January 1999 Issue

On the Cover

1999 Bum Steer Awards

A year of asking-for-it Aggies, badass broccoli, contraband coffee, Death Row decor, extrapolating elephants, faux feet, god-awful gimmickry, humongous heavyweights, incomparable ironers, judicial jimjams, kaput kowtowers, lame-brained liberals, moping millionaires, NASA ninnies, off-putting officials, prize-winning pignappers, quasi-comic quipsters, red-handed rapscallions, scarfable sod, theoretical thongs, ungodly ungulates, vomiting vegetation, wild-eyed window-breakers, xenophobic Xanthippes, Yankee yahoos, and zapped zealots.

Features


Feature

Slur Stir

They stand politically corrected.WHERE’S THAT TIGER WHEN YOU NEED HIM? During a Galveston City Council meeting, the Reverend James Thomas, an African American member of the council, referred to African Americans who had unsuccessfully challenged his reelection as “Sambos.”HOW SHORTSIGHTED OF HER The City of Houston’s affirmative action director, Lenoria

Feature

Bush Push

They’re big, by George.NOW IT’S REALLY EASY TO READ HIS LIPS Houston sculptor David Adickes is creating twenty-foot-tall busts of George Bush and the forty other U.S. presidents for a patriotic theme park he hopes to open this year in Virginia.AW, HE’S JUST BEATING AROUND THE BUSH At a National

Feature

Not Great In ’98

“C” why it was a bad year.CRUSHED. Garry Mauro suffered the worst defeat of any Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Texas history, losing to George W. Bush by 1.4 million votes and getting just 31 percent of the vote.CATAPULTED. Tommy Lee Jones was banged up when he was thrown from his

Feature

You Can’t Go Home Again

Folk singer Nanci Griffith thinks the Texas media have been mistreating her. The way she’s fighting back guarantees her trouble with the press isn’t going away.

Feature

Deep Dish

Which Hollywood legend is “the bitch of all time”? Which comedienne’s daughter was a dope addict by age fourteen and came to Houston to get unhooked? Texas’ top gossips tell all.

Teenage Wasteland

With its optimistically broad streets and oversized cantilevered homes, Plano is the suburban ideal taken to its extreme, and its exaggerated scale often gives rise to exaggerated problems. Heroin addiction is only the latest.

Feature

Err Ware

The Bum Steer Gift Guide.THE RON PAUL FAMILY COOKBOOK, compiled by the family of the Surfside congressman, which contains recipes such as Zippy Olive-Beef Spread and a clip-and-mail card soliciting donations to his reelection campaign (free to donors). LEAVE BILL CLINTON ALONE, a compact disc from Austin soul singer Larry

Feature

Church Search

Dallas is not the place.NO, THAT’S HIGHLAND PARK Hon-Ming Chen, the founder of God’s Salvation Church in Taiwan, and 140 of his followers moved to the Dallas suburb of Garland because they thought it was the site of the original Garden of Eden and it sounded like “God’s Land.”WHICH STANDS

Columns


Cities

Not Black and White

Fifteen years ago, in a PBS documentary, Bill Moyers declared that the East Texas town of Marshall was actually two towns divided by race. To some extent, it still is.

Television

News Makers

Coming January 1 to a small screen near you: A round-the-clock, Texas-specific, CNN-style cable channel. Its creators will be watching. Will you?

Texana

Wild Kingdom

Tucked away near tiny Murchison, Black Beauty Ranch is a refuge for injured, abused, or abandoned animals—even after the death of its guiding spirit, Cleveland Amory.

Reporter


Dianne Hardy-Garcia

DIANNE HARDY-GARCIA is so earnest in conversation that you might mistake her for a political novice. Don’t. As the executive director of the Lesbian and Gay Rights Lobby of Texas for the past five years, the 33-year-old San Antonio native has had one of the most challenging jobs in a

Michael Martin Murphey

When I was seventeen, I didn’t have a band; I pretty much performed either by myself or with a bass player. I often played at a coffeehouse I started called the Windjammer. It was down on McKinney Avenue in Dallas, which was a really rough neighborhood at the time. One

CD and Book Reviews

LEON RAUSCH If Cindy Walker had never produced another song besides “You Don’t Know Me,” her stature would be assured among country and pop writers. But the Mexia woman has written about four hundred others, including “Bubbles in My Beer” (Bob Wills) and “Two Glasses, Joe”

Web


Recipe

Braised Lamb Shank and Rabbit

Lamb and Rabbit4 small, lean lamb shanks, trimmed of visible fat 4 rabbit hind legs kosher or sea salt and coarsely ground pepper to taste 3/4 cup olive oil 1 large onion, peeled and coarsely chopped 4 medium carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped 2 celery stalks, coarsely chopped 3 cloves

Recipe

Mashed Potatoes

2 pounds russet or Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and quartered 2 teaspoons puréed chipotles (canned or rehydrated dried chiles) 1/2 cup half-and-half or cream (restaurant uses whipping cream) 2 tablespoons unsalted butter kosher or sea salt and coarsely ground pepper to taste 2 tablespoons chopped fresh herbs such as parsley,

Miscellany


State Fare

State Fare

For fans of lamb and rabbit, this dish from Houston’s Tasca is a real meat and greet.

Case Study

ALL OUR LIVES—our beliefs, our government, our history—changed that day [“The Assassination at 35,” November 1998]. I was thirteen when President Kennedy was killed, and I have always believed it was a conspiracy. After this issue, I don’t. Sis Hoskins Cedar Creek A PRISTINE PRIMER. Remarkable writing, editing, and photo

Around the State

Around the State

Fort Worth and Austin say “Uncle”—Miltie, that is. Plus: The art of rock and roll in Austin; college athletes in the swim in Dallas; an operatic debut in Dallas with a familiar Ring; and a post-war jazz master plays San Antonio. THE MAIN EVENTMust See Mr. TVDear Milton Berle: Or

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