OCTOBER 6, 2006 I $2.25 I OPENING THE EYES OF TEXAS FOR FIFTY ONE YEARS

Molly Ivins remembers Ann Richards OCTOBER 6, 2006 Dialogue TheTexas Observer FAN MAIL FROM EL PASO available in this big state to help get a You have written an excellent, down- solid support for these folks. FEATURES to-earth article about a critical Larry Shulman, MSW community need and exciting El Paso community response ["In West Texas -A- MEN. A-WOMEN. A-ANN. 6 They Take Care of Their Own," Sept. 10 years difference, and Ann Richards Bravo to you for this story and the 22] This article should be sent to could've been president example it sets for us all!! every regional foundation interested by Molly Ivins M. Shedlin in health care and/or community Professor,

HOUSTON, WE HAVE 10 development. UTEP College of Health Sciences HOPE FOR There must be more private money El Paso The Observer catches up on Houston area political races with Richard Murray by Jake Bernstein WORK FOR THE OBSERVER!

DEPARTMENTS MANAGING EDITOR WANTED: Job Description: DIALOGUE 2 •Manage the production process of a bi-weekly periodical (24 issues/yr) from edit to press. EDITORIAL 3 •Assist editor in story assignment and editing, with emphasis on arts and Questionable Ethics culture section of the Observer. POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE 4 •Assist editor in recruiting both new and accomplished writers.

ANDREW WHEAT 12 •Work with and edit staff and freelance writers. Green Mountain's Other Faces Requirements: MOLLY IVINS 14 Demonstrable strong editorial management experience with ability to Noshing on the News shape long-form stories and to enforce freelance (and staff) deadlines; strong copyediting and proofreading skills. Minority applicants are JIM HIGHTOWER 15 encouraged to apply. Send letter of interest including salary require- Poppies Up, Bush Down ments, resume, and clips to [email protected] (SUBJECT: Managing Editor). DATELINE 16 Not Even a Backseat BLOGGER WANTED: by Eileen Welsome Requirements: Seeking a part-time blogger (15-20 hours a week) to help write and man- BOOKS & CULTURE age a blog on our recently redesigned Web site. Blogger will be expected to write a minimum of seven posts per week. Blogger also will monitor and POETRY 21 respond to reader comments Monday through Friday. Other duties will by Terri Barbieri include putting up posts by Observer staffers and, occasionally, posting dispatches from Observer readers around the state. THE INCONTINENT CONGRESS 22 by Lou Dubose We're seeking a journalist who happens to blog. This isn't a position for someone who wants to write only their opinions. We want a blog that's DREAMS OF DOMINION 26 incisive and funny, but most of all, we want a reporting-based blog that by Dave Denison will uncover tidbits to inform and challenge readers. Familiarity with Texas politics is a must. The right candidate will be computer savvy and DESERT VISION 29 by James Hoggard have Web access, but doesn't have to be a techno-geek. Experience as a reporter or researcher strongly preferred. Blogger must match the tone and journalistic standards of the Observer. We'd prefer a blogger based in Cover photo by Alan Pogue Austin, but strong candidates in other parts of Texas will be considered.

E-Mail your resume, three to five writing samples (links to clips are OK), and a description of why you should be the Observer's blogger to Dave Mann at [email protected] 2 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 6, 2006 EDITORIAL Questionable Ethics

n the spring of 2002, the Observer public disclosure form filed with the wasn't what the anonymous petitioner ran an editorial about the Texas TEC that identified a gift from GOP wanted to hear. He or she withdrew the Ethics Commission (TEC) called mega-donor and Houston homebuild- request and slunk away. The commis- "A Dog Not Allowed to Hunt." er Bob Perry simply as a "check," but sion never issued a final—and precedent It talked about how the agen- failed to disclose the amount. Eventually, setting—opinion and let the matter cy was born hobbled, unwilling under media pressure, Perry acknowl- drop, leaving groups like TRMPAC free andI unable to enforce campaign laws. edged that he had given $100,000 to to argue that the ethics commission has Four years of Republican leadership Ceverha to help defray legal costs aris- never actually ruled on the matter. The later, if anything, the TEC has become a ing out of TRMPAC. Nonetheless, in agency, to this day, refuses to reveal who fortified obstacle to exposing and elimi- September the TEC staff recommended asked for that draft opinion. nating corruption in state government. that commissioners issue an opinion Meanwhile, a number of Republican Texas' Republican leaders seem intent that state officials don't have to declare state reps are angrily declaring that on whistling past a political graveyard the value of cash gifts over $250. they've done nothing illegal by using that has already claimed Tom DeLay, The GOP-appointed commissioners campaign contributions to rent sec- Bob Ney, and Ralph Reed. were all set to ratify that perspective ond homes from their spouses. The On September 19, staff at the TEC until Travis County District Attorney rent-from-your-wife dodge works like released a draft opinion meant to clar- Ronnie Earle jumped into the fray. Earle this: A state rep buys a condo in Austin ify a controversy that has been brew- sent a letter stating that the proposed and puts the title in his wife's name. ing since last January when campaign rule "would have the effect of eroding She pays the mortgage and he pays watchdog Texans for Public Justice the trust placed in this Commission to rent to her that happens to equal the (TPJ) lodged a complaint against promote public confidence in electoral mortgage. The money he uses comes Bill Ceverha, a board member of the and government processes!' The com- from his campaign account that is regu- Employee Retirement System, a $19-bil- mission then decided to postpone its larly replenished by lobbyists who want lion dollar state employee pension fund. decision until after the election. specific legislation from the state rep. Ceverha was also treasurer of Texans The TRMPAC case further illustrates While the TEC is investigating the mat- for a Republican Majority, the Tom the commission's weakness. In 1998— ter, don't hold your breath. DeLay-led political action committee four years before TRMPAC spent a dime "This is just symptomatic of every- that engineered the Republican capture of its corporate money—an anonymous thing that is wrong with the commis- of the statehouse in 2002, but landed in individual requested a ruling from the sion," says Fred Lewis, who has cam- the dock for campaign violations in the agency on whether a PAC that just hap- paigned to strengthen the TEC for years. process. Ceverha himself was successful- pened to fit TRMPAC's circumstances "It's really simple: They already have ly sued for his role in TRMPAC, a judg- could legally spend corporate money. plenty of authority to pass regulations ment that forced him into bankruptcy. The agency's answer, issued in a draft or interpret existing statutes." TPJ discovered an entry in Ceverha's opinion, was a flat "no." That apparently If only they would. ■

THE TEXAS OBSERVER I VOLUME 98, NO. 19 I A Journal of Free Voices Since 1954

Founding Editor Ronnie Dugger Steven G. Kellman, Lucius Lomax, The Texas Observer (ISSN 0040-4519/ paid. Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk Executive Editor Jake Bernstein James McWilliams, Char Miller, USPS 541300), entire contents copy- rates on request. Microfilm available Editor Barbara Belejack Debbie Nathan, Karen Olsson, righted ©2006, is published biweekly from University Microfilms Intl., 300 N. Associate Editor Dave Mann John Ross, Andrew Wheat except during January and August Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Publisher Charlotte McCann Staff Photographers when there is a 4 week break between Associate Publisher Julia Austin issues (24 issues per year) by the Indexes The Texas Observer is indexed Circulation Manager Lara George Alan Pogue, Jana Birchum, in Access: The Supplementary Index Steve Satterwhite Texas Democracy Foundation, a 501(c)3 Art Director/Webmaster Matt Omohundro non-profit foundation, 307 West 7th to Periodicals; Texas Inde•and, for the years 1954 through 1981, The Texas Investigative Reporter Eileen Welsome Contributing Artists Street, Austin, Texas 78701. Telephone Observer Index. , Poetry Editor Naomi Shihab Nye Sam Hurt, Kevin Kreneck, (512) 477-0746, Toll-Free (800) 939-6620 Copy Editors Rusty Todd, Laurie Baker Michael Krone, Gary Oliver, E-mail observer®texasobserver.org Staff Writer Forrest Wilder Doug Potter POSTMASTER Send address changes World Wide Web DownHome page to: The Texas Observer, 307 West 7th Editorial Interns Rachel Mehendale, Editorial Advisory Board D'Ann Johnson, Jim Marston, Gilberto www.texasobserver.org. Periodicals Street, Austin, Texas 78701. Victoria Sanchez, Kelly Sharp, David Anderson, Chandler Davidson, °caries, Bernard Rapoport, Geoffrey Postage paid at Austin, TX and at addi- Richard Whittaker Dave Denison, Sissy Farenthold, Rips, Sharron Rush, Kelly White, Ronnie tional mailing offices. Books & the Culture is Lawrence Goodwyn, Jim Hightower, Dugger (Emeritus) funded in part by the City Contributing Writers Subscriptions One year $32, two years *41..snal Aft Kaye Northcott, Susan Reid of Austin through the bi8coa Nate Blakeslee, Gabriela Bocagrande, In Memoriam $59, three years $84. Full-time stu- Cultural Arts Division and Robert Bryce, Michael Erard, Texas Democracy Foundation Board Bob Eckhardt, 1913-2001, dents $18 per year; add $13 per year by a grant from the Texas James K. Galbraith, Dagoberto Gilb, Lou Dubose, Molly Ivins, Susan Hays, Cliff Olofson, 1931-1995 for foreign subs. Back issues $3 pre- Commission on the Arts.

