Before they clubbed two deer to death in their tiny West Texas town, the four high school football stars were treated like royalty. Afterward, when news of their exploits hit the Internet, they were celebrities of a very different sort.

For the 140 full-time, residential students lucky enough to be enrolled there, the Texas School for the Blind is “heaven,” “home,” and “the first place I had friends.”

You may think you know how the Obama-McCain battle
in Texas is going to turn out. You may even be right. But
the more important outcome is down-ballot, where two
dozen or so races—and the future of politics and
policy here—will be affected by what happens at
the top of the ticket.

How a fish called Ethel (seventeen pounds, ten ounces) caught by a fishing guide named Mark (Stevenson, in 1986, on Lake Fork) revolutionized a once-sleepy sport.

Grab your towel, your sunscreen, and go! Presenting our 25 favorite swimming holes: Barton Springs, Blue Hole, Balmorhea, and other iconic places to lower your core temperature. At least for a couple of hours.

Putting the fun in fun bags! The mommy in mommy muffins! (I could go on.)

What kind of Latina am I if I can’t speak Spanish?

The inside story of the Aggie sailing tragedy.

An East Austin high school shuts its doors.

Alan Ball’s near-great teen sex flick.

Where hip meets history.

Chapter Eight of “Twin Wells,” by Jill Patterson.

Can you ask your buddy to put sunscreen on your back?

Politics as sports (and sports as politics).

LBJ at 100, Beachcomber’s Museum, The Black List Project.

Talking trash (and compost).

Jeremy Wariner on being an Olympic sprinter.

“‘LBJ’s war’ was not a war he had sought. It was a war he had inherited. It was a war he was trying desperately to get out of.”

Sarah Wilson, Stephanie Elizondo Griest, and Charlie Llewellin.