December 2015 - The Texas Observer

Most Recent in Texas Politics:

1Doctors Reverse Course, Say Texas GOP Should Cancel In-Person Convention

2The Next Census Could Determine the Future of Port Arthur

3Texas Had a State Office That Could Have Investigated Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Cases. Lawmakers Defunded it Three Years Ago.

4The COVID-19 Disaster Has Made a Mess of Texas’ Open Government Rules

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

6A ‘Stay-at-Home’ Order by Any Other Name

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:

1As COVID-19 Cases Surge, Some Incarcerated People Remain Behind Bars After Making Bail

2A Major Obstacle to Police Reform: The Whiteness of Their Union Bosses

3COVID-19 Has Delayed Programs That Texas Prisoners Need to Get Out

4Why Is APD Responding to Mental Health Crises like Violent Crimes?

6How COVID-19 Upended Texas Prisons

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:

1He Removed Labels That Said ‘Medical Use Prohibited,’ Then Tried to Sell Thousands of Masks to Officials Who Distribute to Hospitals

2Promising Results Reported for COVID-19 Patients Treated with Plasma Therapy in Texas

3The Traveling Midwife

4In Rural Texas, COVID-19 Contact Tracing is Largely Up to Local Officials, If It Happens at All

5Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins on Battling COVID-19, and the Governor, as Texas Reopens

6With Storage Space Evaporating, the Oil and Gas Industry Will Get to Put Its Products Back Underground

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:

1Lawrence Wright Embraces Pandemic Panic in ‘The End of October’

2Is it Time to Rethink Texas Suburbia?

3What’s a Bookstore for?

4In ‘All I Ever Wanted,’ Kathy Valentine Reclaims Her Narrative

5A New Book on the Sutherland Springs Shooting Explores Resilience, Forgiveness, and Grace

6‘Trust Me’ Tackles Politics, Power, and Perception

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

The Magazine: December 2015

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March 2015, Texas Observer cover

COVER STORY

Homeland Insecurity

by Melissa del Bosque and Patrick Michels

Mon, Dec 7, 2015 |

What good are more boots on the ground if the men and women wearing them also work for the cartels? What benefit is an 18-foot wall when criminals can bribe their way through the gate?Read More

In this Issue

Political Intelligence

Dan Patrick Finds The One

by Christopher Hooks

WilCo Candidate Won’t Settle ‘Religious Test’ Lawsuit

Bonding Behind Bars

by Alexa Garcia-Ditta

News

State of Texas: What Obamacare Has Done for Texas

by Alexa Garcia-Ditta and Hannah McBride

Strangest State: Errant Emus, a Reading Dog and a Giant Chair

by Patrick Michels

CULTURE

Our Blue Period

Postcard from the Incredible Electric Oyster Reef

by Hannah McBride

Eye on Texas: Family Detention

by Ilana Panich-Linsman

Poem: Chris Yan’s ‘How I Love You In This House Today’

Dramas of Family and State Unfold in ‘All the Houses’

Columns

What California Can Teach Us About Texas

by Christopher Hooks

Greg Shames the Sheriff

by Andrea Grimes

State of Texas

State of Texas: What Obamacare Has Done for Texas

by Alexa Garcia-Ditta and Hannah McBride

Eye on Texas

Eye on Texas: Family Detention

by Ilana Panich-Linsman