OCTOBER 6, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 3 p LITICAL > EL Bibles and Bioweapons

TAYLOR MADE? The congressio- Matthews: "So why did we attack some teachers are using the Bible cours- nal race in Central Texas' 17th District Iraq then?" es to promote "creation science" and should be an easy pickup for the GOP. Taylor: "Regardless of why we start- "Dominion Theology," that is, the idea The district—represented by Democrat ed fighting..." that the United States was founded as a Chet Edwards—stretches from the Fort Matthews: "I'm asking the question, Christian nation—make that an evangeli- Worth suburbs through Waco to Bryan- why did we attack Iraq?" cal, fundamentalist Christian nation—and College Station, and includes President Taylor: "We... that's not the question. should remain one. Adherents of this Bush's ranch in Crawford. Republicans What we need to ask ourselves is what school of thought include such luminar- comprise 64 percent of the registered we do now." ies as David Barton, former vice chair- voters. And the Republican challenger, Matthews: "What's wrong with me man of the Texas Republican Party, who Van Taylor, is a dream GOP candidate. asking the question? We're in a war... argue that the Protestant Bible served He holds an MBA from Harvard, served Why'd we go into Iraq?" as the inspiration for the Declaration of four years in the U.S. Army, then enlist- "That is a question you can ask histo- Independence and the Constitution. ed in the Marine Reserves and volun- rians," Taylor said, and added with no In the Forsan Independent School teered for service in Iraq, where he won apparent irony, "but right now, today, District, near Big Spring, students three combat citations. But Taylor is dis- we need to send people to Washington watched videos, including one called covering what many Republican prede- who understand the war on terror." "Dinosaurs and the Bible," which sought cessors already know—beating Edwards to show "agreement with Biblical record is no easy task. Edwards was one of TAXPAYER SUNDAY SCHOOL Along and paleontological discoveries." A sec- the few targeted Democrats to survive with reading and writing and arithmetic, ond video, "Eden and 800 Year Old Men," Tom DeLay's 2004 congressional redis- the Bible is being offered in about two explored the question of whether there tricting plan [see "Storming the Hill," dozen Texas school districts these days, are "possible scientific explanations for October 22, 2004]. Edwards, an eight- and the students are getting a healthy long-lived humans in biblical times." term incumbent, has called out Taylor dose of fundamentalist propaganda The report went on to say that most for moving into the district in 2005 to and outright disinformation—courtesy school districts who teach Bible courses run for office. In a race that's increas- of the taxpayers, of course. For exam- use sectarian materials reflecting a ingly nasty, Edwards has a $500,000 ple, did you know that God intervened Protestant Christian perspective, pres- fundraising edge, according to the Cen- in the French and Indian War to save ent the Bible as a product of divine ter for Responsive Politics. He's also George Washington's life? Or that sexu- inspiration, and discuss the Bible stories earned endorsements from GOP stal- ally transmitted diseases, teen pregnan- as if they were literally true. Though warts such as the Texas Farm Bureau, cies, divorces, and violent crime can be only 3 percent of Texas school districts the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the directly attributable to the advocacy of actually offer a Bible class, the study Texas Association of Business. separation of church and state? notes that the number is growing. Then there was Taylor's August 22 That bunkum and more is being taught turn on Hardball with Chris Matthews. to some high school students who sign BUGGIN' OUT Four sites in Texas— (The clip has been making the rounds up for an elective, for-credit Bible class, three in San Antonio and one at Texas on the Web at www.youtube.com ). according to an in-depth survey spon- A&M-College Station—are in the run- We're guessing Taylor wasn't debate sored by the Texas Freedom Network, ning for a gargantuan, $500 million club champion in high school. When a nonprofit that monitors activities of "biodefense" facility offered by the pressed by host Matthews, Taylor the religious right. Authored by Mark Department of Homeland Security. The refused to let the facts get in the way of Chancey, a biblical scholar at Southern National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility a good talking point about the very war Methodist University in Dallas, the will be a hot spot in America's growing he fought in. Taylor contended—con- report looked at more than 1,000 pub- archipelago of semi-clandestine lab- trary to media reports—that Al Qaeda lic school districts in Texas, focusing on oratories researching exotic diseas- terrorists are mainly responsible for 25 that offered the Bible class during es and potential biological weapons violence in Iraq, not, say, Shiite death the 2005-06 school year. Through the agents, including anthrax, West Nile squads or Sunni insurgents. Taylor did Texas Public Information Act, the orga- Virus, Ebola, and the plague. concede that Iraq wasn't involved in nization obtained syllabi, lesson plans, "[I]f San Antonio was to land this the September 11th attacks. That set copies of tests, quizzes and handouts. thing it would become the number two Matthews off. Not surprisingly, the group found that national center for classified biological

