November/December 2019

The Texas Observer

Observing Texas since 1954

The Texas Observer2 min read
Dialogue
I enjoyed your article on persistent women candidates (“Running Start,” September|October issue). May I suggest pushing back on researchers who adopt catchy phrases which imply women candidates inherently are different than men in persistence? The gr
The Texas Observer4 min readAmerican Government
Sticking to Their Guns
DAYS AFTER A MAN DROVE THROUGH MIDLAND AND Odessa, shooting an AR-15-style rifle out his window at bystanders and killing seven people, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick issued what was seen as a potentially monumental breakthrough in the state’s gridl
The Texas Observer2 min readCrime & Violence
‘Beyond Crime Stats and Handcuffs’
ONE NIGHT THIS SUMMER, CHANGA HIGGINS FOUND himself actively avoiding state police in his South Dallas neighborhood. In the preceding weeks, Higgins says, he’d already been pulled over twice by Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) troopers deploye
The Texas Observer1 min read
Texas Tally
▸ In September, Tropical Storm Imelda dropped 22 inches of rain in 48 hours in Sargent. Some areas received up to 40 inches over the course of the storm, which has been linked to five deaths. It was the fifth 500-year storm to hit Southeast Texas in
The Texas Observer2 min readPolitics
Banking On A Boom
BY LATE NOVEMBER, RESIDENTS OF JONES COUNTY, A swath of Texas plains home to some 20,000 souls, should have new neighbors: about 1,000 undocumented immigrant men held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. Local politicians are excited
The Texas Observer3 min read
It’s Been a Minute
BY MOLLY IVINS, 1995 THE GIST: Molly Ivins reported that, despite the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change was caused by human activity, “our numskull pals in Congress are heading militantly in the wrong direction,” slashing funding
The Texas Observer3 min read
The World’s Briscoe Cain Problem
ONE OF THE FUN THINGS ABOUT COVERING TEXAS POLITICS is that every once in a while, a political figure you know too much about, and no one else cares about, does something deeply unwise. Suddenly, they’re in newspapers from Aarhus to Zanzibar, the sub
The Texas Observer3 min readWicca / Witchcraft
Notes From Far-flung Texas
CEDAR PARK // After a city council member ranted online about witches and Satanists, a local coven held a peaceful protest. “My prayers and intercession against the witches and satan worshipers begins at 3 a.m. on this full moon of Friday the 13th,”
The Texas Observer2 min read
Stronger Together
AS I WRITE THIS EDITORIAL, I’M EXACTLY three months into my tenure at the Texas Observer. In that time, I’ve had the good fortune to hear readers express genuine love for the state—scabs, scars, and all—and for the work of journalists like ours, who
The Texas Observer5 min readEnvironmental Science
Weather Whiplash
KATHARINE HAYHOE LOVES TALKING TO HER UBER drivers—it’s one way she practices finding common ground on climate change with just about anyone. A Texas Tech professor and accomplished atmospheric scientist, Hayhoe was the lead author on the last three
The Texas Observer1 min readMedical
+critical Condition
Rural health care is in crisis around the country, but Texas is suffering the most. At least 20 small-town hospitals have closed since 2013. More than one-fifth of Texas’ 254 counties have only one doctor or none at all. State lawmakers have the tool
The Texas Observer17 min readAmerican Government
A Dying Town
On the evening of December 28, 2014, Kourtney Bogan got an urgent call from her younger brother in Clarksville, a rural town of 3,200 bordering Oklahoma in far northeast Texas. Their mother, Gayla Bogan, who’d been fighting a respiratory infection ov
The Texas Observer2 min read
Scenes From A Hospital’s Final Day
Inside a tiny frontier hospital at the Texas Panhandle’s southern boundary, Judy Borpon is hunched over the same gas stovetop that she’s cooked on for the past 47 years. This summer morning, Borpon is right on schedule: She’s simmering hamburger stea
The Texas Observer17 min read
Driving my Life away
Yolanda Narvaez knew something was very wrong when she heard the crackling in her neck—“Like when you put milk in Rice Krispies.” Yolanda was working the cotton fields just outside Memphis, a small town in the Texas Panhandle, when it happened. It wa
The Texas Observer3 min readMedical
The Last Nurse In Memphis
CAROLE WARD, a 66-year-old nurse practitioner who lives in Hedley, ran the Memphis health clinic from 2005 until she retired and the clinic closed in 2017. The clinic offered limited services, but it was better than nothing. In the two years since, H
The Texas Observer7 min read
A Chain Reaction
A BOILERPLATE BUSINESS NEWS HEADline triggered my nostalgia trip: “Luby’s sheds more restaurants as sales decline in the third quarter,” the Houston Chronicle reported. The beloved cafeteria chain—my beloved cafeteria chain, Texas’ beloved cafeteria
The Texas Observer4 min read
Little Girl Blue
JANIS: HER LIFE AND MUSIC by Holly George-Warren SIMON & SCHUSTER $28.99; 400 PAGES TEXAS-BORN ROCK ICON JANIS JOPLIN HAS BEEN ONE OF AMERICAN culture’s most compelling figures for more than 50 years, in large part because of the intrigue she present
The Texas Observer7 min readCrime & Violence
Books Behind Bars
I FELT MY BLOOD PRESSURE RISING, HEARD MY heartbeat in my ears, and tasted my mouth drying out as the heavy jail door slammed shut behind me. It was my first time in 4J2, a maximum-security women’s pod in the Harris County Jail. The stale air pulsed
The Texas Observer8 min read
Dear Mr. Gottlieb
The winning entry in our ninth annual short story contest is unlike anything I’ve ever read. Alan Sincic’s “Dear Mr. Gottlieb” is written in an absurdist, stream-of-consciousness style that has shades of Hunter S. Thompson and James Joyce—but a voice

The Texas Observer

More Issues From The Texas Observer