The legendary  editor — who founded New York and, in doing so, invented the city magazine genre — died today after a long illness. (Read Kurt Andersen’s remembrance here. Man, that was quick.) To the extent that I knew him (not that well), I liked him a lot. I have a very clear memory of talking to him about a top job at M Inc., the bastard child of Manhattan Inc., truly a great, fun magazine, and M, truly, uh, not, before I accepted a job with TEXAS MONTHLY in late 1991. He asked that we meet for a drink at the bar of the Alogonquin Hotel in New York. I ordered a drink-drink. He ordered a glass of milk. Hmm. Then he proceeded to tell me all the reasons why it was a mistake to move to Austin. “You’ll never be heard from again,” he insisted. I didn’t listen, of course, though his words have been ringing in my ears ever since. It was a narrow view of the world then and especially now — who needs New York, anyway? — but he meant well, sort of. R.I.P.

So I can’t claim credit for Bill Dingus ending up on the ballot as Tom Craddick’s general election opponent. But that nice Hans Klingler will probably find a way to lay the blame at my feet.

Matt Glazer says so in a matter-of-fact way that makes me think I’ve been asleep. Gotta do a better job of setting that alarm.

This exchange in Deborah “Condensed and Edited” Solomon’s interview with Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman is a Barry Blitt illustration waiting to happen. (Cheney, out of the side of his mouth: “Maaaaa! Suckle! Maaaaa!”)

What do you think about when you meditate? Usually, some form of trying to excavate any kind of negative thing cycling in the mind and turn it toward the positive. For example, when I am annoyed with Dick Cheney, I meditate on how Dick Cheney was my mother in a previous life and nursed me at his breast.

You mean you fantasize about being breast-fed by Dick Cheney? It’s a fantasy of releasing fear and developing affection. It’s a way of coming back to feeling grateful toward him and seeing his positive side, finding the mother in Dick Cheney.

What would Freud say about that? Freud would freak out.

Our founding editor — once a decorated officer in Vietnam, now a celebrated screenwriter — wrote this month’s Behind the Lines column, and he makes a passionate case for an immediate end to the Iraq war, in which his son, David, served honorably. Read Bill’s piece here.

An excerpt:

When I see friends from the National Guard or the Reserves called up, then called up again, then called up yet again; when I see former troops who served multiple tours in the war zone pulled out of civilian life and sent back to the war; when I see talk show hosts and politicians cheerleading for a war they wouldn’t dream of serving in themselves, I take it personally. When the remains of dead young Americans are brought home in secret and some are cremated in pet cemeteries; when we’ve created nearly 5 million refugees in Iraq and taken in just 692; when we cage people without trials for years and treat them like animals; when supporters of the war oppose a new GI Bill that would give enough money for veterans like my son to go to college—when they say the men and women who served three and four war tours deserve only enough to cover a fraction of their college education, even though they gave 100 percent of their service—that’s personal too.

I’ve had enough of this war. I’ve had enough of the pictures of good American families, the mom with her arms around her children and the caption saying she’d just celebrated her wedding anniversary when she was killed in Iraq. I’ve had enough of the pictures of wounded Americans trying to learn to walk or talk or eat again. I’ve had enough of the pictures they won’t let us see but which I can too vividly imagine. Of the Iraqi children dead in our bombings, their homes destroyed, their families blown away. Of the millions of Iraqi refugees without homes or jobs. Of the return of Islamic fundamentalism to Iraq in our wake, with women murdered for not being married or not wearing a head scarf.

I’ve had enough of throwing billions of our hard-earned dollars down a rat hole of corruption. Fifteen billion unaccounted for by the Pentagon. Nine billion unaccounted for by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Another $1.8 billion in seized Iraqi assets that simply disappeared. When I’d finished my year in Vietnam, I couldn’t wait to get on that freedom bird and go home, but they wouldn’t let me leave. You know why? Because I’d signed out a shovel and hadn’t returned it. A shovel! The supply sergeant told me the taxpayers had paid for that shovel and I’d better bring it back or he wouldn’t sign my departure papers. I had to buy one for five bucks on the black market and turn it in before I got my ticket home. That’s how America used to do things.

