Texas Monthly articles from May 2006

Texas Monthly archives from May 2006

The taxman. Yeah, the taxman: should $4 billion appear too small, be thankful John Sharp doesn't take it all.(Behind the Lines)
May 1, 2006... Give Rick Perry some credit. After two regular sessions and three special sessions of nothing but futility and failure on school finance and with the state facing a June I deadline to rectify a school-funding method that the Texas Supreme Court...

War stories.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... Thank you for printing names, faces, and information in "Fallen Heroes" [March 2006]. As many others probably did with the issue, I flipped through the pages and only glanced at the pictures. Then I read "Heartbreak High" [March 2006] and ended...

Veterans' affairs.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... I couldn't help being struck by the irony in reading the stories about Master Sergeant James Coons ["Casualty of War," March 2006] and how the Army is recruiting new soldiers ["Would You Buy What This Man Is Selling?." March 2006]. The Army...

Battle lines.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... As the soon-to-be wife of an Army captain (who has already served one tour in Iraq and will soon serve another), I read with great interest the stories "The Believer" and "The Protesters" [March 2006]. I have always believed that Cindy Sheehan...

Exit strategy.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... I just finished reading your article "Bush's War" [TEXAS MONTHLY Talks, March 2006]. Anyone who believes for one minute that Bush's war will him out to be positive is living in la-la land. We went into this war on a lie and thought it was going...

Hero worship.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... The only emotion or word that comes to mind to describe my response to David Broyles's experience as a pararescueman is simply "gratitude" ["No Direction Home," March 2006]. Today, as I sat enjoying the quiet, I was invited into a world that I...

Exit, stage right.(Editor's Letter)(Editorial)
May 1, 2006... As it happens, we had already planned a May cover on Tom DeLay--on his political difficulties, on his ethical problems, on the ongoing investigation by Travis County DA Ronnie Earle into various alleged campaign finance shenanigans--when the...

Topic A: meet the Prez: why you can't throw a rock without hitting a White House wannabe.(Reporter 05.06)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... No matter what the calendar says, its 2008 in Texas. Yes, the next presidential election is two and a half years away, but the quickened pace of fund-raising and friend-raising by White House wannabes from both parties leaves no doubt that the...

Being a soap opera star.(The Horse's Mouth: EVERYTHING I COULD EVER TELL YOU ABOUT)(Helen Wagner)(Interview)
May 1, 2006... NAME: Helen Wagner AGE: 87 HOMETOWN: Lubbock QUALIFICATIONS: Has played housewife Nancy Hughes McClosky for fifty years on the daytime soap As the World Turns--the show's only original cast member/Received the Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement...

Hoopdreams: will the Spurs make the finals? Do the Mavs have the MVP? Yes and yes.(The Sports Authorities)(Discussion)
May 1, 2006... PANELISTS: DALE HANSEN Sports anchor, WFAA-TV, Dallas BUCK HARVEY Sports columnist, San Antonio Express-News Sweany: The San Antonio Spurs are the defending champs and have had the best record in the Western Conference for most of...

There's more violence every day.(A Soldier's Story: Part VII)
May 1, 2006... The destruction of Samarra's Al Askari mosque on February 22 set off a wave of unrest across the country, and news of sectarian clashes has been pouring incessantly out of Iraq ever since. The Najaf province remains relatively calm, but that's...

First Baptist church of Austin: Austin / January 22, 2006.(Faith Bases)
May 1, 2006... The true test of a Mexican restaurant is the quality of its enchilada plate. Similarly, the ultimate test of a religion is its ability to serve a satisfactory answer to the problem of suffering and evil. (I think it's a pretty good comparison.)...

Texas myth #319.(Encyclopedia Texanica)
May 1, 2006... THE HORNY TOAD CAN SQUIRT BLOOD FROM ITS EYES. Good horror-film premise, huh? Especially because it's true-sort of. However, our state reptile can't scuttle about emitting such opti-spurts just for fun. The ability is a last-ditch defense...

The perfectionist: Terrence Malick suffers for his art.(Hollywood , TX)
May 1, 2006... This is the story of the greatest movie ever made that you never have the opportunity to see. On December 25, 2005, the notoriously media-shy, Waco-born director Terrence Malick released The New World, a reimagining of the founding of the...

The Boxing Mirror.(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... It all came to a halt one Arizona night in 2002. ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO had led an impressive, if messy, rock and roll life, with a resume that included Rank and File, the True Believers, and a respected solo career. Yet years of ignoring a...

Nothing Serious.(Previews+Reviews:Music)
May 1, 2006... One album just wasn't enough. NOTHING SERIOUS (Verve), the first of two simultaneous releases from trumpeter ROY HAR GROVE, is his finest straight-up jazz outing in years. Shedding the strained concepts of his recent recordings (strings, Cuban...

