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Most Recent in Politics:

1Texas Lawmakers Propose Funding Increase to Eliminate Waitlists at Rape Crisis Centers

2Why is Beto Running for President, Exactly?

3Texas Lawmakers are Promoting ‘Anti-New York’ Bills to Limit Abortions

4Republicans Push Back Against Making Election Day a Texas Holiday

5Dan Patrick May Have Just Sparked Bathroom Bill 2.0

6How Tea Partiers Fueled Texas’ Latest ‘Voter Fraud’ Freakout

Most Recent in Environment:

1A New Study Shows that the Oil and Gas Industry is Wasting a Shocking Quantity of Natural Gas in Texas

2Texas State Park Could Close as Vistra Energy Seeks to Sell Land Near Shuttered Power Plant

3El Paso School Consolidation Exposes More Kids to Lead and Other Hazards, Parents Say

4Could Kinder Morgan’s ‘Permian Highway’ Scar the Hill Country?

5Millions of Plastic Pellets in Lavaca Bay? Formosa Says it’s Just ‘Trace Amounts’

6Environmentalists Fear Conservative Group’s Push to End Corporate Subsidies is Really Just a Hit on Renewables

Most Recent in Border:

1The Interview: Mass Resistance

2‘The River and The Wall’ is a Visually Stunning Borderland Adventure

3Instead of Building Family-Friendly Jails for Migrants, We Should Just Stop Jailing Them

4Many Texans Want a Border Wall Without a Federal Land Grab. That’s Impossible.

5The Borderlands are a Sacrifice Zone for Our Terrible Politics

6Valeria Luiselli’s Third Novel Reckons with the Trauma Inflicted on Migrant Kids

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1Texas Legislature Considers Bills to Break the Cycle of Debtor’s Prison

2Texas Prison Reformers Demand Dignity for Incarcerated Women

3Third Time’s The Charm? Marijuana Decriminalization Gets Another Chance in Texas

4Why Doesn’t Texas’ Most Liberal County Have a Public Defender?

5Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

6The Tattooed Star of the ‘Progressive Prosecutor’ Movement Braces for His First Death Penalty Trial

Most Recent in Education:

1‘We’re Not Stupid’: Texas Teachers Take on Dan Patrick and the Legislature over Dismal Education Funding

2In Violation of Texas Law, Most High Schools Aren’t Giving Students the Chance to Register to Vote

3Amid Record Youth Suicide Attempts, Texas Lags in Prevention Training for Teachers

4Cash-Strapped Rural Texas Schools Look to Universities for Help

5What’s in a Name? Texas SBOE Tentatively Approves ‘Ethnic Studies: Mexican American Studies’

6SMU Just Lost Its Independent Student Newspaper. Is Your College Next?

Most Recent in Health Care:

1Texas Lawmakers Propose Funding Increase to Eliminate Waitlists at Rape Crisis Centers

2In Texas, Three More Measles Cases and Four New Anti-Vaccine Bills

3Texas Lawmakers are Promoting ‘Anti-New York’ Bills to Limit Abortions

4‘Breakthrough’ Chronicles Nobel Prize Winner Jim Allison’s Long Fight for Science

6Amid Measles Outbreak, Texas Lawmakers Want to Make it Even Easier to Opt Out of Vaccines

Most Recent in The Interview:

1The Interview: Mass Resistance

2Meet Jim Allison, Texas’ Newest Nobel Laureate (and Three-Time Cancer Survivor)

3Dolores Huerta is Still Knocking on Doors and Registering Voters at 88

4The Interview: Veronica Escobar is Poised to Make History

5Redistricting Guru Michael Li on Texas’ Gerrymandered Maps

6Senfronia Thompson Says #MeToo: Texas Lawmaker on 45 Years of Sexism, Racism at the Capitol

Most Recent in Books:

1Swamp City Serenade

2A Sweeping History of Texas Blues Celebrates Little-Known Musicians

3Elizabeth McCracken’s ‘Bowlaway’ Spins a Dark, Magical Tale of Love, Loss and Bowling

4Valeria Luiselli’s Third Novel Reckons with the Trauma Inflicted on Migrant Kids

5‘Last Woman Standing’ Tackles Toxic Masculinity and Keeps the Pages Turning

6The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

Most Recent in Features:

1The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

2Raspa Revolution

3100 Ways to Draw a Line

4Homeward Bound

5The Sisterhood

6The Time-Traveler’s Guide to the Lower Pecos

Most Recent in Essay:

1Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

2The Trouble with Yoga

3Heads in the Mud

4The Day the Windows Shook

5Women’s Work

6I Grew Up on the Texas-Mexico Border, but Now I Barely Recognize It

Most Recent in Eye on Texas:

1Eye on Texas: ‘My Joyful Dance’

2Eye on Texas: Ghosts of the City

3Eye on Texas: Fiesta Protesta

4Eye on Texas: Remembering Draylen Mason

5Eye on Texas: Gentrification in East Austin

6Eye on Texas: Transgender Youth in Texas

Most Recent in Poetry:

1Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

2Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

3Parallel Planes

5Poem: ‘Resistance’

6Poem: ‘Screenplay for a Homemade Movie’

Urban Cowgirl

Despair in Fashion

by Ruth Pennebaker | Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 16:08 CST

Edsel U.

by Ruth Pennebaker

Tue, Jun 7, 2011

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 Bel Air, a midlevel...Read More

Shut My Mouth

Since when did "uterus" become an offensive term—especially when you're talking about regulating abortion?

by Ruth Pennebaker

Wed, May 11, 2011

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 — “Stand by Your Man,�...Read More

Bringing Up Baby

by Ruth Pennebaker

Wed, Mar 30, 2011

On a wintry day in February, I went to the Texas Senate to hear citizens and medical and legal experts testify about the sonogram bill. You know, the bill we’...Read More

What’s in a Nombre?

by Ruth Pennebaker

Tue, Mar 1, 2011

All you have to do is move and you get this question 600 times a day: “What’s your new address?” Funny they—the friends, the bankers, the credit-card ca...Read More

Home Soul

by Ruth Pennebaker

Tue, Feb 1, 2011

We’ve lived in our house in West Austin for almost 14 years—the longest we’ve ever lived anywhere. Our kids finished school here, brooding and backtalking...Read More

One Texan’s Xmas List

by Ruth Pennebaker

Mon, Dec 20, 2010

I’ve finally learned that you have to ask for what you want in this life. I know, I know—getting what you want is another matter. But it’s been a hard yea...Read More

Bloody Bloody Tea Party

by Ruth Pennebaker

Tue, Nov 23, 2010

When I wasn’t working on a migraine, when I wasn’t despondent about the future of the world, when I was feeling halfway brave, I occasionally tuned in to TV...Read More

What’s Remarkable is How Serious It Was

Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity

by Ruth Pennebaker

Mon, Nov 1, 2010

My husband and I were two of the hundreds of thousands who showed up for the Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington, D.C. Saturday. It was one of those per...Read More

The Textbook Plot

by Ruth Pennebaker

Tue, Oct 26, 2010

The State Board of Education today instructed publishers to curtail positive coverage of Islam and include more favorable treatment of Christianity in future wo...Read More

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