The State Board of Education may decide today to push back the arrival of new science textbooks to 2013. No, it’s not because the publishers dared to mention evolution. It’s because of the budget crunch. By delaying the arrival of books, the Legislature can pay part of the money in
This letter from Houston State Rep. Alma Allen went out today to local Democratic party leaders in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin. Allen is angry because the Republicans who control the State Board of Education (for now) do not have a standard of essential knowledge that requires students to
Not one to give up just because he has been booted from office by the voters, former State Board of Education chair Don McLeroy has proposed new additions to the social studies curriculum, which is up for adoption by the full board later this month. First I'm going to summarize
The numbers speak for themselves. We are seeing an instant replay of the Republican primary. Another Perry opponent has been unable to find a theme that resonates with the voters. Meanwhile, Perry has found a strange political bedfellow–Anise Parker, White’s successor as mayor–who delivered Perry manna from heaven: the devastating
On a trip down to Nacogdoches, the family stopped for ‘cue in Tyler at Stanley’s. I’d visited once before with a friend and found many faults with Stanley’s although it seemed to have potential. After meeting owner Nick Pencis at the Gettin’ Sauced event in Austin, he urged
Showing this joint to a friend for the first time is always fun, but the huge line can be daunting. Luckily we were stuffed, so waiting for a half hour or so wasn’t the worst that could have happened.Once inside the smoking room we were mesmerized by
Yes, the Texas Council of Engineering Companies has a self-interest in roadbuilding, needless to say, but so does everyone who drives on Texas roads. The point of the TCEC statement, as the headline says, is that there is a cost to doing nothing. TRANSPORTATION: THE COST OF DOING NOTHING No
The story was reported by the Wall Street Journal. The law, which helped the owners of the Titanic limit their liability following the 1912 disaster, caps liability at around $27 million. Transocean filed its petition in the Southern District of Texas in Houston. Portfolio.com, a business blog,
The Texas A&M Hispanic network sent the following letter, dated May 10, to Texas A&M University president Bowen Loftin and other university administrators. It expresses the group's concern that A&M is not making sufficient progress towards the goals set forth in the University's twenty-year planning document, Vision 2020, at the
Chet Edwards Campaign Statement On Partisan Poll WACO – In response to the partisan poll being pushed today by the Flores campaign, the Edwards campaign released the following statement: “The partisan poll they have released is wishful thinking. This race will be competitive and hard fought, as have all the
The sports talk shows have been buzzing for weeks about this. If the merger goes through, it is the death knell for the Big Twelve, whose TV contract is not as lucrative as that of the SEC and the Big Ten. The Big Twelve cannot sustain the loss of the
This is from the Rothenberg Report, a Washington political newsletter: A new Republican poll obtained by the Rothenberg Political Report shows ten-term Democratic Congressman Chet Edwards (Texas 17) trailing challenger Bill Flores (R) by a dozen points. But Edwards, who isn’t releasing his own survey, remains confident that he can
Former state senator David Sibley of Waco led retired lieutenant colonel Brian Birdwell of Granbury by almost three thousand votes in the special election to succeed Kip Averitt as state senator for District 22, which runs from McLennan County to the southern Metroplex suburbs and west to State Highway 6.
Four candidates are seeking the Senate seat formerly held by Kip Averitt: former state senator David Sibley, retired lieutenant colonel Brian Birdwell, insurance agency owner Darren Yancey, and Baylor professor Galye Avant, who is the only Democrat in the special election. The Birdwell campaign yesterday released the results of a
Here’s what opinion columnist Brent Budowsky had to say earlier this week about the Texas governor’s race. Keep in mind that Budowsky was an aide to Senator Lloyd Bentsen and later worked for the House Democratic leadership. Disclaimer: I’ll cite the article, I’ll even publish selections from the
You might want to think twice about including a vindication of Joe McCarthy's anticommunist activities, based on the revelations of the Venona papers, in the proposed social studies curriculum standards, for two reasons: (1) It was stupid. (2) It was wrong. The current issue of The Weekly Standard, a conservative
Murray, the University of Houston political science professor and pollster (although he says he doesn't do much political polling any more), spoke yesterday at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. I asked him beforehand about the Thibaut-Murphy race. (His son is a consultant for Thibaut.) He said that it was
I missed this last week; it’s dated May 1. In April, the number of adults not affiliated with either major party increased by 1.6 percentage points, while the number identifying themselves as Republicans decreased 1.3 percentage points. This marks the lowest level for Republicans since July 2008. The
That was a weird comment for the governor to make. He can’t possibly substantiate his statement. Is he so anti-litigation that he is trying to protect the perpetrators? In any event, Black’s Law Dictionary defines an act of God as “An act occasioned exclusively by violence of nature without the
This report is from the Arizona Star (Tucson): PHOENIX – State senators approved legislation aimed at the curbing the ethnic-studies program in Tucson Unified School District. HB 2281 would make it illegal for a school district to have any courses or classes that promote the overthrow of the
What's missing from all the bureaucratic back and forth over permits and mining and dredging is a sense of the importance of the river itself.