4 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 6, 2006 work," says Edward Hammond, direc- cure, including genetically modified and productivity of Texas' bays and tor of the Sunshine Project, a nonprof- germs. The Southwest Foundation estuaries, but increasingly a coalition it that monitors biological weapons. already boasts the only privately oper- of environmentalists, fishermen, and Hammond fears that the new facility ated BSL-4 in the nation, where, as the members of the tourism economy are will feature work on weaponization of documents Hammond obtained show, worried about the allocation of river germs and dangerously unpredictable researchers-20 of whom have secret water for the bays. genetic engineering projects. Jean level security clearances—are involved One project in particular has become Patterson, chairman of the Department in such projects as testing anthrax a flashpoint for green criticism and of Virology and Immunology at the on military hardware and genetically perhaps a bellwether of things to come: Southwest Foundation for Biomedical tinkering with the viruses that cause The Lower Colorado River Authority Research in San Antonio, sharply dis- Lassa fever, an animal-borne disease (LCRA) and the San Antonio Water agrees: "It's not clear what level of found in Africa. Hammond argues that System (SAWS) plans to redirect 48.9 classification the work will be or if these examples of "bio-defense" work billion gallons of water each year from it will be classified at all. The whole are pushing the edge between useful the Colorado River, already the major point is to protect our agriculture, our research on terrorism and public health source of water for Austin, to San livestock, and to protect us against threats, and offensive arms work in Antonio by pipeline. The LCRA-SAWS zoonotic diseases like SARS." possible violation of international law. team is spending $42 million studying Hammond recently obtained, through "[I]f the Chinese were doing this, we whether the project can meet the Texas state open records laws, draft pro- would say, 'Bullshit, you're not looking Legislature's mandate that remain- posals for the facility submitted by a for a vaccine; you're trying to create a ing inflows be "adequate to maintain consortium of San Antonio universi- worse kind of Lassa fever." the ecological health and productivity ties and bioscience institutions, led by of the Matagorda Bay system." At a the University of Texas Health Science A RIVER RUNS TO IT Matagorda Bay, September water conference in San Center, UT-San Antonio, and the a largely undeveloped stretch of water Antonio sponsored by the Sierra Club, Southwest Foundation for Biomedical on the Texas middle coast, breeds bum- LCRA's Paul Thornhill promised that Research, an independent institute. (A per crops of speckled trout, redfish, without a positive finding, the project request for Texas A&M's proposal is on and flounder—highly sought-after game would not go forward. But, he added, appeal with the state attorney general.) fish that forage on the shrimp and pin- the project will likely be a "win-win" and The facility's centerpiece will be a set fish that swarm out of the brackish result in a net increase in water flowing of laboratories for scientific work to estuaries. Economic impact from fish- to Matagorda Bay by conserving river "integrate human, foreign animal, and ing in Matagorda Bay is an estimated water used by rice farmers. zoonotic disease research, development, $180 million annually, according to a Environmentalists are not content and testing," according to Patterson. In 1998 Texas A&M study. Migratory birds with a wait-and-see approach. Instead addition to space to warehouse live- flock to the marshlands to forage, nest, of spending $1.5 billion on the LCRA- stock, primates, and other critters to be and breed; the Audubon Society cites SAWS project, they urge river authori- infected with deadly diseases, the facil- Matagorda County as one of the most ties and cities to invest in urban con- ity will contain a large, Biosafety Level diverse birding sites in the country. servation programs, store river water 4 laboratory. BSL-4s are designed to Freshwater from rivers, in Matagorda's in aquifers during times of plenty for handle pathogens that have no known case the Colorado, sustains the health use in times of drought, and improve agricultural techniques. Even if the LCRA-SAWS pipeline is not built, they contend that without an aggressive Slain Nava conservation approach, the future for International Headquarters Matagorda Bay and other coastal eco- systems doesn't look bright. A 2004 Come Visit us for LUNCH! In addition to our organic report, issued by the National Wildlife coffee, pizzas, empanadas, pastries and pies, we Federation, assigned five of the seven now prepare made to order sandwiches, salads, major estuary systems in Texas a 'dan- and even black bean gazpacho. ger' warning, based on a future in which 100 percent of currently autho- rized water rights are used. "It's like a 3601 S. Congress off E. Alpine checkbook, these water rights," said Penn Field - under the water tower Norman Johns, a water resources spe- (512)797-9637 www.rutainayamet cialist with the wildlife group. "We've ec OIT s to for monffy ;Alend3i already written a lot of checks, and they haven't all been written yet." ■

OCTOBER 6, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 5 FEATURE G-men. A-women. A-Ann. 10 years difference, and she could have been president

BY MOLLY IVINS

photo by Jana Birchum

arry Porko first appeared in the lobby just as good as at-the-moment quips as at telling great stories, of some Wall Street firm—Smith, Merrill, a reluctant hunter ("first, you have to get up at four in the Barney, & Asshole, I believe—where the morning and dress from head to foot like a woody vine"), a treasurer of Texas had been left to cool her great laugher, fine canoeist, former drunk, and first woman heels while waiting to sign a multibillion- governor of Texas to get there on her own credentials. dollar deal. Harry was the classic Texas sex- In retrospect, it sounds almost easy. I believe if Ann had ist.H He wore a rubber pig nose and waved a cigar while hold- been born 10 years earlier or started 10 years later, she could ing forth on the treatment of girls. "Now, my girls, I pay 'em have been president. But it's easy to forget how firmly sexism less than my men, but they don't mind that. Because, first I ruled this culture. give 'em the uniform, the brown jumpsuit, and that's special Dorothy Ann Willis was born the only child of Cecil and 'cause it's got a yellow rose over the breast pocket. And then Mildred Iona Willis in a small town near Waco, at the nadir the hairnet, they love the hairnet." of the Depression. Her daddy was a salesman, and her mother Ann Richards' public life was mostly about gender. She was sewed all Ann's clothes. She was encouraged to excel from the outrageous and courageous on behalf of women everywhere. beginning. Her father always told her she could do anything She was also a legendary campfire cook, a beautiful ballroom she wanted. "I was in college before I found out he was wrong," dancer (she did do everything Fred Astaire did, backwards she said. Nevertheless, the gift of self-confidence was there. and in high heels), she loved movies, was a bossy momma, Ann graduated Waco High, where she was a debate star. She

6 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 6, 2006 Clockwise, from top: Ann Richards and her statewide staff celebrate her winning the governor's office in 1990 (photo by Alan Pogue); Walter Timberlake of the Int. Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Anh Richards, unidentified man of Austin Transportation Workers, and Dave Richards at a May Day celebration in 1977 (photo by Alan Pogue); Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby and Ann Richards share a "political kiss," at a fundraiser in 1984 (photo by Alan Pogue); Ann Richards as State Treasurer, circa 1982 (photo by Scott Newton).

OCTOBER 6, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 7 • 4 Sissy Farenthold, Ann Richards, and John Henry Faulk, circa 1972 photo from the Observer archives participated in Girls State, a leadership-training program, and and the civil rights movement in those days in Dallas was was elected governor of Girls State. pretty much tantamount to communism. But Ann and Betty She and Dave Richards dated in high school. She went McKool, wife of State Sen. Mike McKool and a great wit in her to Baylor on a debate scholarship, and they married as own right, used to make fun of the city and its bigots at the undergraduates. She also got the world's best mother-in-law, annual Democratic Women's Club follies. Ann and Betty also Eleanor Richards, who remains my definition of a classy lady. sent out an anonymous annual Christmas card worth a good While David went to law school in Austin, Ann got a teach- laugh. Given that she later went into politics, it's just as well ing certificate and taught junior high, a thankless assignment. the cards never surfaced. One of Ann and Betty respectively But she had a real empathy for kids at that impossible age. As dressed as the Virgin Mary and Joseph shows them astonished governor, she briefly took over a class of gifted and talented over a manger, yelling, "It's a girl!" That seemed so subversive kids, mostly black and brown, who were visiting the Capitol at the time, and I doubt the Christian Right would be amused for the day. They stood in a stairwell while the noise of the by it today. session swirled all around. When Ann and Dave moved back to Austin in 1969, they "Who owns this building?" asked Ann. became the center of a circle of friends, some of whom were "The taxpayers," the kids finally concluded after much later split up in the divorce. Every Friday night we gathered nudging. at Scholz Beer Garten for the weekly meeting of the Horses "Who are the taxpayers?" ASSociation. Sam Whitten and I agreed the best argument we "My parents pay taxes!" shouted one kid. ever heard at the ASSociation was between Martin Wigginton, "What about you? If you go to buy a candy bar, do you pay a serious radical, and Fletcher Boone, who owned an art taxes on it?" gallery, on the topic of does man live by bread alone? It was After much discussion, a candy-bar receipt was finally pro- a 17—beer argument, with Wigginton for bread and Boone duced, and sure enough, it had tax added on it. "WE own the for roses, Marx and materialism versus the spirit and beauty, Capitol," they all shouted. They won't forget it, either. This the two of them ringed by a group of hushed followers who took about 10 minutes out of her day and she must have done turned their heads from one to the other as though they were it hundreds of times. watching a tennis match. Sam and I couldn't decide who won. When David was a young labor lawyer in Dallas, the great (Wigginton was later buried at his request without a head- issue of the day was civil rights. To support Ralph Yarborough stone among the poor in Austin's potter's field.)

