January 1980

Table of Contents

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Features

The Baby Factory

At Houston’s Jefferson Davis Hospital, the wonders of modern medicine collide with the raw realities of birth, poverty, neglect and hope.

Elegant Fossils

Once Texas was a land of fabulous, ornate county courthouses. It still is, but today they’re flamboyant relics in our streamlined urban landscapes.

1980 Bum Steer Awards

A look at a longish list of last year’s lamentable lunacies, lawless louts, licentious larcenies, and laughable lies.

The Vanishing Steak

Beefing and chewing the fat about a rare pleasure that’s almost done for.

Life Got You Down

Don’t despair, learn to Think Positive! Success and happiness are only a seminar, a cassette library, and several hundred dollars away!

Columns

Behind the Lines

Two questions about school desegregation: Is busing the only way? Are integrated schools inferior?

Politics

Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven . . .

The Panhandle is home for the country’s only H-bomb assembly plant. Aren’t you glad we told you?

Stepping Out

Doing the Greenville Avenue Boogie

By reputation Dallas is a staid city. But there is one strip where Dallas is fevered, excessive, and lascivious, and where every night is party night.

Environment

Terminal Case

Galveston has withstood tidal waves, hurricanes, gamblers, and tourists. Can it survive a superport?

Church

Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen

A Dallas rabbi says Christmas is a form of persecution for Jews; a Disciples of Christ pastor discusses suffering with equanimity.

Film

Catch a Riding Star

A boy and his horse reach great heights in The Black Stallion. The Rose, with Bette Midler, is no American beauty.

Theater

Life After SMU

When Stage #1 opened as a halfway house for theater graduates from SMU, the participants weren’t pitied but applauded.

Classical Music

The Trill of It All

Houston and Dallas opera companies could fudge on shoe sizes when it came to casting Cinderellas, but the voices had to fit just so.

Popular Music

Willie and the Power Boys

New records from Texas’ die-hard country, rock, and punk musicians.

Jazz

Love For Sale

The Midland Jazz Classic wasn’t cheap, but it was worth the price.

Books

Dr. Updike

John Updike’s problems are our pleasures. Mean Scrooge McDuck returns in a nostalgic comic-book collection.

Reporter

Reporter

Texas Monthly Reporter

George Bush wants to shake your hand; Rita Clements wants to paint your Governor’s Mansion; Dallas wants to bring you art, lots of art.

Miscellaneous

The Inside Story

Steering Bum Steers.

Roar of the Crowd

Movers and fakers.

Touts

Night stalkers and day walkers.

Puzzle

Letters please.

State Secrets

A helicopter plague descends on Dallas; is the Texas environmentalist an endangered species?; cattlemen won’t be cowed.

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