News &amp; Politics

November 1, 1989

John the Catalyst

In his new book, James Reston, Jr., tries unsuccessfully to make John Connally larger than life.

October 1, 1989

How Do You Say “Perestroika” In Spanish?

The parallels between Mikhail Gorbachev and Mexico’s Carlos Salinas just might end when it comes to their effectiveness at achieving reform in their nations.

By Dick Reavis

September 30, 1989

The Day Leroy Died

When a small private bank was closed on August 7, depositors lost all of their money, a pillar of the community came tumbling down, and the town’s trusting way of life was shattered.

By Dana Rubin

August 1, 1989

The Texas 100

Wealthy Texans have been heard to say that money is just a way of keeping score. Here's the scoreboard.

By John Anderson

July 1, 1989

On the Defensive

Jim Wright’s attorney Steve Susman is living proof that clients may lose, but lawyers don’t.

By Tom Curtis

Best and Worst Legislators|

July 1, 1989

The Mommy War

Kids in T-shirts bearing political slogans, ideological confrontations in the supermarket, skirmishes at the PTA. Welcome to the battle between moms who work and moms who don’t.

By Jan Jarboe Russell

June 30, 1989

1989: The Best and the Worst Legislators

We just rate them. You voted for them.

By Paul Burka, Patricia Hart, Ellen Williams and Jennifer Bradley

June 1, 1989

The Long, Strange Trip of Ed Bass

Interesting things can happen when a man with an unusual vision also has an unusual amount of money.

By Joe Nick Patoski and Bill Crawford

June 1, 1989

Rock Bottom

A series of terrible decisions and bad breaks ruined Gibraltar Savings. Is rescuing it another mistake?

May 1, 1989

So Near Yet So Far

Rice was created to be a “university of the first rank.” Is it? Will it ever be?

By Fryar Calhoun

April 1, 1989

Poisoned by Their Own Home

When the St. Johns returned to their house after having it sprayed for bugs, they discovered why those friendly pest-control people are called exterminators.

By Tom Curtis

April 1, 1989

Don’t Call Him Junior

George W. Bush wants to be governor of Texas. He says he’s not following in his father’s footsteps, but his name, his career, and his ideas about politics seem an awful lot like Dad’s.

By Patricia Kilday Hart

March 14, 1989

Abortion Street

Sixteen years after Roe v. Wade, all the bitterness and horror of the abortion fight can be found at a single site in Dallas.

By Mimi Swartz

March 1, 1989

The Second Coming

Twenty-five years ago, Texans hoped LBJ would lead them into the promised land. They have the same hopes for the new president, but George Bush is making no promises.

Critters|

March 1, 1989

Buddy Maedgen Is Bugged!

The saga of a man and his helpful insects illustrates the age-old battle between visionaries and bureaucrats.

By Patricia Sharpe

March 1, 1989

The Bush League

In George Bush’s Cabinet, Texans are crawling out of the woodwork. Read about their pasts, their pets, their secret passions.

By Emily Yoffe

March 1, 1989

Back In the Saddle Again

Twenty-five years ago, Texans hoped LBJ would lead them into the promised land. They have the same hopes for the new president, but George H. W. Bush is making no promises.

By Texas Monthly

February 1, 1989

The Wooing of Chairman Wang

The decision by a Chinese plastics company to build a billion-dollar plant in Texas proves that economic development works—but it comes at a high price.

February 1, 1989

Jailhouse Hock

Bill Clements’ ambitious—and expensive—prison-expansion plan is only a tiny first step toward escaping the overcrowding problem.

By Patricia Hart

February 1, 1989

A Dirty, Rotten Mess

Every day each of us contributes five pounds to the growing mountain of garbage. Now the mountain looks like a volcano that’s threatening to erupt.

By Emily Yoffe

By Frederick E. “Shad” Rowe, Jr.

January 1, 1989

If These Walls Could Talk

. . . they’d tell a tale of a half-century of Dallas wheeling and dealing

January 1, 1989

Superpolitics

Will Texas’ acquisition of the supercollider increase the state’s clout in Washington? We’d better hope so, because now that we’ve got it, we’ve got to get the money to deliver it

January 1, 1989

God Help Her

How Madalyn Murray O’Hair became the supreme being of the American atheist movement.

