The Oscar-nominated documentary Murderball introduced audiences to this world-class athlete and his sport: quad rugby, played in wheelchairs at a headlong pace. Gimp: When Life Deals You a Crappy Hand, You Can Fold—or You Can Play (with co-writer Tim Swanson) is a warts-and-all memoir, from the accident that left him
I WAS MESMERIZED by “96 Minutes” [August 2006]. My husband, Jim, was one of the people who offered his deer rifle to an officer, on the second story of the University United Methodist Church. He ran across the Drag, went into the building, and found the officer
I MET DEWEY REDMAN in Fort Worth on a gray day in 2000. He was cleaning out the home of his recently deceased mother, and he welcomed our interview as an excuse for a much-needed break. The iconic saxophonist, who passed away on September 2 at age 75, talked engagingly
His air is somber, his words obtuse, and his arrangements formless, yet there’s something irresistible about the nomadic malcontent RICHARD BUCKNER. Buckner sings as though he’s trying to explain something to you without being overheard; his focus is laserlike. He’s no slave to structure either: His songs, like him, make
High school band albums, which proliferate in every community that has a music program, are usually so tedious that even the parents who buy them can’t bear to listen. On awful recordings packed with bad tunings and missed cues, the student musicians muddle through some stock big-band arrangement about as
Living in an age where the “genius” label is as common as pocket change leaves a breathtakingly original artist like Fort Worth’s ORNETTE COLEMAN out in the critical cold. Coleman calls his music—marked by brittle melody, propulsive rhythms, and a lack of sonic density—“harmolodics,” a term that doesn’t convey much
Art Museum Of South Texas Corpus ChristiLET’S BE BRUTALLY HONEST: Corpus Christi’s art scene flies well below the radar, if it leaves the ground at all. Cutting-edge installations or high-profile exhibitions? Any self-respecting art snob knows to go to Houston or Dallas or Fort Worth or San Antonio. Marfa attracts
Come home, Dixie Chicks.
Should the WNBA go away?
Bob Phillips on the roads less traveled.
“You know, talking to people is not appeasement if you know what you’re doing and you’re a good, hard-nosed negotiator. There ought to be nothing wrong with diplomacy.”
Sundance Square takes shape.
The newest nightmare disease.
A bull sale is like a wedding.
Richard Linklater supersizes Fast Food Nation.
In my 86 years I’ve come into the possession of an assortment of firearms: a Colt .32-caliber semiautomatic pistol that my grandfather bought at a hardware store in Cuero; a Remington Model 870 pump, 20-gauge shotgun that my Aggie uncle-by-marriage used to shoot birds; the Winchester Model 06 pump .22
The stark beauty and powerful emotion of her photographs are undeniable. An excerpt from a new book celebrating the life and work of Mexico’s incomparable Graciela Iturbide.
Travel by foot along these thirty carefully chosen routes—from the South Rim in Big Bend to Lost Maples near Vanderpool—and you’ll take in the sights, sounds, and smells of Texas in ways you never thought possible. Lace up your boots and go.
William Martin reviews our places of worship.
Independent candidates for governor won’t win this year, but they’ve certainly upended the established order. Democrats and Republicans, you have only yourselves to blame.
HE DESCRIBED HIS LETTER to me as “an inquiry from the fringe of things,” a turn of phrase every bit as elegant as I would have expected from its author. He informed me that, at 86, he didn’t write much anymore, at least not for public consumption, but that as
A tip of the hat to risk-taking, barrier-breaking, establishment-tweaking Texans.
The lights are shinin’ on a rhinestone cowboy.
Houston’s Katrina hangover.
Teen Boy’s sugar-free education.
SurveyUSA tracks approval ratings for the president, all one hundred senators, and all fifty governors every thirty days. I posted earlier this month that President Bush’s approval rating in Texas was 50%. I failed to mention that his disapproval rate was 47%.Here’s how our senators fared:Hutchison: 60%
The new Strayhorn spot marks the beginning of what her campaign hopes is Phase II of the governor’s race–a gloves-off assault on Rick Perry’s record. In previous spots, Strayhorn has sniped at Perry; compared to them, this one is an howitzer barrage. It takes dead aim at Perry’s biggest
If you haven’t seen Eileen’s posting of a Kinky Friedman column, stop reading my blog (but just for a minute) and check out In the Pink Texas blog. This posting has 113 comments. I bet I haven’t had 113 comments total in the almost three months I have been
When the sun rises on November 8, one election cycle will have finished and another will begin. With numerous potential candidates being mentioned for the 2010 governor’s race (David Dewhurst, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Roger Williams, Dan Patrick, Tony Garza, Don Evans) and others casting their eyes on offices that will
It isn’t often that one gets to use the same dumb headline (or so I was told) twice in a month, but this time it really works. Honest. Political prognosticator Larry Sabato has an article on his Crystal Ball Web site about “Dumb Questions for the 2008 Presidential Election.”