Our intrepid senior editor returned from his trip to Huntsville, reflected on what he saw, and sent me this e-mail about the ongoing Charles Hood case:

You know how a mean-spirited parent will threaten to slap a child but stop his hand inches from the child’s face? That’s what the state of Texas did to Charles Hood last night. Twice. Two times the state said it was going through with plans to execute him, and two times it stopped, just inches away. I was in Huntsville at the Walls unit for the execution last night — I’ve been working on a story on Hood and was set to be a media witness for his execution. Instead I witnessed a bizarre, complicated, and ultimately cruel and unusual run of events. And not just for Hood: Last night was also cruel and unusual for the family members there to witness his punishment — among them Julie Wallace (crime victim Tracy Wallace’s sister), Roger Williamson (victim Ron Williamson’s son, who has cerebral palsy and had to be moved in and out of the prison in his wheelchair), and James Hood (Charles’ brother).

It was just plain absurd to the guards and prison staff, many of whom were walking around shaking their heads in wonder. For the rest of the world, it was just more proof that in Texas we do things differently. And different is not always better. Hood got his first stay about 4:30 pm, an hour before his scheduled time, when Collin County trial judge Curt Henderson withdrew the execution warrant. Hood was taken from his cell at the Walls unit and put in a van for the return trip to Livingston, where Death Row inmates live. Henderson’s move was appealed by the Collin County D.A., and the case went before the Court of Criminal Appeals, which the day before had denied Hood’s writ of habeas corpus alleging an affair between Judge Verla Sue Holland and D.A. Tom O’Connell at his 1989 trial (the writ was based on an affidavit from a former assistant D.A. that claimed knowledge of the affair was “common knowledge” around the courthouse). Around 8, the CCA denied the withdrawal of the death warrant, saying the judge had no authority to do so; however, Henderson, who had himself worked for D.A. O’Connell back in 1989, had also recused himself from any further consideration of the case, preventing the CCA from forcing him to re-install the warrant. “He’s cockblocked the CCA,” said my colleague Jake Silverstein, who made the trip to Huntsville with me.

Sometime after 10, another judge finally re-intalled the warrant, using the indelible words, “This court hereby rescinds its order in which it previously withdrew its order earlier today.” In the meantime, Hoods’ attorneys had filed three more appeals with the U.S. Supreme Court. Finally, about 11:10, the Supreme Court turned them down, and Hood was told to get ready: it was time to die again. I and the other witnesses were taken to the rooms outside the execution chamber, where we were all searched thoroughly. Then we waited. Ten of us, including three guards and James Hood, sat or stood in silence for ten minutes. Finally, a guard came in. “Stand down,” he said. The execution was off again. It was 11:40 and officials had decided there wasn’t enough time to fully do the procedure — to get Hood out of his cell (he had told me he was going to make them carry him), to put him on the gurney, to find a vein, insert the IV needle, to wheel him into the chamber, to get the witnesses in there, to pronounce sentence, to hear his final words, to inject the chemicals, to allow them to do their job.

The whole procedure needs to be finished by midnight. Essentially, prison officials ran out of time, so they halted the execution. Then the governor stepped in, giving Hood a 30-day reprieve and essentially doing an end-around the trial judge, who is the officially who usually sets the execution date. That is, when he isn’t recusing himself. Hood was put in the van for the drive home. Twice he was prepared for imminent death and twice he was given a reprieve. No matter what you think about Hood’s guilt, this is no way to treat a human being. Unfortunately, there will always be nights like this, at least as long as prosecutors relentless seek the death penalty, defense attorneys incessantly file appeals, and courts throw cases back and forth between themselves. In other words, it’s the nature of the beast to be this way, to be this cruel.

