The Stand Up Desk

The Stand Up Desk|
January 1, 1997

School Spirit

THANK YOU FOR LETTING ALL OF TEXAS know what I’ve known for years—that Roy Guess Elementary in Beaumont is a four-star school [“Our Best Schools,” November 1996]. I’ve been happy with our son’s educational environment at Guess, from the teachers and other staff to the building itself. Note that

By
The Stand Up Desk|
January 1, 1997

Testy Mail

IN NOVEMBER WE PUBLISHED A RANKING of 3,172 public grade schools in Texas, giving each school one of five grades, from four stars (the best) to no stars (the worst). This article provoked an unusual amount of mail. Some of the letters were barely restrained victory whoops from people connected

By
The Stand Up Desk|
December 1, 1996

Land Values

THANKS TO PAUL BURKA AND photographer Andrew Yates for capturing the story of the Stoners [“Home on the Range,” by Paul Burka, October 1996] with compassion and respect. As a 57-year-old ranch wife trying to keep my ranch going with my son (the fifth generation farmer-rancher on our land)

By
The Stand Up Desk|
December 1, 1996

Running With the Big Dogs

From Fred Gipson’s fictional Old Yeller to A&M mascot Reveille and Lyndon Johnson’s beleaguered beagles, dogs have always reigned as Texans’ pets of choice. The long line of distinguished dog lovers includes John Graves of Glen Rose, Texas’ writer emeritus, and acclaimed Beaumont photographer Keith Carter, who joined forces

By
The Stand Up Desk|
November 1, 1996

Cheers And Jeers

CHUCK NORRIS STANDS FOR JUSTICE, truth, and right in his portrayal of Walker in the series Walker, Texas Ranger. To many, he is an excellent example. Perhaps a hero. Mr. Norris is an acknowledged master in tae kwon do. However, he and Texas Monthly fail in firearms literacy and safety

By
The Stand Up Desk|
November 1, 1996

Grand Parent

Nature photography is just part of Laurence Parent’s nature. The 37-year-old Austin-area resident, who took the pictures that accompany this month’s article on Hueco Tanks State Historical Park (“Social Climbers”), has long been known for his landscape work, from wildflower close-ups to desert vistas. “My father was in the

By
The Stand Up Desk|
September 30, 1996

Paul In The Family

Anyone who knows executive editor Paul Burka would have a hard time imagining him as a cowboy, so perhaps it seems farfetched that he was the one to write this month’s story about the plight of a small working ranch in Uvalde (“Home on the Range”). “I’m a

By
Art|
August 31, 1996

Gilt Trip

Andrew Eccles has photographed plenty of 24-karat celebrities for Texas Monthly, but his session with Lou Diamond Phillips was a truly golden experience. “In an industry that’s marked by jaded people,” Eccles says, “Lou was a breath of fresh air. He’s down to earth, talkative, enthusiastic—an incredibly sweet guy.”In his

By
The Stand Up Desk|
July 31, 1996

Seeing Stars

In the summer of 1992, when Jason Cohen was a relatively unknown journalist and Matthew McConaughey was an extremely unknown actor, the two met on the Austin set of Dazed and Confused. “He looked so weird,” recalls 28-year-old Cohen, who was writing about the movie for Details. “He had

By
The Stand Up Desk|
June 30, 1996

Skip, a Beat

JUST AS HE WAS FINISHING up “Poisoning Daddy”, his tale of a Fort Worth teenager who killed her father, senior editor Skip Hollandsworth set out to interview the sibling models featured on this month’s Face page. As it happened, one of the sisters, Wende Parks, had been

By
The Stand Up Desk|
May 31, 1996

Swartz and All

We didn’t know it at the time, but there was something karmically appropriate about asking senior editor Mimi Swartz to write about riding around the state with Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Victor Morales in his dented white pickup truck (see “Truckin’,”). At first, it seemed to make sense

By
Politics & Policy|
April 30, 1996

Taking Sides

YOU CAN GIVE ME A STANLEY MARSH 3 OVER A WHITTENBURG anytime [“Big Feud at Cadillac Ranch,” March 1996]. Reading and howling about this eccentric old coot’s escapades, I kept wondering, “How can I help this guy stave off those damn Whittenburgs?” I was waiting for a quote from George

By
Energy|
February 1, 1996

Oil’s Well That Ends Well

It’s not enough to say that associate editor Helen Thorpe was a fish out of water while reporting her story on the new oil plays in the Gulf of Mexico (“Oil and Water,”). She was really a fish out of water on the water. Three different times, the

By
The Stand Up Desk|
September 30, 1995

Time for a Change

Texas Monthly sports a brand-new look this month. The thorough resesign includes many reader-friendly changes, which were overseen by deputy editor Evan Smith, art director D. J. Stout, and associate art director Nancy McMillen. Around the State, for example was reorganized by city instead of subject, and State Fare

By
The Stand Up Desk|
June 30, 1992

Tough Choices

Lawrence Wright’s “The Case For Castration” [TM, May 1992] provides an interesting view on the issue of castration, sex offenders, available treatment, and society’s concerns about the best response to such acts of assault and violence. As the article documents, treatment of sex offenders is a recent development. In Texas,

By
The Stand Up Desk|
May 31, 1992

Character Study

“THE KILLER NEXT DOOR” [TM, April 1992]? I thought someone had sent me a copy of True Detective instead of Texas Monthly. The title and cover illustration are definitely out of character for the magazine we subscribed to the last time we lived in Texas. Once the

By
The Stand Up Desk|
April 1, 1992

Corps Values

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

By
The Stand Up Desk|
March 1, 1992

Bum Raps

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

By
The Stand Up Desk|
February 1, 1992

Ghosts of Dealey Plaza

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

By
The Stand Up Desk|
January 1, 1992

Texan at the Core

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

By
The Stand Up Desk|
December 1, 1991

Food for Thought

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

By
The Stand Up Desk|
November 1, 1991

A Select Few

“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

By
The Stand Up Desk|
July 31, 1976

Roar of the Crowd

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

By
The Stand Up Desk|
April 30, 1974

Behind the Lines

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

By
Politics & Policy|
March 31, 1974

Behind the Lines

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

By
The Stand Up Desk|
February 28, 1974

Behind the Lines

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

By
The Stand Up Desk|
January 1, 1974

Behind the Lines

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

By
The Stand Up Desk|
December 1, 1973

Behind the Lines

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

By
The Stand Up Desk|
November 1, 1973

Behind the Lines

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

By
The Stand Up Desk|
September 30, 1973

Behind the Lines

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

By
The Stand Up Desk|
August 31, 1973

Behind the Lines

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

By
The Stand Up Desk|
July 31, 1973

Behind the Lines

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

By
The Stand Up Desk|
June 30, 1973

Behind the Lines

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

By
The Stand Up Desk|
May 31, 1973

Behind The Lines

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

By
The Stand Up Desk|
April 1, 1973

Behind the Lines

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

By
Magazine Latest