October 2016 - The Texas Observer

Most Recent in Texas Politics:

1Historic Runoff Turnout Sets Stage for Texas Democrats in 2020’s ‘Biggest Battleground’

2Amid a National Reckoning Over Racial Injustice, Royce West Seeks to Upset MJ Hegar—and the DSCC

3Doctors Reverse Course, Say Texas GOP Should Cancel In-Person Convention

4The Next Census Could Determine the Future of Port Arthur

5Texas Had a State Office That Could Have Investigated Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Cases. Lawmakers Defunded it Three Years Ago.

6The COVID-19 Disaster Has Made a Mess of Texas’ Open Government Rules

Most Recent in Environment:

1In Houston’s Fifth Ward, the Storm Never Stops

2How Texas Lawmakers and Industry Have Weakened Citizens’ Rights to Fight Pollution

3Texas Relaxed Environmental Enforcement During the Pandemic, State Data Show

4Editorial: Air Pollution Was Already Killing Us. Then Came the Coronavirus. Why Won’t the EPA Act?

5City Nature Challenge Can Help Us Find Resilience and Mindfulness at Home

6Lessons on the Long Game from Goose Island’s Whooping Cranes

Most Recent in Border:

1El Paso Remembered

2Back to the Wall

3Between Borders

5Along the Border, Witnesses of Smuggling Crimes Are Being Held in Detention, Despite Coronavirus Concerns

6In Migrants Camps Along the Texas-Mexico Border, Close Quarters and Closing Borders Raise Concerns

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1Will The Reckoning Over Racist Names Include These Prisons?

2How Long Can You Hide a Dead Body in a Prison Cell?

3Reform vs. Rebuild: Defunding Law Enforcement in Texas

4As COVID-19 Cases Surge, Some Incarcerated People Remain Behind Bars After Making Bail

5A Major Obstacle to Police Reform: The Whiteness of Their Union Bosses

6COVID-19 Has Delayed Programs That Texas Prisoners Need to Get Out

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:

1One of Texas’ Biggest Nursing Home Operators Beset By COVID-19 Cases and Deaths

2Telehealth Could be Great, if Texans Had Access to It

3Texas Nursing Home Residents Were Already at Risk. Then COVID-19 Hit.

4Neglected in Care

5COVID-19 is Surging in Rural Texas, Threatening to Overwhelm Local Hospitals

6He Removed Labels That Said ‘Medical Use Prohibited,’ Then Tried to Sell Thousands of Masks to Officials Who Distribute to Hospitals

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:

1‘After the Last Border’ Reveals the Human Cost of Trump’s Draconian Immigration Policies

2In ‘Crooked Hallelujah,’ Kelli Jo Ford Explores How Pain is Passed Down Through Families

3In ‘Separated,’ One Journalist’s Close-up View of the Family Separation Crisis

4Lawrence Wright Embraces Pandemic Panic in ‘The End of October’

5Is it Time to Rethink Texas Suburbia?

6What’s a Bookstore for?

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: October 2016

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March 2015, Texas Observer cover

COVER STORY

Hostile Takeover

by Naveena Sadasivam and Jordan Sigler

Mon, Sep 26, 2016 |

How the Koch brothers and their libertarian allies pushed their way into Texas Tech — and used public funds to do it.Read More

In this Issue

Political Intelligence

A New Solar Rush Creates Legal Minefield for Landowners

by Naveena Sadasivam

CULTURE

Poem: ‘To Be One with the All’

by Sasha von Oldershausen

Short Story Contest Winner: ‘My Neighbor the Pilot’

Columns

Hooks: Dems are Missing Their Chance to Give Obama His Transformational Legacy

by Christopher Hooks

State of Texas

State of Texas: The Private Prison Bubble Bursts

by Patrick Michels

Eye on Texas

Eye on Texas: The ‘Bleached Sentinels’ of Nolan County

by Gabriel C. Pérez