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- FEATURED »
- Video from Death Row: Possibly Retarded Prisoner Faces Execution
- by Renée Feltz
- When Texas reopens its execution chamber after a Thanksgiving break, the first man set to die may be mentally retarded. A 2002 Supreme Court ruling bans the execution of mentally retarded prisoners. But after years of being represented by a discredited attorney who ruined any chance for an appeal based on …
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- Features
- Features »
- Heaven and Hell in Cameron County Jail
- by Diana Claitor
- Gail Hanson’s soft, musical voice served her well for eight years as a volunteer chaplain at the Cameron County Jail in Brownsville. But as she witnessed and heard about the mistreatment of the mostly young and impoverished women she counseled—from unhealthy food to freezing-cold cells to lengthy detentions without convictions—Hanson’s voice …
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- Features »
- Dr. Strangevox
- by Michael May
- In the back room of a studio in North Austin lit only by the glow of computer screens, a producer and singer who calls himself Madd Creole lets out a string of gospel-inflected vocal improvisations. As his voice wavers and slides from note to note, it’s shadowed by a ghostly shimmer …
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- Features »
- Coal Star State
- by Forrest Wilder
- One February night in 2007, a boisterous crowd from all around Texas—old-school ranchers and farmers, fresh-faced Baylor students, environmentalists new and old, big-city Democrats, and rural Republicans—packed a Waco auditorium to discuss the next round of an epic fight. The gathering would turn out to be the high-water mark of a …
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- Departments
- EDITORIAL »
- Texas and Gommorah
- by Bob Moser
- As this issue of the Observer went to press, Jehovah had not yet seen fit to rain fire and devastation on the wicked citizenry of Houston. Not since Hurricane Ike, anyway. But if you ask Eric Story, Republican candidate for Congress from Houston’s 29th District, the Good Lord was barely getting …
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- POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE »
- Choose Your Poison
- These days Mexicans fleeing drug-cartel violence are faced with two lousy options: the threat of death in Juarez or detention in El Paso. With more than 1,900 people having been killed this year in the ongoing battle over Juarez’ lucrative drug corridor, there is no shortage of folks in that unenviable …
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- COMMENTARY »
- Urban Cowgirl
- by Ruth Pennebaker
- Most of my life, I’ve lived in a car. That’s because I grew up in West Texas and got my driver’s license in 1964, when I was 14. What else are you going to do when you’re that age and your face is blossoming in pimples and your smile glints silver …
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- JIM HIGHTOWER »
- The Price of Privatization
- Gather ‘round, and a true tale I’ll tell about how privatization does not go so well.
In the past decade or so, public officials have rushed to privatize government functions. Corporations, they cried, can do any public job better and cheaper. So on that theoretical assumption, everything from water systems …
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- Books & the Culture
- Reviews »
- Killing the Thirst
- by Tom Palaima
- This summer Texas suffered through its worst drought in half a century. Two hundred and thirty public water systems declared mandatory restrictions. Crop and livestock losses during the preceding nine months totaled $3.6 billion. Seventy of Texas’ 254 counties were declared primary disaster areas.
In mid-August, as parts of …
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- CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK »
- Tunes for the Anxious
- by Josh Rosenblatt
- It’s impossible to be indifferent to El Paso-raised musician Omar Alfredo Rodriguez-López. The sheer scale and inscrutability of his music demand that listeners choose a side, …
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- DATELINE »
- Where the Wild Things Are
- by Stayton Bonner
- The rubber Sasquatch head stared with glassy eyes from atop its pedestal. Beneath its gaze, Bigfoot Conference attendees milled about Tyler’s Caldwell Auditorium. Children peeked at the hairy visage from around parents’ legs. A pale man wearing black cowboy boots crossed his arms as a friend snapped a picture with his …
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