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2009 – Page 4 of 24

Street Smarts|
October 31, 2009

Downtown Llano

Handmade crafts, homey cafes, and cowboy couture make this Hill Country hamlet a browser’s paradise.

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Music|
October 31, 2009

Bob Schneider

The 44-year-old Austin rocker has fronted many bands, but it was on the success of his 2000 solo album, Lonelyland, that he rose to national fame. His latest CD, Lovely Creatures (Kirtland), was just released.You’re the son of an opera singer. Yes, but my dad’s now retired. He was

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Music Review|
October 31, 2009

Fits

Thet latest album from rock trio White Denim.

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Author Interview|
October 31, 2009

Steven L. Davis

Readers who know J. Frank Dobie only as a wizened old author on the pages of their English textbooks may not recognize the vibrant and rebellious figure who emerges from the pages of J. Frank Dobie: A Liberated Mind. The biography, which seeks to revive Dobie’s fading literary legacy,

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Book Review|
October 31, 2009

The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours After

The proposition at the heart of The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours After, Steven M. Gillon’s examination of the immediate aftermath of President John F. Kennedy’s death, in Dallas, is that Lyndon B. Johnson’s actions during his first day in office foreshadowed the high and low points of

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Book Review|
October 31, 2009

Peter & Max

Former Texan Bill Willingham has taken his long-running Fables comic book series to a new medium and new heights with Peter & Max, his first novel. As in his Fables works, he cleverly reimagines fairy tale and nursery rhyme figures (think Snow White and Little Boy Blue) living

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How to Build a Día de los Muertos Altar
The Culture|
October 31, 2009

How to Build a Día de los Muertos Altar

Every November 2, known as the Day of the Dead or All Souls’ Day, Hispanics across the Southwest transform grave sites, offices, and corners of their homes into vibrant memorials for their deceased loved ones by assembling multitiered ofrendas, or altars. “The day is devoted to the departed, and an

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The Culture|
October 31, 2009

Randy Goode, Artificial Inseminator

Goode grew up on a ranch in Damon, where he now runs an artificial insemination business. He travels the country collecting DNA for a U.S. Department of Agriculture research project on mad cow disease.Back in the seventies, my dad learned to artificially inseminate cows by reading a book and using

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Sarah Bird|
October 31, 2009

One Angry Woman

Am I the only person who has always wanted to get picked for jury duty?

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Politics & Policy|
October 29, 2009

As the twig is bent, so Branch is inclined

Here’s how I read Dan Branch’s decision to run for re-election, and it doesn’t take a whole lot of smarts to figure it out. The belief has taken hold among Republican wannabes that Hutchison is not going to resign her seat. Whether it is true or not, they believe it.

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Politics & Policy|
October 28, 2009

Take THAT, Dick Cheney

Here is the Perry campaign’s response to the news that Cheney will campaign for Hutchison. Thanks to Channel 5 in the Metroplex for sending it to me. Mark Miner: “It’s not surprising, since they both worked in Washington for so long. Washington insiders stick together.”

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Eat My Words|
October 28, 2009

Par-ty! Par-ty!! Par-ty!!! This Saturday.

I’ve often said, if my friend  Rebecca Rather, aka the Pastry Queen, hadn’t left Austin and moved to Fredericksburg a few years back, I would now weigh 500 pounds. Everything she cooks turns to gold, as in golden-brown. (Whereas everything I cook turns into. . . . something seriously inedible.

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Politics & Policy|
October 28, 2009

Dick Cheney to campaign for Hutchison

Is this good or bad? This is a guy who left office with a 19% approval rating. The report comes from the NBC affiliate for the Metroplex: The battle for conservative credibility in the GOP race for governor just got interesting. Former Vice President Dick Cheney, an outspoken critic of

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Politics & Policy|
October 27, 2009

Vote for the most overrated governor in America

The Washington Post’s political blogger, Chris Cillizza (“The Fix”), is offering readers the chance to vote for the most overrated governor in the country. Cillizza writes, “Below we’ve offered six choices of governors who regularly are mentioned as more showhorse than workhorse. And the choices are Ed Rendell (D-Pa.) Charlie

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Politics & Policy|
October 27, 2009

Chavez having second thoughts?

