Texas Monthly articles from November 2003

Texas Monthly archives from November 2003

Judging Priscilla: Priscilla Owen's opponents attack her conservative views, but the more troubling issue is whether she disregards precedent.(Behind the Lines)
November 1, 2003... POOR PRISCILLA OWEN. The embattled Texas Supreme Court justice whose appointment to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has stalled for the second time over charges of "ultraconservative judicial activism" now finds herself in the middle of...

Had his Phil.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2003... YIKES! ARE THERE REALLY SO many people out there who are fascinated with yet another self-help guru that Dr. Phil should be on the cover of Texas Monthly [September 2003]? His bald pate, squinty eyes, and silly smile are not what I expected to...

WWJE.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2003... WHAT IS IT WITH THESE NEO-PARKIES touting Jesus as a fantasy dinner guest ["The Must Perfect, Charming, Elegant, Graceful, Cozy, Genteel, Affluent 2.2 Square Miles in Texas," September 2003]? Given there, was a real Jesus, we can assume he was...

Shining moment.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2003... THANKS FOR THE ARTICLE ON DALlas photographers Peggie and John Mazziotta ["Big Shots," September 2003]. I was particularly pleased to see Mrs. Mazziotta's beautithl picture of my great-aunt Helen Keller. People meeting Miss Keller frequently...

Grounded.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2003... I WAS INITIALLY OFFENDED BY THE term "pilot error" as a headline [Business, September 2003], then I realized that the "pilot" in error was Don Carry, and you hit the bull's-eye. JAMES R. COFFEY Keller IT IS UNFORTUNATE THAT S.C....

Judge not.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2003... JIM ATKINSON'S DESCRIPTION OF PREstonwood Baptist Church in "Brave New 'Burbs" [Texas Monthly Reporter, September 2003] is puzzling, mainly because of the consistent intensity of its patronizing tone. He describes being "accosted" by a...

Around the state: a selective guide to amusements and events.(Calendar)
November 1, 2003... NOVEMBER 2003 SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY 3 4 DSC Pierre, the The Fort Worth author of Vernon Brahmas face ...

Dear John.(We Remember)(John F. Kennedy)
November 1, 2003... November 22 1963--1ike September 11 2001--was a watershed date. On one side lay the optimism of John F. Kennedy's Camelot, on the other the disillusionment and unrest that followed his assassination. The nation is still fixated on that fateful...

Live long and prosper.(Pop Culture)(Star Trek)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Before the Empire struck back, there was the Federation and the USS Enterprise. Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek, which first aired on the small screen from 1966 to 1969, ingeniously used science fiction to address real-life issues like race and...

Number one fan.(Books)(Calendar)
November 1, 2003... Some favor the celebrities of the big screen, others bow at the altars of superstar athletes. We, however, prefer master wordsmiths. Luckily for us, this month offers plenty of reasons to break out the Sharpie. Former first couple George and...

Xtreme sports.(A Great Weekend In Houston)(sporting events)
November 1, 2003... Some tough decisions need to be made In Houston, and I'm not talking about the mayor's race. You'll want to be there to hear "Ladies and gentleman, U.S. Open winner Andy Roddick" when the onetime (and soon-to-be-part-time) Austinite is...

Young buck.(Straight Talk)
November 1, 2003... Satirist Christopher Buckley will be Speaking November 3 at the Celebration of Reading in Dallas. First of all, I hear you power is out in Washington. Are all the phones working? We have phones but no electricity, so we're essentially back...

Colonel of truth: how my grandfather, Leon Jaworski, saved America.(Letter from Washington, D.C.)
November 1, 2003... THIRTY YEARS AGO, on November 1, 1973, my grandfather, the Houston lawyer Leon Jaworski, was appointed Watergate special prosecutor and given the task of investigating President Richard Nixon and his White House aides for possible criminal...

Before the curtain rises on DBC Pierre's coal-black comedy Vernon God Little (Canongate), fifteen-year-old Vernon Little is just another potty-mouthed high school loser trapped in the fictional Texas town of Martirio.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... Before the curtain rises on DBC Pierre's coal-black comedy Vernon God Little (Canongate), fifteen-year-old Vernon Little is just another potty-mouthed high school loser trapped in the fictional Texas town of Martirio. After his much-abused...

