Culture
Loon Star: The Governor Shows His Concern for the Homeless
‘Cheer’ Takes an Overlooked Sport Off the Sidelines
The Netflix show about a Corsicana cheerleading squad’s journey to nationals explores an indignity I remember well from my time as a high school dancer: training for intense athletic competitions while being reduced to halftime entertainment.
My nose hovered just centimeters above the scuffed basketball court, legs folded beneath me in a perfect Z, my back flat enough to serve tea on. As a chugging s...Read More
How the San Antonio Police Are Rethinking Mental Health
A new documentary on policing in San Antonio makes a simple suggestion: Instead of arresting mentally ill people, listen to them.
It’s the middle of the night, and a skinny young man is slumped on a curb outside a San Antonio strip club. Officer Joe Smarro—dressed casually in jeans, sn...Read More
The Internet Broke Democracy. To Fix It, Design for Human Rights.
Author Samuel Woolley argues that a slew of new technologies will further degrade political life unless we rein them in.
In 2013, when Samuel Woolley began studying online misinformation as a graduate student at the University of Washington, hardly anyone was worried about the sub...Read More
It’s Been Weird, Y’all: Our 10 Favorite Strange Texas Stories of 2019
A monkey on the loose, a sharpshooting great-grandmother, activist witches, and more quirky news stories that caught our eye this year.
The Observer is best known for longform investigations on serious subjects. Our reporters and editors spend months immersed in heavy topics like rural suicide a...Read More
The 30 Best Texas Books of The Decade, from Amarillo to Utopia
As you scramble for a holiday gift or ponder what you’d like to peruse by the fire, we’ve got 10 years of Texas books to suggest.
The twists and turns of these 30 Texas novels, nonfiction narratives, and other works published between January 2010 and December 2019 reveal undercurrents that...Read More
Why a Small Offense Shouldn’t Have Life-Altering Consequence
Opinion: Nearly 10 years ago, I was arrested and detained in jail for 45 days after failing to appear in court for a low-level, non-violent offense. Today, I’m fighting so that others don’t have to go through what I did.
Standing in San Marcos’ crowded city hall lobby this past September, I watched the faces of the city’s leaders. Dozens of residents—business owners, colle...Read More
The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar
The wildly imaginative Brownsville painter fuses pop culture with abstraction, family life, and his love of South Texas.
The wildly imaginative Brownsville painter fuses pop culture with abstraction, family life, and his love of South Texas. * by Michael Agresta December 16, 2019 ...Read More
The 22-Hour Drive Between Houston and Los Angeles Inspired This Hypnotic Art Show
Eerie and evocative, Will Boone’s Highway Hex considers the sprawling concrete jungles of Houston and Los Angeles.
Texas and California are the two most populous states in America. Accordingly, they boast three of the nation’s 10 most highly populated metro areas. But betw...Read More
Loon Star: The Doormats
To see more political cartoons from Ben Sargent, visit our Loon Star State section, or find Observer political reporting here....Read More
