Tabla de contenidos para July/August 2021 en The Texas Observer

You’ve no doubt noticed that the Texas Observer has been completely transformed. Logo, cover, masthead, departments. Every bit of the Observer has a new look and feel. Michael Patti, our art director, has done a phenomenal job reinterpreting the spirit and tenor of our journalism, and his work is an apt representation of the collective direction we see this magazine headed. Rest assured, the mandate of the Texas Observer has not changed. From Ben Sargent’s trenchant political cartoons to the wry humor of “Strangest State” to our Texas-based poetry, the many gems that have made this magazine unique remain, along with the investigative journalism, narrative storytelling, and cultural coverage that have been mainstays for decades. But of course, those sections have some new company. I won’t spoil all the surprises…

151 people died in the February winter storm, according to the state’s tally, but the number may be hundreds higher. The Houston Chronicle identified nearly 200 deaths; a Buzzfeed News analysis estimated the total to be around 700. ~6 WEEKS, before many people know they’re pregnant, is set to be the cutoff to get an abortion in Texas, resulting in an effective ban. Scheduled to go into effect in September, the new law allows almost anyone to sue those who “aid or abet” the procedure. It is one of about 70 new abortion restrictions passed in more than a dozen states so far this year. 20+ anti-LGBTQ bills were filed this year by Texas lawmakers—the most of any state, amid a record wave of such measures in legislatures across the country. Most Texas…

Frances “Sissy” Farenthold sits at a table in a stately Houston dining room adorned with a pair of carved crosses atop an ornate altar. Wearing an elegant white shirt and with impeccably coiffed hair, she eats like a bird, tucking pieces of cornbread into her mouth. The window before her offers a stunning view of Houston’s leafy West Kirby district. A Corpus Christi native, Farenthold hired a South Texas artist to redesign the home to honor her respect for history and her commitment to challenging it. From this isolated aerie, the 94-year-old has a keen eye for political scandals and corruption, both past and present. She trains her sharp gaze on Texas politics with the agility of a hawk. A legendary former state legislator, Farenthold earned her place in Texas…

ON APRIL 18, 2020, at 9:14 a.m., three officers with the Randall County Sheriff’s Office arrived at the home of Jaclyn Spydell in Amarillo. When they entered, they were greeted with an overpowering smell of garbage, urine, and dog feces. “I noticed my duty boots would stick to the floor as I would walk back and forth down the hallway,” officer Blake Wilson wrote in his report. “My boots did not stick on other portions of the floors, like in the living room.” “There were portions of the residence where it appeared well kept, like the living room,” Wilson wrote. “Other portions of the residence, including the master bedroom and office area, where it was unkempt and disorganized.” Officers had received a 911 call for an unconscious 16-year-old girl who wasn’t…

Every city is storied in some way, and Austin is no different: A sleepy (redlined) college town once full of oddballs and misfits is now gentrified beyond recognition and home to such dignitaries of mediocrity as Joe Rogan and Elon Musk. Voice Lessons, iconic Austin activist and writer Alice Embree’s new memoir, reminds its audience that things weren’t always this way. Embree has lived most of her life in Austin, with brief years in between spent in New York and Arkansas. She’s been a regular fixture in the protest scene since her early days at the University of Texas in the 1960s, and she was part of the original group who worked on the Rag, Austin’s first underground newspaper and one of the largest such papers in the country. Embree…

They live on top of a hill,surrounded by swaying trees, ornate sculptures,and all their best defenses. Tea is had whenever they please,dresses donned, delicate, useless threads and satin bows.They feel no need to masquerade, to hide their faces,for they live on top of a hill. They call us by anything but our names,take anything but responsibility, andleave behind anything but riches.Every holiday is a celebration of them,worship for gods who somehow have their faces. They’ve been here as long as the sun,and the sun has no intention of leaving.Every cake is iced with their crest,every statue with their conquests.The hill is dotted with theirphilanthropic contributions. All maps put them in the middle,all books dedicated to their families,they lean over their balconies and wave broadly,for they cannot see where this all…

An especially atrocious Texas legislative session came to a close at the end of May. Republicans passed radical laws that ban nearly all abortions and allow permitless carry of handguns, and are working to further restrict access to the ballot. The worst may be still to come. Due to delays with the U.S. Census, lawmakers will reconvene this fall for a special session to redraw the state’s political districts. Over the course of a decade, people move, population ebbs and flows, and demographics change. In theory, lawmakers redraw state political districts every 10 years to rebalance the scales and ensure adequate representation for voters. In practice, it’s more sinister. Since Reconstruction, redistricting in Texas has been wielded by the powers that be—namely conservative Anglos—to entrench, extend, and expand their control…

This spring, as supply of COVID-19 vaccines began to exceed demand in the United States, Maria Elena Bottazzi fielded texts from people in Honduras, where she grew up. There, many were desperately seeking the kind of immunizations that sat unused in Houston, where Bottazzi is co-director of Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. Five years ago, a team led by Bottazzi and her lab co-director, Peter Hotez, developed a vaccine for SARS, caused by a coronavirus similar to that which causes COVID-19, which they believe could have also been effective against the novel disease. But they couldn’t get funding for clinical trials, and it languished in a Houston freezer. In 2020, they drew from these years of research to quickly develop a COVID-19 vaccine that could be cheaply produced…

TEDDY MADDUX guides his green 2001 Ford Expedition along an open strip of asphalt between far-reaching rows of weather-beaten tents and plywood shanties. It’s a bright morning in mid-January. With a thick rust-colored beard and ready smile, the 45-year-old waves to residents who lounge in plastic patio chairs, tidy up their living areas, or cycle by on battered mountain bikes. Hitting the property’s southern border, he turns right, gliding by a covered patio and a row of gray porta-potties before reaching another stretch of ramshackle structures along the lot’s western fence line. In front of a tent-like portable carport, off-white and badly worn, he parks. This, for now, is home. In a small, ersatz backyard, Maddux is growing nopales and green onions in a raised planter. Inside the vinyl garage, he’s…