The story in the El Paso Times was very peculiar. State Rep. Norma Chávez, D-El Paso, told an audience in Austin this week that she was running for the state Senate seat being vacated by Eliot Shapleigh. Chávez, reached later by telephone, backed away from the declaration she

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Politics & Policy|
October 26, 2009

Mark Davis: Is 60% R is better than a D?

I was driving to the office today, punching buttons on the car radio, when I landed on KTRH in Houston, a Fox station. Dallas talk show host Mark Davis was sitting in for Rush Limbaugh, and a caller dialed in to complain that Newt Gingrich and other prominent Republicans are

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Politics & Policy|
October 26, 2009

Ambassador Teel Bivins dead at 62

Bivins, who has been ailing from a rare disease for a number of years, served in the state Senate from 1988 until his confirmation as ambassador to Sweden in the George W. Bush administration. He was chairman of Education and later of Finance, and, along with Bill Ratliff and David

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Politics & Policy|
October 23, 2009

The Gattis-Bius race and TLR

The conventional wisdom is that Gattis is a heavy favorite in this Senate race, and I have to agree. He comes from the biggest county in the district, and he has been running hard for some time, especially in Brazos County, the second largest county. Still, I have heard an

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Politics & Policy|
October 23, 2009

Rick, Kay, and Eminent Domain

This was the Hutchison campaign’s daily blast at Perry for today: Rick Perry continues to avoid critical questions about the Trans-Texas Corridor. While he may think his proposal to seize nearly 600,000 acres of private property is dead and a settled matter, the question for some has turned to how

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Politics & Policy|
October 22, 2009

Soliciting funds from restaurant owners

The Morning News story that Perry’s chairman of the Alcoholic Beverage Commission is soliciting funds from restaurant owners in amounts ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 is the latest in a series of stories about Perry and his appointees. One of the worst things in the story is the

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Politics & Policy|
October 21, 2009

Carona weighs in on the gas tax

I am posting on the main page of the blog this e-mail that I just received from Senator John Carona, chairman of the Senate committee on Transportation and Homeland Security, in response to my suggestion that the state gasoline tax should be increased by 50%. Look, folks. Paul Burka is

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Politics & Policy|
October 21, 2009

Raise the gasoline tax?

In the comments to my earlier post, “Dewhurst hits bottom,” referring to the light gov’s op-ed piece in today’s American Statesman, I wrote about what I would have done to close the budget deficit. One of my recommendations would be to raise the gasoline tax, index it to inflation, and

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Politics & Policy|
October 21, 2009

Dewhurst Hits Bottom

I have already received a couple of calls from friends who wanted to be sure that I noticed the Dew's op-ed piece in today's Statesman about how Texas balanced its budget. His salient characteristic is on full display here: There is no depth of cravenness so low that

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Eat My Words|
October 20, 2009

Makes You Hungry

I just got back from the most amazing food conference, in San Antonio. I think I gained five pounds. I’m also a lot smarter than I was the first day. It was the Latin Flavors, American Kitchens conference (Oct 14-16) put on by the Culinary Institute of

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Politics & Policy|
October 20, 2009

Push Poll Intrigue

Perry spokesman Mark Miner says that the suggestion that the Perry campaign is doing push polling is “blatantly false” and “another lie by the senator’s campaign.” He further suggested that the skullduggery might be the work of a Hutchison apparatchik: “Reporters told me KBH’s folks had hired a push pollster,”

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Politics & Policy|
October 20, 2009

Once a Democrat, not always a Democrat

The Hutchison campaign’s daily blast at Rick Perry is about Perry’s Democratic past: He voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976, he was co-chair of Al Gore’s presidential bid in Texas in 1988. So what? If anything is ancient history, this qualifies. Furthermore, when you read what Perry had to say

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Politics & Policy|
October 19, 2009

Just wondering…

…why the Perry campaign is silent today. Last week spokesman Mark Miner fired off releases on Tuesday (2), Wednesday (2), and Friday (1). Today, nada. OK, I’m probably making a mountain out of a molehill, but it has occurred to me that the last couple of weeks haven’t exactly been

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Politics & Policy|
October 19, 2009

Judge William Wayne Justice, R.I.P.

This obituary for Judge Justice is based largely upon my article, "The Real Governor of Texas," which appeared in the June 1978 issue of Texas Monthly. He was the last, the most important, and the most influential of the Ralph Yarborough generation of liberal Democrats, unrivaled even by Yarborough himself.