8 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 6, 2006

Ann Richards swearing in Glen Maxey in 1991 photo by Alan Pogue

Mad Dog Inc., "Performing Ineffable Services for Mankind," Over time, she must have handwritten hundreds of letters of grew out of this rich soil, with Bud Shrake and Gary Cartwright, encouragement to those of us trying to sober up. Although two of the finest writers this state ever produced, at the center anonymity in AA is not to be broken even after death, the of much of this advanced form of mischief. (Well, who threw fact is Ann was a public ex-drunk. She was not only proud of whom through the base drum at the nightclub in Mexico? It what she had done, she helped untold numbers of others. She wasn't Ann.) Ann and David had done politics since they were saved a lot of lives. Young Democrats at UT. In those days women got to make When Ann first ran for statewide office in 1982, you could Kleenex roses for the floats in various political parades. feel it: the start of a movement. Those women with big hair Ann worked as Sarah Weddington's campaign manager in and big purses in Amarillo and Abilene flocked to hear her. Weddington's first legislative race and then Ann ran for coun- She said that running the treasurer's office was just like bal- ty commissioner in 1976, mostly because nobody else would. ancing a checkbook "except more zeroes." That quaint simile is She loved to tell the story of how the guys at the equipment in fact true. "Women are trained to detail, and we are expected barn found this mangy ol' hound and named it "Ann." to juggle a lot of balls at once," she would say. In fact, mother- In 1980, Ann's family and a few friends arranged an inter- hood is splendid training for politics. All good mothers know vention in her drinking, which was by then out of control. what to do when there's two kids and one cookie, and all good She was rather a mean drunk, given to saying unkind things mothers know what to do when there are two kids in the back about people, but she was also hilariously funny. I think she seat hitting each other, each one of them claiming the other was the first woman I ever knew who talked about meno- one started it. All political problems are merely variations of pause in public, part of a very funny routine in questionable those two situations. taste. She went to "drunk school" as Bullock called it, at St. Ann went around the treasurer's office asking bureaucrats Mary's in Minnesota and never drank again. But she reacted who had never been consulted before in their working lives badly to the intervention, holding a grudge over it for some how to make the place work better. At the end of a year, she time that included her children. Ann spent time in "the had cut the time it took the state to process checks from a day rooms" of Alcoholics Anonymous, crying on the sofa like and a half to an hour and a half, gaining $9 million a year in everyone else who's had the disease. She also had fantastically interest for Texas. By the end of her first year, the work force funny "drunkologue," and was a wildly popular speaker at was 60 percent white, 18 percent black, 22 percent Hispanic, big conventions of people who work in the field of recovery. —continued on page 19

OCTOBER 6, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 9 FEATURE Houston, We Have Hope for Dems The Observer catches up on Houston area political races with Richard Murray

BY JAKE BERNSTEIN

11.1.1 his election cycle the Texas race for governor will dominate the lion's share of media attention, both within the state and outside our borders—the rest of the nation being more than eager to chortle along at our political shenanigans. Yet we shouldn't allow fun with Rick, Chris, Carole, and Kinky to obscure some fascinating local races that could have a major impact on the state and the nation. Democrats need only 15 seats to win back the U.S. House of Representatives. There are at least three competitive congressional races right here in Texas. (Read "Taylor Made" on page four to learn a bit more about one of them, Republican Van Taylor's efforts to unseat Chet Edwards.) In the state House, this could be the year when Democrats emphatically signal that they are on track to retake the lower chamber. Perhaps no other region in Texas has a higher concentration of competitive races this cycle than the Houston area. This is not surprising. Its the nation's fourth-largest city, after all. Houston is also home to a demographic shift that could prove advanta- geous for local Democrats. Anglos are leaving the suburban band around Houston for the exurbs or inner-city gentrification. The Houston area has a piece of one of the surest Democratic congressional pickups in the nation, the race to fill Tom DeLay's seat. DeLay had planned to step down and anoint a successor, when a Democratic lawsuit yanked him back onto the bal- lot. Rather than face the voters as a poster child for corruption, DeLay opted to withdraw, leaving the race without a Republican on the ballot. After much internal bickering, area Republicans Richard Murray finally agreed on former City of Houston Councilwoman Shelley photo: Univ. of Houston Center for Public Policy Sekula-Gibbs as the consensus write-in candidate. Then Gov. Rick Perry ordered up a last-minute special election, the win- ner of which will serve the last two months of DeLay's current Texas Observer: How is Nick Lampson doing in his race to win term. The special election will be held simultaneously with the Tom DeLay's former seat in Congress? general election, allowing Sekula-Gibbs to double her fundrais- ing possibilities, but no write-in candidate has ever won in Texas. Richard Murray: We are kind of in uncharted waters here. Democratic challenger Shane Sklar is running a competitive race This unusual ballot situation enormously favors Lampson. against Republican Ron Paul in the Houston area, as well. [It's] hard enough to win when your name is on the ballot... The most competitive state rep contest in Texas is happening [The Republicans'] designated candidate was not picked until in Houston proper, where Democrat Ellen Cohen is endeavoring very late in the process and doesn't have much time to educate to knock out incumbent Republican Martha Wong in District voters. Most of the voters don't live in the city of Houston, so 134. This will be the most expensive statehouse race this cycle. the fact that you have a city councilmember running is not Together, the candidates are on track to break the million-dol- particularly helpful in this district. And there are a lot of other lar mark. The 134 is a district of political sophisticates, among Republican wannabes who are probably going to be, let us say, them Richard Murray, a University of Houston political science lethargic in working for the designated candidate. A lot of professor. The Observer caught up with Murray recently to get a them would like perhaps themselves to run in 2008. briefing on some of the Houston races. What follows are excerpts [Lampson] is well financed. He's been campaigning for a from that conversation. year in the district and should be in a very strong position to

10 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 6, 2006 win the race. He did represent 20 percent of the district back another galaxy. [He provides the] most frequent opposition

when he was in Congress, and he has family , connections to [of any Republican] to President Bush on the things that the Fort Bend County. president really cares about, like the war in Iraq. It's a reshaped district. Paul hasn't represented many of those constituents TO: Why do you think Lampson opted not to participate in the much. Sklar might be able to sneak up on him. I don't think special election Perry called? Paul is nearly the formidable force he was 15 or 20 years ago, RM: It puts the pressure on Shelley Sekula-Gibbs. She has to when he had a lot of wind behind his sails. do an extra educational effort. They put this special [election] Paul is a Libertarian, but he's a strong pro-lifer. So he's for first on the ballot. Before you get to the regular ballot, you government intervening in the bedroom, but absolutely not in have to vote in that. Shelley Sekula-Gibbs is on that special Iraq or in your wallet. It's an interesting mix of positions. He ballot with four or five other people. There is no Democrat doesn't get a lot of the usual [support from] chamber of com- on that ballot. Of course, it's largely a meaningless election merce Republicans because he ain't the guy to carry any water because you have this little, tiny bobtail term. It would be for you in Washington. He's not a go-along get-along. confusing, particularly for Democratic voters, if you voted right at the beginning for Lampson, the Democratic nominee, TO: So he's not a bring-home-the-bacon kind of politician? and then had to make sure on a separate page later that you RM: No, he's all for selling the hog and getting out of the voted for him again. Now Sekula-Gibbs, she has to run an farming business. extra educational program, she has to say you are not finished when you voted for me right off the bat, you've got to go on TO: Democrats are very excited about Ellen Cohen's chances the next page, and you can't vote a straight ticket, you've got against state Rep. Martha Wong. Are they right to be optimis- to write my name in specifically on that ballot for the regular tic? congressional term. That's getting complicated, and the more RM: I think it's a great race. I'm happy I live in the district and complicated you make things for voters, the more you lose. get to look at it closehand. You have a couple of great resume some of them. candidates: a couple of widows in their 60s, hard, smart cam- paigners. They are going to be super-well funded. They will TO: So it's possible the favor Perry did for her was no favor at spend half a million dollars on the race on each side. It's the all? best-educated district in the state, I think. The combination RM: It looked like .a favor in Austin, but then here on the of Rice and the Medical Center and so forth, you've got a huge ground it looks to me like it's an extra complication, because number of people with graduate degrees. It's a Republican- the'vihole deal is what happens in the election for the regular leaning district, but the biggest defections among Republicans term. Now of course, if Perry had, as he should have done as are among well-educated, upscale Republicans, nationwide as governor, called the special very early, then whoever won that well as in this district. Kerry, a weaker candidate than Gore, would have had the benefit of being a sitting member going received more votes in this district than Gore, although he still into the general election. But because Republicans didn't have lost. Nothing has changed in the last 20 months to improve agreement on who their candidate would be, he couldn't do the general position of Republicans. You've got a mix of dif- that. They were afraid that they would end up with Lampson ferent types of voters, not many minorities, but a lot of inde- leading or even winning, leaving them out in the cold for the pendent, well-educated voters, which gives Ellen Cohen a real general election. So he delayed, and now it's of no benefit, in shot. It's going to be a hell of a brutal, hard-fought race. my judgment. [Lampson is] right in the middle of prime time on the regu- TO: What is the Hochberg program, and is it being applied to lar ballot. I think the Libertarian [Bob Smither] gets 10 to 12 other races in the area? percent in this situation. [Richard] Morrison [a former DeLay RM: In 2001, the Republicans [through control of the legisla- opponent] got 41 percent [last election]. Now, it's a better tive redistricting board] were trying to create a gerrymander year for Democrats, and Lampson has at least four times as in the southwest part of Houston that split up the 300,000 much money. Let's say Lampson doesn't perform particularly or so people that lived in the Alief-Southwest community. well and he gets 46 percent. If Smither gets 10 to 12 percent, [Scott] Hochberg moved into this very low-registration, low- which I think he will, that leaves about 40 percent. Well, hell, turnout district that the Republicans tried to save by putting everybody ain't going to write in, and everybody ain't going five or six Republican precincts in the district. Most of it was to write in one person's name either, so it looks to me like apartments and condos, heavily minority, but not many vot- mathematically, it's a near lock. ers. Hochberg was able, by very hard work and innovative programs, to get into apartment complexes and get some TO: Is there a chance for an upset in Ron Paul's race in the 14th younger voters registered to win the district quite handily in Cong. District? 2002, even though that was a great year for Republicans. He RM: It's sure a long shot, but there is a kind of weird outside held it in 2004. This, I think, is the last rodeo in that district. I chance. Paul is perhaps the most interesting of the 232 sit- think Hochberg wins by sufficient margin that the Bob Perrys ting Republican members. He votes like sometimes he's from —continued on page 25

