As a female member of Texas A&M’s Parsons Mounted Cavalry (“one of the units most determined to remain all male”), I want to clear up some of the misconceptions in Mimi Swartz’s “Love and Hate at Texas A&M” [TM, February 1992]. I have been a Drill and
THE 1992 BUM STEER AWARDS” [TM, January 1992] recognized the Texas Department of Agriculture for fining an aerial pesticide applicator $1,250 for mishandling a chemical. What the piece failed to note were the constraints that bind our enforcement proceedings.The TDA is bound, by legislative action and by
Jan Jarboe’s “Wonder Drug on Trial” [TM, December 1991], on fluoxetine (Prozac), left me disappointed. As an instructor on antidepressant pharmacology for psychiatric residents, I emphasize that antidepressants are neither good nor bad but simply drugs with individual side-effect profiles and efficacies. I am appalled that the article did not
As fans of the CBS Evening News and Dan Rather, we believe that Robert Draper’s “Dan Rather Is a Good Ol’ Boy” [TM, November 1991] is a fair and unbiased account. It is a mystery to us that Mr. Rather provokes such controversy. He seems to make
I had high expectations when I subscribed to Texas Monthly to use in a reception area of our company. I was very disappointed when I saw the “What a Dish!” cover [TM, October 1991]. If I had wanted to put a half-naked, sleazy female in my reception area, I would
“The Texas 100” [TM, September 1991] refers to my attitude about George Bush and Dresser Industries. Dresser is a fine company with an excellent leader, Jack Murphy. We enjoy extensive business and personal relationships with that company; in fact, on my trip to Iraq we retrieved the Dresser employees and
Bringing Them All Back HomeAs one with more than a casual interest in the refugee program in Southeast Texas,I read “The Newest Americans” by Gene Lyons [TM, June 1976] with a great deal of anticipation. Mr. Lyons seems to have a particular empathy with the Vietnamese
On a warm March morning we went looking for the grave of my great-great-grandmother Nancy Daugherty. My mother had visited the grave more than 40 years before, and remembered only that it was near the capitol and that a small iron fence encircled the plot. We found the grave amid
We Texans have always seemed to drive more, and farther, and for perhaps stranger reasons, than just about anyone else. Young people in the bleak and monotonous landscapes of West and North Texas grew up accustomed to endless, aimless rides around the countryside and to regular trips into the cities
Writing about Larry L. King is a difficult task that leaves me feeling like some sweating country jeweler stooped over a fine stone trying to fashion an appropriate setting out of tin. Some good writers have craft; others have soul and spirit. Larry has what great writers have: he has
INMATES OF THE TEXAS DEPARTMENT of Corrections have made 181 new desks for about $34 a desk. Rockford Furniture Associates of Austin has fashioned matching chairs for $180 a chair. A new electronic voting board has been installed for $33,500 ($200 more than the total cost for the chairs). These
GOOD REPORTING SOMETIMES INVOLVES RISKS. Most people see the world outside their immediate vision through the eyes of the media, and much of the world contains people and situations that are unpleasant, distasteful, and downright dangerous. Wars fit in this category. So do murders. Becoming intimately involved in either can
SENIOR EDITOR GRIFFIN SMITH JR.’s comprehensive study of the great law firms of Houston (page 53) ranks among the most important writing ever printed by this or any other Texas publication. It goes to the heart of a group of institutions whose influence upon our state is incalculable, and whose
ALL OF US ARE GOING to have to stop Arthur Temple if he decides to move the headquarters of Time, Inc., to Diboll. We don’t care if Diboll is a nicer place to work than Manhattan, Arthur, you should have thought of that before you went ahead with the deal.The
RARELY DOES A WRITER PARTICIPATE as a major actor in the events he reports, although from time to time writers of more ego than effectiveness posture as characters injected into the dramas they cover, much as coloring is injected into an apple to make it red. Last spring Griffin Smith,
MANY OF THE ARTICLES IN this issue are, in one way or another, about crime. It seems we have opened Pandora’s box. Returning from lunch one day we found that the offices next to ours had been burglarized. The next afternoon we got a call from Al Reinert, who has
TWO MONTHS AGO IN OUR story “Sex and Politics” we took an affectionate, if irreverent, look at a side of our political traditions that is as old as politics itself, but which has rarely been discussed in public. This month we wrap up the latest session of the Texas Legislature
THIS ISSUE TELLS OUR READERS how to enjoy Texas in the summer. That we could so easily be urging Texans to enjoy summer is a testimony to how summers have changed. It wasn’t so long ago that a Texas summer was as inhospitable to normal human existence as a 40-inch
WE TEXANS TALK A LOT about how big we are, and how we are getting bigger. This is all right, since it is true. We are the only state with more than one of the ten largest cities in the country. In fact, we have three—Houston, Dallas and San Antonio.For
IF OUR READERS HAVE EVER finished the daily paper or the six o’clock news and felt there was more than what they were told, then they know why we started Texas Monthly. We designed it as an intelligent, entertaining and useful publication for Texans whose culture, sophistication and interests are
