Texas Monthly articles from March 2006

Texas Monthly archives from March 2006

Duty calls: war can free the enslaved, destroy tyrants, redraw borders, and advance human knowledge. But it does nothing so well as intrude on the lives of ordinary people--people like Rick and Melissa Noriega.(Behind the LINES)
March 1, 2006... NO ONE HATES WAR MORE THAN a soldier's spouse, and yet, had it not been for war, Melissa Noriega might not have gotten married or become a member of the Texas Legislature. She remembers the frantic days before the Persian Gulf war in 1991, when...

Bum's the word.(Roar of the CROWD)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2006... How about the Big Bore Award to the January 2006 issue of TEXAS MONTHLY for giving Anna Nicole Smith and Jessica Simpson even more publicity? Enough already! Carol Wadley Temple

Scents, you've been gone.(Roar of the CROWD)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2006... My sister brought me your article "Scent and Sensibility" [January 2006] when she came to visit last week. What a hoot! I too have experienced everything you listed, including being obsessive about my kid's diapers and constantly checking them...

Family matters.(Roar of the CROWD)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2006... As a mother of a young child, I can say wholeheartedly that the Wernecke family has some serious judgment issues [TEXAS MONTHLY Reporter, "Whose Life Is It Anyway?" January 2006]. If we could cure cancer with vitamin C, don't you think there...

The gay place.(Roar of the CROWD)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2006... Paul Burka asks, "How can so many be so wrong?" regarding the 253 Texas counties that voted for traditional marriage on November 8, 2005 [Behind the Lines, "The M Word," January 2006]. The better question is, How has Travis County managed to...

Editor's note.(Roar of the CROWD)(Correction notice)
March 1, 2006... EDITOR'S NOTE: In "Retail Politics" [January 2006] we mistakenly identified Whole Foods Market co-founder John Mackey as a billionaire instead of a multimillionaire. We regret the error.

03.09.2006.(MARCH: PEOPLE, PLACES, EVENTS)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... You have to wonder what's most impressive about the 48-year-old WORLD'S LARGEST RATTLESNAKE ROUND-UP, in Sweetwater: the fact that a community of farmers and ranchers devised a way to turn all their diamondback-infested nooks and crannies into...

Around the state.(Calendar)
March 1, 2006... Austin Music/Dance MAR 17: WILLIE NELSON Don't take Willie's incessant touring for granted: See for yourself if the 73-year-old journeyman is still at the peak of his career. At 7:30. $37.50-$40.50. The Backyard, 13101 W. TX Hwy...

Kris Kristofferson.(HEY, YOU! / Look who's coming to Texas)(Interview)
March 1, 2006... The Brownsville native is at the center of Austin's cultural March madness: Not only will he be inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame (March 10) and honored with a retrospective of his movies at the South by Southwest film conference (March...

Christo and Jeanne-Claude.(GET A LOAD OF THIS / More than you'd ever want to know about ...)
March 1, 2006... Husband-and-wife artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude have been dotting the globe with their large-scale works for close to fifty years--think The Pont Neuf Wrapped, in Paris; Surrounded Islands, in Miami (above center); Valley Curtain, in Rifle,...

War.com: every day in Iraq I conduct house-to-house searches, hunt down insurgents, get shot at--and then return to base and blog about it. Here are some of my posts from the front lines.(REPORTER: LETTER FROM IRAQ)
March 1, 2006... SUNDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2005 BACK TO IRAQ * The rotor wash of the UH-60 Black Hawk tossed dead weeds and sand around us like a warm tornado as we sped to gather ourselves and our gear off the dependable bird. We were greeted by our company...

Fallen heroes: the 203 Texans who have given their lives in the Iraq war.(CAPTAIN PAUL C. ALANIZ-LANCE CORPORAL JONATHAN R. FLORES)
March 1, 2006... CAPTAIN PAUL C. ALANIZ CORPUS CHRISTI | 32 Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 361, Marine Aircraft Group 16, 3RD Marine Aircraft Wing * Killed in a CH-53E helicopter crash near Ar Rutbah on January 26, 2005. LANCE CORPORAL...

Fallen heroes: the 203 Texans who have given their lives in the Iraq war.(STAFF SERGEANT TOMMY I. FOLKS JR.-SERGEANT GERARDO MORENO)
March 1, 2006... STAFF SERGEANT TOMMY I FOLKS JR. AMARILLO | 31 Army National Guard, 2ND Battalion, 142ND Infantry Regiment, 56TH Brigade Combat Team, 36TH Infantry Division * Killed by a roadside bomb in Iskandariyah on October 19, 2005. ...