Last Wednesday, senior editor Mike Hall and multimedia guru/web producer Brian Birzer trooped over to Livingston to see Death Row inmate Charles Hood, the subject of an upcoming story by Mike. Brian shot the picture above and the video below, in which Hood — amazingly — talks about not wanting to be taken to Huntstville to be executed only to have his death warrant stayed at the last minute. As Mike points out, Hood had this happen twice last night: He was to be executed, then he wasn’t, then he was, and then he wasn’t. The question of Hood’s guilt nothwithstanding, the whole thing is indeed cruel and unusual. And, let’s not forget, thirty days from now he could well be subjected to the same on-off ritual.

And so we — Charles Hood, and the rest of us — go through this same exercise a month hence. Mike and Jake, you can come home now.

There is no possible way that the apparatus of the death penalty could have functioned in a more inept, incompetent, inhumane fashion. We should all be embarrassed.

That’s the word from Mike, who called to say the Supreme Court had turned each of his appeals down.

Still trying to find out why. Mike Hall’s in Hunstville and will report in.

Update: The prosecutor in Collin County has challenged the Collin County District Judge’s stay order, and that challenge is now before the Court of Criminal Appeals. (Need I point out that it’s after 5 p.m.? Sharon Keller is probably home watching Wheel of Fortune.) Mike says Hood can still be executed tonight if the CCA, which voted 9-0 yesterday to deny his appeal, decides to overturn the order. Stay tuned — no pun intended.

If not for tort reform, John Cornyn could sue the makers of this video shown at the state Republican convention for — what? Malpractice? Wrongful death of his image? The deliberate infliction of pain and suffering on the voters of Texas? Or maybe he could sue his own campaign staff. Because this is just cow-pie-awful.

For three years, senior editor Mike Hall has been following the case of Death Row inmate Charles Hood, who is set to be executed next Tuesday, June 17 — unless his request for a stay is granted by the Court of Criminal Appeals. As news reports today indicate, there may well be cause for such a stay. Mike thinks it’s a no-brainer, as he wrote in an e-mail to me this afternoon.

The CCA has done a lot of foolish things in the last decade. It overturned a lower court’s request for a new trial in a case of Calvin Burdine, a man who got a death sentence even though his lawyer had slept during the proceedings. It refused to free convicted rapist Roy Criner even after DNA evidence had shown he wasn’t the culprit (a decision that dissenting judge Tom Price said made the court a “national laughingstock”). In September presiding judge Sharon Keller turned down an eleventh-hour appeal from Death Row inmate Michael Richard because it was going to be turned in a half an hour late. “We close at five,” she said. Richard was executed. Even Keller’s fellow judges were outraged.

Which is one reason to believe that the court may actually do a non-foolish thing in the latest controversy at its door: a serious allegation of an intimate relationship between a prosecutor and a judge at a 1990 capital murder trial. The trial of Charles Dean Hood for the double murder of Ron Williamson and Traci Wallace took place in the 296th Judicial District Court of Collin County in the summer of 1990, with the Honorable Verla Sue Holland presiding. The District Attorney was Tom O’Connell who, with his assistant John Schomburger, prosecuted Hood, sending him to death row. Hood has gotten several execution dates over the past 18 years. The latest one is June 17, at 6 p.m.

Allegations of an affair between Holland and O’Connell first arose in 1995, when Janet Heitmiller, a paralegal for Hood’s trial defense team, told his appellate lawyers about talk around the courthouse. Several attorneys confirmed the rumors, though no one had any actual proof of the office romance. An investigator also talked with Holland’s ex-husband Earl, who believed they were having an affair. According to Allan Berlow, who wrote a story for Salon.com in 2005, Earl Holland told friends the affair led him to file for divorce. Berlow talked with two of those anonymous friends. One said, “I am 100 percent sure that there was an affair,” telling of listening to tape recordings Holland had made of his wife and her lover; the other said there was a “mountain of circumstantial evidence of an affair.” Hood’s trial attorney David Haynes told Berlow, “Everyone in the courthouse had heard those rumors” — but without more evidence, he said, he couldn’t ask Holland to recuse herself. Holland and O’Connell refused to discuss the allegations then, and haven’t discussed them to this date.