OCTOBER 6, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 11 COMMENTARY I BY ANDREW WHEAT Green Mountain's Other Faces

ustin-based Green last year that killed 15 workers. Abuses," a recent 370-page report by the Mountain Energy Co. Is this what feel-good, renewable U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee sells ecologically cor- energy looks like? on Investigations. rect electricity to people The Wyly brothers worked for IBM To defer or dodge taxes, many wealthy willing to pay a premi- Corp. in the late 1950s before they Americans transfer assets into trusts um to feel good about launched their own computer firms, that typically benefit family members or Akilowatts. The privately held company which they later sold at the height of the charities. To legally dodge the IRS, how- resells electricity generated from renew- tech bubble for $8 billion. Other Wyly ever, a benefactor must cede control over able energy sources to about 150,000 ventures over the years have included trust assets to independent trustees. The customers in five states where the energy the Bonanza Family Restaurant chain, Senate report—half of which addresses business is deregulated, including Texas. Michaels Stores Inc., insurer Scottish "The Wyly Case Study"—found that the Green Mountain grew with deregula- Re Group Ltd., Ranger Capital Group, Wylys directed their trustees to buy tion until the trend was reversed by Maverick Capital Ltd., and Green extravagant art, jewelry, and real estate Enron Corp.'s implosion. The spectacu- Mountain. Yet the Wylys' most famous that wound up in the hands of Wyly lar crash of the Houston-based company investment is George W. Bush. The family members. The report also found spurred regulatory changes that Green Washington-based Center for Public that the Wylys got trustees to pump mil- Mountain blamed in 2005 for driving Integrity reported in 2000 that the lions of tax-sheltered dollars into Wyly- it out of its largest market: Ohio. Now Wylys ranked among the top 10 patrons related companies—including Green the company could face new hurdles of Bush's political career. This busi- Mountain. after two principal owners—oil giant ness relationship has been mutually An ex-trustee and former Wyly family BP PLC, and Dallas billionaires Sam beneficial. financial adviser told the subcommit- and Charles Wyly—are under civil and A major scandal of Bush's guber- tee that some trustees questioned "rec- criminal investigations. Will the result- natorial administration occurred when ommendations" by the Wylys that the ing negative publicity turn off Green University of Texas regents appointed trustees invest in money-losing Green Mountain customers who pride them- by the governor doled out lucrative con- Mountain. Yet Senate investigators selves on knowing where their kilowatts tracts to investment firms tied to cronies found no evidence that the supposedly come from? of Bush and the regents. The firms were independent trustees ever bucked the A Dallas grand jury is investigating hired to manage portions of UT's $13 wishes of the Wylys. "The trust protec- allegations that the Wylys abused doz- billion endowment. The largest of these tors identified no instance in which ens of offshore tax shelters to bilk Uncle investment contracts went to the Wylys' a trustee initiated a business invest- Sam out of tens of millions of dollars. A Maverick Capital. Later Sam Wyly, aided ment on its own," the report says, "and U.S. Senate probe concluded in August by former Green Mountain executive no instance in which a trustee actu- that the brothers used some of these and current Republican Congressman ally declined to supply [Wyly] requested offshore accounts to pump $187 mil- Jeb Hensarling of Dallas, bought $2.5 funding?' The report cites 2001 corre- lion in tax-sheltered funds into Green million in ads during the 2000 GOP pri- spondence between Charles Wyly and Mountain. The Senate investigation mary that portrayed Bush as a clean-sky then-Green Mountain CEO Dennis Kelly raises questions about whether Green champion and rival Sen. John McCain as evidence that Charles Wyly directed Mountain—which the Senate report of Arizona as air pollution incarnate. untaxed funds to be shipped offshore claims has lost money every year of its Telling the New York Times at the time and then "brought back onshore to existence—would have survived with- that he was devoting his life to renew- invest in Green Mountain?' The Senate out massive transfusions from the Wylys' able energy, Wyly said, "I'm a monoma- report suggests that the Wylys' control legally dubious tax shelters. niac with one goal?' over their trusts made them illegal tax Congress and federal investigators Another apparent monomaniacal shelters. also are trying to ascertain if negligence Wyly goal—sheltering his wealth— "Sam and Charles acted at the direc- by BP—which bought a major stake reportedly was inspired by the huge tion, advice and counsel of lawyers, in Green Mountain in 2000—contrib- divorce settlement that his first wife accountants, and professionals," a uted to pipeline corrosion that spewed obtained in the early 1990s. The Wyly Dallas attorney for the Wylys, William a record 200,000 gallons of oil over family embraced offshore tax shelters A. Brewer, says in a written statement Alaska's North Slope in August, and to so aggressively that it may have broken to the Observer. "The Wylys believe that an explosion at BP's Texas City refinery U.S. tax laws, according to "Tax Haven their actions were entirely proper?'

