Most Recent in Texas Politics:

1The Lege This Week: Abbott Lets His Mask Slip

2The Lege This Week: Adventures in Circular Finger Pointing

3The Lege This Week: Out Cold

4The Lege This Week: Senators Poke, Prod and Punch Paxton

5The Lege This Week: Amid Pandemic, Abbott Prioritizes Red Meat

6The Lege This Week: Texas Redistricting Will Be A Summer Showdown

Most Recent in Environment:

1Biden Plans to Ban All New Fracking Leases on Public Land. Will He Actually Do It?

2The Sunniest City in Texas is Expanding … Natural Gas Production

3What to do With a “Tidal Wave” of Texas Wind Turbine Blades

4Teens for a Green New Deal

5Why the South Is Organizing Its Own Green New Deal

6Solar Energy is Hitting a Growth Spurt. So Is The Disinformation Around It.

Most Recent in Border:

1How Texas Courts Went Virtual

2In ‘At the Ready,’ Latinx High Schoolers Train to Be Border Patrol Agents

3Forgotten for Over a Century, Border Hero Jovita Idár Is Rediscovered by Her Hometown of Laredo

4Deaths in ICE Custody Skyrocketed During the COVID-19 Pandemic

5Local Organizers Explain the Republican Surge in South Texas

65,000 People Contract COVID-19 While In ICE Custody, Including This Father Of 5

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1Clogged Toilets, Snow Inside: How the Winter Storm Exacerbated Problems in Texas Lock-Ups

3Exploring the Rise, Fall, and Lingering Trauma of the Death Penalty in Texas

4Anatomy of a Crime

5Fort Bend County Will Soon Have Its First Black Sheriff Since Reconstruction

6How Texas Jails Avoid Investigations of Inmate Deaths

Most Recent in Education:

1The Long, Winding Road that Led to the SBOE’s Decision for Texas Schools to Teach Abstinence-Plus Sex Education

2Efforts to Save What’s Left of Mary Allen Seminary Reveal The Challenges of Preserving Black Placemaking in Texas

3Texas Has the Widest Digital Divide in the Nation. What Does that Mean for the School Year?

4The New Ensemble

5Raise a Glass to the Class of COVID-19

6Tough Decisions Ahead for School Leaders in Rural Texas

Most Recent in Health Care:

1Editorial: Texas Wasn’t Prepared for the Statewide Vaccine Rush

2COVID-19’s Deadly Toll on Texas Workers

3COVID-19 Response has Been Starkly Different for Indigenous Communities in Texas

4After Sarah Davis’ Election Defeat, Texas Reproductive Health Advocates Worry About Losing a Powerful Republican Ally

5For Families That Lost Loved Ones or Jobs to the Pandemic, Thanksgiving Carries an Extra Weight This Year

6How We Got Here

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“Wings of Ebony” Brings Black Girl Magic to Life

2A New Book Celebrates the Work of Architect John S. Chase

3The Flâneur of Downtown Dallas

4Remembering a Jewish Upbringing in Meyerland, Texas

5How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

6A New Short-Story Collection Imagines a Texas Town’s Secession

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:

1Poet Claudia Delfina Cardona on Her Debut Poetry Chapbook

2Author Saeed Jones on Empathy, the Power of Memoir, and Growing up Gay in North Texas

3Remembering W.S. Merwin, Honorary Texan

4Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

5Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

6Parallel Planes

The Picture Show

by Patrick Michels

WTF Friday: Primaries and Other Scams

Fri, Feb 28, 2014 |

The frantic last week before Tuesday's primary election has been a truly rich pageant of WTF in Texas politics. Just this morning Barry Smitherman promised to f...Read More

Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra hold their trophies tight in 4 for Texas.

by Josh Rosenblatt

The Texas Misstep

Tue, Sep 24, 2013 |

4 for Texas proves that no one knew how to ruin a good thing better than the Rat Pack....Read More

Ben Affleck and Javier Bardem in To the Wonder.

by Josh Rosenblatt

When Wonders Cease

Thu, Aug 15, 2013 |

The trappings of the Malick aesthetic felt less like an artist searching for meaning than the habits of an established master with nothing new to say....Read More

Scenes from Byrd: The Life and Tragic Death of James Byrd Jr.

by Josh Rosenblatt

Long Road Out of Jasper: A Documentary Chronicles James Byrd Jr.’s Life and Tragic Death

Thu, Jul 25, 2013 |

The fact that Byrd's producers are unwilling to screen the film in its subject's hometown, fearing racist backlash, may be proof enough of its importance. ...Read More

Matthew McConaughey and Tye Sheridan star in Jeff Nichols’ Mud.

by Josh Rosenblatt

Matthew McConaughey Finds Meaning In Taking Off His Shirt In Jeff Nichols’ Mud

Wed, Jun 19, 2013 |

At last, Matthew McConaughey has found a movie that makes taking off his shirt meaningful....Read More

Keith Poulson and Jess Weixler in Somebody Up There Likes Me

by Josh Rosenblatt

Life Or Nothing Like It

Mon, May 13, 2013 |

Byington’s latest employs a rigid devotion to deadpan, keeping the story’s humanity at a safe and manageable distance, locked behind walls of dispassion....Read More

Rachel McAdams and Ben Affleck in To the Wonder.

by Josh Rosenblatt

What’s the Frequency, Terrence? Malick Returns With To the Wonder

Tue, Apr 9, 2013 |

Maybe it’s best after all that Malick wait years between movies....Read More

Portrait of Wally

by Josh Rosenblatt

Portrait of Wally Recounts Sordid History of Egon Schiele’s Painting of his Muse

Thu, Nov 15, 2012 |

Schiele painted “Portrait of Wally” in 1912. In it, the artist’s mistress and muse, Valerie “Wally” Neuzil, is clothed nearly to her chin in a garment...Read More

Friedkin Continues Career Dive

by Josh Rosenblatt

Tue, Jul 31, 2012

After the one-two punch of The French Connection and The Exorcist in the early 1970s, William Friedkin was on top of the world. The writer/director was right up...Read More

Amped-Up Imposter Could Use More Vérité

by Josh Rosenblatt

Mon, Jul 9, 2012

For nearly 60 years Albert Maysles has been the face of the Direct Cinema movement, whose followers believe that non-interventionist observation is the key to d...Read More

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