Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2018 i The Texas Observer

tl;dr On December 13, we published a satirical op-ed by pediatrician Rachel Pearson at texasobserver.org. Titled “As a Doctor, I’m Sick of All the Health Care Freeloaders,” the piece skewers the cruel stereotype that low-income patients are lazy and undeserving of basic care. “Most of my patients have never worked a day in their lives,” Rachel writes. “They just suck up low-cost health care, whining the whole time, and then go pick up their free government milk.” ¶ The piece ricocheted around the internet, quickly becoming one of our most-read stories ever. The sheer ferocity and volume of the feedback reminded us of the subversive power of satire. Many readers who got the joke drew favorable comparisons to one of the genre’s greatest hits, Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” A…

THE TERM “Sanctuary State for Abortions” WHO’S USING IT Ken Paxton, anti-abortion advocates First there were “sanctuary cities,” the loosely defined notion on the right that some cities aren’t harsh enough toward undocumented immigrants. In January, California became a “sanctuary state” by limiting cooperation between law enforcement and immigration authorities. Now comes a new twist on the concept: “sanctuary state for abortions.” The phrase amalgamates two popular conservative bugaboos: illegal immigration and abortion rights. “Texas must not become a sanctuary state for abortions,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has said repeatedly in recent months. He’s referring to the Trump administration’s zealous blocking of abortion access for refugee teens in federal custody. When a court ruled that a 17-year-old detained in South Texas be allowed to get an abortion, Paxton said…

DALLAS // A prankster altered an electronic road sign to broadcast an angry, typo-ridden message to passing motorists. In a video posted to Reddit, the LED sign by a construction zone flashes the message, “I got one thing too say. Fuck Turmp bitch ass. OK. Fuck y’all for voting for that shithead.” LUFKIN // A masked bandit broke into Angelina County’s probation office early in the morning of December 12. “Very cute but very agitated, so he had to go,” an employee wrote on the office’s Facebook page, along with a photo of a raccoon perched on a desk. “It’s a good way to get your morning started off,” supervisor Dustin Fore told KETK. “Everyone was awake after that.” GEORGETOWN // An Austin man was charged with stealing a 134-year-old…

ONE DAY IN APRIL 2015, NASSER FARAHNAKIAN WATCHED HELPLESSLY AS THE streets around his gas station in Corpus Christi flooded. That spring had seen a succession of severe thunderstorms in South Texas, smashing rainfall records and causing widespread flooding across this city of 300,000. As the waters rose around Farahnakian’s business, hundreds of gallons poured through a manhole into three underground storage tanks that hold gasoline and diesel. ¶ Underground, the grimy floodwaters mixed with the valuable fuel, rendering it unsellable. In late April, Farahnakian called a contractor to pump the water out of the tanks — the first of five times he would have to do so over the next month. Eventually the rains subsided and he figured the $8,000 expense was just part of being a gas station…

“CHA-CHA-LAC! CHACHA-LAC!” As I crunched my way down a gravel path bound by an impenetrable thicket of mesquite and cacti, I heard the chicken-like tropical chachalacas raucously squawking a truncated version of their name. Moments later, a dog barked to announce my arrival, precipitating a flurry of beating feathers. By the time I glimpsed the RV around the corner, there were no birds left to see. “Don’t worry,” said Merle Ihne, looking up from a shovel that he was using to clear waist-high invasive guinea grass. Ihne, whose bushy white beard and jolly demeanor couldn’t help but invite Santa comparisons, pulled out a green plastic chair repaired several times over with makeshift plastic thread. He motioned for me to sit in the shade of the RV. “We can talk all…

CHRIS SALCEDO TITLE/ORGANIZATION The Chris Salcedo Show THE CAUSE Exposing liberal bias in the media and purging the Texas GOP of moderates NOTABLE ACCOMPLISHMENT Got Mike Pence to tweet in all caps about an interview on his show ALLIES Dan Patrick, House Freedom Caucus, Empower Texans MONEY QUOTE “I don’t think Donald Trump went far enough. As a Latino American I want American citizens to be put first; all immigration should be halted until this government takes seriously the threat of illegal immigration.” CHRIS SALCEDO, A CONSER- vative talk radio host in Dallas, is a man of many neologisms. For five hours a day, Monday through Friday, the 47-year-old fills airwaves in Dallas and Houston with invective against “resident Obama,” the “basket of bias press” and “crony crapitalists.” Salcedo, who…