Forty years ago, the attention to space exploration was constant. And the faces of the exploration gave rise to a group of larger than life individuals—the astronauts.
Recipe from Chef Jason Dady, Restaurant Insignia, San Antonio / Featured Chef at the 2010 New World Wine & Food Festival
The Performance Rights Act has rocked the music industry.
Recipe from El Arbol, Austin
Where does the Pecos River originate? How long is the Devils River? What river in Texas is used to cool nuclear reactors? Everything you wanted to know about some of our state's waterways.
Where people do crazy things in the jet stream.
Well, you knew it would happen. You publish the bucket list of things that all Texans should do before they die and e-mail messages from surly Texans proclaiming notable omissions pile up in your inbox like empty beer cans at a tailgate party [“The Bucket List,” March 2010].
Watch out for sunken logs and fallen trees, which rest in the river like sleeping monsters in tangle of smaller deadwood.
Tost BistroBar, San Antonio and Sushi Raku, Houston
Austin
Kenny Braun, Jan Jarboe Russell, and Tyler Jacobson
1. b 2. d 3. b 4. d 5. b 6. d 7. b 8. a 9. b 10. b.
He’s the greatest player in the world—maybe the greatest player ever— of a card game that fewer and fewer people know how to play. But Bob Hamman doesn’t care. He’s too busy probing my mind.
In an exclusive excerpt from his new book, Empire of the Summer Moon, special correspondent S. C. Gwynne re-creates in thrilling detail the bloody 1871 battle that marked the beginning of the end for the most fearsome tribe to ever ride the plains and its mysterious, magnificent chief, Quanah Parker.
Our quiz shouldn’t be hard, so long as you’ve been paying attention. You have been paying attention, right?
I’ve been thinking about a spot on the Brazos about a day and half below the dam at Possum Kingdom Reservoir, where a long, humped island narrows to a spit of sand. A couple of years ago I found myself camped there with three friends. We’d been paddling all
One year into his first term as mayor of San Antonio, Julián Castro is emerging as perhaps the most prominent young Hispanic politician in Texas. Get ready to get used to him.
The strange case of Mauricio Celis, the Corpus Christi lawyer who was not a lawyer.
The debut of Enron, the play, on Broadway might be the perfect time to settle a question that’s been bothering Houston: Does Jeff Skilling need a new trial?
The Austin-born, Oberlin-trained musician—and daughter of the hard-living Texas songwriter-activist David Rodriguez—at one time aspired to be a great fiddler. Then she went on tour with Chip Taylor (who wrote “Wild Thing” and “Angel of the Morning”) and, under his wing, blossomed into a singer and a songwriter. The pair
On paper, the pairing of WILLIE NELSON and producer T Bone Burnett seems like a potential train wreck. Though both can get amazing results, their working methods couldn’t be more different. Burnett’s a painstaking micromanager, while Willie’s the master of the offhand; you won’t find him hanging around for multiple
San Antonio’s KRAYOLAS arrived on the scene with matching suits and catchy Kinks-like material that already seemed retro in the new-wave eighties era. After some regional success, they hung it up, and that would have been that, had not an effort to preserve their original master tapes led to a
Divide and conquer? That was the hope of Dixie Chick siblings Martie Maguire and Emily Robison when singer Natalie Maines’s extended hiatus made the prospect of the band’s relaunch an if-and-when proposition. Itching to make another record—Emily’s divorce from country singer Charlie Robison left her with plenty of song material—the
Just Don’t Call Me Ma’am’s subtitle—How I Ditched the South for the Big City, Forgot My Manners, and Managed to Survive My Twenties With (Most of) My Dignity Still Intact—might be unwieldy, but it provides a handy précis of this colorful memoir about the not-always-glamorous adventures of a young advertising
Loyal Ledford of Huntington, West Virginia, is the unassuming central figure of THE MARROWBONE MARBLE COMPANY, the lyrical second novel from Texas State grad GLENN TAYLOR, whose debut, The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award. Ledford’s world is shaped by three
LOUIS SACHAR’S young-adult novel Holes spent more than 175 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, which sets a daunting commercial benchmark for the Austin author’s new effort, THE CARDTURNER. In a move that should deflate retailers’ expectations, Sachar has written a teen book about that most complex and
Three cheers for Woody Harrelson’s return to form.
Narrow your focus to these two blocks of the city’s famed shopping stretch.
Gospel sensation Kirk Franklin doesn’t like to travel. He would much rather be at home in Arlington with his wife, Tammy, and their four children. But the seven-time Grammy Award winner, who has sold more than 12 million albums, will see his hectic schedule get even more so when
