It must be chromosomal. How else to explain why so many of us lean on pop culture references to put significant moments in our lives into context? As I limp toward the last hours of my final day at TEXAS MONTHLY after more than seventeen years as an editor and the editor (and also the day that, not incidentally, the magazine’s staff is moving from the downtown offices we’ve occupied since 1989 into sparky new space just west of UT), I can’t help thinking: This is the end of a long-running TV series. The only question is which iconic final scene awaits me. Will the image of my exit abruptly and irritatingly switch to a black screen, cutting off Journey in mid-lyric? Will it mysteriously start to snow in mid-summer, only to reveal, when the camera pulls back, that we’re in a snow globe being shaken by a developmentally challenged kid (say, Spong) who imagined the whole thing? Will I drive home tearily envisioning the circumstances in which every staff member bites it (Burka asleep in a chair in Senate, pen and pad fall from his hands, slumps over, screen goes white, flashes “Paul Joel Burka” and his date of birth and death)? Will I roll over in bed tomorrow morning next to Suzanne Pleshette?

It’s too easy to overthink one’s passage into the next phase of life, so I’ll simply retweet @LouGehrig: Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I’ve spent nearly all of my career and nearly half of my years in the employ of the world’s greatest magazine — haters, cop a walk — and I wouldn’t trade a minute of it. I’ve grown up here in every conceivable way one can grow up, and I leave with enormous pride in what we accomplished together. My fellow all-hands-on-deckers — writers and editors and designers and copy-editors and fact-checkers — are the ones who deserve the credit for creating and sustaining this extraordinary publication over time, as do the ad salespeople and marketers and circulation whizzes and whip-smart accountants and production geniuses and custom publishing pioneers and new media visionaries who provided us the resources and wherewithal to do our best work. Going forward, I have absolutely no doubt that our editor, Jake Silverstein, and our president, Elynn Russell, will lead TEXAS MONTHLY to new heights, confounding the dim bulbs out there who fantasize about the demise of print journalism.

Although I’ll be starting a new job on Monday as CEO and editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, non-partisan public media organization, I’ll stay connected to these fine folks and this extraordinary magazine in many ways. I’ll be consulting for them on an as-needed basis for the next couple of years — hey, how about another Astronaut Sex cover! — and I’ll continue to host TEXAS MONTHLY TALKS as editor emeritus. Most important, because I know objectively that TEXAS MONTHLY is great and will soon be even greater, I’ve signed up as a subscriber. If you’re not one already, I hope you’ll do the same.

To all of you out there who I’ve met over time, who’ve emailed and called, who’ve commented kindly or obnoxiously on this blog or in a gut-bomb letter to the editor; to all of you who’ve welcomed the magazine or the TV show into your homes; to all of you who’ve put Texas first in your lives, as we here have every month and every week and every day: Thanks. I’ll miss you. Happy tr

Tags: burka, leaving, new job.

“If you give a government program and you let me choose to be in or choose to be out, that’s generosity.  If you force me in, irrespective of my desires, that’s tyranny.”

– Former House majority leader Dick Armey, on Meet the Press, explaining why he’s suing the government to get out of Medicare.

Just got a missive — unguided missile? — from my pal Ted Nugent saying he’s been fired by the Waco Tribune-Herald, which has new owners as of a couple of weeks ago. I’ve contacted Carlos Sanchez, the editor of the Trib, and asked for his response, which I’ll post below when I receive it. (For now, click here to read his comments as published in the paper today.)

Nugent’s email to me:

Just been fired from Waco Trib. Now they will have to rely on their other New York Times Best Sellers, and array of clever and diverse journalists to convey their diverse & tolerant point(s) of view. Here’s my Teditorial after being told to not criticize in my Sunday features that they chose to not run.

——

I’ll Take Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press for $100, Alex   by Ted Nugent

When the Nazis had the Americans surrounded in the town of Bastogne, they
demanded American General McAuliffe surrender or they would level the
city. General McAuliffe’s reply: Nuts!

The new editor of the Waco Trib recently told me that I could only write nice
things about people, that I could not be critical. Basically, that I
need to tone it down. I can not, nor will not, comply with this Romper
Room request. My reply: Nuts!

The editor is wrong to try and muzzle my opinions.

As a columnist, I express my opinions. That’s what columnists do. That’s
also the charge of an independent and free press.

The job of the press is to be the “fourth” arm of government. To
intentionally muzzle itself is to fail at its most basic watchdog
responsibility. As readers, voters and citizens we should demand a
watchdog press, not a lapdog press.

I can’t envision Thomas Jefferson, George Washington or Ben Franklin
making a request of an anti-King George columnist to tone it down. I
can’t imagine Martin Luther King toning down his message. It is
impossible for me to fathom any American to tone down what is in his
heart and soul.

I criticize where I believe criticism is due. That’s what Thomas Paine
did when he published Common Sense prior to the Revolutionary War. He
criticized King George for his heavy handed and wrong policies. We are
free in large part because of Thomas Paine’s open, routine and strident
criticism.

I have criticized President Obama and liberals for what I consider to be
destructive, anti-American policies that will hurt our economy and harm
your health. Not once have I criticized him personally because I have
never met the man. As far as I know he is a decent enough guy, but in my
opinion, is politically naive and very wrong, even dangerous for America. So do many
other Americans as indicated by the shrinking support for his takeover
of the health care system and numerous other heavy handed, foolish moves.

Obama’s policies are bankrupting America. He supports a health care bill
that he hasn’t even read, nor have those in congress who support it.
If that doesn’t deserve massive amount of criticism, what does?