So the American Statesman has a story that Rick Perry may run again in 2010. Sure. And he’s probably already thinking how to bully Kay out of the race, too. Maybe he could promise her that he’ll quit in 2014. Or is it 2018?This is silly. It’s just a
Newsweek’s writeup on the life of Ann Richards was a nice tribute, but it could have profited from some fact checking. “Richards was elected governor of Texas in 1990, upsetting the good-old-boy incumbent, Clayton Williams,” it said. I’m sure that comes as news to Bill Clements, who served as
The latest Zogby/Wall Street Journal/Battleground States poll–and I use the word with considerable misgivings, given its methodology of using a nonrandom sample gleaned from people who have signed online up to be interviewed–shows Perry with a double-digit lead over Bell:Perry 33.0%Bell 22.3%Friedman 18.9%Strayhorn 15.5%This is consistent with most
I think we’ve just about talked the Shapleigh-Margo race to death. In case anyone is interested in local observations from El Paso, there are two good pieces on a Web site called Newspaper Tree, both under the byline of Sito Negron. One article has an overview of the race
Charles Kuffner, a fellow blogger, poses a good question in a comment about my item yesterday on the Eliot Shapleigh – Dee Margo battle for the El Paso Senate seat:“Losing Shapleigh (and … it ain’t going to happen) would be the tipping point. How exactly is Margo going to
It’s not the governor’s race. It’s not the race to succeed Tom DeLay in Congressional District 22. It’s not the Democrats’ effort to upset Henry Bonilla in Congressional District 23. The most important race in Texas is taking place about as far from the Capitol as you can get and
Sometimes you get lucky. While I was working on my previous posting, I Googled “Opinion Associates,” the Austin firm that conducted a poll for the trial lawyers earlier this month. And what should pop up–don’t ask me why–but an intriguing story about the District 22 congressional race between Democrat
I had just about finished writing this posting about the latest TV spots in the governor’s race (except Perry’s, which I have already written about; see “Rick Perry on Our Schools,” below, posted September 20), when I heard about a brand new poll done by a respected Texas pollster (whom
Checking out the electoral-vote.com Web site, I came across a chart that rated all senators on an ideological scale. It takes the ratings of eight organizations that rates lawmakers’ voting records in their area during 2004 and 2005 and averages the scores from each organizations. These are:ACLU – American
Texans for Lawsuit Reform announced its endorsements for the fall elections Thursday, and while the vast majority of TLR’s choices were Republicans, four WD-40s in the Texas House of Representatives who face contested races received the influential organization’s nod: Mark Homer, Paris (50.22% in 2004); Chuck Hobson, Jacksonville, (52.7% in
Here is the text of Perry’s new TV spot on education. The governor does all the talking, on screen or in the background. “Public school funding, standards, and achievement are all up. I’m proud of Texas schools. Since I became governor, education funding has increaed nine billion dollars. We passed
SurveyUSA’s latest monthly tracking poll of President Bush’s approval ratings has Bush at 50% or better in only five states:Utah 59%Idaho 57%Wyoming 53%Nebraska 51%Texas 50%The weighted average for all fifty states is 39%. The weighted average is determined by factoring in each state’s share of U.S. population. The poll
Perry Going Nowhere at 35%, But That May Be Just Enough To Win Re-Election. That’s SurveyUSA’s headline for its first poll of the governor’s race since June 26. The methodology involved interviews of 1,000 adults over a three-day period (September 16-18), 863 of whom were registered voters. From that
The scientific weakness of the Zogby/Wall Street Journal/Battleground States poll, which I have posted about several times, is finally getting some scrutiny. The link is to a piece in the online version of the Columbia Journalism Review and mentions my criticism as well as that of Rutgers political science
I guess I must have wasted way too much time watching the Astros blow their chance at the playoffs, because now that I’ve given up on them, I’m seeing all sorts of political spots on TV. “Proud,” the latest Rick Perry spot, is very good, very professional, full of images
I just saw Kinky Friedman’s “Good Shepherd” commercial for the first time. It’s one of the best political spots I have ever seen. Maybe the best. It is completely unexpected. Kinky’s voice is perfect. The Hill Country scenes are idyllic. His handling of the animals is loving and gentle. This
Is Governor Perry’s executive order of last fall, calling for expediting the hearing process for new power plants, many of them coal-fired, showing up on polls as a possible threat to Perry’s reelection? That would explain why a piece explaining his decision appears in the Dallas Morning News
From the Dallas Morning News: Bill Clinton, remembering Ann Richards, spoke at the Capitol yesterday, saying, “We loved her. We loved her because we knew she loved us, and because she made us bigger…. I love that she never gave up on Texas.”–Mr. Former President, you
When Ann Richards was born on September 1, 1933, the governor of Texas was a woman–Miriam “Ma” Ferguson. She was the wife of former governor James “Pa” Ferguson, who had been impeached in 1917. Ineligible to run for office himself, Pa had come up with the idea that Ma should
Let’s break away from Texas politics to check out the race for control of the U.S. Senate, which currently has a 55-45 Republican majority. According to my favorite Web site for following national politics, www.electoral-vote.com, the current projection is for a 50-50 tie. If this were to be the
