Maybe the question is: Was there a winner? Well, the format was a winner. The questions from viewers, from members of the audience, and from one panelist to another, made for a lively if not necessarily enlightening debate. Perry did a good job of repeating his major themes. He must
First question, none of you like Washington, can you name a federal program that you like, one that you don't like. Hutchison and Perry argued over highway funding--are we getting back 76 cents per each dollar, Perry says 70 cents. Medina likes military but says the federal gov't is not
(From KERA) The Texas Debates is produced by KERA in partnership with CBS 11 (KTVT-TV) and TXA 21 (KTXA-TV), Star-Telegram, KUVN Univision 23, The Texas Association of Broadcasters (TAB), Texas State Networks and the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. The debate will be moderated by KERA News Director Shelley
I must have missed the debut of Perry’s second ad, which aired on the day of the national championship game. The title is “Working for Us.” The message is entirely positive, unlike Hutchison’s ads. I like this ad better than Perry’s first one. (I gave the “Washington is Broken” ad
Since I will be watching the debate on television Thursday night, I thought I might participate in spirit by suggesting some questions that my (not) fellow panelists might ask in my absence. Having participated in several pre-debate discussions at KERA, I don’t really think it matters who is on these
Today’s Senate session cast in stark relief two different leadership styles: that of Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Steve Ogden, who was elected Senate president pro tempore. Perry expressed his belief that the Legislature could produce a balanced budget with no additional revenues, noting that the public had spoken loudly
So the ESPN football analyst wants to run for KBH’s Senate seat. Here is the first question he will be asked when he announces for office: What did you know and when did you know it? “It” is SMU’s pay-for-play scandal, when the university leadership, including then-Governor (and SMU board
From a release by the Washington-based Lone Star project: With 2010 candidate filing now closed, it’s apparent that Texas Democrats have filed their strongest slate of candidates in years. We can expect that our ticket will be led by Houston Mayor Bill White who brings an impressive resume and unquestioned
This is from a release by the Lance Gooden campaign: Bum Steers: Sheila Jackson-Lee, Gloria Steinem and…Betty Brown TERRELL, TX – State Representative Betty Brown joined the ranks of other not-so-respected public figures like liberal Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee, radical feminist Gloria Steinem and Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith when
(Posted on the Statesman web site at 6:21 p.m.) Kelly Fero, a well-known Democratic Party political consultant and strategist, was found dead at his North Austin home this afternoon, friends of the family confirmed just a few minutes ago. According to his wife, Fero had not been feeling
This is an e-mail, which arrived as a comment from a retired teacher who signs herself “Hazel.” * * * * I am a retired teacher. Earlier this morning, I checked my checking account balance and was going to start paying my bills online. I was shocked to see there
The most intriguing email of the last week came to us from John Mueller (yes, one of those Muellers, as in the barbecue dynasty of Central Texas). It said, in its entirety: “Have a very Happy New Year. Look for John Mueller BBQ in the very early 2010 in some
A friend described Swinford to me this way, and I think it is about as good a tribute as a member could ask for: “He was the same person when he left as he was when he got here.” Not very many members can say that on their way out
Note to readers: I am getting my information from the state Democratic party’s list of candidates who have filed. Candidates may also file in their home counties, so the list on the TDP’s web site should not be regarded as complete. Mark Homer — A lot of Democrats were worried
It’s been a while since I’ve found an honest “sugar cookie” on my brisket, but as I waited for my order to be filled, owner and pitmaster Aaron Franklin handed me a preview morsel from the fatty end of the brisket and the flavor was transcendent. If I lived in
I know we’re well into the last week of January, but this is my official first review of the New Year. I visited this joint when most others were closed on New Year’s day. It was nearly empty, so I had the place to myself, and I was free to
Amateur athletes from across the state will have a chance to dream big at the Winter Games of Texas.
When my psychiatrist kept falling asleep on me, I knew it was time to look elsewhere.
About halfway between our cities of residence, Houston and Austin respectively, my dad and I meet in a little restaurant named Schobels. They mostly serve chicken-fried items and other southern dishes. The waitresses, high school girls who wear too much makeup and never seem to remember the beer selection, call
From a Magic Garden crystal kit to a plastic replica of R2D2, the diverse offerings at three toy stores in Austin are right on—for any age.
Recipe from Stella Sola, Houston
Recipe from Stella Sola, Houston
Restaurant Insignia, San Antonio and Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek, Dallas
Houston
What a well-done and moving story on this tenth anniversary of the Bonfire collapse [“Ring of Fire,” November 2009]. Flying at 37,000 feet on my way to New York, I cried like a baby as I read the story. Flashbacks to ’72 and ’73, when I was a medic
Not a funny year. The meltdown kept melting down, the collapsing markets kept collapsing, and the downsizing economy kept downsizing. Texas fared better than most states (see “California, disaster in”), but we weren’t immune. In October, the number of unemployed Texans topped one million. In November, the comptroller’s office
Andrew Sansom, Leslie Baldwin, and Darren Braun
Susan Hyde’s children were constantly in and out of the hospital with one illness or another. But were they the ones who were sick?
How did a small cadre of film geeks from Austin take an outsized role in determining what you see at the multiplex on Friday night? One dismembered body at a time.
The Nobel Prize—winning physicist’s second collection of essays, Lake Views, covers a range of topics, from religion and Armageddon to the “Future of Science, and the Universe.” A professor in the physics and astronomy departments at the University of Texas at Austin, he is widely published in the scientific
Roses, a sleepy, weepy saga of love, war, and tragedy set in the fictional East Texas town of Howbutker, has all the ingredients to make San Antonio’s Leila Meacham a big seller indeed: feuding families, breathless liaisons, tainted inheritances, and a bit of dirty dealing. In her first
Seasonal Texan Nick Flynn (he teaches one semester each year at the University of Houston) is haunted throughout The Ticking is the Bomb by the same ghosts and demons that inhabited his remarkable debut memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City : his mother’s suicide, his father’s alcoholism,
The Dallas-raised songwriter first made a name for himself by penning “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother,” which Jerry Jeff Walker recorded in 1973 on Viva Terlingua. But he then struggled with alcohol, drugs, and relative obscurity until the nineties, when his album Loco Gringo’s Lament (1994) launched a string
Since its inception in Austin, in 1993, Spoon has had a skyrocket trajectory with six terrific albums, each one topping the last. It’s been two and a half years since the hand-clap-and-horn-laden rock and soul of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga kicked the group even further up the national
It was 1992 when a once-in-a-lifetime confluence of events resulted in a masterpiece. Freedy Johnston, a musician from Kinsley, Kansas, arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey, at the height of its fertile songwriter scene and, inspired, recruited a few peers and (literally) sold the farm to record and finance his
There’s a cool charm to Girl of the Century (Bloodshot), the new collaboration between Austin “rockabilly filly” Rosie Flores and the Chicago-based Pine Valley Cosmonauts, that defies easy explanation. The Cosmonauts are a loose collective led by Welsh rocker Jon Langford (the Mekons, Waco Brothers), who is
Houston
Racicot grew up in New Mexico, but San Antonio has been her home base since she was stationed at Fort Sam Houston in 1998. She plans to leave the Army next spring and get a graduate degree in nursing from the University of Texas at San Antonio.My mom was an
Donny Edwards on impersonating Elvis.
On the day my mother died, I found myself in the place that, more than any other, had defined our relationship: her closet.
