ustxtxb_obs_1997_10_24_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

VOLUME 89, NO. 19 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, Web Editor: Amanda Toering Development Director: Nancy Williams Circulation Assistant: Jeff Mandell Technical Consultant: Brian Ferguson Contributing Writers: Bill Adler, Barbara Belejack, Betty Brink, Brett Campbell, Lars Eighner, James K. Galbraith, Dagoberto Gilb, James Harrington, Jim Hightower, Molly Ivins, Paul Jennings, Steven G. Kellman, Bryce Milligan, Debbie Nathan, Karen Olsson, John Ross, Carol Stall, Brad Tyer, James McCarty Yeager. Staff Photographer: Alan Pogue Contributing Photographers: Vic Hinterlang, Patricia Moore. Contributing Artists: 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. In Memoriam: Cliff Olofson, 1931-1995 entire contents copyrighted, et 1997, is published biweekly except for a three-week interval World Wide Web DownHome page: Ihttp://texasobserver.org . 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. THIS ISSUE DEPARTMENTS Dialogue 2 Editorial Affirmative Action by Louis Dubose 3 Political Intelligence 16 Dateline Texas Freeport’s Largesse by Robert Bryce 18 Molly Ivins 22 Campaign Finance Deform Jim Hightower 23 Crude Operators, Dry Planes & Legal Robbery The Back Page 32 Apolitical Pat’s Playbook DIALOGUE UP THE PROFESSORIATE! Michael Erard handles tenure delicately, but says that professors are employees \(TO, employees. Janitors and coaches are hired; professors are appointed. I submit this illustrative anecdote whose authenticity I do not vouch for: When General Eisenhower became president of Columbia University, in his first faculty meeting he referred to professors as “employees of the university.” The Chairman of the Faculty Senate rose to interrupt: “Excuse me, General, but we are not employees of the university; we are the university.” Professors should never think of themselves as employees, or permit administrators to refer to them as employees. Never forget: We are the university. Martin Shockley, Professor Emeritus University of North Texas, Denton DISCOVERING HUMPHREY After I read the “Last of the Southern Belle-Lettrists” by Don Graham \(TO, 4 10 13 BOOKS AND THE CULTURE Mauro by Mauro 9 Book Review by Lucius Lomax Wind, Change and Time 25 Poetry by Diann A. McCabe Lost American 26 Film Review by Steven G. Kellman Buying Schools 28 Book Review by Jeff Mandell East Texas Recollections 30 Book Review by Barbara Ferry Afterword 31 Curious Moralities by Gail Mount Cover art by Richard Bartholomew check out The Ordways and Home From the Hill. I read The Ordways and am rereading sections. Soon, I will start Home From the Hill. Thanks to Graham for calling my attention to one of the United States’ best novelists, in whose works much of what agitates people in the late twentieth century is illuminated. I learned more about changing Texas, indeed the country, from the beautiful writing in The Ordways than in hundreds of sociological and political articles. Down here in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, William Humphrey’s death did not make the local papers. Humphrey, who understood the vast state, would have smiledmaybe criedfor the divisions among assorted classes that he described in The Ordways certainly exist today. Thanks again, Don Graham, for writing about a marvelous novelist, William Humphrey. Eugene Novogrodsky Brownsville FEATURE Up in the Air with Garry Mauro by Michael King Land Commissioner Garry Mauro has the ambition, the base, and the record to run for Governor. Why are his fellow Democrats holding back? Doing the Lord’s Work in Austin by Jim Lacy The Texas Freedom Network marked its two-year anniversary with an Austin conference, where evangelical partnershipping was the order of the day. From Maine to Texas by Olive Hershey As Congress moves to approve the Texas nuclear waste dump, citizens from New England to West Texas still have other plans. 2 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 24, 1997 _ .v.”*NIV40 111.1e.W.ui:1 -,