February 2016 - The Texas Observer

Most Recent in Texas Politics:

1The Lege This Week: Lurching Rightward

2In Gainesville, the Past Is Repeating Itself

3The Lege This Week: The Capitol’s Longstanding Toxic Culture

4Mayoral Candidate Lily Bao Wants to Make Plano Great Again

5The Lege This Week: Texas House Passes Budget, Republicans Again Reject Medicaid Expansion

6“Election Integrity” or Voter Intimidation?

Most Recent in Environment:

1La Niña Brings Wildfires

2Robert Bullard Isn’t Done Yet

3ERCOT Asked Texans to Conserve Power as Electric Grid Again Struggled to Keep Up with Demand

4One Researcher’s Quest to Quantify the Environmental Cost of Abandoned Oil Wells

5Waves of Abandonment

6‘No Teeth and No Funding’: How Regulators Failed to Police the Oil Industry

Most Recent in Border:

1Texas Activists Took Their Fight Against a Natural Gas Project Abroad—And They’re Winning

2‘Not Celebrating Yet’: South Texans Wait for Biden to Cancel Trump’s Wall

3How Texas Courts Went Virtual

4In ‘At the Ready,’ Latinx High Schoolers Train to Be Border Patrol Agents

5Forgotten for Over a Century, Border Hero Jovita Idár Is Rediscovered by Her Hometown of Laredo

6Deaths in ICE Custody Skyrocketed During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1How Flawed Death Investigations Can Leave Texas COVID-19 Deaths Uncounted

2Editorial: Defund the Constables

3Uninvestigated, Uncounted: How Justices of the Peace Miss Important Clues in Death Investigations

4Clogged Toilets, Snow Inside: How the Winter Storm Exacerbated Problems in Texas Lock-Ups

6Exploring the Rise, Fall, and Lingering Trauma of the Death Penalty in Texas

Most Recent in Education:

1‘I Felt Like They Were Demonizing My People’: Advocates and Families Point to Biases in Texas Curricula

2The Long, Winding Road that Led to the SBOE’s Decision for Texas Schools to Teach Abstinence-Plus Sex Education

3Efforts to Save What’s Left of Mary Allen Seminary Reveal The Challenges of Preserving Black Placemaking in Texas

4Texas Has the Widest Digital Divide in the Nation. What Does that Mean for the School Year?

5The New Ensemble

6Raise a Glass to the Class of COVID-19

Most Recent in Health Care:

1Editorial: Even ‘Turning Texas Blue’ Won’t Fix Us If We Don’t Face Some Hard Truths

2Portraits of the Pandemic: Part Two

3Editorial: Texas Wasn’t Prepared for the Statewide Vaccine Rush

4COVID-19’s Deadly Toll on Texas Workers

5COVID-19 Response has Been Starkly Different for Indigenous Communities in Texas

6After Sarah Davis’ Election Defeat, Texas Reproductive Health Advocates Worry About Losing a Powerful Republican Ally

Most Recent in The Interview:

1Researcher Howard Henderson on Reimagining Policing in the U.S.

2Texas Observer Founding Editor Ronnie Dugger Reflects on 65 Years of Publication

3How Katharine Hayhoe Stays Hopeful as the Planet Warms

4Author William Lopez on How Immigration Raids Inflict Long-Lasting Trauma

5Why a Texas Gun Control Activist is Optimistic About the Chances for Reform

6American Health Care is Broken, Especially in Texas. What Can We Do About It?

Most Recent in Books:

1‘On Juneteenth’ Refuses Easy Answers About the Importance of People of Color to Texas History

2‘Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing’ Tours Dark Places That Are Hard to Call Home

3Jung Young Moon’s Strange Novels Cross Continents

4Writer Rick Bass Fights for 20 Grizzly Bears

5‘Luz at Midnight’ Reimagines Blackouts, Polar Vortexes, and Environmental Justice in San Antonio

6Lady Bird Johnson Was About More Than Wildflowers

Most Recent in Features:

1How to Die in Texas

2Young Texans Keep Spelling Bees Going From Home

4San Antonio Embraces Mandaean Refugees

5The Ghosts of Jefferson

6Little Arthouse on the Prairie

Most Recent in Essay:

1Editorial: Look Down Ballot for Democratic Wins in Texas

2What the Black Lives Matter Protests Mean for East Texas

3Raise a Glass to the Class of COVID-19

4What’s a Bookstore for?

5Lessons on the Long Game from Goose Island’s Whooping Cranes

6In a Pandemic, Poor Defendants Could Pay With Their Lives

Most Recent in Eye on Texas:

1Eye on Texas: The Essential Women of Austin

2Eye on Texas: A House Divided

3Eye on Texas: The Black Yearbook

4Eye on Texas: Border Tuner

5Eye on Texas: The Broken Wheel Ranch Project

6Eye on Texas: Spike Johnston

Most Recent in Poetry:

1‘My Cousin Dies, Like a Deer, On the Side of the Road’

2Poet Claudia Delfina Cardona on Her Debut Poetry Chapbook

3Author Saeed Jones on Empathy, the Power of Memoir, and Growing up Gay in North Texas

4Remembering W.S. Merwin, Honorary Texan

5Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

6Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

The Magazine: February 2016

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March 2015, Texas Observer cover

COVER STORY

The House Always Wins

by Gayle Reaves

Mon, Feb 1, 2016 |

Some legislators want to keep affordable housing out of their districts — and they've given themselves the power to do it.Read More

In this Issue

Political Intelligence

Bad Credit: Are College Classes Working for High Schoolers?

by Patrick Michels

News

No Place for Old Men

by Dick J. Reavis

State of Texas: Cops in the Classroom

by Patrick Michels

CULTURE

How the 1% Gardens

by James E. McWilliams

Poem: ‘While I Was Trying to Avoid Falling in Love’

by Allyson Whipple

by Victor Espinoza and Nancy Nusser

Peter LaSalle Seizes the Day

by Ashley Hope Perez

Columns

Y’all, Hillary Could Lose

by Christopher Hooks

Trust Me, Trust Women

by Andrea Grimes

State of Texas

State of Texas: Cops in the Classroom

by Patrick Michels

Loon Star State

Loon Star State: Christian-Warrior-in-Chief

Eye on Texas

Eye on Texas: Portico Tejas

by Steve Masker