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2006 – Page 2 of 15

Letter From Houston|
December 1, 2006

Physician, Heal Thyself

When Sam Hassenbusch was diagnosed with a deadly form of brain cancer, the only saving grace was his own history of treating the very same affliction.

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Art|
December 1, 2006

Pasó por Aquí

José Cisneros, the legendary illustrator of the Spanish Southwest, is 96, almost blind, and nearly deaf. And, of course, he has no plans to put down his pen.

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Feature|
December 1, 2006

Spurs of the Moment

These practical accessories of the cowboy lifestyle are some of the world’s most-sought-after Western collectibles—and every pair has a story.

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Feature|
December 1, 2006

Eating A Dead Horse

Even if you’ve never dined on the delicious remains of a noble steed, you probably have an opinion on whether the state’s two slaughterhouses should remain open. Boone Pickens does. And Charlie Stenholm. And Bo Derek. Not to mention the many traders and “killer buyers” for whom business is business.

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Tacos|
December 1, 2006

The Greatest Tacos Ever Sold

Sixty-three of them, to be exact: from picadillo in Dallas and brisket tinga in Houston to carne asada gringa in San Antonio and chorizo-and-jalapeño in McAllen. Be sure you don’t leave this earth without trying each and every one.

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Editor's Letter|
December 1, 2006

Now Serving

THERE’S A CONTROVERSIAL WAR GOING ON, the aftermath of an election to mop up, the stock market rising, the price of oil falling, famine, pestilence—and our December cover story is about tacos? You bet. For as long as there’s been a Texas Monthly, the very best service journalism has had

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Music Review|
December 1, 2006

The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions and Fearless Leader

Detractors of Dallas’s RED GARLAND disdained him as a “cocktail pianist” and claimed he made it into Miles Davis’s first classic quintet (from 1955 to 1957) only because of a stylistic similarity to Davis obsession Ahmad Jamal. Yet he proved the perfect accompanist for not just the legendary trumpeter but

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Music Review|
December 1, 2006

Nashville Rebel

Like his compatriot “outlaw” Willie Nelson, WAYLON JENNINGS had already done a lot of solid work in Music City before reaching his breaking point, one set off by an accumulation of road dates, divorces, unpaid bills, and pep pills. So NASHVILLE REBEL (RCA/Legacy), a beautifully annotated four-CD retrospective, is a

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Music Review|
December 1, 2006

Rockin’ Bones: 1950s Punk & Rockabilly

ROCKIN’ BONES: 1950S PUNK & ROCKABILLY (Rhino), a reverb-drenched four-CD set of blistering guitar abandon, establishes this Eisenhower-era crew of JDs as the original punk rockers. Assembled with the same fanaticism as Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets, 101 (!) tracks roll by, many rescued from undeserved obscurity. You’ve heard Texans Buddy Holly,

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Music Review|
December 1, 2006

The Complete Atlantic Sessions

The liner notes pin it down to a single moment: a 1972 George McGovern rally in Austin’s Zilker Park, when new-to-town country singer WILLIE NELSON found himself on the bill with a lot of hippie rock bands. Unintimidated, Nelson forged ahead with the show, and a movement was born. This

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Book Review|
December 1, 2006

Between Heaven and Texas

BETWEEN HEAVEN AND TEXAS is dazzling. In a collection of meticulous prints, WYMAN MEINZER (who was proclaimed official state photographer in 1997 by then-governor George W. Bush) captures the limitless permutations of the Lone Star sky, from the serenity of cottony cumulus puffs to the bruising purple of a stormy

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Book Review|
December 1, 2006

Weeping Mary

Black-and-white is more than the chosen medium in WEEPING MARY, a photo essay about the tiny Texas town with this unusual name by  Texas Monthly contributing photographer O. RUFUS LOVETT. It’s also the unmentioned divide embodied by a white lensman’s documenting of a poor and predominantly black community. Lovett’s fine

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Book Review|
December 1, 2006

The Amazing Faith of Texas

Even cynics can find inspiration in THE AMAZING FAITH OF TEXAS, a surprisingly affecting survey of fifty Texans and their beliefs from GSD&M ad agency honcho ROY SPENCE. With brief interviews by Mike Blair and telling portraits by Randal Ford, these microbiographies delve into the creeds of Baptists, Buddhists, Baha’is,

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Around the State|
December 1, 2006

Around the State

Jordan’s PickVictorian Christmas Train Ride PalestineTHERE YOU ARE, ALL BUNDLED UP, climbing aboard the Victorian Christmas Train Ride in East Texas with your loved ones. The antique locomotive picks up steam as you sip hot cider and warble, uninhibitedly, your favorite carols. With the verdant foliage of the Piney Woods

