Texas Monthly articles from September 2007

Texas Monthly archives from September 2007

Speaker for life! Austin insiders believe Tom Craddick won't be reelected to lead the House in January 2009. I wouldn't bet against him.(Behind the Lines)
September 1, 2007... "It was kind of like I didn't exist," Tom Craddick told me when I asked him what it was like to come to the House of Representatives as a 25-year-old Republican from Midland in 1969. He was isolated from his colleagues by age ("I bet the...

Capitol offense.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2007... I was appalled to learn of TEXAS MONTHLY'S designation of Representative Lon Burnam as one of Texas's Worst Legislators, in part due to his purported ineffectiveness on behalf of the environment ["The Best and Worst Legislators," July 2007]....

The good fight.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2007... Kudos to Eva Rowe for her persistent fight against BP ["Eva vs. Goliath," July 2007]! At such a young age to have known to do the right thing and not just settle and walk away is something to be very proud of and says much about her parents. I...

Granite, you have a point.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2007... Like it or not, the University of Texas is part of the South, and the statues on the South Mall reflect the conflicted history of the former Confederate states ["Dunces of Confederacy," July 2007]. In away, the statues are a microcosm for the...

Grand Canyon.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2007... Thanks to Dan Flores's exceptional article about the plight of Palo Duro Canyon ["Land That I Love," July 2007]. If the state can't fund this state park, among our others, why shouldn't we fight for our federal tax dollars to come home? Public...

Say it ain't so, Joe.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2007... I have enjoyed reading the monthly installments by Tonnyre Thomas Joe and am so very sorry to see her go [Reporter; Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch]. As a native South Texan, I found it fascinating, but what she imparted most to her readers was...

God, save the Texanist.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2007... You need to know that real Texans (or Texanists) do not damn our God [Reporter, The Texanist, July 2007]. Now, we may invite him in to sit a spell in our front room, quote him, praise him, pray to him, memorize his book, thank him, celebrate...

Mrs. J.(Editor's Letter)(Lady Bird Johnson )
September 1, 2007... My very first issue as the editor of this magazine--August 2000--had Lady Bird Johnson on the cover, flanked by her daughters, Lynda and Luci. Back then I hadn't yet met the matriarch of Texas's first family; certainly she didn't know me from...

Topic A: rain of terror: but at least it's not 110 degrees. Yet.(Reporter 09.07)(Brief article)
September 1, 2007... It's a safe bet that most back-to-school essays on the theme "What I Did on My Summer Vacation" will be short on details about the beach and long on complaints about the rain. To anyone who has lived through the kind of relentless, triple-digit...

Collecting art.(The Horse's Mouth: EVERYTHING I COULD EVER TELL YOU ABOUT ...)(Interview)
September 1, 2007... NAME: Jeanne Klein AGE: 62 HOME: Austin QUALIFICATIONS: Serves on the museum council of the Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin and on the boards of Artpace San Antonio and ArtLies, in Houston / Together with her...

Playola: how cheating has changed.(The Cheap Seats: POPS OFF ABOUT SPORTS)
September 1, 2007... It's not often that I have acid flashbacks to the old Southwest Conference--that shady enterprise about which our own Gary Cartwright once wrote "one of its member schools was usually on probation and the majority of its players free on bond."...

Wendy Warren, 46 high school teacher.(The Working Life: STORIES FROM THE 9 TO 5)
September 1, 2007... Warren was born and raised in New York but has lived in Houston for more than twenty years. She is an eleventh-grade U,S. history teacher at Hastings High School, in the Alief Independent School District, which serves one of the state's most...

Arlington Seventh-Day Adventist: Arlington/April 28, 2007.(Faith Bases)
September 1, 2007... Generally speaking, Seventh-Day Adventists don't make much of a splash. Formally organized in 1863 by prophet Ellen G. White and other religious leaders who thought the Second Coming (or Advent) of Christ was imminent, they believe that a...

The Texanist: offering fine advice since 2007.
September 1, 2007... Q: I work for a technology company in a nice office in Austin--despite what you have heard, we are required to wear shoes. Anyway, I have a co-worker who dips Copenhagen and spits into a Styrofoam cup. Is this acceptable in an office...

Grounds for suspicion: Texas and the conspiracy movie.(Hollywood, TX: OUR STATE OF ENTERTAINMENT)(Video recording review)
September 1, 2007... In Terror Storm: A History of Government Sponsored Terrorism, a 2006 documentary reissued with new footage last month on DVD, we watch a pudgy, gravelly-voiced Dallas native named Alex Jones travel to the United Kingdom to try to prove that the...

