON, PRESIDENT/CEO Baylor Health Care System Dallas As president and chief executive officer of the Dallas-based Baylor Health Care System, Joel Allison is fulfilling his lifelong mission of leading a nationally...

Purpose-driven entrepreneur builds booming day spa franchise.(Profiles In Texas)(Woodhouse Day Spa )(Interview)
February 1, 2005... JENI GARRETT, PRESIDENT/CEO The Woodhouse Day Spa and the Woodhouse Spas Corp The Woodhouse Day Spa recognizes the work of 26-year-old CEO Jeni Garrett for her ability to communicate and lead. Her passionate commitment to excellence...

Defining the mystique of downtown Austin.(Profiles In Texas)(Brief Article)(Interview)
February 1, 2005... DICK CLARK, PRINCIPAL Dick Clark Architecture Austin Dick Clark doesn't just capture the mystique of downtown Austin--he defines it. In searching for an architect with the talent and vision to give its new luxury condominiums an...

Jason Maida--the Texas buckle man.(Profiles In Texas)(Brief Article)(Interview)
February 1, 2005... JASON MAIDA, PRESIDENT Maida's Belts and Buckles Houston Hal Martin recognizes the work of Jason C. Maida of Maida's Belts and Buckles since 1991. He has provided great service in obtaining the finest sterling silver buckles for...

My pet project: to those of you who think my career is going to the dogs, I say: You're right. It's also going to the cats. Because they need my help. Yours too.
February 1, 2005... It's true, folks: I'm known far and wide as the Gandhi-like figure of the Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch. What, you might ask, does a Gandhi-like figure do? Nothing, of course. And what kind of profit does this modern-day prophet earn from the...