Robert Espericueta and his cousin Roland Moya stand outside the Lighthouse Assembly of God in Port Isabel, a sleepy town of roughly 6,000 people in South Texas. It’s a weekday in mid-April, overcast but bright, and the wind is coming on strong. The sound of waves crashing in the Gulf Coast bay just a few blocks down the road carries in the salty air. Both in their early 40s, Espericueta and Moya are here to meet with Pastor Steven Hyde, whom they haven’t spoken to in decades. Hyde rolls up in his white pickup and steps out. As he walks up to Espericueta and Moya, they greet one another with warm hugs. “Pastor Hyde, how old are you now 20 years later?” Moya says, laughing. “You don’t wanna know!” replies…

The rollout of vaccinations and the removal of COVID-19 restrictions on public gatherings have begun to offer Texans a light at the end of an unprecedented tunnel; this is especially true for musicians. The coronavirus, seemingly working in tandem with racial injustices that made global headlines in 2020, created a particularly harsh set of circumstances for Black musicians, who were already struggling for resources and recognition before the pandemic. For many, the past year presented an undue burden and an opportunity to champion lasting reform in the live music industry. Black musicians have for years dealt with a lack of dedicated venues for their music, infrequent attention from festival bookers, and a dearth of Black venue owners, promoters, and label executives; the pandemic only compounded those hardships. “The financial stability…

The Texas Observer launched on December 13, 1954, with its mission printed manifesto-style in the first issue: To “hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it.” The publication grew directly out of a merger of Austin’s State Observer and the Marshall-based East Texas Democrat. Prominent Houstonian Frankie Carter Randolph, independent oilman J. R. Parten, and Democrat publisher Franklin Jones recruited journalist Ronnie Dugger as the founding editor of the new publication. Prior to launch, Dugger drafted two letters that would define the paper’s mission. A letter to Randolph outlined the new venture’s budget, promotional plans, and investment requirements. And in this six-page letter to Jones, Dugger detailed his editorial vision for the Observer, one of “honest and aggressive journalism.” From coverage of…

Sam Allen almost always hitched a ride to work with his best friend Floyd. The plant was only a 10-minute drive from his Deer Park home across Texas Highway 225, but he liked to save on gas. Theirs was the graveyard shift, starting after supper and running until 6 a.m. The smell of sulfur hung in the air as they approached the chemical complex. A chorus of cicadas hummed from beyond the parking lot fence as Sam strapped on his hard hat and respirator. Above, a canopy of metal pipes bloomed in all directions; within them, deadly substances raced. Sam, my grandfather, worked as an operator for most of his nearly four-decade career. He started in 1959 at Diamond Shamrock, one of many hulking beasts that inhabited Deer Park’s petrochemical…

EL PASO When 15 decapitated goats were discovered in northeast El Paso, a game warden told KVIA that it could have been due to “satanic rituals, blood removal, possibly.” Investigators located the goats’ alleged owner across the state line in New Mexico, where he was questioned. AUSTIN A massive auction of exotic, taxidermied animals was held in Austin, according to a news release. The estate sale offered an extensive collection belonging to John Brommel, a well-known taxidermist, boasting “everything from squirrel to wildebeest,” including elephant tusks, a polar bear rug, and a full moose body with a 62-inch horn spread. PORT ARANSAS A hard hat belonging to a crew member of a vessel that was shipwrecked off the Louisiana coast washed up in Port Aransas, 600 miles away, nola.com reports.…

On January 19, 2018, shortly before 10 a.m., Robin Lafleur exited Texas Highway 290 at South First Street, as she did every morning on her way to work at Austin Habitat for Humanity. It was a cold, cloudy morning but Lafleur was in a good mood. She finally felt settled in her new home, which she’d bought less than a year before in Cedar Park, a suburb northwest of Austin. It was a Friday and she had happy hour plans with friends after work, so she was wearing one of her favorite outfits—maroon jeggings and a new mauve sweater with matching boots. She doesn’t remember much about what happened next. As she merged onto the frontage road, a car stopped abruptly in front of her. She slammed into it. When…

Huntsville police arrested Larry Goodwyn in 1965. It may have happened because he was in town covering the local “Hey-You” (Huntsville Action for Youth, or HAYOU) civil rights movement for the Texas Observer and he asked one too many questions. Perhaps his arrest had something to do with the fact that he was also there organizing for the Democratic Coalition. The liberal, multiethnic Democratic Party faction had flourished earlier in the decade, but it was fracturing by 1965 and Goodwyn was still trying to keep it together. “A number of Texans of both races have turned their efforts toward finding new tactics to cope with the resistant thought processes enduring from a 350-year-old caste system,” he wrote in his August 6, 1965, Observer article, “Hey-You in Huntsville.” All these years…

The trip starts with a bang. A common poorwill, a bark-colored bird the size of your palm, jumps up from the narrow blacktop and sputters head-on into our pickup’s undercarriage. Lee Hoy, a wildlife guide with a long white beard and thick, black-framed glasses, is at the wheel, winding his truck along the dark road from Terlingua to Big Bend National Park in the early morning hours. Minutes earlier, Hoy had successfully avoided mowing one down. This time, he pumped the brakes and veered slightly, to no avail. “Dangit,” he mutters. “Didn’t jump up in time.” The birds wait in the road until a car comes along, its headlights illuminating moths and other flying insects, Hoy explains. When the oncoming vehicle is just feet away, the poorwill leaps up, snatches…