Yaphet SmithThough he’s worked both as a CPA and an attorney, Yaphet Smith’s first love is film. The 37-year-old, who grew up in Austin, received widespread recognition in 2001 for his screenplay The Supermarvelous; his following script, about a Little League team in Harlem, was backed by Spike Lee
How my husband, Ferdinand, and I lost everything in the historic hurricane and then found a new life in the Lone Star State.
The New York Times named the author’s first novel, Prep, one of 2005’s ten best books; its successor, The Man of My Dreams, was a national best-seller. Her newest, American Wife, draws inspiration from the life of Laura Bush, though the author asserts that Wisconsinite Alice Blackwell is not a
Edwards is a solo practitioner at Garza County Health Clinic, in Post, and the only physician serving the county (population: 4,872). Raised in Belton, he holds degrees from Baylor University and the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. He completed his residency at Waco’s McLennan County Medical Education and
THE RATIONALEWith eleven species of rattlesnakes calling our state home, chances are you’ll find yourself face-to-fang sooner or later. Most common to West Texas, rattlers like to den up in dry, rocky crevices, but you’ll also find them slithering through grass or slumbering under woodpiles. “Essentially, if you’re in West
NAME: Angela Kinsey | AGE: 37 | HOMETOWN: Archer City | QUALIFICATIONS: Plays uptight accountant Angela Martin on The Office / Won a Daytime Emmy for The Office: Accountants webisodes• Be prepared to be very patient. When I got to L.A., I was like, “Okay, let’s do this.” I sort
Guns up! Way up!
Chapter Nine of “Twin Wells.”
“When I was playing in college and the pros, most of the articles called me a ‘future Hall of Famer.’ So you get that idea in your head. You feel secure and confident that you’ll be elected to the Hall of Fame, but it’s different when it actually happens.”
Thanks to Elmer Kelton for the story on cowboys [“True Grit,” July 2008]. It is sad that some pundits have used an honorable name and profession to mislabel some of our political leaders. I consider it sadder that some of our political leaders would adopt the outward manifestations of
The nerve. Another reviewer grabbed the Sex and the City image I had intended to use in writing about Coco, the tall, dark, and sensuous bistro that recently opened on San Antonio’s far north side. Now I have to trot out my second-best movie comparison: Moulin Rouge. Actually, they both
The birds and the bees and my kids and me.
His 13th Floor Elevators spearheaded the sixties psychedelic rock movement, but drugs and mental illness would later keep him out of the limelight. An appearance at the 2005 Austin City Limits Music Festival marked his first full-length concert in decades, and since then he has played steadily. He’s set to
Who better to diagnose John McCain’s woes than the man who used to be his Karl Rove?
The Dallas symphony; The Color Purple; the Nasher at five.
The gay cliché.
How the West was fun.
My little gambling problem.
Dali Wine Bar Restaurant, Dallas and Kenzo Sushi Bistro, Katy.
On September 10, Charles Dean Hood will receive a lethal injection. Perhaps. Four times before, the convicted murderer has had a date with the executioner only to have the criminal justice system grant him a reprieve—most recently (and most famously), twice in the space of a few hours on the
Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, Dallas.
If you had asked me a year ago—if you had asked me three months ago—I would have bet my house that Boone Pickens would not be on this month’s cover. Not that his previous time as our cover subject wasn’t memorable: Joe Nocera, then a Texas Monthly associate editor and
One of the last things you might expect to burst the cynical bubble of indie rock would be Austin’s Brothers and Sisters. Yet this hippieish seven-piece, led by siblings Lily and Will Courtney, has found itself wowing black-clad teens and sharing the stage with bands like . . .
