Texas Monthly articles from January 2006

Texas Monthly archives from January 2006

The M word: now that Proposition 2 has passed, the point is moot--but there's a conservative case to be made for gay marriage.(Behind the LINES)
January 1, 2006... It's hard to imagine a more overwhelming vote on a controversial issue than the one that occurred on November 8, when Texans spoke loud and clear in their opposition to same-sex marriages. The mandate from the voters to place Proposition 2 in...

Law and disorder.(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2006... Your November 2005 article ["Hurt? Injured? Need a Lawyer? Too Bad!"], ostensibly on tort reform, was disappointing in its limited and biased coverage of the litigation reforms of the past decade, the grassroots movement that generated those...

Fare enough.(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2006... In your search for chicken-fried steak in San Antonio ["Southern Comfort," Novemher 2005], where is the Tip Top Cafe? Doris Tudyk SAN ANTONIO You missed a treat by staying in the big cities. The all-time best chicken-fried steak...

Boys will be boys?(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2006... I must say that I was disturbed by what went on at Boys State ["State of Dysfunction," November 2005]. It sounded to me like a gay-bashing pep rally. How can boys who are chosen to attend Boys State based on their intelligence and good deeds...

01.2006.(January: PEOPLE, PLACES, EVENTS, ATTRACTIONS)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Forget the holidays: As any college-football fanatic will tell you, the most wonderful time of the year is bowl season. It has certainly been the hap-happiest season of all (at least since 1970) for Texas Longhorns fans, whose undefeated team...

Around the state.(events )(Calendar)
January 1, 2006... WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBILITY KEY (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. ...

Hillcroft Street and Harwin Drive, Houston: where discount shopping meets the international city.(STREET SMARTS / A quickie guide to ...)
January 1, 2006... [1] If you haven't thought about wearing a sari to your next black-tie event, now's the time:ROOP SARI PALACE has an astounding assortment of lavish garments that put D&G to shame. They come in silk and polyester, with bountiful beading and...

Body language: you may have been holed up with that XBOX 360 for three weeks straight now, but it's time you came to your senses--literally. Deglaze your eyes by searching for the words below and reawaken every faculty.(PLAY DATES / For kids and the kid in you.)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] There's nothing like sensory overload to shock you out of hibernation. Begin with a little eye candy at this year's KIDFILM FESTIVAL, in Dallas, where classic flicks like The Wizard of Oz and Willie Wonka and the...

Whose life is it anyway? When Edward and Michele Wernecke rejected standard medical treatment for their cancer-stricken daughter, the state took twelve-year-old Katie out of their custody--and set off a nationwide debate over the meaning of parents' rights.(Reporter: LETTER FROM CORPUS CHRISTI)
January 1, 2006... On the Saturday before Halloween, Edward Wernecke stood in his kitchen, thumbing through a stack of file folders filled with photocopies and Internet printouts of medical articles. The solemn 53-year-old rancher was indifferent to the flies...

Encyclopedia Texanica: Anne Dingus solves the state's greatest mysteries.(Reporter)
January 1, 2006... Q: Why do Texans eat hoppin' John on New Year's Day? Where did it get the name? A: Well, my little collard green, we eat it because we are as much Southern as Western, at least on January 1, when consuming a bowl of hoppin' John--blackeyed...

Spindletop marked the discovery of oil in Texans.(Texas Myth #264)
January 1, 2006... SPINDLETOP MARKED THE DISCOVERY OF OIL IN TEXAS. Texans still gush about the famous oil field south of Beaumont, where a well blew out on January 10, 1901, shooting crude more than a hundred feet into the air, pumping up Texas's...

In the Reins.(Sound Recording Review)
January 1, 2006... Not every songwriter is a born bandleader. IRON AND WINE (a.k.a. Sam Beam), who has mlocated from Florida to Dripping Springs, originally chose to go it alone, and the sparse nature of his early recordings gave his ambitious lyrics, fairly or...

The Worst Hard Time.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2006... The image of thirties "Exodusters" fleeing dirt storms and drought is imprinted on the American consciousness. But in THE WORST HARD TIME (Houghton Mifflin), Ptllitzer Prize-winner TIMOTHY EGAN considers instead the nearly one million Dust...

Tex Book Tenor.
January 1, 2006... Only being born too late kept BOOKER ERVIN from becoming one of the original Texas Tenors No one embodied the braggadocio of the Texas jazz sound like the Denison native; he cut into each piece with his sawtoothed tone, improvising with...

Dog Days.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2006... Devotees of Wonkette--the snarky political blog of TexasbredANA MARIE COX--will cotton to the elbows-proppedon-the-bar style of her first novel, DOG DAYS (Riverhead). And they'll find a soul mate in young campaign flack Melanie Thorton, who...

Big Sweet Life: The Songs of Jon Dee Graham.(Sound Recording Review)
January 1, 2006... Unfortunately, bad luck is often followed by more of the same. Take songwriter-guitar slinger JON DEE GRAHAM, whose son Willie was diagnosed with a rare and debilitating disease at the same time the family's insurance company declared...

Glory Road.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2006... DON HASKINS, the coach of Texas Western's 1966 NCAA champion basketball team, professes to be a highly reluctant subject of GLORY ROAD (Hyperion), his autobiography as told to DAN WETZEL. Which makes it doubly amazing that this average Joe...