12 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 6, 2006 The Wylys were early investors in with a record $21 million fine for 300 sumers to consider where their kilowatts Green Mountain's precursor and bought health and safety violations. Federal come from—understandably prefers the privately held company outright investigators became so disturbed by not to focus on the major stakes that the from a Vermont utility in 1997. Sam evidence of a lax safety culture that Wylys and BP have in the company. Yet Wyly himself chaired Green Mountain's they issued an unprecedented call for consumers in deregulated markets are board before BP and the Dutch utility safety reviews of all five of BP's North required to weigh the pros and cons of N.V. Nuon bought major stakes in the American refineries. At the same time, competing providers. Green Mountain's company in 2000. For the past three the aging pipeline that BP operates ownership may muddy this equation for years, Sam Wyly's son Evan has chaired in Alaska already was under federal some discriminating customers. ■ Green Mountain's board. Executives investigation for alleged violations of of BP and the Wylys' Ranger Capital the Clean Water Act this March, when Contributing writer Andrew Wheat is have occupied other seats on the board. it dumped a record 200,000 gallons of research director for Austin-based Texans As of last year, the Wyly family and oil onto the tundra. BP's chief execu- for Public Justice. related entities controlled 36 percent of tive, John Browne, quickly flew in from Green Mountain stock. Wyly-founded London to the scenes of both the Texas Maverick Capital, where Evan Wyly also City and Alaska disasters, pledging to fix works, controlled another 12 percent. the root causes of the problems. Asked Yet it is unclear what these stakes in this if these disasters should concern Green privately held company are worth today. Mountain customers, Washington- Citing the company's chronic losses, a based BP spokesperson Sarah Howell Maverick official told Senate investiga- says that BP owns 18 percent of Green tors that the hedge fund recently down- Mountain but exercises no control over graded the market value of its Green the company. As a result, she says BP's Mountain stock to zero. A Maverick woes have nothing to do with Green Capital official declined a request to Mountain. "There is no tie between any comment for this article. of that," Howell says. .•••••\ e4 While Green Mountain officials refuse Declining to be quoted, an environ- Austin's Largest Selection of to discuss their investors, the company mentalist with Green Mountain ties International folk Art, disputed the notion that it is in dire called the Observer to warn that nega- Silver Jewelry and Textiles financial straits. "Over the last several tive publicity about the Wylys and BP lrES C:0 C:10 years we have been growing profitably, should not be allowed to harm Green FOLK ART & OTHER TREASURES FROM AROUND THE WORLD have been cash-flow positive, and have Mountain and its clean-energy mission. CONGRESS AVE•AUSTIN 512/479 - 8377 rOPEN DAILY 10-6 www.tesoros.com not required any additional external Green Mountain—which has urged con- funding," the company says in a written statement. Another major Green Mountain investor with legal and public relations problems is London-based oil giant BR Around the time that BP and Amoco Corp. merged in 1998, BP recast itself as an enlightened energy giant, sug- gesting that its initials no longer stood for "British Petroleum" but for "Beyond Petroleum." BP's leadership acknowl- edged a scientific consensus linking fos- sil fuels to global warming. And the company made significant investments in renewable energy ventures—includ- ing Green Mountain. Yet this image of the planet's No. 2 oil giant has been bat- tered recently by disasters worthy of the most infamous corporate citizens. KLRU-TV, Austin PBS, creates innovative television that inspires and BP's sprawling Texas City refinery suf- educates not just in Austin, but throughout all of Texas. KLRU explores fered an enormous explosion in March politics with Texas Monthly Talks; makes learning fun with The Biscuit klru tv and beyond 2005, injuring 170 people and killing Brothers and Central Texas Gardener; and showcases live music with Austin City Limits. Look for these KLRU programs on your local PBS stations. 15. A subsequent federal probe hit BP klru.org

OCTOBER 6, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 13 COMMENTARY I BY MOLLY IVINS Noshing on the News

he National Intelligence Estimate, agreed upon by 16 Bush-controlled spy ser- vices within the U.S. gov- ernment, says the war in Iraq is making the war on Can these people terrorism harder and worse. It gives the phrase "leaking intelligence" a new meaning (a line not original with me). get anything right? ...

We've been , having a debate in this country about whether to continue the war—or "the comma," as the president Is there anything they calls it—until it has become a semico- lon. Now the debate is over, and what we need to discuss is the best way out. This can't screw up? war is not a goddamn comma. According to the Associated Press, the directors of the Legal Services Corp., a program for poor people, have been trying to get rid of their inspector gen- eral, who has clocked them for, among other things, expensive meals, using limousine services, and wasting money department "to return to the private known." But stealing money from little on ritzy headquarters. sector," a spokeswoman said. Isn't that kids' reading programs? What is that The board members said the inspector nice? I kind of wish he was back in gov- about? general had a "fetish" for independence ernment helping to answer the eternal Iraq. Bush made a horrible mistake (how horrible) and that he's a character mystery, "Is our children learning?" because he knows relatively little. But assassin backed by a delusional staff, For the second time since August, the stacking the bidding in favor of a read- and so forth. While this was going on, Army is extending the combat tours ing program that may not be the best half of the 'poor clients applying for of thousands of soldiers beyond the available? I suppose the answer is that legal services were rejected. promised 12 months. This time, it's Republicans (except for Bush) never did The AP reports that the Education nearly 4,000 soldiers in the 1st Brigade, think having the feds in education was Department has ignored the law and 1st Armored. a good idea. ethical standards to steer money the Again in Iraq, the Army chief, of staff I'm ready to settle for a bar of corn- way it wants. The billion-dollar-a-year is refusing to submit a budget because mon decency. Lead us into an insane Reading First program is apparently he says he needs billions more dollars war, get the troops killed, lie about riddled with problems, including politi- before the Army can meet its obliga- whatever you want, eat fancy meals on cal favoritism, conflicts of interest, and tions. He will surely get help from ol' the government tab ($14 for a chocolate miknanagement. "anything they ask for" Bush. dessert?), but please, oh please, do not In a hair-raising memo, the director The question is: Can these people run rig the bids for reading material for our of Reading First, Chris Doherty, wrote anything right? The other question is: Is adorable little children, who will soon members of the staff aithe Department there anything they can't screw up? be appearing with President Bush in a of Education regarding one company, I don't know about you, but I think rainbow of colors in ads dreamed up "They are trying to crash our party, and the education deal has me more upset. I by Karl Rove. Kids are really great for we need to beat the (expletive) out of mean, we already knew the Big Comma photo ops. ■ them in front of all the other would-be was producing a backlash, didn't we, party crashers who are standing on the really? Where are we now-2,700 dead Molly Ivins is a nationally syndicated front lawn waiting to see how we wel- Americans, nearly 50,000 dead Iraqis... columnist. Her most recent book with Lou come these dirtbags." Come on, that's at least familiar, what Dubose is Bushwhacked: Life in George Doherty recently resigned from the Donald RumSfeld would call a "known- W. Bush's America (Random House).

14 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 6, 2006 COMMENTARY I BY JIM HIGHTOWER Poppies Up, Bush Down

