Texas Monthly articles from September 2005

Texas Monthly archives from September 2005

Three blind elephants: see how they run from responsibility? The Republican leadership has blown it--again--on school finance. If only there were consequences.(Behind the LINES)
September 1, 2005... If nothing else, the second special session was a spectacle. Its only product was embarrassment, unless you count disaster metaphors train wreck, meltdown, implosion. After two regular sessions and three special sessions, stretching over 32...

House of corrections.(Roar of the CROWD)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2005... Your justification for including me on the Ten Worst list was primarily based on your false assertion that I was to blame for the demise of a judicial pay raise bill ["The Best and Worst Legislators of 2005," July 2005]. In fact, I voted...

Pot roast.(Roar of the CROWD)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2005... Gary Cartwright sounds like a snake-oil salesman when he touts pot as medicine ["Weed All About It," July 2005]. The marijuana lobby, who funded these initiatives in Texas, stated that it would use "medical marijuana" as a "red herring" to get...

Buyer remorse.(Roar of the CROWD)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2005... The recent story "Home Buyer Beware" [August 2005] might have left a mistaken impression that Dick Weekley, and possibly Texans for Lawsuit Reform, was involved in the creation of the Residential Construction Commission. In fact, Mr. Weekley...

September: people, places, events, attractions.(Around the STATE)(Calendar)
September 1, 2005... 09.25.05 Love him or hate him, you have to respect Anselm Kiefer's sheer ambition, "The scale of his ideas is daunting, and the size of his works--some paintings are twenty-four feet high--is incredible," says Michael Auping, who organized...

Jeff Tweedy: the Wilco front man plays at the Austin City Limits Music Festival on September 25.(HEY, YOU! Look who's coming Texas.)(Interview)
September 1, 2005... This is your third ACL fest. What keeps Wilco coming back? We've always loved playing in Austin, and the festival is getting better every year. It's a good bill and a good time. So when you're not playing, who are you going to sneak off and...

New Mexico: autumn is New Mexico's golden season--the calm between summer's tourists and winter's skiers.(POSTCARD)(Advertisement)
September 1, 2005... Escape to the mountains, where the trees change color, days are crisp and cool, and the bitter-sweet scent of pinon lingers in the clear, dry air. Or head south for mild year-round temperatures, dazzling blue skies, and sunny days. HIDDEN...

The war on thugs: they were the jump-out boys--masked, black-clad narcs who busted dealers and jailed junkies all over rural Texas. Then came Tulia. Now the state's drug task forces are fighting for their own survival. And that's a good thing.(DISPATCH FROM THE DRUG WAR)
September 1, 2005... At the annual convention of Texas narcotics officers, held this year in El Paso in August, narcs in search of continuing education were offered seminars with titles like 'Hidden Compartments," "Body Language," "Risk Management," and--new for...

The doctor will mistreat you now.(MINISTER OF HEALTH)
September 1, 2005... Which is most likely to kill you: a head-on collision on Interstate 35 or a hospital visit? If air bags come to mind, guess again. According to a stunning 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine, as many as 98,000 patients die each year due to...

Preview + reviews: Jeff McCord and Mike Shea critique the current releases.(Paradise Hotel)(Last Chance in Texas: The Redemption of Criminal Youth)(Pajo)(Where Dreams Die Hard: A Small American Town and Its Sixman Football Team)(Cruel and Gentle Things)(Panic)(Brief Article)(Book Review)(Sound Recording Review)
September 1, 2005... 1 Like all the best folksingers, ELIZA GILKYSON draws from anger at the way things are. It wasn't always so; the daughter of songwriter Terry Gilkyson did dabble in the bliss of new-age music. But times change, and Eliza found her way to...

Fields of dreams.(STATE of the Art)(high school football stadiums)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... From Jacksonville to Marathon, from Happy to Eagle Pass, there's one place that brings every community in Texas together: the home-team stands at the high school football stadium. FALCON FIELD, VERIBEST HIGH SCHOOL, VERIBEST HIGHLANDER...

The equity myth: how a $900 million increase in funding couldn't save the state's most famous poor school district.(FRONT-PAGE NEWS: The Edgewood school district celebrated the Texas Supreme Court's ruling.)
September 1, 2005... Ramiro Nava has no memory of the first time he participated in the battle for the great ideal--equity in school finance--that has long define the Edgewood Independent School District. He was after all, still in his mother's womb. The year was...

That sinking feeling: while government geologists argue over subsidence and sediment loading, the rest of us are wondering: is the Gulf Coast toast?(WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS: Long Point Fault in Houston.)
September 1, 2005... If I interpret it correctly, a controversial July 2004 report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts that Galveston Island will be a memory by the time my great-great-great grandchildren are born. Or maybe it's...

