Feature
January 1, 2006
Why Can’t Steven Phillips Get a DNA Test?
For that matter, why can’t any incarcerated man or woman with a good reason get one?
2006 – Page 15 of 15
Feature
January 1, 2006
The Elephants in the Room
Remember what Ronald Reagan said about Republicans not speaking ill of other Republicans? How quaint.
Feature
January 1, 2006
I Have Finally Arrived
First in Kuwait, then Baghdad. Next stop, the desert.
Business
January 1, 2006
Retail Politics
Along a seventeen-mile stretch of Interstate 35 sits a theoretical dividing line between red-state and blue-state America. In Austin, the flagship Whole Foods attracts your typical wine-sipping, tree-hugging, Volvo-driving liberals. In Buda, the massive Cabela’s is a magnet for beer-guzzling, gun-toting, flag-waving conservatives. From these consumer preferences, voting habits are
Feature
January 1, 2006
The 2006 Bum Steer Awards
It was a year of appalling Anna Nicole, babbling Bar, conspiring cheerleaders, déclassé DeLay, enraptured Eva, fecal funny business, gubernatorial gaffes, horrifying Hook ’Em, illustrious intoxicators, juggy Jessica, Kinky kocktails, lame lawmakers, misidentified ministers, noticeable nepotism, obnoxious Oberst, powerboating Perot, queer quotes, rude Redskin, stimulated sex offenders, titillating teachers, unwanted
Encyclopedia Texanica
January 1, 2006
Texas Myth #264
Oil’s well that begins well.
Music Review
January 1, 2006
Big Sweet Life: The Songs of Jon Dee Graham
Unfortunately, bad luck is often followed by more of the same. Take songwriter–guitar slinger Jon Dee Graham, whose son Willie was diagnosed with a rare and debilitating disease at the same time the family’s insurance company declared bankruptcy. Fortunately, Graham lives in Austin and has many talented friends, who contributed
Music Review
January 1, 2006
TexBook Tenor
Only being born too late kept Booker Ervin from becoming one of the original Texas Tenors. No one embodied the braggadocio of the Texas jazz sound like the Denison native; he cut into each piece with his sawtoothed tone, improvising with ferocity. Unexplained is how Ervin, who soared during his
Behind the Lines
January 1, 2006
The M Word
The conservative case for gay marriage.
Books That Cook
January 1, 2006
Books That Cook
A review of Cooking With Texas Highways.
Book Review
January 1, 2006
Glory Road
Don Haskins, the coach of Texas Western’s 1966 NCAA champion basketball team, professes to be a highly reluctant subject of Glory Road (Hyperion), his autobiography as told to Dan Wetzel. Which makes it doubly amazing that this average Joe wearing a clip-on tie (when he absolutely has to) emerges as
Book Review
January 1, 2006
Dog Days
Devotees of Wonkette—the snarky political blog of Texas-bred Ana Marie Cox—will cotton to the elbows-propped-on-the-bar style of her first novel, Dog Days (Riverhead). And they’ll find a soul mate in young campaign flack Melanie Thorton, who can’t spin fast enough to keep Democratic presidential candidate John Hillman from catching a
Book Review
January 1, 2006
Worst Hard Time
The image of thirties “Exodusters” fleeing dirt storms and drought is imprinted on the American consciousness. But in The Worst Hard Time (Houghton Mifflin), Pulitzer Prize–winner Timothy Egan considers instead the nearly one million Dust Bowlers who stayed put—whether from stubbornness or circumstance—to scratch out a meager existence. Egan follows
Sarah Bird
January 1, 2006
Say “Cheesy”
The quest for the perfect author photo (or at least one I can live with).
Health
January 1, 2006
Scent and Sensibility
Sweaty socks, cat urine, dead skunks: Three cheers for having no sense of smell.
Around the State
January 1, 2006
Around the State
January—People, Places, Events, Attractions 01.2006 Forget the holidays: As any college-football fanatic will tell you, the most wonderful time of the year is bowl season. It has certainly been the hap-happiest season of all (at least since 1970) for Texas Longhorns fans, whose undefeated team makes a return trip to