Texas
2010 – 2014
The Strangest State
While I was in college I started writing for The Texas Observer, the oldest alternative magazine in the country and a pillar of the old-school Texas liberal establishment. The Observer was dedicated to, as the magazine's slogan said then, "Sharp Reporting from the Strangest State in the Union," and its editors were willing to coach young writers and pay them fairly. (If not for Observer editors' willingness to pay $.50 a word to no-name freelancers, it is very possible that I would not be a journalist now.)
Observer editors gave me great freedom to range across the state pursuing such tomfoolery as:
- an abortion worker turned pro-choice activist
- the young-earth creationist rewriting Texas' high school science standards.
- government scientists trying to introduce invasive wasps to Rio Grande Valley
- a crazed cropduster pilot terrorizing the small farmers of Hunt County, Texas
The reporting that follows is a collection of Texas as I saw and experienced it, from the asphalt ghettoes of Houston to the canebrakes of the Rio Grande and the back roads of the western desert. It flows through the strange years of the Obama presidency and the fracking revolution; the rise of the Tea Party and the fall of Rick Perry, when it seemed that anything was possible.
Part I
Old White Republicans
The central paradox of Texas in the 21st Century is this: it's a state with an ever younger, more diverse, and more urban population that continues to be run by an establishment that is disproportionately rural, Anglo, Protestant, and male. These are notes of the Texas mainstream, portraits of the Texas' Republican establishment as it struggles to hold on to power in the face both of Texas' rising minority population and a gathering populist rebellions from below.
Argument
Why Texans Don't Vote
The Texas Observer
September 27, 2012
Why one of America's most diverse states is run by old white Republicans.
Portrait
The Curious Faith of Don McLeroy
Texas Observer
February 20, 2009
In 2009 Texas' Board of Education met to discuss the state's new science curriculum. In charge of the board: Don McLeroy, young earth creationist.
Portrait
Conversion Story
The Texas Observer
January 28, 2010
A militant Planned Parenthood director becomes a pro-life celebrity.
Portrait
The Extra Lite-Gov
The Texas Observer
October 28, 2010
The lieutenant governor is Texas' most powerful politician -- at least, until the short, unhappy reign of David Dewhurst.
Portrait
The Boy From Haskell
The Texas Observer
September 21, 2012
How Rick Perry's family built an old-school political empire to make him the most powerful Texas governor since the Civil War.
Part II
Down Back Roads
Stories from diverse parts of Texas.
PORTRAIT
Fehrenbach's Texas
The Texas Observer
October 12, 2012
Discussing lost stories and terrible truths with T.R. Fehrenbach, the grand old man of Texas history.
Postcard
Get Your Norteno Out of My Conjunto
The Texas Observer
March 10, 2011
In the Rio Grande Valley, a blood feud between two nearly identical forms of Latino music.
PORTRAIT
Saving the Mint
The Texas Observer
March 10, 2011
The lives of Frank Garcia: as hood-rat, thug, community builder in the emerging slums of Houston.
Portrait
Keeping Time in Lockhart
The Texas Observer
February 2, 2012
In a small Central Texas town, a chance favor leads to obsession.
Postcard
Cuero Bets on Fracking
The Texas Observer
September 8, 2011
At the dawn of the fracking boom, a small town bets big.
Postcard
Caldwell Czechs In
The Texas Observer
January 9, 2012
Inside the last days of a forgotten ethnic enclave.
Postcard
Combating an Invasion
The Texas Observer
January 21, 2011
At a federal research station in the Rio Grande Valley, scientists pit one invasive species against another.