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July 2012

  • Features

    • Editor's Letter

      The Truth About Texas: Water = Life

      By

      As last year’s historic drought reminded us, Texas has always lived life by the drop, just a few dry years away from a serious crisis. With our population expected to nearly double over the next fifty years, this situation is about to become more, not less, challenging. This month we look at the past, present, and future of water and drought in Texas and explore the solutions that give us hope.

    • History

      The Writing on the Wall

      By

      The Lower Pecos River rock paintings were created four thousand years ago by a long-forgotten people. But their apparent message may be as useful today as it was then: Follow the water.

    • Oral History

      When the Sky Ran Dry

      By

      Bad as the current drought is, it has yet to match the most arid spell in Texas history. Nearly two dozen survivors of the fifties drought remember the time it never rained.

    • From the Archives: Photo Essay

      Between Hell and Texas

      By

      Over the past year, state photographer Wyman Meinzer has roamed the Big Empty, documenting the drought’s toll. Will he ever take another pretty picture?

    • Policy

      Drawing Straws

      By

      The future is likely going to require us to move large amounts of water from wet but sparsely populated places (a.k.a. East Texas) to thirsty, booming cities. Good thing there’s a plan for that. There is a plan, right?

    • Technology

      Industrial Evolution

      By

      As much as anything, the Texas economic miracle depends on water. Lots of water. So what are all those power plants, refineries, and factories going to do as the state gets drier and drier and drier?

  • Columns

    • Behind the Lines

      Right to Strife

      By

      In Republican-dominated Texas, the May 29 primary might as well have been the general election. And what it revealed is a party perfectly capable of doing battle with itself, no Democrats required.

    • The Texanist

      texanist rattlesnakes

      Offering Fine Advice Since 2007

      By

      Unwelcome shotgun blasts, unwanted mustaches, uncouth behavior, and the un-bare-able truth about going sockless in your cowboy boots.

    • Sarah Bird

      Meat, My Maker

      By

      When Dallas’s very own Marvin Lee Aday—that’s Meat Loaf to you—optioned one of my screenplays, he didn’t just offer me a glimpse of paradise by the dashboard lights. He also helped me write a novel.

    • Letter from Palm Beach

      Goodman Gone Bad

      By

      Flamboyant Houston millionaire John Goodman’s trial for vehicular manslaughter was a circus. Somewhere in the middle of it, the guy I used to know was thinking . . . what exactly?

  • Reporter

  • Web

    • Sweet!

      The “Dublin Dr Pepper” Legacy Lives On

      By

      After a disappointing settlement with Dr Pepper Snapple Group, the family that owns Dublin Bottling Works, Inc. continues to thrive using the same ingredient that fans have enjoyed for years—pure cane sugar.

    • Web Exclusive

      The Drop Everything List

      By

      Bob Gomel’s photo collection, the Sixth Floor Museum, Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam, and folk singer Daniel Johnston . . .

    • Web Exclusive

      For the Toadies, a Fresh Start

      By

      Success has never come easy for the Toadies, but the Fort Worth–based rock band is back with its fifth studio album, Play. Rock. Music.

    • Web Exclusive

      The Drop Everything List

      By

      The Made in Texas exhibit, the Texas Rangers, Music Under the Stars, and the Conservative U.S. Pageant . . .

    • Web Exclusive

      The Drop Everything List

      By

      The Kashmere Stage Band, Art From the Ashes, the Dead Sea Scrolls & the Bible, and a Rolling Roadshow on the banks of the Guadalupe . . .

    • Web Exclusive

      The Drop Everything List

      By

      Meat Loaf, the Cow Pasture Golf Classic, ZZ Top, and Leslie Fest . . .

    • The Filter: Dining

      New + Noteworthy

      By

      Swift’s Attic and Sustenio.

    • Pat's Pick

      Driftwood

      By

      JUST WHEN I THOUGHT Oak Cliff couldn’t possibly shoehorn another modish 
restaurant into its gentrifying streets, along comes Driftwood and gives that notion a kick in the head. Silly me, I imagined that Lucia, Bolsa, Mesa Veracruz, Campo, Oddfellows, 
and Chicken Scratch—to name 
only the more recent ones—might signal impending saturation. Hardly. When friends 
and …

    • Listen

      Life by the Drop: A Special Report on Drought, Water, and the Future of Texas

      By

      TEXAS MONTHLY partnered with StateImpact Texas and KUT News to take a close look at how the state can manage a growing population amid a shrinking water supply. Listen to reports from NPR’s John Burnett, Texas state photographer Wyman Meinzer, and more audio and online reports.

  • Miscellany

    • Contributors

      Contributors

      By

      Eric O’Keefe, Michael O’Brien, KUT, and StateImpact Texas.

    • Roar of the Crowd

      Roar of the Crowd

      By

      “Is there no end to TEXAS MONTHLY’s fascination with Ted Nugent?”

    • Editor's Letter

      Dry, the Beloved Country

      By

      The first serious coverage of water in TEXAS MONTHLY came just a couple months shy of our two-year anniversary, in a story by Greg Curtis entitled “Disaster, Part I. Lubbock is running out of water.” (A companion piece, “Disaster, Part II,” argued that Houston was sinking into the ocean.) The central idea of this alarming …