ustxtxb_obs_1997_11_21_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

sk. V. EDITORIAL IIXAS bserve 307 West Seventh Street Austin, Texas 78701 November, 1997 Dear Readers, Dear Friends, By the time you read this, most of you will have in your hands a letter on our behalf from Molly lvins, asking you once again to dig in and support the Observer campaign for funds. Molly’s unique Texas eloquence is quite beyond us, so we won’t try to duplicate it. We o ll and Rapoport, our only ask you to please read Molly’s letter carefully, and to take it to heart. On the opposite page is an inimitably earthy and inspiring letter of support from Bern longtime friend, who has stood by the Observer es you all to challeng help us again, as you have helped many times over the yearsmost recently last summer, when prominent onlookers were predicting our imminent demise. We weathered that crisis together, and now we are reaching out to you to sustain the Journal of Free Voices that is the Observer, because this is a progressive, Texas institution doing crucial work which, we believe, must continue. Consider, if you will, only a very few of the stories we have covered in the past year: the most thorough overage of the Legislature available anywhere, with particular attention to “tort reform,” environmental matters, labor legislation, education, and other issues of central importance to progressive Texans; c Labor battles from Lubbock to t Houston, Sierra Blanca to Amarillo, pig factories to Pan s; On the Labor Day that found every other sate and national publication smothering the Princess Diana funeral, we were covering a labor lockout in Pasadena. We stand with you. The $40,000 called for by Bernard Rapoport will sustain the Observer’s immediate a more sound long needs and carry us into the spring of 1998while we work on a capital fundraising effort to put us on term footing. Molly and B have helped immensely, but we operate on a threadbare shoestring at all times. W i e are quite proud of our imposing historical staffbox, but the daily work is in the hands of a very small group of dedicated w rofessionals, working writers, reporters, and other p at virtually volunteer wages because they believe in the work, and in spreading the word. We are also trying to push beyond our current limits, to raise enough money to build the Observer and its circulation, particularly among younger Texans, in order to sustain an institution that m bond its current generation of stakeholders. Please join us, generously, in that effort, just as youust livebeyond would for other public institutions: schools and universities d , community radio, public television, all the hard-fought community resources currently uner assault by the same tyrannical private interests that would turn all public and community life into instruments gain. struments of p The Observer is a voice, a sword, and a shield in that continuing struggle. Help us to grow strong. In friendship and solidarity , The Editors .t… NOVEMBER 21, 1997 4 THE TEXAS OBSERVER