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Politics & Policy|
October 18, 2009

Shapleigh’s potential successors

Newspaper Tree, an online newsletter about all things El Paso, says that Norma Chavez and county attorney Jose Rodriguez are likely candidates. The paper quotes Joe Pickett as saying that his phone is ringing off the wall and includes mayor John Cook as someone who might be interested.

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Politics & Policy|
October 16, 2009

Shapleigh update

I talked to Shapleigh’s office. He said at his press conference that he knew that the time had come to leave during the Voter I.D. debate, that it was not the sort of thing that should be foremost on the agenda. There were personal issues as well. A video of

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Politics & Policy|
October 15, 2009

Perry and the Realtors

I attended the governor's speech to the realtors yesterday. If the Hutchison folks videotaped it, they got an eyeful, and not one that they would have liked. He was greeted with a robust ovation accompanied by the waving of placards that said, "Realtors for Perry." I was standing outside the

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Politics & Policy|
October 14, 2009

When is KBH going to quit?

I don't mean quit the Senate. I mean quit talking about when she is going to quit the Senate. She provided more fodder for the Perry campaign yesterday by going on talk radio in Dallas (Mark Davis) and hemming and hawing all over the place. This is from today's Perry

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Politics & Policy|
October 12, 2009

Cronyism and the Corridor

This is a scary story. The Statesman reported yesterday that Governor Perry is removing Linus Wright, a former Dallas school superintendent, as chair of the board that oversees the $88 billion Teacher Retirement System and will replace him with a current board member who is also a member

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Politics & Policy|
October 11, 2009

Earmarks = Jobs

Of all the sniping that has gone on between the Perry and Hutchison campaigns, the skirmish that I find to be the most dismaying—and the worst for Texas—is the Perry campaign’s attack on Hutchison for her success in getting funding for designated federal projects in the state, popularly (or unpopularly)

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Politics & Policy|
October 10, 2009

Eating their own young again

I noticed these observations from the latest e-mail rant by Michael Quinn Sullivan at Texans for Fiscal Responsibility: The deeper you look at how the liberals (from both parties) tax, regulate and spend, the more disgusting it becomes. Our legislature is infested with those who campaign as conservatives but legislate

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Politics & Policy|
October 9, 2009

Required Reading for Republicans

Michael Gerson, the former Bush 43 speechwriter, has an op-ed piece in the Washington Post today on the subject of the Republican party's suicidal antipathy [my words, not his] toward Hispanics. Gerson uses the resignation of former U.S. Senator Mel Martinez of Florida in August as his entry

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Politics & Policy|
October 9, 2009

Is the Trans-Texas Corridor really dead?

The flap over the Corridor reminds me of a law school hypothetical. If A shoots B, inflicting a wound so serious that death is imminent, and C then fires a second shot, which also would be fatal, moments before B expires, is C guilty of murder? The answer is yes.

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Politics & Policy|
October 7, 2009

More on endorsements

Does it strike anyone as strange that very few legislators have made endorsements in the governor’s race? Especially since Perry has very few supporters in the House. Here’s what I think is going on. Nobody is going to endorse before the filing deadline. Afterward, when it is too late for

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Eat My Words|
October 5, 2009

Gourmet magazine to close!

We all followed the bad news about publisher Conde Nast’s plummeting ad sales, and we all watched as their food magazines got skinnier and skinnier. (You could practically slip them under a door they were so flat.) But the bets were that, if CN closed any of them, it would

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Politics & Policy|
October 5, 2009

The endorsements game

This morning, Mark Miner of the Perry campaign touts the list of endorsements the governor has received under this headline: Gov. Perry’s Endorsements Represent Diverse, Statewide Support • Texas Association of Realtors • Texas Chemical Council • Texas Home School Coalition PAC • T. Boone Pickens, Energy Entrepreneur • Texas

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Politics & Policy|
October 3, 2009

Hutchison to get Farm Bureau endorsement?

A commenter to my blog post, “More on the Perry Agenda,” suggests that because of Perry’s support for the Trans-Texas Corridor, Hutchison is likely to get the Farm Bureau endorsement. While comments on blogs are hardly reliable sources, I find this one credible because (1) a Republican consultant told me

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