Springtime Can Kill You.(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Those who fancy JOLIE HOLLAND a bit of an odd duck--let's just say she doesn't exactly ooze onstage charisma--won't change their minds with her third album, SPRINGTIME CAN KILL YOU (Anti). The Houston-born vocalist warbles in a slurry vibrato...

Jon Dee Graham.(Full)(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... After being in Austin's spotlight last year, when his son was diagnosed with a rare degenerative hip disease (as with Escovedo, the city's music community rolled out in support), Graham has just released his fifth album, Full (Freedom). ...

Riding With John Wayne.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2006... RIDING WITH JOHN WAYNE has a split personality. AARON LATHAM'S latest novel plays at being a murder mystery, but at heart it's a gentle satire drawing laughs from that wellspring of excess: Hollywood. Latham drags his legendary Goodnight clan...

Riley's Fire.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2006... Crafting a story about a seven-year-old burn victim is a risky move given the very good chances your novel will career into the maudlin and the morbid. Nevertheless, El Pasoan LEE MERRILL BYRD gives us RILEY'S FIRE and its rambunctious kid...

Standing Eight.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2006... At age 33, Austinite Jesus "El Matador" Chavez is the champ: He currently holds the International Boxing Federation's lightweight title. But his career has been anything but charmed. In STANDING EIGHT, journalist ADAM PITLUK tracks Chavez (born...

Keith Graves.(Interview)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... The award-winning Austinite has just published his seventh kids' book, The Unexpectedly Bad Hair of Barcelona Smith. Graves's words are whimsical; his illustrations are bold and surreal enough to intrigue the grown-ups in the house. While...

Table manners.(Buy This Now)
May 1, 2006... In matters of domesticity, there are more don'ts than dos. Don't run with the scissors. Don't put your feet on the Eames. Don't jump on the bed--especially when the Frettes are fresh from the cleaners. But this coffee table's dictum is to have...

The path of yeast resistance: how a beer pilgrimage to Shiner quenched my thirst.(Go)
May 1, 2006... I'd like to toast those thin-lipped Puritans for settling along the East Coast and leaving a swath of Central Texas free for fun-loving Czech and German pioneers, who brought us kolaches, place names without vowels, and beer. If nothing else,...

Lyle Lovett.(Texas Monthly Talks)(Interview)
May 1, 2006... You were in Austin for a week in March--first to be honored for your film work by the Texas Film Hall of Fame and then to play a show at South by Southwest. At this point in your career, do you think of yourself as a singer who acts or as an...

Field of nightmares: can playing sports on artificial turf kill you? As the debate rages on, parents need to hear the story of one young Texas athlete who's lucky to be alive.(MRSA)
May 1, 2006... It happened on the most ordinary of plays. Sixteen-year-old Boone Baker, playing wide receiver on the Austin High Maroons junior varsity last October 7, sprinted a quick five yards before turning and snagging a short pass from his quarterback...

Pet project: may dad taught me a lot of things about caring for a dog. Flaco should thank his lucky chew toys that I ignore every one of them.
May 1, 2006... My first dog was white with brown patches and floppy ears, a mutt really, though that would probably describe every dog in Brownsville when I was growing up in the seventies. My father just showed up one day with this puppy tumbling around in...

Walled off: along one stretch of the border, the flow of illegal immigrants has nearly stopped. But it didn't require concrete and razor wire--just a plan that officials had thought was impossible.(Letter From Eagle Pass)
May 1, 2006... "Welcome to the insanity," says the secretary for Judge Dennis Green, rolling her eyes in the direction of the federal courtroom in Del Rio where the morning session is set to begin. Inside, it is immediately clear what she means: Jammed like...

Without delay: the political landscape changes in an instant, and when it does, careers can come to an end. So it happened with Tom Delay, whose, lack of self-restraint and self-awareness made him the architect of his own undoing.(Cover story)
May 1, 2006... IT WAS EARLY in January when Eric Thode got the phone call from a member of Tom DeLay's staff. Thode was a little surprised to hear from DeLay. As the chairman of the Fort Bend County Republican party, Thode was responsible for running the...

The rookie: for 34 years, the Texas Rangers have struck out in their guest for a World Series title. Can they be saved by a 28-year-old general manager from New York whose only experience comes from the fantasy leagues? At this point, I'm willing to try just about anything.
May 1, 2006... My first thought when I read last fall that the Texas Rangers had promoted a 28-year-old named Jon Daniels to the job of general manager was, Who? Having suffered through the ineptitudes of this sorry franchise for nearly three and a half...

