Table of contents for October 2016 in The Texas Observer

AS GAMBLERS WORKED THE SLOT MACHINES AND blackjack tables downstairs, a group of wonks and professors gathered in a 26th-floor conference room at Bally’s Casino in LasVegastodiscuss,whatelse,thewonders of free-market capitalism. The occasion was the annual meeting of the Association of Private Enterprise Educators, a 53-year-old organization that has as its mission “Revealing the Invisible Hand Through Education.” Like most academic conferences, there was a lot of schmoozing and vita-comparing and sitting through talks with titles such as “Hayek and Rand on the (Ab)Use of Reason” and “Is Law Needed for Order?” and “Millennials: How to Engage them in the Study of the Free Market?” But for this crowd of libertarian economists largely on the margins of mainstream American university life, the conference was also a chance to rub shoulders with…

THE MAN WHO LIVED IN THE HOUSE BEHIND MINE WAS AN amateur pilot who built his own airplanes. I suppose it was his hobby. His planes were comically small, so small that he could barely fit his body inside the cockpit. Each wing was usually about four feet long. The landing gear ended in lawnmower wheels and the propellers were made of some sort of rubber he had vulcanized himself. His planes were always painted yellow and blue and red, and I was never sure if he had intended them to look like toys. One day, he crashed into my backyard. I found his plane crushed up and lying among the dried dogshit and weeds. My neighbor the pilot was nowhere to be seen. The wreckage was exceptional, but I…

“ARE YOU A GOOD SWIMMER?” Clarisa asks me as we stand on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande and watch the swiftly moving water, murky with sediment. We’re trying to cross from the tiny village of San Antonio del Bravo to Candelaria, an equally small town on the other side of the river in Texas. Just a day earlier, when we crossed the other way — from Candelaria to San Antonio del Bravo — the riverbed was so dry we could walk across without getting our feet wet. Then a wild desert monsoon blew in, transforming the arid landscape of the Chihuahuan desert. Within minutes, there were thigh-deep puddles in the path along the river. Now the current could easily divert even the best of swimmers. Clarisa’s grandmother, who…

THE TRUMP FILES Can Latinos Learn to Love a Libertarian? IT’S THE MORNING AFTER ANOTHER INCENDIARY SPEECH by Donald Trump, and Juan Hernandez, a Republican political consultant who has spent much of his career advocating for immigration reform and closer ties to Mexico, is feeling energized. Trump has finally revealed his “10-point immigration plan,” which calls for deportation squads and a “beautiful” and “impenetrable” wall. The plan horrified the majority of Latinos, including Hernandez and his fellow conservatives, some of whom are on Trump’s Hispanic Advisory Council. On this day, there is talk of mutiny and Hernandez sees opportunity. At his hotel in Phoenix, he’s busily emailing members of the council, trying to persuade them to join him on the Gary Johnson campaign, where he’s serving as Latino outreach director…

THESE ARE TOUGH times to be a private prison operator. In August, the U.S. Department of Justice said it would phase out its contracts with for-profit prisons, citing safety concerns, low quality of care and high costs. Shortly after that, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that it would “review” whether to maintain its immigrant detention contracts. Activists celebrated the news and the stocks of private prison companies plummeted. Texas has been host to many of the facilities that could be closed, though they represent just a fraction of all the private prisons in Texas. TEXAS’ REMAINING PRIVATE PRISONS Even after the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) cuts its ties to for-profit prisons, Texas will be home to many others contracted by the U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs…

THE PROSECUTION’S CASE WAS SIMPLE: AROUND 2 P.M. on January 12, 2010, Larry Dayries ordered a tuna on sourdough from the prepared foods counter at Whole Foods in the Gateway Shopping Center in Austin. Conspicuous in a white suit and matching hat, Dayries ate his sandwich and ordered another. As a security guard named Lance Johnson watched, Dayries walked out of the store with the sandwich without paying. When Johnson tried to block Dayries’ path, Johnson said, Dayries pulled a 3-inch knife from his pocket and lunged. Then Dayries got in his car and drove off. The case would have barely made local news if it hadn’t been for what followed. A month later, Dayries was arrested in downtown Austin after police, working a drug sting, ran his name through…

“Two Klan members turned into six, then a vehicle. I got so excited about the thing, I decided, ‘I have to paint this.’” A CASUAL ART VIEWER, WANDERING INTO the David Shelton Gallery in Houston this month and encountering “The City,” Vincent Valdez’s new multipanel painting, could be forgiven for assuming that its subject matter was inspired by the rise of Donald Trump. Valdez’s work portrays a gathering of Ku Klux Klan members on the scrubby outskirts of a glowing metropolis. Several visual clues — a modern Chevrolet truck with rims, an iPhone, Nike sneakers — confirm that this is no tableau of the Jim Crow-era South but a portrait of a modern-day menace instead. By juxtaposing contemporary details with the costumes of the infamous knights of the pre-civil rights,…

Q: What are the unique challenges you face in holding this office? A lot of the Texas law enforcement is still the good ol’ boys, and the good ol’ boys never, never want to be managed by anyone other than good ol’ boys. I’m always going to have that challenge. I’m going on my fourth term, and I’m still having that challenge. But I think the group that does that is getting smaller and smaller. There are more and more who understand that if we’re going to be the law enforcement of the land, the land is made up of different people. ... I’ve always said that if we’re going to serve the community, then we have to be like, and be in, the community. Have you faced insubordination or…

This photo was taken along State Highway 153 near the small, unincorporated community of Nolan. Thousands of wind turbines are scattered throughout the area, grouped in massive wind farms. Nolan County has more than 1,300 turbines and has helped make Texas a bigger wind energy state than California. I’m fascinated by the scale of these machines every time I pass through the area. They stand, nearly silent, like massive bleached sentinels set against the mesas and expansive vistas of the High Plains. See more photos from Eye on Texas at www.texasobserver.org/eyeontexas . CALL FOR ENTRIES: Seeking Texas-based documentary photography. Please send inquiries to eyeontexas@texasobserver.org .…