But now there is more. Yesterday Hood’s lawyers filed with the CCA an application for a writ of habeas corpus and a stay of execution based on the words of Matthew Goeller, who was an assistant district attorney working under O’Connell from 1987 through 1996. In his affidavit, Goeller wrote: “It was common knowledge in the District Attorney’s Office, and the Collin County Bar, in general…” that O’Connell and Holland “had a romantic relationship.” This is not the word of someone who used to work for Hood and it’s not the word of a bitter cuckhold. This is a still-practicing member of the Collin County bar who worked closely with O’Connell. Hood’s attorneys want to use this affidavit to get a stay of execution, but their end game is to get Holland and O’Connell into court to ask them about the affair, under oath. They have each denied repeated requests for interviews, but they won’t be able to ignore a subpoena. It’s the only way to find out the truth about their relationship.

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution famously says, “Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” If you were on trial, would you want to go before a judge who was having an affair with the person trying to send you to prison — or worse, trying to have you executed? Impartiality is an absolute bedrock of our justice system, something the Texas Constitution recognizes too: “No judge shall sit in any case wherein the judge may be interested, or where either of the parties may be connected with the judge, either by affinity or consanguinity…”

But it’s not merely justice that is important. As the U.S. Supreme Court has said, a court “not only must be unbiased but also must avoid even the appearance of bias.”

And this is why the CCA needs to grant this writ and not, as it has done over the past ten years, rush to execution. After Holland left the district court, she served on the CCA from 1997 until 2001. She worked with eight of the nine currently sitting judges. If they ignore this appeal, this affidavit from a former officer of the Texas courts about one of their former peers, they risk not only the appearance of injustice but the reality of Texas becoming the all-time clown college of the American judicial system, the state that okayed both sleeping lawyers and lawyers sleeping with each other. The state that wouldn’t halt its execution machine long enough to ask a simple question. The CCA should grant this writ, call a hearing, subpoena Holland and O’Connell, and get to the bottom of the matter. Because it’s more than a man’s life that is at stake. It’s the absolute integrity of the way we run our judicial system.

I talked this morning with the Texas-born actress and singer — a star of stage, big screen, and small screen, a onetime Miss Fort Worth, and a Tony Award-winner — about her new film, M. Night Shymalan’s The Happening, which opens in theaters across the country today.

Veteran music writer Ramiro Burr (the author — ? — of this 1996 TEXAS MONTHLY piece) has left the San Antonio Express-News — he says to pursue other opportunities, they say because he had somebody who wasn’t Ramiro Burr write more than 100 columns and stories under his byline since 2001 and never disclosed that inconvenient fact.

“Ramiro caused the Express-News to unknowingly publish work under his name that was not, in fact, his own work,” said Robert Rivard, editor of the Express-News.

“It was the work of at least one other writer who did not receive credit and who we did not know about. Ramiro decided on his own to resign just as our investigation was concluding and we were preparing to take appropriate action. We have a zero-tolerance policy whenever someone on our staff presents work as their own that is not their own.” …

The Express-News began to look into allegations against Burr in April after lawyers for Douglas Shannon contacted Rivard, seeking “formal byline credit” for stories Shannon claimed he “ghost-wrote” for Burr in 2001, 2002 and 2003. Shannon also claimed that he transcribed and translated from Spanish to English interviews Burr conducted in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Shannon’s lawyers presented to Hearst Corp. lawyers a binder thoroughly documenting Shannon’s working relationship with Burr. It contained invoices, e-mail correspondence, copies of stories Shannon said he either wrote or substantially helped Burr write and other allegations, among them:

That Shannon wrote all 80 of Burr’s Latin Notes columns published in the Express-News Weekender section between Dec. 14, 2001, and June 27, 2003.

That Shannon wrote - over the same December 2001-June 2003 time frame - 24 other stories that were published under Burr’s byline, and;

That Shannon worked as Burr’s intern during that time period from the offices of Munoz Public Relations, a local firm that represents at least one musical organization (Mariachi Vargas) that fell within Burr’s beat.

Cynthia Y. Munoz, president of the firm, Wednesday confirmed the arrangement with Burr.