Gregory Curtis

Principals, Not Heels

Why good schools have clean bathrooms and principals who don’t wear high heels.

Film • Al Reinert and William Broyles, Jr.

Scripting success.

Education • Charles Miller

Head of the class.

Shooting on the Border

THERE IS AN OBLIGATORY SCENE in every movie about the border between Texas and Mexico: A man draws a line in the dirt with his boot. The line means something different in each movie, and yet, there it is, a narrow little rut in the ground that the characters gesture

Blow by Blow

The art of throwing punches, the science of skipping rope, and other reasons why boxing is a hit with me.

The Fourth Tramp

A new book about Lee Harvey Oswald reveals that conspiracy theorists are still straining to repackage old news into something new.

Bookends

The conventional wisdom is that the independents are good and the national chains are evil—but don’t judge a bookstore by its cover.

Shots in the Dark

Two grim incidents involving guns, three dead teenagers: Reflections on self-defense.

Poets and Pedestrians

Two poets, well versed in the ways of Houston, reflect on the city’s effect on lives and letters.

What Does “Jolt” Mean?

Why are so many students in Texas unable to read? The answer is obvious: because the school system has failed them.

Prince “Tex” Charles

Donald Trump is one. So are Boris Yeltsin and John Gotti. So was Emily Dickinson. What are they? Texans of course.

Up, Up, and Away

The death of a federal program in Amarillo shows that cutting the budget isn’t the answer to everything.

The First Twenty

TV on Trial

Playing Doctor

Some Shots at Guns

A Case of Murder

More criminals are condemned to death in the Harris County courthouse than anywhere else in the world.

A Bloody Game

The Good Loser

The Gate-Crashers

The Home Vote

Love in Public

Shape Up

Edward Blum ran for Congress in 1992, lost, and then decided to change America. He has succeeded. He was one of six plaintiffs in a Texas case that, along with similar cases in North Carolina and Louisiana, will help reverse the racial separation and antagonism that infects our public life.

Glorious Sideshow

Affirmative Reaction

The judge could surprise everyone, but it is no longer likely that the case of Hopwood, et al. v. Texas, et al., which concluded in Austin in late May, will change America by rewriting the law of affirmative action. For a while, the suit brought by four white applicants who

What They Did Wrong

The Game’s Over

A Healthy Practice

Jim’s Cowboys

Seer and Scholar

Waterlogged

Adventures in Flying

Paid to Do Injustice

School’s Out

Pooped Parties

Essay: A Wild Ride

Once, you needed the price of oil to predict our ever-changing economic future. Now you need the want ads, the stock tables, and a whole lot more.

Great Days

Twenty and counting.

A Mighty City

Behind the Lines

The Same or Better?

The Intimate GOP

IT WAS JUST TEN DAYS after the close of the Republican convention, and here I was at a much smaller gathering of Republicans at Fairview Farms in Plano, just north of Dallas. Proclaimed a “Boot Scootin’ Olde Tyme Political Hoe-Down,” this campaign kickoff was also, of course, a “family event”

Why Unforgiven?

YOU COULD HEAR A GASP from the audience when Clint Eastwood suddenly appeared on the screen. It was just a preview of his new movie, Unforgiven, but there he was in a long, dark slicker, his face in profile, staring menacingly from beneath a dark hat with a flat rim:

Threat or Menace?

Ross Perot is a candidate for president because a lot of people want him to be. He has acted in a very clever, innovative way to arouse and build that support, but the support truly did arise and grow. That means that Perot’s campaign is a pure expression of democracy.

Happy Babble

George H. W. Bush's commencement speech at Southern Methodist University was long on rhetoric and short on specifics. 

Oil and Water

Ten years ago I guess you could call yourself a Texan if you hadn’t been to the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, but an easy conversance with the OTC and its ways certainly bolstered your credentials. Back then the OTC was, like riding a horse or drinking a beer in

Party Time

Testing Delusions

This year is the twenty-sixth anniversary of the hardest test I ever took. Then, about to graduate from college with an English degree, I had been in school for so long and had liked it so much that I had no particular yearning to go out into the world. Perhaps

The Jammin’ Judge

ERIC ANDELL, THE JUDGE OF A JUVENILE court in Houston, peered down from the bench at the small cluster of people before him. In the center stood a lean sixteen-year-old boy in blue jeans and a light-green jersey with a hood. He and a friend had stolen a car to

A New Foundation

If Texas is already overburdened with lawyers, and if, nevertheless, our law schools are still bursting with students, then I have a simple solution. Before submitting an application, all who want to apply to law school must sit down and read every word of the Texas constitution that was passed

A Principal’s World

Conventional wisdom about education holds that local control, a strong principal, and active, involved parents are crucial ingredients in the mix that makes a successful school. This wisdom is so pervasive that the Legislature has made local control, in the form of “site-based decision making,” a legal requirement in Texas

A Round Per Second

Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any pumpkins; they would have shown vividly the violence these guns could do. But we didn’t let that slight disappointment stop us. At a remote rifle range, we blasted away. Or, to be precise, I blasted away, as my two friends, a law enforcement officer and