National conspiracy month: September unleashes the usual suspects.(Movie review)(Brief article)(Video recording review)
September 1, 2007... It's perhaps the most unexpected consequence of 9/11: Every September, along with the tributes and remembrances, we get a new wave of conspiracy movies flooding the Internet and the multiplexes. This year is no different. Alex Jones is...

The Stage Names.(Okkervil River)(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
September 1, 2007... Will Shelf, the force behind Austin's OKKERVIL RIVER, is not one to take baby steps. He conceives the band's music in broad, ambitious strokes, and if what he hears in his head is beyond his vocal range, no matter. He goes for it. At first his...

It's Not Big It's Large.(Lyle Lovett)(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
September 1, 2007... These days, listening to a new LYLE LOVETT album is like hovering above a city in a helicopter: The experience might be spectacular, but eventually you want to feel as if you're headed somewhere. It's easy to forget how flesh Lovett's...

Noble Creatures.(The Gourds)(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
September 1, 2007... Well into their second decade with only the slightest of personnel changes, the GOURDS are already beyond the life span of the average band. Their earthy eclecticism has produced an extensive list of classics, and if their albums haven't always...

Eliza Gilkyson.(interview)(Interview)(Brief article)
September 1, 2007... The folksinger, a third-generation musician from California who put down roots in Texas long ago, has just released Your Town Tonight (Red House), a live album recorded over two nights at Austin's Cactus Care. Why release a live album now?...

Tree of Smoke.(Book review)
September 1, 2007... Vietnam. Thirty-plus years after helicopter airlifts signaled the fall of Saigon, the name still evokes ghastly images of napalm-scorched children and ad hoc executions by handgun. DENIS JOHNSON, author of Jesus' Son and currently the Mitte...

Follow the Money: How George W. Bush and the Texas Republicans Hog-Tied America.
September 1, 2007... By design, there are no stunning revelations to be gleaned from FOLLOW THE MONEY: HOW GEORGE W. BUSH AND THE TEXAS REPUBLICANS HOG-TIED AMERICA. Texas journalist JOHN ANDERSON does not mine for new scandals but instead reconstructs, strand by...

Whitley Strieber.
September 1, 2007... Since revealing his 1985 abduction by nonhuman visitors, the best-selling author has garnered as much attention for his opinions on alien life-forms as for his fiction. His new novel, 2012: The War for Souls, has been optioned by Warner Bros....

Conversion table: how a cooking class outside Blanco made me a believer in Texas-grown ingredients.(Go: HITS THE ROADS LESS TRAVELED)
September 1, 2007... Whenever I brag that the Hill Country, with its gaggle of wineries, cheese whizzes, and tenacious farmers, is considered the Texas equivalent of Napa Valley (only without the snoots), I get plenty of pop-eyed looks from nonbelievers. Well, go,...

Tailgating: how to kick off game day.(The Manual: WHAT EVERY TEXAN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ...)(Fox Sports Tailgating Handbook: The Gear, The Food, The Stadiums )(Book review)
September 1, 2007... THE SPIRIT It's the season to abandon reason, so make your fanaticism count. Don all that team paraphernalia, yes, but distinguish yourself from a couch potato with shows of true commitment: face decals, dye jobs, strategic shaving, and,...

Burton Tansky.(Texas Monthly Talks)(interview)(Interview)
September 1, 2007... If Stanley Marcus were around to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the founding of Neiman Marcus this month, would he recognize the 2007 version of the company? Yes, he would, and he'd be pleased. We're larger than he ever imagined...

Go! Fight! Win! Presenting the top twenty Texas high school football programs of all time. Let the debate begin.(The List)(List)
September 1, 2007... It may be the oldest argument in Texas sports: Which high school football program is the greatest ever? It may also be the hardest to win: How can you compare Abilene High, which won 49 consecutive games in the fifties, with Southlake Carroll,...

Side track: my father led a fascinating life filled with art photography, furniture making, and French cooking. So why did he spend his final years building toy trains in the attic?
September 1, 2007... It took my sister and me just two hours to demolish my dad's train set. My mother went off to see him at the nursing home, and Julie and I got to work on the attic room. What else did we have to do, waiting for our father to finally die?...

The terror of Tarrytown: how an animal rights zealot ruined my favorite shopping center.
September 1, 2007... Before its current owner, Jeanne Crusemann Daniels, poisoned it by acting less like a landlord than the lord of the land, the TarryTown Shopping Center, in West Austin, was one of my favorite places to pass the time. Built in 1939 by Daniels's...