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Politics & Policy|
November 30, 2006

Vetting Bonilla

Now is the time for all good members of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to come to the aid of their party–even if the beneficiary is a huge underdog. According to the Washington Post’s political blog, The Fix, the DCCC is spending $154,000 on a TV spot for Ciro

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Politics & Policy|
November 29, 2006

The Last Race

As the legislative session approaches, the Republican majority in the House of Representaives is 80-69, with one seat yet to be decided. That seat was occupied by the late Glenda Dawson, whose death from a brief illness occurred too late for her name to be replaced on the ballot. The

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Politics & Policy|
November 29, 2006

Pelosi: Time to Reyes Her Game

Those who thought Nancy Pelosi’s main problem as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives would be her extreme liberalism were wrong. It’s her lousy political instincts. She couldn’t last a week in a leadership position in the Texas Legislature. Pelosi has displayed two shortcomings that, if not corrected, will

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Politics & Policy|
November 27, 2006

Gates: The Final Word

For readers who continue to be interested in Bob Gates’ nomination as Secretary of Defense, and are interested in CIA history as well, I recommend this Web site:http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB208/index.htmThe site includes not only information from the national security archives, but also an excellent, fair, and highly readable excerpt about Gates

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Politics & Policy|
November 24, 2006

Survey USA: Kay Down, Cornyn Mixed

John Cornyn’s comparative ranking has fallen in the latest Survey USA ratings of the 100 United States Senators, although his own approval and disapproval ratings actually improved. Last month, Cornyn was ranked 87th, with an approval rating of 40 percent and a disapproval of 43. This month, with an

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Politics & Policy|
November 24, 2006

Swinging (at) Gates

Robert Gates, the Texas A&M president and nominee for Secretary of Defense, continues to be dogged by critics who accuse him of politicizing intelligence when he was deputy director of the CIA under William Casey in the eighties. The latest to weigh in is a former Soviet analyst Jennifer Glaudemans

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Politics & Policy|
November 23, 2006

Perry Boosts Bonilla

The decision by Governor Perry to set the runoff for the 23rd congressional district on December 12 is a big boost for incumbent Henry Bonilla and may deter national Democratic strategists from making a major financial commitment to Ciro Rodriguez. By choosing the earliest possible date for the run-off, Perry

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Politics & Policy|
November 22, 2006

SurveyUSA: Disapproval Soars for Bush, Perry

In SurveyUSA’s first monthly poll of presidential and gubernatorial approval ratings since the election, both President Bush and Governor Perry posted their worst disapproval ratings in a year. Perry had an approval rating of 41% and a disapproval rating of 56%. This is in the ballpark of

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Politics & Policy|
November 22, 2006

Gibbs Me a Break!

The self-destruction of Shelley Sekula-Gibbs means that the race for the Republican nomination against Democrat Nick Lampson in 2008 in the 22nd congressional district is wide open. She came to Washington as the most obscure member of Congress, the winner of a special election to fill Tom DeLay’s unexpired term

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Politics & Policy|
November 20, 2006

Bonilla’s Barrier

What chance does Ciro Rodriguez have to beat Henry Bonilla in the 23rd congressional district runoff?If you look only at fundraising and political skill, it’s Bonilla by a landslide. But that is not all there is to politics. Races are fundamentally about numbers, and the numbers (based on normal turnout)

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Politics & Policy|
November 20, 2006

How Did Hispanics Vote?

The experts on Hispanic voting in Texas, the nonpartisan Willie Velasquez Institute in San Antonio, reported this breakdown for Hispanics in the governor’s race:Bell 39.6%Strayhorn 28.6%Friedman 14.3%Perry 13.9%Other 3.6%The Velasquez Institute based its findings on exit polls of 440 respondents conducted in 32 selected precincts across the state.As

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Politics & Policy|
November 20, 2006

Why Didn’t Hispanics Vote?

