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There are some landscapes that are perfect for walking, disclosing themselves so intimately that one must dawdle to take them in; some that are best appreciated in an automobile at a reasonable rate of speed; and others that should be flown over as rapidly as possible. Much of Texas I place in this last category. Even Steve admits that Texas is where “everything peters out”—the South, the Great Plains, Mexico, the Mountain West—all dribbling to an anticlimactic end, stripped of whatever glory they manifest elsewhere.
We stopped at a Buc-ee’s outside New Braunfels to pick up some Gatorade for the ride. It is the largest convenience store in the world—a category of achievement that only Texas would aspire to.
Bainbridge observed that the condescension of non-Texans toward the state echoes the traditional Old World stance toward the New. “The faults of Texas, as they are recorded by most visitors, are scarcely unfamiliar, for they are the same ones that Europeans have been taxing us with for some three hundred years: boastfulness, cultural underdevelopment, materialism, and all the rest,” Bainbridge wrote. He diagnosed the popular disdain for Texas as a combination of “hostility born of envy” and “resentment born of nostalgia.” He added: “Texas is a mirror in which Americans see themselves
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In 1845, with the price of cotton on the floor, the bankrupt young republic faced a choice of being annexed by the United States as a slave state or accepting a bailout from Great Britain and remaining independent. The loan came with a catch: Texans would have to pay wages for all labor. Despite the chest-thumping Tea Party bluster about secession these days, Texas tossed away its independence when it appeared it would have to surrender on slavery.
Where were the cultural institutions, the schools, the public art? What I saw instead were cruddy strip shopping centers, garish beach communities, the ugly sprawl of car lots and franchise chicken joints and prefab warehouses that issued out of the heart of every city and crawled along our highways like poison vines.
i dont think this is accurate. look around dfw and houston
one out of ten children in the United States is a Texan—more than seven million of them. One in four Texas children lives in poverty.
Many of our complacent political leaders doubt that the climate is changing—or if it is, that human activity has anything to do with it. In light of widespread scientific consensus on these matters, it is difficult to read the political resistance as anything other than abject submission to the oil and gas industry, which is headquartered right in the Gulf Coast hurricane strike zone.
i dont think this is accurate. political cleavage isnt quite right
When disaster strikes Texas, one of the most effective first responders is a local chain of grocery stores, H-E-B, which dispatches a convoy of fifteen vehicles, including mobile kitchens that can produce 2,500 meals an hour, fuel tankers, portable generators, and Disaster Relief Units that contain pharmacies, ATMs, and business services equipment. By the time Harvey made landfall in South Texas, the convoy was already on the way to Victoria and Rockport. Over the next several days, various units headed to Houston. On Thursday, August 31, the Beaumont emergency management coordinator called
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“The state of Texas literature is defined by writers worrying about the state of Texas literature,” he said grumpily. “Why is everyone in Texas so anxious about defining a regional literature when nobody else feels the need to do that? Anything you say reinforces the provincialism. Just let it be what it will be.”
Dick Cheney, who was then still scouting potential vice presidents (other than himself), sat alone in an anteroom, gripping a drink and looking bewildered.
this cant possibly be true on election nifght. or is this meant to be primary
There was another class in the range next to us practicing some kind of tactical exercise, which consisted of loping along with a pistol and firing at metal targets—Ping! Ping! Ping!—then performing a barrel roll and grabbing a shotgun and blowing away a Bernie Sanders yard sign. That seemed politically off to me. Sanders was far more liberal on gun laws than any of his Democratic opponents in the presidential primary.
conservative. doesnt make sense otherwise
schoolchild learns in the seventh grade, while taking the mandatory Texas history class, that when Texas entered the Union it came with a prenuptial agreement: the possibility of splitting itself into five states—with ten senators!—any time it chooses.
didnt this go away with secession and rejoining
Teen pregnancies have been declining nationwide, but in Texas the decline has been slower, in part because the state encourages abstinence as the principle means of birth control and makes it difficult to gain access to contraception.
wrong spelling
Fallon ranks high on the conservative “report cards,” compiled by watchdog groups, by which modern legislators live and die. The most feared is the Fiscal Responsibility Index, a powerful weapon against Republicans who are less than ultraradical. It is produced by Empower Texans, a group led by Michael Quinn Sullivan, a lobbyist who is known by his initials, MQS, which some members pronounce “Mucus.” Sullivan is tall and friendly. He likes to talk about Boy Scouts (he was an Eagle Scout), the Aggies (he was in the A&M Corps of Cadets), and his three children. He’s a right-wing zealot,
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Not addressed by the legislature was the low quality of education in Texas, which is near bottom nationally in most measures of overall achievement. Texas spends $10,000 a year per student—$2,500 below the national average—an indication of where education stands in terms of the state’s priorities.
this is misleading