A lady first: she was a small-town girl, a wife and mother, an environmentalist, a civil rights activist, a media mogul, and the only person who could tell the president of the United States to go jump in a lake. But more than any of those things, Lady Bird Johnson was, to her dying day, exactly what we always imagined her to be.
September 1, 2007... I first met Lady Bird on a rainy day in November 1994. I had gone to her home in northwest Austin to interview her for an article for this magazine on the occasion of her upcoming eighty-second birthday. We met in the kitchen, where she...

Badges of Dishonor: on a desolate stretch of the rio grande, two border patrol agents Chased a fleeing suspect and opened fire, wounding him from behind. But they didn't arrest him, and they didn't report the shooting to their supervisors. In fact they covered it up. So why are they being celebrated as heroes?
September 1, 2007... BEFORE THE CASE OF BORDER Patrol agents Ignacio "Nacho" Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean became a cause celebre--that is, before there were calls for congressional hearings, highlevel resignations at the Department of Justice, and...

Craig's list.(District Attorney Craig Watkins)
September 1, 2007... CRAIG WATKINS, the first black district attorney in Dallas County (and, indeed, the state), has a few things on his agenda: rethink the concept of guilt and innocence, review the methods of his own prosecutors, and reinvent his office. And he's...

Eva almighty: this is the story of a girl from corpus christi who was determined to have it all, and got it: the hit tv show, the hunky husband, the nonstop press. Still, Eva Longoria wants more. don't even think of standing in her way.
September 1, 2007... LAST NOVEMBER, shortly after Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria and San Antonio Spurs point guard Tony Parker announced their engagement, Eva's publicist, a frenetic woman named Liza Anderson, went to work. With the teacup Yorkie she...

Getting my goat: when an old friend and street preacher from New Orleans called just before Hurricane Katrina hit, I offered to help in any way I could. I let him live on my ranch, wear my clothes, drink my beer, and yap endlessly on my phone. But after two years of hospitality, I did what any other gracious host would do; I tried to get rid of him.
September 1, 2007... The Reverend Goat Carson claims to have been the last man ever to dance with Judy Garland. The place was the Salvation club, in New York City. The time was late November 1968. The Reverend Goat Carson, of course, was not a reverend back then....

The porch.(PAT'S PICK)(Restaurant review)
September 1, 2007... Dallas WHAT ARE THEY DOING HERE, hiding $100 bills in the booths? Spraying Love Potion Number Nine around the dining room? Flashing subliminal messages on the big-screen TVs ("You love the Porch, you must eat at the Porch...")? I ask this...

Estancia Churrascaria.(NEW + NOTEWORTHY)(Restaurant review)(Brief article)
September 1, 2007... Pace yourself. Cuts of grilled meat come at you so fast that you can be full before your napkin hits your lap at this local incarnation (so to speak) of the Brazilian steakhouse, the first in Austin. Relish the garlicky goodness of picanha (a...

Kavala Mediterranean grill.(NEW + NOTEWORTHY)(Restaurant review)(Brief article)
September 1, 2007... Dallas The conversion of a former fast-food joint to a stylish restaurant is the Horatio Alger story of the dining industry. At Kavala, chef-owner Kelly Hightower is taking that time-honored leap of faith, betting that enough Oak Cliff...