IT OCCURRED TO ME RECENTLY THAT MOST college kids these days are too young to remember the 9/11 attacks — the defining event of my generation. That makes me feel old. But it makes me tired to also realize, as I near middle age, that I’ve spent my adult life living in a Texas under near-total GOP control. I graduated high school around the time George W. Bush was passing control of the Governor’s Mansion to Rick Perry. Under Goodhair’s long tenure, I finished college, moved to California for a year, came home, held several jobs, met my partner, started at the Texas Observer, bought a house and so on. As anyone who’s been paying attention to Texas politics probably knows by now, the last time a Texas Democrat won…

Mealer is so restrained in his descriptions of triumph and glamour, and so emotionally disengaged from [his story’s] traumas, that the book is more anodyne than expansive. PROFUNDITY ALERT: WHEN A BOOK’S SUBTITLE CONTAINS THE word “American,” never mind the phrase “American Dream,” you know you’re dealing with an author — or at least a marketing department — with ambitions beyond the story at hand. (I’ve done it too, which I mention only to establish my sheepish bona fides for the critique.) ¶ And if this book’s “American Dream” subtitle doesn’t sufficiently convey the reach of its aspiration, the promo copy swoops in to assert: “In telling the story of four generations of his family, Bryan Mealer also tells the story of how America came to be.” Not to put…

You see with God’s eyes out here. You can reach up and stir the stars with a finger, blue-black paint with sprinkles. The night air is cool from the earth’s exhale, the last released just before dawn. Pronghorns show their white rumps oblivious to cameras seeking their good side and tired freight trains clack along rust-rails, like miniatures in the distance. Everything moves slow, tires stick to asphalt, make that slurp heard only in the worst summer heat, the ground pulls in its breath, the mountains on the horizon rising with the long inhale. Charles Darnell is a member of the Sun Poets Society in San Antonio.…

After a harsh cold front in January, marine scientists rescued a record number of green sea turtles along the Texas Gulf Coast. The creatures become immobilized and float helplessly to the surface when water temperatures dip below 50 degrees. At press time, 402 turtles had been rescued; the final tally is expected to top 1,000, according to the Houston Chronicle. “We are the ones that push these animals to the brink of extinction, so we have an obligation to at least step in and help try and restore their numbers,” biologist Ben Higgins told KHOU. Which of the following is not true of the green sea turtle? a. It can live more than 80 years b. It can weigh up to 700 pounds c. Its favorite food is crab d.…

HERE’S HOW A TWO-PARTY SYSTEM WORKS, IN THEORY: ONE party wins office on the strength of its plans to fix problems, and its elected officials then use the power of government to partially implement policies. Over time, they start to lose momentum. More problems appear. Then candidates for the other party campaign with their own proposed fixes, and so on. That’s the ideal, of course, and it rarely works that way anywhere. ¶ But in Texas, there is no “other party.” What works poorly in other states doesn’t work here at all. The last winning Democratic gubernatorial campaign in Texas was taking shape 29 years ago this winter, when Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” topped commercial radio. Today, the Texas Democratic Party is a rump in the Legislature, and…

AS THE LONGEST-SERVING WOMAN AND AFRICAN American in the Texas Legislature, state Representative Senfronia Thompson, or Ms. T as she is affectionately known, has seen a lot in the nearly 45 years she’s represented her Houston district. In the midst of the #MeToo movement and following allegations that two Texas lawmakers had sexually harassed women, the 79-year-old Democrat spoke with the Observer about her experiences with racism and sexism under the pink dome. Q: In a 2016 interview with Texas Monthly, you called Hillary Clinton’s nomination a “historic moment” that “demonstrates that women can govern.” Then Trump won. What did that moment mean to you? We had a woman who was capable, qualified, who had experience — I thought all those things were a plus-plus for the American people. And…

After mismanagement nearly tanked Texas’ civil commitment program, the revamped state agency that oversees it, the Texas Civil Commitment Office (TCCO), pledged “transparency” in board meetings and reports to the Texas Legislature. I discovered the agency’s curious definition of the word when I asked to visit the Texas Civil Commitment Center. At first, TCCO told me it was “not able to accommodate” my visit but wouldn’t say why. TCCO eventually referenced the lockup’s media policy, which I then had to request through open records laws to even read, and which in the end still explained nothing. Meanwhile, TCCO and the private prison contractor that run the Littlefield lockup, Correct Care Solutions, sought to block the release of basic information about the state-funded therapy there, including the curricula and documents explaining…