When I have criticized President Obama, I have almost always countered
his dunderheaded, Marxist policies with a free market, more personal
freedom alternative. More government control is not the answer to what
ails America. Obama believes otherwise.

This newspaper and others should encourage spirited and lively debate
and criticism, especially when so many newspapers are losing
subscribers. I don’t support milquetoast journalism. It bores me.

You are free to disagree with my opinions. In fact, I encourage those of
you who do to fill the letters to the editor page of this newspaper. I
revel in open debate. That’s the America I know and love. Express
yourself, Texas. Lay it on the line. Give it your best shot. Be bold in
your disagreement.

Construcitve, bold criticism is cool. It rocks. It can literally change the course and destiny of an individual, neighborhood, community, and nation. It is the most basic of our Constitutional rights — the 1st Amendment. Failing to criticize emboldens politicians to stay on course regardless how many icebergs are dead ahead. Political correctness is the cancer of journalism, not its cure.

America and Texas was born with a defiant streak. Those genes still flow
through my veins. To request that I not criticize is to spit on the
memory of those who gave birth to America. Again, I criticize where I
believe criticism is due. That’s my civic job and your job as Americans.
If the editor of this newspaper doesn’t like that, he will have to fire
me. I will not surrender to his wrong demands.

In the words of another famous American military man, William Barrett
Travis, commander of the Alamo: God & Texas. Victory or death.

So KBH did the safe and predictable thing, which is to fake right. If she wasn’t running for governor against a guy who doesn’t have to fake, I’m guessing she’d have pulled a Lindsey Graham. The question for her — and her new team — is, How do you grow the primary vote when you spend all your time competing for the base? If she’s making a case for herself as a pragmatic alternative to the status quo, I haven’t heard it.

I’m with Carl Leubsdorf, who wrote in the Dallas Morning News a few days ago that Kay Bailey Hutchison has a tough call to make when it comes time to vote on Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination.

Running for governor means every Senate vote carries potential political impact, especially since she could face two very different groups of Texas voters.

If she supports Sotomayor, that would become an issue in the GOP primary against Gov. Rick Perry, with most of that electorate likely to be white conservatives.

If she votes against confirmation and wins the primary, it could become an issue for the far more diverse electorate in November 2010.

This is why she should have already bolted the Senate — not getting into these kind of predicaments is worth whatever price she would have paid for being called a quitter — though Rick Perry’s resurgence in the polls, and his shoring up of the conservative base, is proof enough. I’m not with Burka, who has always believed that Kay could decide, in the end, not to run. I think she’s definitely running. But waiting this long to come home and take on the governor toe to toe, minute to minute, is costing her plenty. I do wonder if waiting until early October, as the latest rumors suggest, gives her enough time to change the increasingly pervasive conventional wisdom, which is that she’s in trouble.

My August 2009 interview with the Episcopal Bishop of Texas, Andy Doyle, is sneak-previewed here. Doyle, you may know, is in his early forties, which may be why he’s so comfortable on Twitter and Facebook and other modern communications platforms. Whether the church throws in behind his efforts to build the fabled bridge to the 21st century remains to be seen, but you have to give the guy credit for trying.

The comments on the post below — the sneak preview of our August cover — reveal what appears to be an organized campaign to slime us for not ditching our planned cover story on the fifty best burgers in Texas in favor of a tribute to the late Farrah Fawcett. I say “organized” because the tone and language seems a little too similar to be coincidental, but I’m not complaining. It would be a problem if nobody cared what we did, apathy being the great Satan of the magazine business. Hating us in either organized or disorganized fashion, on the other hand, is fine, even if loving us would be a tad finer.

For the record: We did not discuss, not for a minute, the possibility of a last-minute cheeseburger-for-Farrah swap-out. We did, and do, have a piece by Christopher Kelly, our Hollywood TX columnist, in the issue, and — lest you think we’re corpse-chasing opportunists — we had it in the works before she died. It’s great; read it here. And that’s all we had to say, and felt we had to say, on the subject, having published several long pieces about Farrah when she alive and working on TV and in the movies.

It is indeed too bad that Michael Jackson’s death usurped hers, denying her passing the media attention it otherwise would have deserved. But we made the decision we made without regard to that or any consideration other than the one we typically mull: What do TEXAS MONTHLY readers want? Some of them, surely, would have liked to have Farrah on the cover, or to have had Chris’ piece teased as a cover line (in retrospect, probably a missed opportunity; my bad). But as many or, likely, more will be enticed by our great service journalism.

Very funny if, as advertised,  a bit long. (Via Rick Hertzberg at The New Yorker.)

The New Yorker writer and CNN senior legal analyst is my guest on this week’s episode — our seventh season finale.

Tags: burka, leaving, new job, ted nugent, texas monthly.

Paul Burka, Patti Hart, and I discuss the last gasps of the session and the improbable improbability of a special. Along the way, those two taskmasters grade the speaker (B-), the lite guv (C), and the guv (A+ on politics, F on policy).

The legendary UT-Austin women’s basketball coach is my guest this week.

From a Rachel Maddow segment last night:

“The Republican party right now is clawing its way to the bottom. They’ve got 23 percent of the American electorate supporting them. They’re seen as a sort of bitter, partisan party right now: anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic. I just think that this sends a lot of the wrong signals to independents and soft Republican voters out there who are leaving the party in droves. … I say it as a proud Republican, and as a progressive and moderate Republican, but I would just hope that there’s room for us still. There are a lot of voices in the party that seem to be crowding and shouting us out and shouting us down all the time.”