How much Larry McMurtry is too much?(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... How much Larry McMurtry is too much? Ready or not, here he comes again with the third installment of his seriocomic Berrybender Narratives a scant six months after book two. By Sorrow's River (Simon & Schuster) won't win him another Pulitzer,...

It's a sad commentary on the state of rock music when an angry young man gets treated as something of a novelty.(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2003... It's a sad commentary on the state of rock music when an angry young man gets treated as something of a novelty. Steve Earle is one of the few artists willing and--more important--able to translate his passion into great music. Just an American...

Being labeled a pioneer in modern jazz is the musical equivalent of making the cover of Sports Illustrated; you almost never live up to anyone's expectations.(Jason Moran's On The Bandwagon)(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2003... Being labeled a pioneer in modern jazz is the musical equivalent of making the cover of Sports Illustrated; you almost never live up to anyone's expectations. Yet after his third stunning album in a row (and fifth overall), Jason Moran is...

The King is Dead (Knopf), Austinite Jim Lewis's sterling novel of politics, race, fidelity, and regret, is a model of literary economy.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... The King Is Dead (Knopf), Austinite Jim Lewis's sterling novel of politics, race, fidelity, and regret, is a model of literary economy. In an epicworthy tale packed into a brisk 260 pages, Walter Selby, a top aide to Tennessee's governor,...

Long before The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, there was "La Grange," a blues shuffle that rolled onto radio in brazen celebration of the state's unofficial rest stop.(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2003... Long before The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, there was "La Grange," a blues shuffle that rolled onto radio in brazen celebration of the state's unofficial rest stop. ZZ Top already boasted a string of minor successes, but "La Grange"...

Barbara Bush: the former first lady on her new book, how she writes--and why she never liked Alice in Wonderland.(A Few Words With)(Interview)
November 1, 2003... Most famous people who write books have help. You wrote your new one--Reflections: Life After the White House--by yourself. Why are you so comfortable going it alone? Because I keep a diary, and I write monthly letters to my close friends and...

Saving Cupid: visiting a sea-mammal rescue team in Galveston, I learned about the puzzling phenomenon of stranding--and flipped for a dolphin in rehab.(Gary Cartwright's Texas)
November 1, 2003... RIDING THE FERRY BETWEEN Galveston Island and the Bolivar Peninsula late this summer, I counted 238 bottlenose dolphins frolicking near the ship channel. A day earlier, Della Phillips, aboard the ferry on her way to do volunteer work for a...

Miner threat: can the hapless, Don Haskins-less University of Texas-El Paso win another national championship in college basketball? It's not a slam dunk, but ...(Jason Cohen on Sports)
November 1, 2003... IT'S THE BEST PART OF COLLEGE BASketball, if not the best thing in all of sports: March Madness. Fans delight, gamblers sweat, and even that nice lady from personnel becomes a connoisseur of point guards as little-noticed schools like Gonzaga...

One hump or two? Riding a camel across the West Texas sand dunes, I got in touch with my inner O'toole--and left the modern world far behind.(Charlie Llewellin on the Great Outdoors)
November 1, 2003... "SQUEEZE HIS NOSE," SAYS DOUG BAUM, a.k.a, the Camel Man, pointing at Gobi, one of three camels kneeling by a big trailer in the campground at Monahans Sandhills State Park, thirty miles southwest of Odessa. Keeping a prudent distance, I...

The witness: of the four people who rode in the presidential limousine on November 22, 1963, only Nellie Connally is still alive--alone with her memories of the day that defined the rest of her life.
November 1, 2003... EVERY NOVEMBER, as she has done for almost forty years, Nellie Connally readies herself for the reporters' calls. She has her hair done in preparation for the cameras, and she buys flowers--yellow roses, typically--to freshen her home, a...