This is a perpetual lament in Texas Democatic politics, only the lack of Hispanic participation was worse than usual. One obvious reason for the dropoff compared to 2002 was that an Hispanic, Tony Sanchez, was the Democratic nominee for governor four years ago, while the candidate this year was Chris

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Politics & Policy|
November 17, 2006

Can’t Tell the Parties without a Scorecard

A couple of incidents since the election raise the issue of whether Texas Democrats are acting just like the Republicans they most love to hate–Tom DeLay and Tom Craddick–by resorting to threats and extreme partisanship. Case 1: The state’s Democratic congressional delegation asked Governor Perry to fire the two former

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Politics & Policy|
November 17, 2006

Help for Ciro

Barbara Ann Radnofsky, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, is keeping her hand in the political game. She is hosting a fundraiser Monday for Ciro Rodriguez, the D’s challenger to Republican Henry Bonilla in Congressional District 23. The invitation includes mention of “special guest” Nick Lampson and “honorary hosts” Chris

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Politics & Policy|
November 16, 2006

Of Course, There Is No Speaker’s Race, But…

This is an amended version of a posting from yesterday.The topic du jour was the possibility of a speaker’s race (which is more talk than action, so far). The speculation focused on two actions of Governor Perry. One was his comment, when asked about a speaker’s race, that it was

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Politics & Policy|
November 16, 2006

Gates Reconsidered

Several days ago, I wrote a piece headlined “Bob Gates is the Right Choice” [to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense]. Joey Kolker, a student of mine, came across the following article from the Baltimore Sun that takes a different view and fowarded it to me. The author,

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Politics & Policy|
November 15, 2006

Winners and Losers

Whose stock rose, whose fell, on November 7:Rose: Fred Baron. Other trial lawyers lavished millions on the Chris Bell and Carole Keetonm Strayhorn campaigns and came away with nothing to show for it. Baron created and funded ($1.7 million) the Texas Democratic Trust, and Dallas Democrats leveraged the money into

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Politics & Policy|
November 13, 2006

GOP Post-Mortem

Let the recriminations begin.Republicans nationally and in Texas are headed for a debate about why the GOP lost so badly in the national elections–and whether the victory in Texas was as decisive as it appeared to be. The central question will be whether Republicans lost the national election (and took

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Politics & Policy|
November 13, 2006

Half Full or Half Empty?

As Democrats celebrate picking up five seats in the Texas House of Representatives, they should reflect on what might have been. In a posting the morning after the election (see “Seaman vs. Garcia: One Box to Go” in the blog archives), I listed seven races other House that were close

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Politics & Policy|
November 10, 2006

After Bob Gates, la deluge?

Now that A&M president Robert Gates has been named Secretary of Defense, who will be his successor? This is a question of considerable importance to the state, because A&M has become an academic powerhouse under its last two presidents, Gates and before him Ray Bowen. The concern that I have

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Politics & Policy|
November 10, 2006

Bob Gates Is the Right Choice

Since the entire blogging world is writing about the choice of Texas A&M president Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense, I might as well weigh in, having just written 8,000 words about him in the cover story of the November issue of TEXAS MONTHLY. In my opinion, President Bush could

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Politics & Policy|
November 9, 2006

Donald Rumsfeld Craddick

The time has come for Tom Craddick to resign as Speaker of the House.He is losing the war. The body armor he supplies to his troops in political warfare–money money money–is ineffective against the enemy’s ideological fervor for better public schools. The more he flouts his assets–James Leininger, Bob Perry–the

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Politics & Policy|
November 8, 2006

Seaman vs. Garcia: One Box To Go

At 6:10 a.m., with 76 of 77 precincts accounted for:Gene Seaman (R) 16,696Juan Garcia (D) 16,672If Garcia can win the last box by at least 25 votes, Democrats will pick a fifth Republican seat. They lost no seats of their own. The partisan division in the House of Representatives will

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Politics & Policy|
November 8, 2006

An Amazing Night

On a night when the top of the Democratic ticket got clobbered, the wave came from the bottom. Despite having to contend with a legislative redistricting map that was drawn four years ago to achieve a permanent Republican majority, despite the best efforts of a GOP fundraising machine that had

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Politics & Policy|
November 7, 2006

Legislative Races

Who cares about the U.S. Senate? And control of the U.S. House? Forget it. What really matters is the battle for the Texas House. So far, this is the one bright spot for Democrats in the state. Incumbents are underlined.Mark Homer (D) – Kirby Hollandsworth (R). Homer beat Hollandsworth in

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Politics & Policy|
November 7, 2006

Cohen Leads Wong

Early vote only:Martha Wong (R) 5,256Ellen Cohen (D) 7,663This was the Republican state House seat that was regarded as the most vulnerable in the state, apparently for good reason.

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Politics & Policy|
November 7, 2006

Kay Is Okay

Hutchison has climbed over 63%. Impressive.The governor’s race has been remarkably stable. Perry is still at 40, Bell still at 29, Strayhorn still at 18, Kinky still at 10.Never let it be said that Tom DeLay doesn’t know what he’s doing. Only four Republican incumbents are polling under 60% in

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