Being a Texas beauty.(THE HORSE'S MOUTH / Everything I could ever tell you about ...)(Morgan Matlock)(Interview)(Biography)
January 1, 2006... NAME: Morgan Matlock AGE: 24 HOME: Lamesa QUALIFICATIONS: Winner of the 2005 Miss Texas Scholarship Pageant. Participated in her first talent show at age four. Will compete in the 2006 Miss America Pageant, in Las Vegas, on January 21 ...

The bidness myth: why the image of the go-it-alone, get-the-government-off-my-back Texas entrepreneur is as bankrupt as Enron.
January 1, 2006... If the business of America is business, as Calvin Coolidge once said, then the business of Texas is bidness. The distinction isn't just phonetic; our locution tells the rest of the world that there's something fundamentally different about our...

Scent and sensibility: gym shoes, chemical plants, and dirty diapers don't bother me in the least. As a proud anosmic--a person who can't smell--I've turned my defect into my greatest parlor trick.
January 1, 2006... When I was in the sixth grade, my sister, a couple of friends, and I each bought a little bottle of scented oil for about two bucks at the mall. In the car on the way home, we were passing them around and taking turns sniffing them. Though I...

Louis Sachar: the 51-year-old Austin author on the long-awaited sequel to Holes, ideas that don't go anywhere, knowing what kids like, and writing for Hollywood.(Texas Monthly Talks)
January 1, 2006... Small Steps, the sequel to Holes, took nearly eight years to come out. Did you always know you had another book in you? Oh, not at all. Who knows where my thoughts come from? I was very much involved in working on the movie [version of Holes,...

The Bum Steer Awards! 2006.
January 1, 2006... TO ALL YOU FOLKS out there who were competing for Bum Steer of the Year: Didn't you get the memo? The one that said that the Bum Steer of the Year is supposed to be funny. You know, "funny," as in "causing laughter." Not "weird," like the...

Retail politics.
January 1, 2006... Are all Whole Foods shoppers ultraliberal, blue-state, wine-sipping, touchy-feely tree huggers? Are all Cabela's customers right-wing, red-state, beer-guzzling, flag-waving Bambi killers? Of course not, but that hasn't stopped campaign...

I have finally arrived.(soldiers' story)
January 1, 2006... After a nine-daytrip--we stopped in Spain, Turkey, Qatar, and Kuwait before landing in Iraq--I'm now at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Duke, south of Baghdad near the city of Najaf. No, it doesn't usually take nine days to get here, but the Air...

The elephants in the room: with solid majorities in both houses of the Legislature and control of every statewide office, Republicans are girding for the ultimate battle with the real enemy in the 2006 elections: other Republicans.
January 1, 2006... Just home from a weekend trip in early November, state representative Tony Goolsby, of Dallas, went to his office and left his wife, Toppy, to check their voice mail messages. A few minutes later, Toppy called him. Most of the messages were...

Why can't Steven Phillips get a DNA test?(forensic evidence )
January 1, 2006... In prisons all across Texas, convicted felons are asking for access to forensic evidence they insist could prove their innocence. In many cases, the requests are frivolous. But in those where legitimate questions of guilt still exist, the...

Rocket man: you won't believe how many rich mavericks with roots in Texas are trying to make private space travel a reality. But only one of them, Austin video game visionary Richard Garriott, has a shot at being the first second-generation astronaut. And he seems willing to risk his fortune to make it happen.
January 1, 2006... AMONG THE CROWD OF LEGITIMATE PLAYERS in the race to experience private space travel, a few like to think of themselves as the dashing descendants of Howard Hughes, Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, and Orville and Wilbur Wright. The press,...

Pat's pick: Stephan Pyles.(January: RESTAURANTS, CAFES, BISTROS, JOINTS)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... When Dallas uberchef Stephan Pyles ditched the daily grind in 2000, after selling his Star Canyon restaurants, fans wondered if they'd ever see him again. It's been more than five years, but he is back, with a splashy new space--including a bar...

The dining guide.(Directory)
January 1, 2006... 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' identifies are kept anonymous...

Glass act: last fall, Kim Wallace, of Brenner's Steakhouse, in Houston, aced her exam to win the first-ever Texas' Best Sommeliers Award, given by the Texas Sommelier Association.(WORD OF MOUTH / Tastes and tidbits from the pros.)(Interview)
January 1, 2006... Did you grow up in a family that drank wine? Not really. My grandmother did not drink or smoke, and she would be spinning in her grave if she knew I was a wine steward. So how did you get interested in wine? I was majoring in premed and...

New next.
January 1, 2006... ANNIE ON TOUR [1] Leapin' Lizards! Little Orphan Annie is back in an all-new production of Annie, the classic musical about never giving up hope, This delightful theatrical experience is part of Cadillac Broadway in Houston. January 3-15....

Marketplace cut & color.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... AUSTIN SAGE SALON "Recently voted "Best Salon in Austin" by citysearch.com and a "Hot Salon" in the August issue of In Style Magazine, Sage Salon is for women and men who want to Look their best. 4111 Medical Parkway, Austin, Texas 78756....

Say "Cheesy": time for another author photo, I'm afraid. You bring the booze. I'll bring my chin.
January 1, 2006... Certain professions almost guarantee a minimal level of physical attractiveness: astronaut, actor, trophy wife, anyone who handles a pole, whether fireman or exotic dancer. With their vigorous, active lives and multiple cosmetic procedures,...