ere's some big news MESSING WITH MEAT You INTEL PICKS OUR POCKETS on the agricultur- probably aren't aware of it, but the big This Congress has not merely practiced al front—this year's meat conglomerates are now charging business-as-usual—but business- crop has reached the meat prices for water. Up to 20 percent Far-More-Than-usual.Congressional highest level ever, of the volume of your supermarket leaders have rammed through a blizzard with an increase of steak, pork chop, or drumstick is most of subsidies, favors, and giveaways for 49H percent over last year's production! likely H2O, plus a nice dose of salt and their corporate benefactors, packaging Unfortunately, we're not talking about chemicals. These are being injected into these as benefits for the people. Two American corn, but the opium crop in the meats by industry, which even has years ago Congress loudly ballyhooed a Afghanistan. a tasty-sounding term for the ripoff: program that sounded like something You remember Afghanistan, don't you? "deep marination." Cargill, Wal-Mart, from the New Deal: "The American That's where Osama bin Laden was sup- and the other corporate purveyors of Jobs Creation Actf It was a multibillion- posed to be headquartered, so our mili- these adulterated meats say they are dollar tax giveaway to corporations that tary pounded his Taliban backers short- doing it as a favor to you, asserting that had been stashing their profits in tax ly after 9/11. Even though the Bushites they are "flavoring" the meat! As a pork havens so they could dodge paying their failed to get Osama either "dead or alive," processor so insultingly put it: "This share of America's upkeep. However, the we were told that they had ousted the way we make sure consumers have a corporate chieftains decided they needed Taliban, put a new leader in place, and pleasurable eating experience, even if to bring these profits home, so Congress set that country on an inexorable path they do a poor job of cooking the meat." gave them a one-year tax holiday to to democracy. But wait—Afghanistan Well, first of all, meat is supposed to repatriate the money. Congress promised has now turned as messy as Iraq. The have its own flavor—what happened that this gross giveaway would be used Taliban is both resurgent and insurgent, to that? Second of all, there's nothing to build new factories and create jobs Bush's handpicked leader can't travel pleasurable about learning that watered- for America. But the "jobs" bill did not outside of the capital of his own country, down meat can cost more than... well, actually require profiteers to create a and the poppy fields—which sustain the meat. Third of all, at a time when single job in exchange for getting the tax Taliban with millions of drug trafficking America's doctors are calling on food windfall. So, rather than creating jobs, dollars—are flourishing again. Despite processors to cut the salt they've been many corporate beneficiaries have been the fact that poppy eradication has been adding to our meals, the "deep marina- shedding them. The latest was Intel, the a centerpiece of Bush's Afghanistan tion" process can quadruple the amount world's largest chip maker. It hauled policy, costing us taxpayers millions of of salt in poultry, beef, and pork. home $6.2 billion under the repatriation dollars, there was a 59 percent hike in Yes, says the industry, but, it's all up program and made a tax killing as a the acreage devoted to poppies this year. to the consumer, for we label the prod- result of Congress's amnesty. But, far "You can say it's out of control," said the uct with such language as "boneless from creating jobs, Intel announced head of the UN office on drugs. Indeed, chicken breast with up to 20 percent of that it was cutting some 10,000 from its the Bushites themselves have expressed flavoring solution of water, spices, sugar, workforce. It seems that its top executives alarm that Afghanistan is in danger of and phosphates." But New York Times have made a series of strategic blunders becoming a full-fledged narcotics state. reporter Marian Burros found that this over the last decade, causing financial After Bush & Company have spent labeling is either in teensie type—or problems for Intel. Once again, working $88.2 billion of our money and lost doesn't exist at all on the packages. stiffs pay for management's failures. The American lives there, the one clear Also, noting that today's industrial meat executives claimed that the firings were result is not a shining monument to doesn't have much taste to begin with, "essential to Intel becoming a more agile" democracy and peace—but a coun- Ms. Burros found the water-injected company. I'd say Intel is already pretty try at war with itself, largely ruled meats to be even more tasteless—unless agile. It picked taxpayers' pockets while by warlords and religious extremists, you count the salt. dumping 10 percent of its workers! ■ while currently supplying 92 percent of Visit your supermarket manager and the world's opium crop. The Bushites demand that your meat not be watered, Jim Hightower is a speaker and author. are incompetent losers. It's time to salted, and chemicalized. Seek out To order his books or schedule him for a stop blindly following bad leaders and local markets or meat producers who speech, visit www.jimhightower.com . To demand basic competence in the global don't have any injection needles laying subscribe to his newsletter, the Hightower effort to stop terrorists. around... and offer real meat to you. Lowdown, call toll-free 1-866-271-4900.

OCTOBER 6, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 15 ALE ONE Not Even a Back Sea BY EILEEN WELSOME

The Rick Perry campaign bus all photos by Jim Martin

ov. Rick Perry's cam- that is," he added mysteriously. the governor was booked for the next 77 paign bus looked , like Dripping Springs was the first stop in days. Subsequent calls.went unanswered. a gigantic Fourth. of the governor's first re-election campaign Ditto the e-mail messages. A month July firecracker as it bus tour. After Perry's speech there, the went by. One afternoon, I spotted the motored into Dripping entourage was going to Johnson City, information about the bus tour on a Springs. Painted a bril- Fredericksburg, Boerne, and Bandera. Web site and went over to Perry's cam- liant white and plastered with red and Though the humidity was already high, paign headquarters to book 'a seat. Black blue campaign stickers, it rolled to a I was looking forward to the day's events. was just escorting someone to the door, stop in front of Orgeron's Restaurant, As a new reporter at The Texas Observer, and I inquired about getting on the bus. and the doors wheezed open. Everyone I had drawn the short straw in what was Sorry, he responded in the same cheery in the parking lot craned their necks, shaping up to be a four-way governor's voice, explaining that the seats were expecting the governor to appear, but race. My candidate? Perry. No big deal, reserved for "local media." the only passengers who disembarked I thought, figuring a guy who had held Desperate to get a look at the flesh- were a few overweight politicos and public office for nearly two decades and-blood candidate, who seemed a couple of members of Perry's cam- would be easy to talk to. But the assign- pleasant enough on television despite paign team. "What they hell are they ment had turned into a vexing ordeal. his lackluster ratings, I decided to follow doing in there? Straightening his tie?" The first week on the job, I had called the bus in my car. _Filling the gas •tank muttered an old geezer standing next the governor's campaign 'spokesman, the night before, I thought about scrap- to me. He confided he was a regis- Robert Black, and inquired about the ing the "Get Out And Beat The Bushes" tered Democrat, but had .been voting possibility of an interview. Not a chance, bumper sticker off the rear of my car, Republican for years. "You know how Black responded cheerfully, explaining but figured what the, . heck.

16 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 6, 2006 In Dripping Springs, there appeared rednecky grammar. He's also an exercise a purty interesting factoid," he added. to be only one member of the local nut (runs, swims, and bikes) and has I thought it was a purty factoid, too, media on the scene—and he had driven the same low fat-to-muscle ratio. He's and checked the budget numbers with his own vehicle. A television crew from got the swagger too. Strutting back and Eva DeLuna Castro, a budget analyst at Houston had also showed up. They forth on the stage, pivoting on his black the Center for Public Policy Priorities, didn't seem to fit the "local media" cat- cowboy boots, he chopped the air with who said the governor was being a little egory, but Black had made an exception his hands, pointed skyward, gesticulated, disingenuous about the budget cuts, for them. grimaced, smiled. which he was required to make because While everybody was admiring the A shrink-government type and ardent of revenue shortfalls. "He's taking credit bus, Perry materialized behind us and conservative who believes in trick- for something he didn't ask for;' she said. climbed up on a flat-bed trailer stacked le-down economics, Perry touted the But Perry's figures on the job market with hay bales. Though he was known state's business-friendly economy, not- did check out and may have even been a in the press corps for never breaking a ing that 630,000 jobs have been created little on the low side, according to Bob sweat, he ran a hand over his forehead in the last three years. "Nothing tickles Crawley, a labor market analyst for the anyway—possibly an attempt to show me more than to call up Arnold and tell Texas Workforce Commission. solidarity with the perspiring mob— him, 'Well, we got another one of your Sounding like a Democrat, Perry went and said, "As soon as we're done here, I companies coming to Texas, thank ya:" on to boast about his accomplishments think I'm going to let it rain a little bit." Perry pointed out that he had vetoed in public education, including across- Wearing dark, expensive-looking $2.5 billion in proposed.spending in the the-board pay raises for teachers. True slacks, a white shirt, blue tie and cuf- state budget, six times more than all the enough, but education advocates say flinks, Perry looked like a trial lawyer. governors combined since 1978. "That's teacher pay in Texas is still abysmally But he took care of that image problem right away when a fan handed him a yellow T-shirt emblazoned with the message, "Keep Drippin Normal." He pulled the T-shirt on over his dress shirt and tie. Now he had a double layer of clothing, but he still wasn't beading up. "Those other folks can stay weird;' he said, referring to Austin liber- als, "but we're going to stay normal here in Drippin'." Perry apologized for his tardiness, explaining that he was running late because he had attended services for former Gov. Ann Richards, who had died several days earlier. "You know, Ann and I didn't necessarily share the same philosophy, but one thing I prom- ise you we did share was an abiding love for the great state of Texas. She'll be missed greatly?' On that somber note, Perry succeeded in quieting the crowd and demonstrating his compassion. Then he launched into an upbeat stump speech. "There's some people out there who think leadership is just talking the talk. Telling folks what they're against, instead of telling peo- ple what they're for. Making some big pie-in-the-sky promises without having down-to-earth price tags. That may pass for leadership in Massachusetts, but that don't pass the smell test in Texas." Perry sounded a lot like W: same cadences, same cowboy twang, same Gov. Perry helping to Keep Drippin Normal