By Lawrence Wright

Bum Steers|

January 1, 1989

A year of avaricious Arabs, belligerent bovines, convincing Connallys, dubious degrees, elusive Elvises, furious firefighters, George's goofs, hassled Hunts. Ingenious inmates, jilted judges, knotorious Kneppers, loose locomotives, migrant moose, normative nerds, overcautious orchestras, preposterous pythons, qualmish queens, rampant roaches, Sue Ellen's swimsuits, targeted transvestites, upset umps, vetoed Virgins, wanton Willies,

By Texas Monthly

January 1, 1989

Behind the Lines

The case against conspiracy.

By Gregory Curtis

December 1, 1988

The Line

Visitors to the Harris County Jail resign themselves to the hours they must spend waiting in line to get fifteen precious minutes with an inmate.

By Ed Fowler

December 1, 1988

Zoom at the Top

What kind of woman gets her own skin-care company, a place in Nouvelle Society, and the second-most-eligible bachelor in the world? Meet Georgette Mosbacher.

By Mimi Swartz

December 1, 1988

Making the Grade

In Dallas, people call the new superintendent of schools the Messiah. Now all Marvin Edwards has to do is prove they’re right.

By Glenna Whitley

December 1, 1988

The Battle of the Bubbles

One man’s obsession with kicking Perrier in the derriere.

By Jan Jarboe Russell

December 1, 1988

$3,000,000,000

Now that he’s got it, what does Ross Perot plan to do with it?

December 1, 1988

Can Ross Perot Save America?

One day in 1962 Ross Perot read Thoreau’s insight that the “mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” The country hasn’t been the same since.

November 1, 1988

How Houston Beat the Bust: Real Estate

The resurrection of a former “see-through” office building. How a land developer diversified—into Jaguars. And secrets of the “vultures” who buy up, fix up, and fill up troubled Houston apartments.

By Tom Curtis and Mimi Swartz

November 1, 1988

This Water Is My Water

Cool, clear, and pure, it’s the bounty of the Edwards Aquifer, and if something isn’t done to limit pumping by Hill Country farmers and a thirsty San Antonio, it may also be dry.

By Al Reinert

November 1, 1988

How Houston Beat the Bust: Branching Out

An entrepreneur captures customers in public rest rooms. A high-tech plant moves from oil to medicine. Space and biomedical manufacturing are finally off the drawing boards. And a former union boss becomes a bingo mogul.

By Tom Curtis and Al Reinert

Energy|

November 1, 1988

How Houston Beat the Bust: Energy

Engineer Saba Haregot’s love affair with Houston (it’s not just all those job offers). How natural gas is helping to reinflate the economy. And a shuttered plant that tempers oil pipe opens up.

By Emily Yoffe

Energy|

November 1, 1988

How Houston Beat the Bust (Sort Of)

This story is from Texas Monthly’s archives. We have left the text as it was originally published to maintain a clear historical record. Read more here about our archive digitization project. Once Texans thought the boom would never end. Then they thought the bust would

By Tom Curtis

Ten years ago this was a working class neighborhood; now criminals dominate the area. Kids learn to play by watching the police.

November 1, 1988

The War Zone

When crack comes to a neighborhood, it infiltrates, it corrupts, and it destroys—and there is nothing the cops can do about it.

By Jim Atkinson

November 1, 1988

Power Play

Houston Lighting and Power’s purchase of a Canadian cable TV company may come as a shock to HL&P ratepayers.

By Patricia Hart

October 1, 1988

It’s the Way We’ve Always Done It, Sir

How the Pentagon really works, as told by a Texan who tried to make it work a little differently.

By Chase Untermeyer

October 1, 1988

Worked to Death

The allure of Galveston Bay is not natural beauty but the determination of nature to survive ugliness.

By Stephen Harrigan

Health|

September 30, 1988

Medicine and Miracles

After learning that he had cancer, the author began a search for a cure that took him far beyond medical expertise.

By John Henry Faulk

September 1, 1988

Texas Primer: Bush vs. Bentsen

Eighteen years after their Senate race determined the course of Texas politics, their rivalry may determine the course of national politics.

September 1, 1988

Do I Make a Difference?

A kindergarten teacher tells what she learned in school.

By Roberta Wright

August 1, 1988

The Inventive Mr. Chu

Heat + pressure + yttrium + a politically savvy University of Houston physicist = a formula to change the world.

By Al Reinert

August 1, 1988

Wright and Wrong

The congressional investigation that is focusing on Speaker Jim Wright’s ethics is missing the real problem —his judgment.