ustxtxb_obs_1997_06_20_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

VOLUME 89, NO. 12 A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of human-kind as the foundation of democracy: we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in publishing them we do not necessarily imply that we agree with them, because this is a journal of free voices. SINCE 1954 Founding Editor: Ronnie Dugger Publisher: Geoff Rips Editor: Louis Dubose Associate Editor: Michael King Production: Harrison Saunders Copy Editor: Mimi Bardagjy Poetry Editor: Naomi Shihab Nye Business Manager: Amanda Toering Special Correspondent: Karen Olsson Editorial Interns: Erica Barnett, Jeff Mandell Contributing Writers: Bill Adler, Barbara Belejack, Betty Brink, Robert Bryce, Brett Campbell, Jo Clifton, Lars Eighner, James Galbraith, Dagoberto Gilb, James Harrington, Jim Hightower, Molly Ivins, Paul Jennings, Steven Kellman, Bryce Milligan, Debbie Nathan, John Ross, Carol Stall, Brad Tyer, James McCarty Yeager. Contributing Photographers: Vic Hinterlang, Patricia Moore, Alan Pogue. Contributing Artists: Michael Alexander, Eric Avery, Tom Ballenger, Richard Bartholomew, Jeff Danziger, Beth Epstein, Valerie Fowler, Kevin Kreneck, Michael Krone, Ben Sargent, Gail Woods. Editorial Advisory Board: David Anderson, Austin; Elroy Bode, El Paso; Chandler Davidson, Houston; Dave Denison, Arlington, Mass.; Bob Eckhardt, Austin; Sissy Farenthold, Houston; John Kenneth Galbraith, Cambridge, Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; George Hendrick, Urbana, Ill.; Molly Ivins, Austin; Larry L. King, Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick, Jr., San Antonio; Willie Morris, Jackson, Miss.; Kaye Northcott, Fort Worth; James Presley, Texarkana; Fred Schmidt, Fredericksburg. Development Consultant: Frances Barton In Memoriam: Cliff Olofson, 1931-1995 copyrighted, 1997, is published biweekly except for a three-week interval World Wide Web DownHome page: http://wwvv.hyperweb.com/txobserver Periodicals postage paid at Austin, Texas. SUBSCRIPTIONS: One year $32, two years $59, three years $84. Full-time students $18 per year. Add $13/year for foreign subs. Back issues $3 prepaid. Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Microfilms Intl., 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. INDEXES: The Texas Observer is indexed in Access: The Supplementary Index to Periodicals: Texas Index and, for the years 1954 through 1981,The Texas Observer Index. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE TEXAS OBSERVER, 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. BOOKS AND THE CULTURE 2 The True World 27 Lisa Brandenburg & Hardwick Graves 3 Socially Conscious TV Cinema 28 Review by Steven G. Kellman Afterword 30 Smoke In His Eyes by Lucius Lomax 15 Back Page 32 Woolly Wohlgemuth Rampage Cover photo by Alan Pogue. Sausage courtesy of Sam’s Bar-B-Cue, Austin 14 16 THIS ISSUE / DEPARTMENTS Dialogue Editorials A Farewell to Mr. Bullock Molly Ivins Those Taxing Legislators Jim Hightower Working Wars Political Intelligence DIALOGUE I JUST PLAIN TOM I am delighted to see the review of Maury Maverick’s book \(“Plain Talk and Radical You should know that Maverick’s ancestor, Samuel Maverick, was mortally wounded on the night of March 5, 1770, when he followed a charge led by Crispus Attucks, a black merchant seaman, into the British fire on King’s Street. Maury’s father did more than any other Texan to place social security in the federal statutes: Maury should have a place for the man Jesus, unknown to the religions of the world, one of whose missions was to save his world from slavery, along with Tom Paine and Tom Jefferson. Otto B. Mullinax, Dallas KISS AND COVER Accusing someone of not having a spine while not having one yourself makes you more pathetic than your enemy. “A pointing finger invites three in return.” And so on. When the editors used a Dagoberto Gilb quote \(“Texas Monthly as ammunition in their bronca with TM and then said, “But we wouldn’t go that far…” [sic] \(“The Bee in the Bluebonnet,” culprit placing his hand over that of another, squeezing off a round at someone else, and then saying, “He done it!” If Gilb had the guts to say publicly what he did, TO should either have backed him 100 percent or shouldn’t have bothered using the quote in the first place and then qualifying it, like an old woman. I’m sure of thisTO will be in bed with TM as soon as both mags see a mutual benefit. That, my friends will happen when the big boys throw you guys a bone from their fat supply. Until then, a piece of advice for D. Gilb and others…CYOA!! Jose Garcia, El Paso The Editors respond: Mr. Garcia’s grandiose outrage at a minor rhetorical flourish is more than a little overheated. Dagoberto Gilb certainly doesn’t need anyone to cover his back; and in any case, we wrote, “We won’t go quite that far.” . We simply weren’tand aren’tin an amorous mood. OOPS, WE KNEW THAT… There was no International Workers of the World \(“A Conspiracy of Equals,” by dustrial Workers of the World, the IWW, the Wobblies. That was a good review of Maury’s book! Fred Schmidt Fredericksburg FEATURES Austin Hot Sausage To Go by Michael King 4 Caught between tax reform and tax reaction, the Legislature also stopped to consider welfare, nursing homes, HMOs, tort reform, and football. Here’s all the Lege that fits…. Alan Pogue: Through a Lens Darkly Photography by Alan Pogue 18 For more than twenty-five years, a quiet, persistent, Austin artist has been documenting the history of ordinary people, throughout Texas and the world. Look through his eyes. 2 THE TEXAS OBSERVER JUNE 20, 1997