Wings.(butterflies)
May 1, 2006... EVER WONDER WHAT BUTTERFLY just sailed past? Chances are good that out of the five hundred or so species that have been found in Texas (more than in any other state), it is one of the seven pictured here. May is the perfect month for butterfly...

The last rustler: Roddy Dean Pippin was a polite young cowboy who loved Louis l'amour novels and dreamed about life on the open range. He said he was in the cattle business--but he actually led an unlikely gang of thieves who hit countless ranches across north Texas. And, just like in the stories from the old west, he couldn't outrun the law forever.(Interview)(Biography)
May 1, 2006... 2003, A YOUNG MAN NAMED RODDY DEAN PIPPIN moved into a two-bedroom frame house in the tiny community of Odell, just south of the Red River in far North Texas. It was a nice little house with a front porch that didn't sag too much. Behind the...

A desert feast: Melissa Guerra has spent her career breathing life into classic South Texas dishes. With these recipes from her new cookbook, so can you.
May 1, 2006... I'll be the only six-foot-tall redhead around," Melissa Guerra told me. We had been exchanging e-mails so we would recognize each other when I arrived at the airport in Harlingen, hoping to avoid unnecessary rounds of airport tag. I was headed...

Amuse: Dallas.(PAT'S PICK)
May 1, 2006... "EXCUSE ME, WAITER. Knowing that life is short, we'd like to eat dessert first. I'll have the funnel cake, and my friend wants the s'mores. After that, we'll split the banana split and the fudge brownies. And--wait, we're not through, come...

New + noteworthy: from panini in Austin to a boneless pork "rib" in Houston.(The Filter: Dining: OUR FAVORITE RESTAURANTS, BISTROS, CAFES, AND JOINTS)
May 1, 2006... Austin MANDOLA'S ITALIAN MARKET Judging by the response, an Italian grocery-slash-restaurant was way overdue in north central Austin. Come early for coffee and pastries, return for lunch or dinner (order at the counter and food is brought...

The filter: dining.
May 1, 2006... POLICIES AND DEFINITIONS The Filter: Dining 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 and are...

The Grand Prix: Houston.(JORDAN'S PICK)
May 1, 2006... IT'S IRONIC that the month's speediest happening is in the city of perpetual gridlock. After a five-year hiatus, the Grand Prix of Houston is back--and no amount of bumper fatigue can detract from the coup. If you're envisioning a carnivalesque...

Kiss the sky.(The Filter: Events: WHERE TO GO, WHAT TO DO, WHO TO SEE)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... ANTHONY Hot-air balloons and hard-rock bands--an obvious pairing? No. But quite the one-two punch if you're looking for an adrenaline rush, which is old news to folks in Anthony, that two-state city on the western tip of Texas hosting the...

Professional movers.(The Filter: Events: WHERE TO GO, WHAT TO DO, WHO TO SEE)(ballet)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... HOUSTON Whether or not you know a plie from a pas de deux, the Houston Ballet's three-pronged program Moby in Motion will replay in your head long after the curtain drops. Expect an urge to download eight of the techno hero's blues-tinged...

Collector's items.(The Filter: Events)(AMerican paintings)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... SAN ANTONIO Art is so inextricably linked with history that you'll be schooled in both creative technique and our country's past when you peruse "Villa America: American Moderns, 1900-1950" now in its last full month at the McNay Art Museum....

All the art that's fit to print.(The Filter: Events)(Iraqi art)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... EL PASO One of the most interesting art exhibits traveling through Texas right now is also one of the most unexpected. "Dafatir: Contemporary Iraqi Book Art" is a focused collection of handmade dafatirs, or notebooks, from seventeen mostly...

He cleans up well.(The Filter: Events)(Paul Manes)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... BEUMONT As a young man, Paul Manes worked as a lowly preparator ("Basically I was the janitor," he jokes) at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas. Now his former employer welcomes him back with "Paul Manes: The Big Big Picture Show," an intimate...

Embarrassment of riches.(The Filter: Events)(art exhibition)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... FORT WORTH Having more coveted artworks than you have space for might seem a happy burden, but at the Kimbell Art Museum, its potent permanent collection often gets short shrift in favor of traveling exhibits. An executive decision has been...

Still cruisin'.(The Filter: Events)
May 1, 2006... GALVESTON Never mind that you're in an opera house: It would be rude not to sing (and groove) along with the Beach Boys--with original member Mike Love and longtime bassist and keyboardist Bruce Johnston--during their only Texas tour stop. May...

We can't quit them.(The Filter: Events)(film festivals)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... CANYON As far as cinematic get-togethers go, the inaugural Palo Duro Western Film Festival won't be as fancy as Cannes' or as celeb-choked as Sundanee's. But by God, will there be cowboys. And not of Brokeback Mountain ilk either. Think...

