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Texas Observer SAVE THE DATE MARK YOUR CALENDARS! On October 18, economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman will appear in Austin with Molly Ivins to sign his new book, The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century at a benefit for the Observer. Look for details in our next issue. EDITORIAL Plus Qa Change, Tall 0 ur longtime friend, former editor, and current contributing writer Bob Sherrill insists that the graphics of this magazine have improved so much in the past few years that something underhanded must be going on: We must be getting affluent. Well, all we can say to that is ojalii. Would that it were so. Our art budget is still as miniscule as ever. There’s another explanation for our improved design. The unsung heroes of any publication are the people who put it together. We don’t mean the writers and editorswe mean the people who literally put it togetherthe folks who design the pages and then take the thousands of bits and bytes, TIFs, JPGs, and other things that mystify the rest of us and send them off into cyberspace to the printer. . For the past three years, those “people” have translated into one person, the lovely and talented Julia Austin, our art director. Not long after she began working at the Observer, Julia undertook a major re-design of the magazine and then coaxed us into the future by helping to launch our website. Ever since she has worked to improve our look. She’s been far more than our art directorshe’s been the stage-manager for our January Rabble Rouser fundraisers. As our in-house musician, she’s played the clarinet and sang for the Observer. All for a good cause, of course. \(And something you’ll never catch the writers and editors doing We’ve watched her proof pages, pull covers out of the hat at the last minute, coax artists into working for us for the price of a cup of coffee and a breakfast taco, and done whatever else it takes to get the issue out. She’s done it all with a part-time job and a limited art budget. Now, with this issue, she leaves us for new adventures. We wish her well and miss her already. Starting with this issue, our art direction is in the very capable hands of Matt Lynaugh. Along with his wife, Gloria Lee, an art professor at the University ofTexas in Austin, Matt runs Buds Design Kitchen, a design firm they founded as grad students in 1995. In addition, our website, also previously maintained by Julia Austin, will be handled by Adrian Quesada, an artist, designer, and musician with the Austinbased Latin band Grupo Fantasma \(check them out at vvww.grupofantasFinally, longtime readers will note that a familiar name has reappeared on our masthead. We’re happy to welcome back Roxanne Bogucka. Several regime changes ago, Roxanne approached the editors with a long list of ways that the Observer could be improved, and suggested that we start with a copy editor. Some people just can’t stay away. This is Roxanne’s third stint as our copy editor and we’re delighted to have her back, working for \(pardon the VOLUME 95, NO. 17 A Journal of Free Voices Since 1954 Founding Editor: Ronnie Dugger Co-Editors: Jake Bernstein, Barbara Belejack Session Reporter: Dave Mann Managing Publisher: Jim Ball Associate Publisher: Charlotte McCann Circulation Manager: Rosie Bainberger Chavez Art Direction: Buds Design Kitchen Poetry Editor: Naomi Shihab Nye Copy Editor: Roxanne Bogucka Webmaster: Adrian Quesada Interns: Jessica Chapman, Kate Harrington, Emily Rapp, Adrianc Sack, Allison Stuntz Contributing Writers: Nate Blakeslee, Gabriela Bocagrande, Robert Bryce, Louis Dubose, Michael Erard, James K. Galbraith, Dagoberto Gilb, Steven G. Kellman, Lucius Lomax, James McWilliams, Char Miller, Debbie Nathan, Karen Olsson, John Ross, Brad Tyer. Staff Photographers: Alan Pogue, Jana Birchum. Contributing Artists: Sam Hurt, Kevin Kreneck, Michael Krone, Gary Oliver, Doug Potter, Penny Van Horn, Gail Woods. Editorial Advisory Board: David Anderson, Chandler Davidson, Dave Denison, Sissy Farentliold, John Kenneth Galbraith, Lawrence Goodwyn, Jun Hightower, Kaye Northcott, Susan Reid. In Memoriam: Bob Eckhardt, 1913-2001 Cliff Olofson, 1931-1995 Texas Democracy. Foundation Board: Ronnie Dugger, Marc Grossberg, Molly Ivins, D’Ann Johnson. Jim Marston, Gilberto Ocafias, Bernard Rapoport, Geoffrey Rips. The Texas Observer entire contents copyrighted 2002, is published biweekly except every three weeks during January and August \(24 issues profit foundation, 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. Telephone: E-mail: [email protected] World Wide Web DownHome page: WWW. 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 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. The Books & the Culture section is partially funded through grants _lion, the City of Austin under the auspices of the Austin Arts Commission and the Writer’s League of Texas, both in cooperation with the Texas Commission on the Arts. 9/12/03 THE TEXAS \(WEAVER 3