Texas Monthly articles from January 2003

Texas Monthly archives from January 2003

By George: the republicans could use some advice on how to govern, George Christian, the late wise man of Texas politics, is just the man to give it. (Behind the Lines).
January 1, 2003... FUNERALS ARE AN OCCASION TO reflect upon the ravages of time, upon all that mattered once but is no more. So it was at the December 2 service for George Christian, the former LBJ hand and wise man of Texas politics. His death seemed to...

Beat the press. (Roar of the Crowd).
January 1, 2003... I AM DEEPLY SADDENED BY THE HARDSHIPS suffered by the Washington press corps in Crawford ["Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch," November 2002]. I have an aunt and uncle living near there, plus cousins too many to number. I even visit on Labor Day...

Good advice. (Roar of the Crowd).
January 1, 2003... HAVING JUST FINISHED READING "suburban Madness," I am reminded that my mother once cautioned me about folks with more money than sense and with too much time on their hands [November 2002]. I alternated between disgust for the women who haven't...

Pass or fail? (Roar of the Crowd).
January 1, 2003... AFTER REVIEWING THE SCHOOL RATINGS on your Web site that were part of the magazine story "How Good Is Your Kid's High School?" I'm dismayed to think that your publication would actually rate the schools in Texas based on test scores [November...

Mystery solved. (Roar of the Crowd).
January 1, 2003... IN DESCRIBING THE LYDIA ANN LIGHTHOUSE, you said that its "namesake remains unknown" ["Lights Out," November 2002]. According to Aransas: The Life of a Texas Coastal County, in 1844 James B. Wells, whom Sam Houston had appointed first master of...

Lost cause. (Roar of the Crowd).
January 1, 2003... PAUL BURKA'S HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF liberals in Texas is another reminder that Mr. Burka is this state's preeminent political historian and analyst [Behind the Lines: "Left Out," November 2002]. Long after the left, not just in Texas but...

Around the state: a selective guide to amusement and events.
January 1, 2003... JANUARY 2003 SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY 5 6 7 Catch the Watoto Children's Choir, comprising some twenty children who live in Ugan- dan orphan villages, in...

Flight. (Around the state).
January 1, 2003... PLANE TO SEE Despite claims from folks in East Texas that a Pittsburg preacher named Burrell Cannon created the first operational aircraft in 1902 (see "Two Wings and a Prayer," page 100), Austin's Centennial of Flight Celebration observes the...

Round up. (Around the state).
January 1, 2003... "YOU A REAL COWBOY?" Debra Winger asked that question of John Travolta more than twenty years ago in the film Urban Cowboy. Today, with a couple more decades of urban sprawl under our big, shiny belt buckles, it's even harder to find one. But...

Straight talk. (Around the state).
January 1, 2003... THE CABLE GUY Conservative political columnist Robert Novak, the co-host of CNN's Crossfire, will speak at the University of Texas at Tyler's R. Don Cowan Fine and Performing Arts Center on January 30. You've cultivated this image of...

Music. (Around the state).
January 1, 2003... O SUSAN! The Houston Grand Opera is throwing a party this month for Texas raised diva Susan Graham, celebrating her triumphant Houston (and world) debut as the hero in the HGO's staging of the Handelian melodrama Ariodante in November. Where's...

American idle: in Austin the nation's hottest reality-TV tryouts featured emotional fireworks, uncensored tragicomedy--and endless waiting around. (Letter From Austin).
January 1, 2003... AT FOUR O'CLOCK ON NOVEMBER 5, SEVEN hundred wide-eyed singers lounged outside the Double Tree Hotel in North Austin. It was Election Day, and all over town here voters were scrambling to the polls. But no one here was talking politics. The...

Silence is golden: reserved and effortlessly polite, Opal Yarborough (1903-2002) was a role model for an entire generation of political spouses. (Not Forgotten).
January 1, 2003... SOMEWHERE IN THAT LARGEST OF EDITIONS OF the Platonic Dictionary, next to the definition of "political wife," there is probably a small photograph of Opal Warren Yarborough, the gracious widow of former U.S. senator Ralph Yarborough, Texas'...

John Lee Hancock: the director of the New Alamo movie takes on the storied battle--and the eyes of Texas are upon him. (A Few Words With ...).
January 1, 2003... You're from Texas. What's your own history with the Alamo? My father was from San Antonio, and his mother lived there. Every summer, we'd make an annual trip from Texas City, where I grew up, to see her. Always when we were there, we'd spend at...

The idealist: the late Warren Burnett was the last of his breed: a passionate defender of the little guy--and of the now-radical notion that there's honor in being a trial lawyer. (Gary Cartwright's Texas).
January 1, 2003... WHEN WARREN BURNETT, THE FAMOUS ODESSA TRIAL LAWYER, died in September at age 75, memories flooded back of people accused of crimes, jailed labor organizers, segregated students, and countless others crushed by the boots of big business and big...