Sail away, sail away, sail away.(The Filter: Events)(windsurfing)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, CORPUS CHRISTI Extreme athletes who pray to the wind gods will do their share of worshipping along the Texas coast this month. With steady breezes that average 18 miles per hour, South Padre Island is not just for...

Greener pastures.(The Filter: Events)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... IRVING, FORT WORTH If you hear "golftournament" and think "social occasion," you're in luck: This month boasts a links-lover's favorite fortnight. First up is the swanky Byron Nelson Championship, at Irving's newly expanded Four Seasons Resort...

Of music and men.(The Filter: Events)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... HOUSTON, FRISCO, SAN ANTONIO, FORT WORTH If you could listen to only three musicians for the rest of your life, James Brown, George Strait, and B. B. King wouldn't make for a bad lineup. The giants of their genres--funk, country, and blues,...

My oh Maya.(The Filter: Events)
May 1, 2006... HOUSTON Author and poet Maya Angelou will indulge you with anecdotes from her life as part of the Houston Downtown Alliance's Unique Lives and Experiences lecture series. May 15. Jones Hall, 615 Louisiana, 877-875-8124, eventsun limited.org

Thespians without Borders.(The Filter: Events)
May 1, 2006... SAN ANTONIO The state's only Latino theater festival may be young-it's merely in its second year--but Teatro Fest already knows how to hold the attention of a diverse audience. Case in point: Performances include an autobiographical account of...

Texas Star Trading Company.(marketplace shopping guide)
May 1, 2006... Fixin' To T-shirts, caps, note pads, mugs, bookmarks, to-do lists. Great Texas books, gifts and gourmet. Discounts on books and free shipping on orders over $50. TexasStarTrading.com Downtown Abilene, 325-672-9696 [ILLUSTRATION...

Little Christian[TM].(marketplace shopping guide)
May 1, 2006... Children may be little, but that doesn't mean they can't have big faith! Now they can share God's love with fun and inspirational messages on comfortable, quality clothing. Mention code, TXMONTHLY, to receive a special 20 percent discount off...

Toenail fungus? Athlete's foot?(marketplace shopping guide)
May 1, 2006... Apply Formula 3 topically to clear up that unsightly fingernail, toenail, or athlete's foot fungus. Our patented oil-based formula contains tolnaftate, a highly effective medication widely recommended by doctors for the treatment of fungal...

Green-Eyed Lady.(marketplace shopping guide)
May 1, 2006... Get a sneak peek at early arrivals and save on name-brand clothing at the Green-Eyed Lady, 309 Main Street in Marble Falls. We also offer stylish accessories to accent any outfit for the fashion-conscious woman. Visit us or shop online at ...

All about Texas yalls.com.(marketplace shopping guide)
May 1, 2006... Shop Texas Style! Y'alls Texas Store has hundreds of unique gifts on our award-winning Web site, yalls.com. Texas flag and Texas wildflower pottery and Texas-shaped chip and dip trays, Texas food boxes, Lone Star pecan pralines, salsas,...

Ruddock Shirts.(marketplace shopping guide)
May 1, 2006... The original is still the best. Texas-made Lone Star shirt from Ruddock Shirts. Made from 100 percent cotton twill in colors that won't run or fade. Available in men's sizes small to 4X, ladies, XS to 2X, and kids, 2 to 18. Toll-free...

Shorty's Caboy Hattery.(marketplace shopping guide)
May 1, 2006... Elevate your style with our 20X brown-and-white cowhide brim and brown deerskin lacing. Ali hides hand-selected--natural patterns will vary. shortyshattery.com 800-853-4287 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Russell Korman fine jewelry and watches.(marketplace shopping guide)
May 1, 2006... Live the dream... FOREVER with the Limited Edition UT Swiss Army National Championship Watch! Officially licensed by the University and the National Championship Bowl. Burnt-orange rubber band ($250) and steel bracelet ($350) available....

Fair Field Farm candles.(marketplace shopping guide)
May 1, 2006... From our home to yours come handcrafted, luxurious, clean-burning soy candles in 30 different scents. Indulge yourself or a friend with French Market, Pomegranate Citrus, Pineapple Cilantro, Raspberry Tomato Leaf, and more. Bring light, warmth,...

The furs were flying: talking shop--and shearling--with Houston's uber-socialite.(Becca Cason Thrash)(Column)
May 1, 2006... There is a world where the kings of small African countries send eases of Dom Perignon as hostess gifts, where Marc Anthony entertains at your parties, where former presidents are "darling," where visits to Buckingham Palace number in the...