Tall in the saddle: my 91-year-old father had many jobs: taxi driver, fireman, farmworker. But nothing defined him more than the time he spent on horseback patrolling the mighty Rio Grande.(FATHER AND SON: Everardo and Oscar Casares riding Junior in 1967.)(Biography)
September 1, 2005... My father doesn't watch television anymore. He used to follow the Astros, but since going to the nursing home, he's lost his patience for watching them lose. With no television, no desire to talk to old men who fall asleep midway through a...

Anita Perry: the 53-year-old first lady of Texas on small-town values, getting burned by the press, what we don't understand about the governor, and her reaction to "Adios, mofo.".(BATTLE TESTED: The governor and the first lady in Austin on inauguration day, January 21, 2003.)
September 1, 2005... So are the Hutchisons back on your Christmas card list? They were never off. Really? You can separate the personal from the political? I can separate it. I'll be honest with you, though. The list has 10,000 to 25,000 names on it. Can I...

The eyes of Texas are upon him: even though University of Texas head coach Mack Brown is coming off a rose bowl victory and has assembled one of his most talented teams yet, five straight losses to Oklahoma have the orange bloods in a panic. Will the world's nicest guy ever finish first?
September 1, 2005... I LIKE HAPPY PEOPLE," says Mack Brown, the head coach of the University of Texas football team. "I really do. And I like my staff, and I want positive people around. I don't want negative people around these kids. I tell 'em, 'If you don't like...

Greeting's from Fort Bragg: a soldier's story Part II.
September 1, 2005... Well, it's been a month here, and life has really gotten interesting. I've settled into the barracks--two-story, rectangular white buildings with about ten sets of bunk beds on each floor. They look strangely similar to the ones you see in old...

This is only a test! But that doesn't mean you shouldn't take it seriously. After all, your Texas bona fides are at stake. You have one hundred questions to prove you're one of us.(No cheating. No makeups. And no grade grubbing.)
September 1, 2005... 1. Match the celebrity with the Texas pork product he endorses: (A) singer Jimmy Dean 1. Blue Ribbon Bacon (B) former football coach 2. Earl Campbell Hot Sausage Bum Phillips ...

Dr. evil: Houston orthopedic surgeon Eric Scheffey has been sued 78 times. He's paid out some $13 million to settle malpractice cases. At least five of his patients have died, and hundreds more have been seriously injured. So why did it take 24 years for state regulators--and his colleagues in the medical community--to stop him?
September 1, 2005... On June 8, 2003, a former Popeyes cook from Houston named Cecil Viands died following routine spinal surgery at Vista Medical Center Hospital, in Pasadena. The cause was a massive infection. Under normal circumstances, Viand's death might have...

How to open a restaurant: some assembly required. Silverware not included.(Fino Restaurant, Patio, and Bar)
September 1, 2005... I WAS SITTING AT MY DESK earlier this year wondering if anyone would notice if I left for lunch at ten-thirty when the phone rang. Cruelly torn from my reverie of cheese enchiladas, I picked up the receiver. On the line were Lisa and Emmett...

Girls gone wild: when Bobbi Jo Smith and Jennifer Jones left Mineral Wells, they were young and in love. They had a full tank of gas, a case of beer, and the open road ahead. There was only one problem: They'd left their roommate--a 49-year-old amateur pornographer--lying in bed with three bullets in his head.(GIRLS GONE WILD)(Biography)
September 1, 2005... After three days of traveling, Jennifer Jones was exhausted as she drove across the state line from Arizona into California. The baby-faced eighteen-year-old's legs and arms were sunburned from the beams that shone down hard through the...

September: restaurants, cafes, bistros, joints.(The Dining GUIDE)(Directory)
September 1, 2005... Pat's Pick: The Sandbar Seldom has the buzz been so great for something so small. After months of anticipation, the Sandbar has finally opened in downtown San Antonio. Does the minuscule urban fish house live up to the hype? Decidedly....

Czech, please.(the folk festival celebrated in Texas)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... Even if you've never eaten a kolache, you've surely seen the roadside signs duking it out for the attention of weary travelers barreling down the highways of Central Texas: "Exit now! Get your kolaches here!" "The very best kolaches are here!"...

Birds off a wire: this summer, as an experiment, my family unplugged from the Internet. It was no fun while it lasted.
September 1, 2005... It didn't start out looking like an alien invasion when I got a computer more than a quarter century ago. Not an early adopter--I'd maxed out technologically with the four-slice toaster--I had that first one foisted upon me by a cyber-visionary...