Karen Olsson
Features
Why Are Tortilla Chips So Damn Good?
Is it the crispiness? The crunchiness? The saltiness? Thankfully, a small cadre of researchers in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Texas A&M has spent much of the past thirty years munching on this question.
Presidential Detail
Before and After
For some residents of Mount Pleasant, the April 16 immigration raid on the local chicken plant was no more than a segment on the evening news. For others, including many legal residents of the tiny East Texas town, it was the moment everything changed.
The Final Frontier
Karl Gebhardt and Gary Hill, two astronomers from the University of Texas at Austin, are racing to solve one of the greatest mysteries in science: What is dark energy? How does it work? Can it explain the origins of the universe? There’s only one problem. Dark energy may not actually exist.
Keep Out!
Which is worse: looking the other way as millions of illegals stream across the border or building an unconscionably expensive and impractical fence that few in the Valley (a) want or (b) believe will make a difference?
Human Mate Selection Is a Many-Splendored Thing
David Buss understands how Stone Age hookups made us who we are—but can that help me get a date?
Eating A Dead Horse
Even if you’ve never dined on the delicious remains of a noble steed, you probably have an opinion on whether the state’s two slaughterhouses should remain open. Boone Pickens does. And Charlie Stenholm. And Bo Derek. Not to mention the many traders and “killer buyers” for whom business is business.
Keep Waterloo Weird
In this excerpt from Karen Olsson’s forthcoming novel set in a fictional state capital (wink, wink), a reporter for a weekly newspaper watches a rural conservative who “shares your values” announce his candidacy for governor.
About a Girl
Audra Thomas can't read these words and, in a few months, wouldn't remember them anyway. Nevertheless, she has an extraodinary sense of the world around her—and of herself.
Mr. Right
The line on James Leininger is fairly simple: He's a doctrinaire conservative who spends millions supporting candidates and causes he likes—and opposing those he doesn't. That makes him one of the most influential players in Texas politics in the post-Bush era.
The Evolutionary
What do you do when you win a $295,000 MacArthur “genius” grant? If you’re biologist David Hillis, you keep teaching at the University of Texas as if nothing happened, and you keep chasing frogs.
Columns | Miscellany
Capitol Affairs
Nadine Eckhardt married not one but two legendary figures in the Texas liberal pantheon. And lived to tell the tale.
No Place Like Home
Bienvenidos a Farmers Branch, the headline-worthy Dallas suburb where the biggest hard-liner on illegal immigration could soon be known as Mr. Mayor.
The Old College Try
The mayor of El Cenizo is 23, is still in school, and lives with his mother. But he’s serious about making life better in his impoverished border hometown.
The Buck Stops Nowhere
Is the Texan who oversaw Abu Ghraib a hero, a villain, or both?
The Gay Non-Issue
The election of a lesbian sheriff in Dallas County is a reminder of how far we’ve come, in a very short period, on the question of sexual orientation.
Party Crashers
If we had more than two big-time candidates, maybe we could have a genuine presidential race in every state. Even Texas.
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