Fallen heroes: the 203 Texans who have given their lives in the Iraq war.(SERGEANT STEVE MORIN JR.-LANCE CORPORAL THOMAS J. ZAPP)
March 1, 2006... SERGEANT STEVE MORIN JR. ARLINGTON | 34 Army National Guard, 111TH Engineer Battalion, 36TH Infantry Division * Killed by a roadside bomb west of Umm Qasr on September 28, 2005. PRIVATE FIRST CLASS RICKY A. MORRIS...

Bush's war: eminent historians H.W. Brands and Doris Kearns Goodwin on whether Iraq will be the president's legacy the trouble with the Vietnam analogy, and how bad times for the country often produce great leaders.(TEXANS at WAR)
March 1, 2006... RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota who is no Howard Dean Democrat, told the Washington Post that he believed that Iraq would be the totality of George W. Bush's legacy. Do you agree with that? ...

Heartbreak high: Killen Shoemaker, in the shadow of Fort Hood, is ground zero for the home front, a school where hundreds of students have parents who are deployed in Iraq and fear of death and danger is part of everyday life.
March 1, 2006... WHEN BARBARA CRITCHFIELD BECAME a high school guidance counselor at Killeen's Shoemaker High School, five years ago, she probably never imagined she would be, in effect, working for the Army too, responsible for implementing one of its newest...

Tomorrowland: since my return to Iraq, I've been working to rebuild a war-torn country. Here's what life as a captain with the 451st civil affairs battalion looks like.(TEXANS at WAR)
March 1, 2006... WE CELEBRATED CHRISTMAS BY HEADING TO AN M240 MACHINE-GUN FIRING RANGE OUTSIDE NAJAF (FROM LEFT, ME, MAJOR GREG SCOTT, CORPORAL MIKE DARLING, AND SERGEANT STERLING OYADOMARI). IT WAS A GOOD TIME. I'D NEVER FIRED AND M2408 MACHINE GUN BEFORE....

Casualty of war: Master Sergeant James Coons, of Conroe was a decorated soldier who served his country for seventeen years. But when the horrors of battle took their toll, the Army he loved so dearly left him all alone to fight his demons.(TEXANS at WAR)
March 1, 2006... MASTER SERGEANT JAMES COONS was alone in his trailer at Camp Doha, in Kuwait, standing in front of the bathroom sink, when he saw the face. It appeared in the mirror-a young soldier's face, most of it ripped away, the bones exposed and the skin...

Would you buy what this man is selling? The U.S. military sure hopes so. At a time when support for the war is plummeting and our forces are stretched dangerously thin, by-the-book Army recruiters like San Antonio Staff Sergeant Christopher Schwope may be its only hope to succeed.(TEXANS at WAR)
March 1, 2006... ARMY STAFF SERGEANT CHRISTOPHER Schwope is nothing like the recruiters most of us remember from high school Those were men who rang your phone off the hook and stalked you in fast-food places, as sure a part of graduation as caps, gowns, and...

The believer: as an Army veteran who lost a son in Iraq, I felt it was my duty to go to Crawford to tell Cindy Sheehan why she's wrong about the war--and why president Bush is right.(TEXANS at WAR)(Interview)
March 1, 2006... I GREW UP IN HARKER HEIGHTS and went to Killeen High School. My dad was in the Army and was a professional shooter, so I grew up hunting. I enlisted in the Army in 1974. I was sent to Saigon but was there for only a few days before the war was...

The protesters: speaking from their headquarters last thanksgiving at Camp Casey, in Crawford, six demonstrators explained why they're against the war.
March 1, 2006... TUNDE OBAZEE |51| DALLAS I lived in Nigeria in 1967, during the civil war. I carried the dead bodies of my friends. The federal troops--our "liberators--"were pulling people who were suspected of being rebels out of their homes. They were...

Pat's pick: Bice.(March: RESTAURANTS, CAFES, BISTROS, JOINTS)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Talk about international style. Those sleek cream-colored walls and sexy blond-and-auburn wood floors could be anywhere in the world: New York, London, Tokyo--all of which happen to be among the 26 cities that Bice has colonized since it was...

The dining guide.(Directory)
March 1, 2006... POLICIES AND DEFINITIONS 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'...

Greens goddess.(SEASON'S EATINGS / Timely treats for your culinary calendar.)(Recipe)
March 1, 2006... FRIENDS, YOU HAVEN'T TASTED LETTUCE until you've tasted Camille Waters's lettuce. Simply put, these greens are the Lamborghini of lettuce. The Bulgari of lettuce. The Giorgio Armani of lettuce. For a dozen years, the tireless Ms. Waters has...

No direction home: four years in the Air Force, including stints in Iraq and Afghanistan, have prepared me for every conceivable situation. Except, that is, for my mind-numbing new civilian existence.(TEXANS at WAR)
March 1, 2006... WHEN I WAS IN IRAQ, I couldn't wait to leave. Now, driving home to Texas, I wish I'd never left. Earlier today, I stuffed my car full of green military-issue duffel bags; the past four years of my life fit inside six of them- Then I changed out...