September/October 2019

The Texas Observer

Observing Texas since 1954

The Texas Observer2 min read
Dialogue
Thank you for your continued, urgent reporting on human rights, criminal justice, and politics in Texas. “Where the Bodies are Buried” (July|August) is moving, insightful, and sheds light on an important Texas tragedy and the continued efforts by res
The Texas Observer2 min read
Bless This Clinic
ON A SCORCHING AFTERNOON IN MID-JULY, CLERGY members gathered outside a small unmarked building tucked away in a business complex in North Austin. They filed inside, up the stairs, and into the waiting room of the Whole Woman’s Health abortion clinic
The Texas Observer2 min read
Whoops on Weed
TEXAS LAWMAKERS LIKE TO DECLARE THEMSELVES leaders on criminal justice reform, but this session they mostly did nothing about it. During the 86th Texas Legislature, a barrage of misinformation from police groups killed bipartisan efforts to reform Te
The Texas Observer1 min read
Say What Now?
THE TERM “Remain in Mexico” WHO'S USING IT The Trump administration Every few years, a pithy new phrase describing border goings-on enters the political lexicon. Who can forget some of the greatest partisan hits, like “spillover violence,” “chain mig
The Texas Observer2 min read
Animal House
ON JUNE 6, AN INSPECTOR WITH THE U.S. DEPARTMENT of Agriculture’s animal-welfare division made a macabre discovery. At a sprawling animal research facility in South Texas, 25 captive monkeys had not been fed for six days. They were in such bad shape
The Texas Observer2 min readAmerican Government
Private Prison Woes
DONALD TRUMP IS A PRIVATE PRISON KIND OF GUY. America’s two for-profit titans of incarceration—GEO Group and CoreCivic—pitched in $500,000 for his inauguration. Almost immediately after Trump took office, his Justice Department reversed an Obama-era
The Texas Observer3 min readGender Studies
Fringe Factor
TITLE/ORGANIZATION Leader of Mass Resistance Houston THE CAUSE Ending “assaults on the traditional family, school children, and the moral foundation of society.” NOTABLE ACCOMPLISHMENT Shutting down drag queen story time events in Houston and Leander
The Texas Observer3 min readAmerican Government
Red Flags
FOR TEXAS DEMOCRATS TO DO WELL IN 2020 AND POTENTIALLY secure the state House and a number of additional congressional seats, they need to organize themselves effectively—and have a lot of things line up just right. The jury’s out on the first part:
The Texas Observer2 min read
The Long Haul
ONE OF THE FLATTERING (AND TERRIFYING!) parts of starting a new job is that all of a sudden, people seem interested in you and your thoughts. It usually starts with the simple stuff. Who are you? Oh, man, where to start … but for these purposes, I’m
The Texas Observer11 min readAmerican Government
Running Start
STATE OF TEXAS 2019 An unprecedented number of first-time female candidates ran for office in Texas in 2018—and lost. Now, many of those women are running again. EARLY ON NOVEMBER 7, 2018, GINA ORTIZ JONES drove home after conceding to U.S. Represent
The Texas Observer16 min readAmerican Government
John Cornyn, At Your* Service
In 2012, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was facing an ascendant tea party faction and was leery of political insurrection. Which is why his new minority whip, John Cornyn, the senior senator from Texas, a state with the largest number of Repu
The Texas Observer5 min read
The Namesake
LAVINIA MASTERS WAS 13 YEARS OLD WHEN A STRANGER raped her at knifepoint in her Dallas bedroom. For more than two decades, her rape kit—the evidence collected in a hospital after the assault on July 31, 1985—sat untested. By the time her case was reo
The Texas Observer13 min read
Bridge to nowhere
SOMEWHERE ALONG THE ROAD FROM BROWNSVILLE to South Padre Island, at the southern tip of Texas’ Gulf Coast, things take a turn for the picturesque. Clues of the Port of Brownsville’s transportation industry—cranes, storage tanks, floodlights—vanish. T
The Texas Observer10 min read
Mr. Reynolds’ Opus
WALK INTO COMPOSER GRAHAM Reynolds’ East Austin studio, and the first thing you’ll notice, perhaps surprisingly, is the books. There are two whole walls of them: floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with hundreds of music books, naturally, but also cookbo
The Texas Observer4 min read
Paperback In The USSR
THE SECRETS WE KEPT By Lara Prescott KNOPF $36.95; 369 PAGES When I taught American literature at a Soviet university in 1980, I managed to bring along some books that were banned by the Kremlin: Catch-22, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Slaughterho
The Texas Observer3 min readLGBTQIA+ Studies
Art for All
THERE’S A PAINTING IN TRANSAMERICA/N: Gender, Identity, Appearance Today that sums up the exhibit’s quietly subversive mood. Titled “Robert,” the acrylic work depicts a heavyset bearded man in a Morrissey T-shirt. With tattoos on his arm and a black
The Texas Observer5 min readEarth Sciences
Up From the Desert
I SPENT MANY CHILDHOOD AFTERNOONS SEARCHING for sea fossils in the Chihuahuan Desert, finding geologic history strewn throughout the brown and dusty land. My neighbor Mr. Carmichael, an archaeologist at the University of Texas at El Paso, taught me a
The Texas Observer2 min read
Lee’s Death Anniversary
They say that the Appalachians are the oldestmountain chain in the world, and that our HillCountry through gorgeous Central & SouthwestTexas in the river canyons we live in or look north to,are part of that same Appalachian chain. There weretectonic
The Texas Observer2 min read
Mark Lambie
As told to Rose Cahalan on August 7, four days after a gunman killed 22 people at an El Paso Walmart. I’VE BEEN A STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER AT the El Paso Times for 18 years. I was covering UTEP football practice on Saturday morning [the day of the shooting

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