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‘Over the Lege’ Plumbs the Tragicomedy of Texas Politics
In its sixth season, the political satire urges viewers to laugh instead of cry at the state's right-wing machine. Governor Greg Abbott snickers and nudges Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick to place slumbering House Speaker Dade Phelan’s fingers in a glass of warm water. The three politicians are having a sleepover, and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, clearly not getting the message, keeps trying to invite himself in. Just as the old prank goes, Phelan wizzes himself, and Abbott instructs Patrick to use the urine stains as inspiration for the next time they redraw Texas’ district maps.
A Comeback for One of Mexico’s Oldest Drinks
On the slope of La Malinche volcano, Gaudencio “Shaggy” Díaz burrows between the flared inner leaves of a maguey plant taller than him. He scrapes its center for sap. Here, in the rural outskirts of one of Mexico’s smallest states, east of Mexico City, it is a dazzling morning: bright sun, blue sky. Díaz climbs down from the plant, fashions a little container out of a maguey stalk—known as a xoma, from the Náhuatl word “xomatli,” or “clay spoon”—and passes it to Jessica Vázquez Reyna, so she can taste what he has just extracted.
Time Traveling in a Glass-Bottomed Boat
A version of this story ran in the September / October 2022 issue. Articles must link back to the original article and contain the following attribution at the top of the story:. This article was originally published by the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative news outlet. Sign up for their...
Texas’ Constitution Could Be Key to Resecuring Abortion Rights
In February 2022, a dramatic leaked opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization followed the alarming signal from the U.S. Supreme Court that it would not review Texas’s “heartbeat bill,” also known as Senate Bill 8. That Texas “bounty hunting” law punishes—via heavy money damages in civil lawsuits—health care providers and anyone else assisting women obtaining an abortion. Bellwether Texas had signaled the dark turn that federal courts would take on rights that had previously been deemed “fundamental” in this country for half a century or more.
The Sacred Heart of Uvalde
Throughout the protest, I stood near a friend of my wife from our parish, Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Afterward, we talked about Sacred Heart and about Uvalde. Like many, we were both feeling disaffected, alienated by our community’s power structure. As we parted, I said: “But it’s not just their town, and it’s not just their church. It’s ours, too. I’m done just taking it. From now on, I’m going to give it, too.”
An Eleventh-Hour, Hail-Mary Climate Remedy
The Inflation Reduction Act promises to slash U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, but enables more pollution in Gulf Coast communities. It’s another day on the Gulf Coast, and locals are fighting yet another fossil fuel infrastructure project. Texas billionaire Kelcy Warren’s company, Energy Transfer, has proposed a pipeline dubbed “Blue Marlin” that would carry crude oil from an export terminal in Nederland to an offshore port in Louisiana waters.
Loon Star State: The Rights Exterminator
A version of this story ran in the September / October 2022 issue. To see more political cartoons from Ben Sargent, visit our Loon Star State section, or find Observer political reporting here. More People Will Die If Texans Don’t Speak Up For Women’s Bodies: Shawna Hodgson considers the consequences...
I Was Fired for Asking Students to Wear Masks
A version of this story ran in the September / October 2022 issue. My administration often has not treated the pandemic with the seriousness warranted by the deadliest event ever to befall Americans (in terms of total fatalities, anyway). Like much of the country, Collin College shut down in the middle of the spring semester in 2020, with classes offered online. However, by that summer, the college president, Neil Matkin, made clear he intended to resume mostly in-person teaching by the fall, and he used language that faculty found unnerving.
Crazy Rich Houston
By showcasing local food and its star’s struggle with alcohol, House of Ho attempts to make billionaires “relatable.”. Thanks to years of savvy real estate and investment bank dealings, multimillionaire family patriarch Binh Ho and his wife Hue, who moved to the U.S. from South Vietnam in 1975 unable to speak a word of English, built a world of wild extravagance and opulence for their children Judy and Washington and their families in Houston.
Beto Hits the Road for the Last Leg of His Tour
After a brief hiatus to treat a bacterial infection, the Democratic nominee for governor, Beto O’Rourke, resumed the final leg of his 49-day summer campaign tour in Laredo Friday night. O’Rourke has an edge Abbott lacks: passion. While Abbott stayed put in the governor’s mansion—still shirking his responsibility to do anything about gun violence—O’Rourke showed up to talk to residents in overlooked Texas towns on the border.
Houston’s ‘Librotraficante’ Calls on Chicanos to Combat Censorship
In his unusual new book, “The Tip of the Pyramid,” Tony Diaz preaches the need for “cultural accelerators” to combat right-wing reaction. Tony Diaz, a Houston-based writer, activist, talk show host, and self-described “cultural accelerator,” goes by many monikers. He was Antonio Diaz as a schoolboy on the South Side of Chicago. He became the AztecMuse as a writer in Houston, where he was the first Chicano to get an MFA in creative writing from the University of Houston. A stylish artist known to pace, and rattle off jokes with the speed of a practiced emcee, he’s also known as “El Librotraficante” for his role in a movement led by an intrepid band of Houstonians to fight Arizona’s ban on Mexican American studies a decade ago.
Big Leaks, Little Regulation
In the span of less than an hour, the equivalent of a year’s worth of exhaust from 16,000 cars spewed into the air when a gas pipeline owned by Energy Transfer in Webb County sprung a massive leak back in March. This “ultraemitter” event made the news because of...
The Woman Behind Ann Richards
A version of this story ran in the September / October 2022 issue. Mary Beth Rogers’ new memoir, Hope and Hard Truth: A Life in Texas Politics, begins and ends with water. To start, a stone well serves as metaphor for her many decades spent peering through the murky sediment of Texas politics, seeking a clear path to justice; to conclude, a walk along the Pacific coastline, the cold waves washing over her bare feet, symbolizes the inner peace of the last stages of a life bravely lived. In the pages between, Rogers reflects on lessons learned during her whirlwind career.
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The Texas Observer is an Austin-based nonprofit news organization known for fearless investigative reporting, narrative storytelling and sophisticated cultural criticism about all things Texan.