The filter: dining.(Randy's, Young Sushi, Aster's, Asti, Cafe Josie, Counter Cafe, Dona Emilia's South American Bar and Grill, Driskill Grill, Estancia Churrascaria, Hudson's on the Bend, Jasper's, Jeffrey's, La Traviata, Leaf, Salvation Pizza, Sampaio's, Uchi, Vespiao, Original Cajun Cookery, Suga's, Dragonfly, Hemingway's Bar And Grill, Snoopy's Pier, Vietnam, Abacus, Alessio's Il Ristorante, Aurora, Avalon's, Cafe Istanbul, Campania Pizza and More, Cru Wine Bar, Daddy Jack's, Fish City Grill, Half Shell Oyster Bar and Grill, Hibiscus, Kavala Mediterranean Grill, Kirby's Steakhouse, Mainstream Fish House, Mansion on Turtle Creek, Martini Park, Mecca, N9ne Steakhouse, Olea, Olivella's, The Porch, Prego Express Italian, Salum, Sangria, Tapas Y Bar, Steel, Stephan Pyles, Sushi Loco, Taqueria Arandas, Tradicion, York Street, Ziziki's, Cafe Central, Mangos at Nash Garden, Peter's German Cafe and Bakery, Sunset Pizzeria, Carshon's, Covey Restaurant and Brewery, Lili's Bistro, Olenjack's Grill, Railhead Smokehouse, Ruffino's, Sapristi, Silver Fox, Gaido's, Luigi's, Perry's Italian Grill, Seaside Bistro, Smooth Tony's, Star Drug Store, Thai Seafood, Armandos, Brennan's, Backstreet Cafe, Cafe Annie, Cafe Rabelais, Catalan, China View, Da Marco, Damian's Cucina Italiana, Dolce Vita, Goode Company Barbecue, Gravitas)(Hogo's, Indika, La Vista, Kubo's Japanese Sushi Bar and Grill, La Vista, Mark's American Cuisine, Mockingbird Bistro, Monarch, Quattro, Rainbow Lodge, Reef, Ruggles Grill, 17, Shade, Singha Thai, T'afia, Tila's Restaurante and Bar, Tony's, Vin, Yum Yum Cha Cafe, Alegra Bistro and Wine Bar, Emperor Garden, Espumas, La Mexicana, Lujans, Manna Bread and Wine, Mi San Salvador, China-Mex, Keith's Hamburger Station, Mcallen, South Padre Island, Weslaco, Bawdsey Manor British Tearoom, Ciao Lavanderia, Grill at Leon Springs, Josephine Street Cafe, A Fonda on Main, La Scala, Le Reme, L'etoile, Liberty Bar, The Lodge, Paesanos Lincoln Heights, Paloma Blanca, Piccolo's, Shiraz, Thai Corner, Stefania's Country Italian, West Avenue Kitchen, Biga on the Banks, Bourdo's on the Riverwalk, Johnny Cace's Seafood and Streakhouse, Tyler Street Bistro, Bandera, Fredericksburg, Wimberley, Bellville, Muenster, Castroville, Alpine, Marfa, Terlingua, )(Restaurant review)
September 1, 2007... 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...

Six-Man Super Saturday.(JORDAN'S PICK)
September 1, 2007... Hico FOOTBALL AS RELIGION is the gospel truth here in Texas, where players are gods and fields are hallowed ground. So the organizers of this month's Six-Man Super Saturday can be forgiven if their slogans have been a bit holier-than-thou:...

Holding court.(The Filter: Events: WHERE TO GO, WHAT TO DO, WHO TO SEE)(Interview)
September 1, 2007... BEAUMONT, FRISCO No, it's not a comeback (unfortunately), but Pete Sampras, who hung up his racket in 2003, is back in the game. The 36-year-old tennis legend, who was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in July, has stayed busy...

Around the World in Thirty Days.(The Filter: Events: WHERE TO GO, WHAT TO DO, WHO TO SEE)
September 1, 2007... SAN ANTONIO When Fotoseptiembre USA was launched in 1996, it was a modest affair with a dozen exhibits. By 2000, the free photography festival had grown substantially, with 180 artists showcased in some 50 exhibits and conferences. Fast-forward...

Green thumbs-up.(The Filter: Events: WHERE TO GO, WHAT TO DO, WHO TO SEE)
September 1, 2007... AUSTIN Forget Bob Dylan. This year's Austin City Limits Music Festival is going to have recycled toilet paper and biodiesel-run generators! That's right, ACL has gone green (but then again, who hasn't?). With merchandise sacks made of corn,...

Walk of art.(The Filter: Events: WHERE TO GO, WHAT TO DO, WHO TO SEE)(Directory)(Calendar)
September 1, 2007... DALLAS We all know about the Dallas Museum of Art and the Nasher Sculpture Center, but there's far more to see at the smaller independent galleries in the city's other, less official arts districts. If you need a little help navigating the...

Power play.(The Filter: Events: WHERE TO GO, WHAT TO DO, WHO TO SEE)
September 1, 2007... DALLAS The Dallas Stars' latest quest for the Stanley Cup doesn't officially begin until October 3, but the blogosphere is already aswirl with predictions and previews. September's seven preseason games (four of which are on home ice) may not...

Space crusaders.(The Filter: Events: WHERE TO GO, WHAT TO DO, WHO TO SEE)(Brief article)
September 1, 2007... FORT WORTH A quartet of artists who were at the forefront of two post-WWII movements--Abstract Expressionism and color-field painting--will be shown together in "Declaring Space" opening at the Modern Art Museum this month. Here, a...

Generation exit: I had hoped that, by now, the littlest Mackintoshes would be living in Texas. We still have work to do.(Prudence Mackintosh)
September 1, 2007... My grandsons are not Texans... yet. [paragraph] As a Southern Baptist child in East Texas, I often repeated the memory verse from Proverbs: "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it." I assumed...