The joy of sacks: what's it like to watch your son get tackled for a loss-or throw a touchdown pass-on national TV each week? Drew Brees's parents wouldn't trade it for the world. (on Sports).
January 1, 2003... IT'S NOT LIKE AMY BREES HAS NEVER SEEN HER STEPSON struggle. Even a two-time Heisman trophy finalist can throw an interception or come up on the wrong side of a big game. But getting hammered by the New York Jets? "This is like losing...

Jung at heart: when I no longer believed in the fundamentalist God of my childhood, the spiritualism of a Swiss psychiatrist helped me rediscover my faith. (on Faith).
January 1, 2003... FOR SOME PEOPLE, RELIGION SATISFIES THEIR SEARCH for faith. For others, religion is only the beginning of the search. I discovered this distinction ten years ago, when I lost faith in the fundamentalist religion that I grew up with. Of all the...

The 2003 Bum Steer Awards.
January 1, 2003... WE LOOKED FOR OTHER candidates, honest we did. How about Lance Bass of *NSync, who wanted to play cosmonaut? He spent a week training at NASA in Houston, but when his backers couldn't come up with $20 million, he was out O*Sync with the...

Two wings and a prayer: one hundred years ago, in the tiny East Texas town of Pittsburg, the Reverend Burrell Cannon interpreted apocalyptic words in the Bible as instructions to build a flying machine. And he succeeded, sort of. Are the history books wrong about who was first in flight?
January 1, 2003... IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND IT TOLD REVEREND Burrell Cannon to do something crazy. The source was Ezekiel, one of the old-time prophets of the Bible, who spoke of a vision of four winged humanoid creatures joined as one in a square, each...

The end of the river: our state is defined by its legendary waterways, and none has inspired as many cherished myths as the mighty Rio Grande. but after a decade of drought, cut off from its headwaters and sucked dry by irrigation, this Texas treasure is beginning to disappear--and with it, a vital piece of our history.
January 1, 2003... On a warm July afternoon I am going to see the mouth of the Rio Grande for the first time. Sixteenth-century Spaniards called the stream Rio de las Palmas; the bright forest of palm trees around the mouth was a landmark for navigators of the...

A ride for Mrs. Oswald: on November 22, 1963, I was working as a reporter for the fort worth star-telegram when I answered the phone--and got a close encounter with history.
January 1, 2003... IN 1963 I WAS THE NIGHT police reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the newspaper in the town where I grew up. I was 26 years old, made $115 a week, and worked the late shift: six o'clock in the evening to two-thirty in the morning. I hung...

Bottom's up: Cameron Park is the poorest community in America, a Brownsville colonia where people struggle to get by on little more than $4,000 a year. So why are its residents so optimistic?
January 1, 2003... HE CALLS THEM HIS "ONE THOUSAND ACRES OF EXCELLENCE." IN THE NORTHEASTERN corner of this border city, just four miles north of Mexico, Bill Hudson has reinvented Brownsville in a way Brownsville never dared imagine itself. Using tile, stone,...

Cast away: with a quick fly-fishing lesson, you'll land all the fish you want in the hill country. Even better, you'll have an entire river to yourself. (on the Great Outdoors).
January 1, 2003... IF YOU'VE NEVER BEEN FLY-FISHING BEFORE, maybe the first thing that comes to mind is Brad Pitt standing in a sun-drenched Montana trout stream in A River Runs Through It. That movie, an adaptation of Norman MacLean's classic angling novella,...

Master Class: at the University of Texas at Austin, I teach a course on Southwestern literature--a genre that didn't exist until J. Frank Dobie put it on the map. (on Books).
January 1, 2003... WITH THE LATEST INSTALLMENT OF THE TEXAS BOOK Festival in the barn, it is perhaps a good time to look back at the invention of Southwestern literature--that is, at its conception as a recognizable body of writing with its own characteristic...

Restaurant guide: a selective guide to food and drink.
January 1, 2003... Policies and Definitions The Restaurant 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...

Pat's pick. (Restaurant guide).
January 1, 2003... SEEING STARS Thank heaven the Riviera Grill has finally left that ratty suburban location and moved into glittering new digs in downtown Houston. The sleek Sam Houston Hotel is the perfect setting for chef-owner John Sheely's inspired French...

Primary flavors. (Dallas * Fort Worth).
January 1, 2003... PASS THE PEAS, PLEASE We have a friend--an alt-grown-up adult friend, mind you--whose mother won't let her leave the New Year's table without downing 365 black-eyed peas (gulp!). That's one seed of the lucky legume for each day of the upcoming...

On the road. (San Antonio * East).
January 1, 2003... CABIN FEVER Call us affected big-city snobs, but we never thought we'd see Hawaiian Iomi Iomi salmon on a small-town East Texas menu. Actually, the cevichelike dish was a special on our first visit to the Homestead on 19th in Huntsville. A fine...

The hummingbird man: for years before they died, my parents tended to the many fragile little creatures that flew into our lives. now I look after them-and they look after me. (The Last Roundup).
January 1, 2003... WISE OLD MAN NAMED SLIM, WHO WORE a paper Rainbow bread cap, drank warm Jax beer in infinite quantities, listened faithfully to the hapless Houston Astros on the radio, and washed dishes at our family's ranch, once told me something I've never...