Most Recent in Texas Politics:

1Amid a National Reckoning Over Racial Injustice, Royce West Seeks to Upset MJ Hegar—and the DSCC

2Doctors Reverse Course, Say Texas GOP Should Cancel In-Person Convention

3The Next Census Could Determine the Future of Port Arthur

4Texas Had a State Office That Could Have Investigated Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Cases. Lawmakers Defunded it Three Years Ago.

5The COVID-19 Disaster Has Made a Mess of Texas’ Open Government Rules

6‘I’m in Limbo Here’: Texans Are Met with an Overwhelmed and Antiquated State Unemployment System

Most Recent in Environment:

1How Texas Lawmakers and Industry Have Weakened Citizens’ Rights to Fight Pollution

2Texas Relaxed Environmental Enforcement During the Pandemic, State Data Show

3Editorial: Air Pollution Was Already Killing Us. Then Came the Coronavirus. Why Won’t the EPA Act?

4City Nature Challenge Can Help Us Find Resilience and Mindfulness at Home

5Lessons on the Long Game from Goose Island’s Whooping Cranes

6COVID-19 is Buying Time for Gulf Coast Towns Fighting Oil and Gas Projects

Most Recent in Border:

1Between Borders

3Along the Border, Witnesses of Smuggling Crimes Are Being Held in Detention, Despite Coronavirus Concerns

4In Migrants Camps Along the Texas-Mexico Border, Close Quarters and Closing Borders Raise Concerns

5U.S. Supreme Court Sides with Trump Administration on ‘Remain in Mexico’

6Following a Protest, ICE Moves Asylum-Seekers For the Second Time in Two Weeks

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1Reform vs. Rebuild: Defunding Law Enforcement in Texas

2As COVID-19 Cases Surge, Some Incarcerated People Remain Behind Bars After Making Bail

3A Major Obstacle to Police Reform: The Whiteness of Their Union Bosses

4COVID-19 Has Delayed Programs That Texas Prisoners Need to Get Out

5Why Is APD Responding to Mental Health Crises like Violent Crimes?

Most Recent in Education:

1The New Ensemble

2Raise a Glass to the Class of COVID-19

3Tough Decisions Ahead for School Leaders in Rural Texas

4‘Almost Akin to a Political Coup’: Houston Teachers Fight Back Against State Takeover of HISD

5The Creature of Martin Creek Lake Won’t Die

6The Cost of Carve-Outs

Most Recent in Health Care:

1Texas Nursing Home Residents Were Already at Risk. Then COVID-19 Hit.

2Neglected in Care

3COVID-19 is Surging in Rural Texas, Threatening to Overwhelm Local Hospitals

4He Removed Labels That Said ‘Medical Use Prohibited,’ Then Tried to Sell Thousands of Masks to Officials Who Distribute to Hospitals

5Promising Results Reported for COVID-19 Patients Treated with Plasma Therapy in Texas

6The Traveling Midwife

Most Recent in The Interview:

1Texas Observer Founding Editor Ronnie Dugger Reflects on 65 Years of Publication

2How Katharine Hayhoe Stays Hopeful as the Planet Warms

3Author William Lopez on How Immigration Raids Inflict Long-Lasting Trauma

4Why a Texas Gun Control Activist is Optimistic About the Chances for Reform

5American Health Care is Broken, Especially in Texas. What Can We Do About It?

6Thousands of Rape Kits in Texas Went Untested For Years. Lavinia Masters Is Ending That.

Most Recent in Books:

1In ‘Separated,’ One Journalist’s Close-up View of the Family Separation Crisis

2Lawrence Wright Embraces Pandemic Panic in ‘The End of October’

3Is it Time to Rethink Texas Suburbia?

4What’s a Bookstore for?

5In ‘All I Ever Wanted,’ Kathy Valentine Reclaims Her Narrative

6A New Book on the Sutherland Springs Shooting Explores Resilience, Forgiveness, and Grace

Most Recent in Features:

1Young Texans Keep Spelling Bees Going From Home

3San Antonio Embraces Mandaean Refugees

4The Ghosts of Jefferson

5Little Arthouse on the Prairie

6The Clothes that Make the Man

Most Recent in Essay:

1What the Black Lives Matter Protests Mean for East Texas

2Raise a Glass to the Class of COVID-19

3What’s a Bookstore for?

4Lessons on the Long Game from Goose Island’s Whooping Cranes

5In a Pandemic, Poor Defendants Could Pay With Their Lives

6Loneliness in the Age of Coronavirus

Most Recent in Eye on Texas:

1Eye on Texas: Border Tuner

2Eye on Texas: The Broken Wheel Ranch Project

3Eye on Texas: Spike Johnston

4Eye on Texas: Loren Elliott

5Eye on Texas: Charlotte Moore

6Eye on Texas: ‘My Joyful Dance’

Most Recent in Poetry:

1Author Saeed Jones on Empathy, the Power of Memoir, and Growing up Gay in North Texas

2Remembering W.S. Merwin, Honorary Texan

3Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

4Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

5Parallel Planes

Urban Cowgirl

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

Top