Ruth Pennebaker

  • Despair in Fashion

    Justin Sewell isn’t perfect. He admires “outliers” like Ralph Nader (even after my insistence that Nader can never, ever be forgiven for helping to [...] Full Story

  • Edsel U.

    Using a car analogy, [University of Texas System Board of Regents Chairman Gene Powell] said a $10,000 degree would be more like a Chevrolet [...] Full Story

  • Shut My Mouth

    In the immortal words of the great Tammy Wynette, sometimes it’s hard to be a woman. Anyway, that’s the tune I’ve been humming — [...] Full Story

  • Bringing Up Baby

    On a wintry day in February, I went to the Texas Senate to hear citizens and medical and legal experts testify about the sonogram [...] Full Story

  • Unearthing Aurora

    Lost Books of Texas “Terms of Endearment is a book?” a well-read friend asked recently. “I didn’t know that. I thought it was just [...] Full Story

  • Unearthing Aurora

    Lost Books of Texas “Terms of Endearment is a book?” a well-read friend asked recently. “I didn’t know that. I thought it was just [...] Full Story

  • If the Revolution is Over, Does That Mean We Won?

    People of a certain age are always talking, sadly and nostalgically, about the bright, unfulfilled dreams of their youth. I’m of a certain age [...] Full Story

  • Lost in the Reads

    You get rid of … your books?” one of my younger friends asked. She looked aghast—as if I’d just announced that I ate my [...] Full Story

  • The Big O

    Second in a series on recession-era Texas. ODESSA-Oh, sure. You can laugh about this flat, dry part of the world, where the streets are [...] Full Story

  • Commentary

    Betty Jo Harper, a silver-haired, bespectacled teacher from tiny Paint Creek, Texas, has numbered many successes in her 83 years. Every spring, her prize-winning [...] Full Story