After two decades as a fan of the Silos, acclaimed author Jonathan Lethem finally approached the group’s front man, Walter Salas-Humara, at a show. They made small talk about co-writing, but it was only after Salas-Humara read (and was blown away by) Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude that the partnership
Few would dispute that after a long career of starts and stops, Rodney Crowell is again firing on all cylinders. After early success with a string of remarkable hits, the Houston songwriter settled in for a champion slump. Yet beginning with 2001’s The Houston Kid, he released a trio
Longtime followers of Bob Schieffer, the chief Washington correspondent for CBS, will hear his silky rasp echo in their heads as they thumb through Bob Schieffer’s America, a compilation of 171 commentaries from his Sunday Face the Nation broadcasts. Always the plainspoken Texan, the veteran newsman weighs in,
In 1692 Martha Carrier was arrested, tried, and hanged in Salem, Massachusetts, for having committed “sundry acts of witchcraft.” Ten generations on, her Dallas-based descendant Kathleen Kent has produced The Heretic’s Daughter, a sure-footed first novel that draws from Martha’s tribulations to evoke the short-lived witch hysteria in
The New York Times named the author’s first novel, Prep, one of 2005’s ten best books; its successor, The Man of My Dreams, was a national best-seller. Her newest, American Wife, draws inspiration from the life of Laura Bush, though the author asserts that Wisconsinite Alice Blackwell is not a
Like the defense of Palin that I posted previously, this commentary by Frum, the author of Dead Right and a former speechwriter for Bush 43, appeared in “the corner” blog in National Review Online: The longer I think about it, the less well this selection sits with me. And I
This selection is from National Review Online’s “the corner” blog, . It states the case for the choice of Sarah Palin. What stands out is that it is entirely about ideology and politics. Nothing about competency except that she was commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard. I think [another writer]
This story appeared in the Anchorage Daily News online edition yesterday. It is a recapitulation of a sordid family feud involving GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin and her sister’s ex-husband, a state trooper. At issue is whether Governor Palin improperly intervened to demand that the state public safety commissioner
My daughter called to alert me to this story, which she heard on All Things Considered this afternoon. The gist of it is this: Some 15 minutes after rumors of her selection began to circulate, someone unknown made thirty changes, most of them favorable to Governor Palin, to her
I feel bad about this, really I do. I like the Burnt Orange boys. And they’ve caught me in a mistake or two. But at least I know that Plano isn’t small. The 2007 population estimate is 260,096. This came up in the following post on Burnt Orange Report today:
Eddie Lucio III on national television, being interviewed on the convention floor. Why Eddie? They sought him out because he was a Latino for Obama. Don’t roll your eyes. He looked and sounded great. He talked about why he had supported Obama. He was wearing a white dress shirt, open
We saw the first team tonight. It is hard to look at Bill Clinton without remembering the flaws that ruined his legacy, but on this night, he reminded us of his mastery of rhetoric and his ability to make the perfect closing argument. The highlight of the speech came when
I watched Hillary Clinton’s speech with a mixture of fascination and repulsion. It was, as everyone knew it would be, all about her. She did not say one positive thing about Barack Obama, except that Democrats should unite to support him. She said “unite” but the placards in
I didn’t think much of Day 1 of the Democratic convention. What a wasted opportunity. This was a night to begin making the dual case of why the Republicans had failed and what Obama would do about it. That opportunity–one of four precious days–was squandered. Back in the spring, after
The information I received said that the sample size was 400 and a majority of the respondents were Republicans. All candidates were identified by party. The margin of error was not given. Chris Bell 42% Joan Huffman 8% Austen Furse 5% Grant Harpold 4% Undecided 40% Bell only needs to
I doubt whether Rick Perry, David Dewhurst, or Tom Craddick has ever heard of the Lane Cove Tunnel in Sidney, Australia. If they had, they might not be so eager to raid the teacher and state employee retirement funds to build toll roads. On the day the Olympics
You know what that means.
Readers may recall that I posted several items from Washington in July during a week of interviewing members of Congress. One was a discussion of Chet Edwards’ prospects to become Barack Obama’s vice-presidential nominee. Here is what I wrote on July 21, slightly edited: It may seem far-fetched back home,
I was clicking on my backspace arrow, going back through the Quorum Report as I tried to get back to the page containing Brimer’s filing with the Fort Worth Court of Appeals in his lawsuit against Wendy Davis, when all of a sudden, after several successful clicks, my computer screen
To say that the race to fill the Houston-area state Senate seat being vacated by Kyle Janek has heated up is an understatement. Melted down is more like it. Most readers know the lineup: four candidates, three of them Republicans (Austen Furse, who served in the Bush 41 White House
By the most conservative estimate, my dear departed father ate at the Nighthawk, near the UT campus 18,237 times in his eighty years on this earth. That’s lunch every working day for 35 years (he was a journalism prof), followed by a snack in the middle of the afternoon. The
There is ample competition just on the other side of the square from the famous City Market in Luling, but this joint holds its own. Ordering is done at the counter, and prices here are very reasonable. I ordered a two-meat plate with brisket and ribs. The sliced beef had
I had briefly posted an item here that was skeptical about whether Wendy Davis could get a fair hearing before the Texas Supreme Court. Shame on me for being such a cynic. I just received a call from an attorney in the case who said that the Court has denied
The Texas Politics project is the work of the UT government department. Its polls, directed by professors Jim Henson and Daron Shaw, will be a quarterly fixture on the Texas political scene. (Evan Smith commented on the poll Thursday in his “State of Mine” blog.) This is an Internet poll;
His name is Joe Weber, and he is a retired Marine Corps general. This appointment by President Elsa Murano, which was approved by the Board of Regents earlier today, reflects Perry’s penchant for filling high-ranking administrative positions at A&M with his friends and cronies. That Perry wanted to bring Weber
The web site politicalwire.com carries a discussion today about the significance of a Pew Research poll that shows Obama leading McCain by 46% to 43%. Since the 3% difference is within the margin of error, does this mean, as pundits often claim, that the race is a “statistical dead heat?”
These numbers represent the electorate’s favorable/unfavorable view of the political parties. As with the previous post, these come from a Republican shop. Rural Texas: 2000: Republicans 59% favorable, 26% unfavorable 2008: Republicans 56% favorable, 34% unfavorable The erosion is negligible. Urban-Suburban Texas: 2000: Republicans 62% favorable, 27% unfavorable 2008: Republicans
