Culture
Beasts of the Border
Eye on Texas: Charlotte Moore
Charlotte Moore I met Montana in Corpus Christi when I stopped to take some pictures in a field of flowers next to a strip mall. He introduced himself and expla...Read More
Remembering W.S. Merwin, Honorary Texan
The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, who died at 91 last week, liked pausing by roadsides everywhere in Texas to examine plants, pocket seeds and smell the air.
You might not have guessed it. W.S. Merwin, widely beloved, cosmopolitan, world-renowned poet, translator and lifelong pacifist, who died last week at 91 in his...Read More
A New Book on the American Political Divide Calls, Unconvincingly, for Civility
The authors of Polarized are thoughtful exemplars of a lost ethic who care more about commonality than victory.
Let’s say you wanted to host a public conversation that would demonstrate civil disagreement and the search for common ground between two people with seemingl...Read More
‘The River and The Wall’ is a Visually Stunning Borderland Adventure
The film strives to step beyond the sensationalist rhetoric and show America what its southern boundary actually looks, sounds and feels like.
On a crisp December morning in 2017, Austin Alvarado paddles his canoe along a remote stretch of the Rio Grande’s Lower Canyons. The 25-year-old Guatemalan-Am...Read More
Loon Star: The Paxton Defense
Ben Sargent on the latest Paxton family incident.
Ben Sargent To see more political cartoons from Ben Sargent, visit our Loon Star State section, or find Observer political reporting here....Read More
Swamp City Serenade
Bryan Washington’s remarkable debut book, "Lot," captures Houston in meticulous, tenderhearted detail.
The wonder of Houston can sometimes be difficult to explain to those not born and bred in the Bayou City. Yes, it is indeed sprawling, as so many have said pejo...Read More
New Documentary Reveals the Deadly Cost of Texas’ Anti-Worker Agenda
As the Legislature ponders yet another crackdown on labor, Building the American Dream explores the stakes of labor policy in the country’s largest red state.
Roendy Granillo, 25, was installing hardwood flooring in a house near Dallas when the heat started getting to him. It was July 2015, and the temperature had hit...Read More
Fearless and Funny, Molly Ivins Comes to Life in ‘Raise Hell’
If only she were around today.
I learned within my first day at the Texas Observer that Molly Ivins looms large over this place. Literally, two sizeable black-and-white photos of her hang abo...Read More
‘Breakthrough’ Chronicles Nobel Prize Winner Jim Allison’s Long Fight for Science
Forty years after the immunologist testified at the Texas Legislature in favor of teaching evolution, state leaders are still debating its inclusion in school curriculums.
Nobel Prize winner Jim Allison is used to being considered something of a troublemaker. When he was a kid growing up in small-town Alice, Texas, he battled with...Read More