Anchor away: Walter Cronkite's last newscast was more than twenty years ago, but he's still plugged in. Here, the most trusted man in America speaks out on the current state of the media, his new syndicated column, his problem with Bill O'Reilly, and his fresh memories of that November day in 1963.(Interview)
November 1, 2003... THE PRECISE LOCATION of the center of the universe shifts from day to day; on September 9, it was the restaurant at the Regency Hotel, on Park Avenue in New York. I'd arranged a breakfast interview there with Walter Cronkite, who grew up in...

Eyes on the pies: this holiday season, with all due respect to, Grandmas recipes, we've asked five top pastry chefs to tweak tradition and get creative with our favorite dessert. Change is good. And yum's the word.
November 1, 2003... Black-Bottom Pumpkin Pie Randy Gehman Four Seasons Resort and Club at Las Colinas, Irving Like most pastry chefs, Randy Gehman was born with a chocolate gene. I'm always dreaming up ways to get chocolate into traditional recipes," says...

"Their last good chance to get better." No one has suffered more at the hands of the budget-cutting Legislature than mentally ill kids. Grant Williams and thousands like him have nowhere to turn for help with their demons. Only in Texas would going to prison be ...
November 1, 2003... He was sitting cross-legged in the corner of a barren cell that contained only one piece of furniture: a bed fashioned from heavy plastic that was bolted to the floor. Beside him was an unopened Bible. [paragraph] "Grant?" said the guard as he...

Weapon of mass communication: if not for sixteen specious words about African uranium, George W. Bush's post-war P.R. would be humming along. Instead, the man responsible for coordinating the White House media effort, 32-year-old Dan Bartlett, has spent the past few months in crisis mode. Can he get the message--and the messanger--back on track?
November 1, 2003... AT 1:45 P.M. ON FRIDAY, JULY 18, White House communications director Dan Bartlett strode into the James S. Brady Briefing Room to confront a large, hostile, and deeply skeptical group of reporters. The issue in play was an erroneous assertion...

Artist of the portrait.(Richard Avedon)
November 1, 2003... For six years, from 1979 to 1984, I worked with Richard Avedon on "In the American West," his landmark series of photographs (twenty of which were published in these pages in September 1985). From Central Texas to the Sierra Nevada, from the...

Practice area index of Super Lawyers[R].(Administrative Law-Intellectual Property Litigation)
November 1, 2003... This is a listing of all Texas Super Lawyers, arranged by primary area practice. This listing should not be construed to mean a lawyer is a 'certified specialist' in the indicated practice area. Names and numbers in BOLDFACE indicate a...

Practice area index of Super Lawyers[R].(International-Worker's Compensation)(Directory)
November 1, 2003... There is a listing of all Texas Super Lawyers, arranged by primary area of practice. This listing should not be construed to mean a lawyer is a 'certified specialist' in the indicated practice area. Names and numbers in BOLDFACE indicate a...

Restaurant guide: a selective guide to food and drink.(Directory)
November 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...

Stagestruck.(Pat's Pick)(Aurora restaurant)
November 1, 2003... At Aurora, the key word is "drama." You step into the small, curtained vestibule of this new Dallas restaurant. The hostess ceremoniously verifies your reservation ("Omigod," you think, "What if they don't have my name?"). Then she flings open...

Pie and mighty.(Shipping News)(Texas Heritage Provisions Company)
November 1, 2003... Just because you're too busy to bake a holiday pie doesn't mean you're a bad person. Give yourself a break and order one of these superlative pies by mail. The monster apple pie (above) from Texas Heritage Provisions Company, in the East Texas...

Undeground gourmet.(Season's Eatings)(truffles)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Troubles with your love life? Truffles could be the answer. We're speaking of the exotic fungus, a purported aphrodisiac as well as a turn-on for any epicure. Truffles grow underground in Europe (especially France and Italy) and in Oregon, and...

Unhappily ever after: once upon a time, there was a writer--it doesn't matter which writer--with talent to burn. Wanna guess how the story ends?(The Last Roundup)
November 1, 2003... LIKE THE TIDES, THE SEASONS, AND THE Bandera branch of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Texas Book Festival is coming around again, allowing us to meet authors we love, hate, or very possibly, find a tittle ho-hum. I always look forward to the book...