October 2014 - The Texas Observer

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Most Recent in Politics:

1Ready, Set, File: Transparency Bills Passed by Legislature Could Open the Door to Once-Public Records

2The GOP Failed to Ban Paid Sick Leave and the Business Lobby is Livid

3The $9 Billion School Finance Problem in Speaker Bonnen’s Backyard

4In Battle Between Big Oil and Big Corn, Ted Cruz Finally Called Out Trump

5Texans ‘Will Die’: House Republicans Pass Anti-Planned Parenthood Bill After Emotional Debate

6Texas Republicans Poised to Make Voting ‘Harder, Scarier and More Confusing’

Most Recent in Environment:

1Carbon Sequestration Isn’t The Long-Term Solution. Is it a Short-Term One?

2Report: Oil and Gas Producers May Be Pushing the Permian Basin Past Federal Air Quality Limits

3The EPA Told Texas to Crack Down on Dangerous Air Emissions in 2015. The State Never Did, and Now It Won’t Have to.

4The Flood Next Time

5Port of Corpus Christi Pushes Ahead with Oil Terminal Project, Environment Be Damned

6Bucking the Reign of Oil

Most Recent in Border:

1Unearthing Resistance

2The Flood Next Time

3Henry Cuellar and the Art of the Deal

4Engineer Who Helped Build the Wall Details Its Weaknesses

6Documents: CBP Ignored Federal Biologists’ Input on Border Wall

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1With a Bizarre Assist by Democrats, Police Groups Kill Bill to Limit Arrests for Fine-Only Offenses

3‘The Penal System Today is Slavery’: Lawmakers Finally Start to Talk About Unpaid Labor in Texas Prisons

4Four Years Later, Sandra Bland’s Arrest Continues to Sow Distrust in Law Enforcement

5Immune from Justice

6Citing the Bible, Federal Lawsuit Challenges Houston’s Ban on Feeding the Homeless

Most Recent in Education:

1Texas House Considers Free College For Students Experiencing Homelessness

2‘The Wolf is in the Henhouse’

3‘We’re Not Stupid’: Texas Teachers Take on Dan Patrick and the Legislature over Dismal Education Funding

4In Violation of Texas Law, Most High Schools Aren’t Giving Students the Chance to Register to Vote

5Amid Record Youth Suicide Attempts, Texas Lags in Prevention Training for Teachers

6Cash-Strapped Rural Texas Schools Look to Universities for Help

Most Recent in Health Care:

1Despite GOP Support in House, Bill to Provide Contraception to Low-Income Teens Stalls in Senate

2Texans ‘Will Die’: House Republicans Pass Anti-Planned Parenthood Bill After Emotional Debate

3Yes, I am a Sorceress

4Texas House Votes to Significantly Expand Medical Marijuana Law

5Religious Exemption Bill Could Leave LGBTQ Texans Scrambling for Health Care

6‘Do Something with This Grief’: Mom of Santa Fe Shooting Victim Turns to Politics

Most Recent in The Interview:

2The Interview: Mass Resistance

3Meet Jim Allison, Texas’ Newest Nobel Laureate (and Three-Time Cancer Survivor)

4Dolores Huerta is Still Knocking on Doors and Registering Voters at 88

5The Interview: Veronica Escobar is Poised to Make History

6Redistricting Guru Michael Li on Texas’ Gerrymandered Maps

Most Recent in Books:

1Beasts of the Border

2Invasive Species Have Reshaped Texas. Now What?

3A New Crime Novel Asks Tough Questions About Revenge and Redemption

4A New Book on the American Political Divide Calls, Unconvincingly, for Civility

5Swamp City Serenade

6A Sweeping History of Texas Blues Celebrates Little-Known Musicians

Most Recent in Features:

1Ghosts of the Baker Hotel

2At Home in the World

3Plight at the Museum

4The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

5East Texas Photographer Captures 50 Years of Haunting, Ordinary Magic

6Who Writes History? The Fight to Commemorate a Massacre by the Texas Rangers

Most Recent in Essay:

1Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

2The Trouble with Yoga

3Heads in the Mud

4The Day the Windows Shook

5Women’s Work

6I Grew Up on the Texas-Mexico Border, but Now I Barely Recognize It

Most Recent in Eye on Texas:

1Eye on Texas: Charlotte Moore

2Eye on Texas: ‘My Joyful Dance’

3Eye on Texas: Ghosts of the City

4Eye on Texas: Fiesta Protesta

5Eye on Texas: Remembering Draylen Mason

6Eye on Texas: Gentrification in East Austin

Most Recent in Poetry:

1Remembering W.S. Merwin, Honorary Texan

2Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

3Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

4Parallel Planes

6Poem: ‘Resistance’

The Magazine: October 2014

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March 2015, Texas Observer cover

COVER STORY

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online

by Michael Agresta

Mon, Oct 13, 2014 |

If we want to maintain the kind of thoughtful, reflective, curious minds that engineered the Internet in the first place, it’s time to face up to what reading online is doing to our brains.Read More

In this Issue

State of Texas

State of Texas: Why Can’t Texas Democrats Win?

Loon Star State

Ben Sargent’s Loon Star State: Pocket Greg Abbott

Eye on Texas

Eye On Texas: Michael O’Brien Collects the Faces of Texas

by Michael O'Brien