OCTOBER 6, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 17 low, and $500 of the $2,000 pay hike was a restoration of a health insurance sti- pend that was eliminated in 2003. Perry also bragged about the property tax cut bill he signed into law, but neglected to say that any reduction in property taxes might well be offset by rising property values, a new business tax, a higher ciga- rette tax, and increases in state fees of all kinds, ranging from car titles and license plates to higher fines for drunken driv- ing to increased tuition bills. Taking a swipe at President Bush, the governor talked up his efforts to beef up security on the border. "I ordered the National Guard to help secure the Texas border a full six months before the president. With millions of dol- lars, we're putting more boots on the ground, more helicopters in the sky, more resources in the hands of the bor- der law enforcement officials so that we can stop illegal activities." Perry concluded his stump speech with a call for his supporters to join him in the campaign: "We need every one of you working for the Republican team, making the phone calls, hanging up the signs, knocking on the doors, telling your friends and neighbors to get out and vote, picking them up and taking them to the polls for early vot- ing if that's required. Are you ready to do that?" He went on like this until he got the crowd sufficiently lathered up, then leapt down from the stage and plunged into the boiling sea of supporters, hug- ging, squeezing, slapping a couple of people on the back so hard it sounded like gunshot. Several members of his security detail—sunglassed, humorless and expressionless—trailed him like white sharks. After 15 minutes or so, they hustled him into the air-condi- tioned plushness of the bus. On the way back to my car, it began to rain. At least the rain was one campaign promise I didn't have to check out.

otoring west toward Johnson City, we passed goat farms, horse ranch- es, wineries and shuttered peachM stands. When we pulled up in —continued on page 31 Rick Perry means business

18 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 6, 2006 —Ann Richards, continued from page 9 not commenting, which turned out to spend most of her time helping General and 59 percent female, including man- set the model for pols being asked about Motors, Apple Computer and other dis- agers. "youthful indiscretions." possessed citizens, but she was quite Her 1988 speech at the Democratic The fall campaign teeter-tottered proud of steering those deals where the National Convention "made her a star along, a real nail-biter with Claytie state gives a company tax breaks, free overnight?' as they say. Ann had told Williams helping out several times. Ann infrastructure, etc. The state's economy me years earlier, "You always think was running for "a new Texas?' as vapid did grow slightly faster than the nation- Washington and New York are going a slogan as has ever been dreamed al average in those years, but we had not to be so much harder. I mean, our up, and Claytie, with his good ol' boy thought she would be cutting tax deals

friends here all think we're wonderful, racism and sexism–he, never meant to with big corporations. The Observer but they're our friends, what do they offend a soul–kept defining "old Texas" was not ecstatic over her performance know? Actually, if you can do it in Texas, in the most helpful way. and, as I recall, rarely had much good to you can do it anywhere." Ann won on the women's vote: She say about her. In the meantime, she also The famous line, "born with a sil- carried it by almost 60 percent, includ- had to clean up the school funding mess ver foot in his mouth," was contrib- ing suburban Republican women. and the prison mess (what good liberal uted by Jane Wagner, who wrote Lily Her Inauguration Day was genuine- builds 60,000 new prison cells?). She did Tomlin's hilarious one-woman show, ly special—a crowd of Texans—white, put 14,000 beds into a prison alcohol The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in black and brown—marched from the rehab program. More than once she sat the Universe. Colorado River bridge to the Capitol. down with a circle of alcoholic convicts Ann's opponent in the 1990 elec- Henry Cisneros was holding his little and said, "My name is Ann and I am an tion was not Claytie Williams but Jim boy John Paul, and tears ran down alcoholic?' (Bush later cut the program Mattox, who was meaner and smarter. Henry's face as he watched her•speak. to 3,000 beds.) He finally dredged up some allegation Ann inherited a huge mess as gover- There was a split in the first term (actu- about cocaine use, and Ann, according nor. The state's economy was in the toi- ally dating to the campaign) between the to her campaign manager Glenn Smith, let—oil at $8 a barrel—and vast destruc- "Austin white boys" and "the lesbians?' was paralyzed by it. Among other things, tion left by the idiot follies of the S&L "The lesbians" (many of whom were not she was just embarrassed to have her scandals. I don't know that many of us lesbian) felt that some of the white boys parents hear about it. So she wound up who voted for her had expected Ann to had sat around Austin on their fat asses

Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Don Henley and "Little Joe" Hernandez serenade Ann at her 60th birthday party in 1993. photo by Alan Pogue

OCTOBER 6, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 19 have run like a racehorse. She really felt contempt for Bush and thought his ignorance and arrogance a danger- ous combination. Depending on how liberal you are (and this magazine is lily-pure), you could also get mad about Ann's lobbying career once she left office. When she was with the law firm of Verner, Lipfert, she actually lobbied for the tobacco companies. When I talked to her, it seemed to me more of a case of Ann getting paid for her political judgment, and she was right on every call she made. She told me the Senate had made a mistake by holding out for better than the attorneys' general agree- ment with the tobacco companies, and she was right. I'm glad she got to make money and photo by Ja,ua 13ircituni take the grandkids on cruises and the girls down the Grand Canyon and all drinking beer and shuld just step aside. needed was someone to force her to that good stuff. The most touching The guys felt the bossy bitches shuld stop at the end of the day. But she felt moment at a smaller service for Ann shut up. Despite some hard words, it under such pressure to run again—all came from Bud Shrake, known as Ann's was much ado about nothing: Glenn those people who believed in her, all "walker" when she was governor. Shrake Smith always felt that it was a struggle those women who were inspired by her. is not likely to spill sticky sentiment over who was going to be closer to One thing Ann delivered on was open- across an occasion. He said simply, "She Ann. Political campaigns are a perfect ing government to all the people. Her was the center of my life for 17 years. I hotbed for such rivalries, and when the record of naming blacks and Hispanics loved her. A-men. A-women. A-Ann." candidate is as attractive a personality as to state boards and commissions, of I think what she said most often in Ann, the question of who gets to hang working them into the bureaucracy so her life was, "Idn't it wonderful?" ■ out with her can become quite fraught they rise at their own pace, has not been with emotion. I never thought she was equaled since—not that Bush or Perry Molly Ivins is a nationally syndicated well served by her top staff, except Mary tried much. It was wonderful to see her columnist. Her most recent book with Lou Beth Rogers. appointees standing in line to see her as Dubose is Bushwhacked: Life in George She was also bedeviled by Bob Bullock, she lay in state at the Capitol. W. Bush's America (Random House). who was jealous of her: He got pissed The '94 race was the full tide of off because she hadn't backed him when Republican reaction. Newt Gingrich & he took a stand in favor of a state Co. had taken Congress two years earlier, income tax, a genuinely courageous and it was God, Gays and Guns. Naturally, The Texas Observer move. When Bullock got pissed, as he rumors somehow spread about Ann not infrequently did, he was awful. In and lesbians: She had appointed two BRAZOS BOOKSTORE this case, he passed a constitutional openly gay people out of 800 or so invite you to join us amendment against the income tax out appointments, but gay is gay. Ann had for an evening with of pique. Ann disappointed many liber- also said that if the Legislature passed als, but then, she was elected governor a right-to-carry law, she would veto it. SWANEE HUNT of Texas, not Sweden. They did, and she did. The NRA put on Director of the Women and Ann ran again after four exhausting a big push to convince her that we Texas Public Policy Program at Harvard years, and it was fairly apparent she women would feel ever so much safer if She will be discussing her new book didn't really want to do it. She had been we could just carry guns in our purses. working flat-out for the entire term. Ann said, when she issued her veto, "You Half-Life of a Zealot Although few people knew it, Ann had know I am not a sexist, but there is not A Memoir a form of grand mal epilepsy that could a woman in this state who could find a result in seizures: It was dangerous for gun in her handbag." Thursday, Nov. 9 • 7:00 p.m. her to get extremely tired. Ann pushed Had Ann been able to see just a 2421 Bissonnet St. • Houston herself so hard and what she really little further into the future, she would

20 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 6, 2006 POETRY I BY TERRY BARBIERI

EXILED TO SUBURBIA MY GOLDENHAR'D BROTHER

Houses, neat as dominoes, The right side of my brother's face is perfect. line the straight-edged streets. Tip one Blue eyed. Round cheeked. His lips curving and all would fall, their portrait cluttered walls easily into a smile. The left side, at birth, clattering to a halt. Here no one moves quickly. was scrunched. The lid sealing off the eye. The chin and cheek meeting in a sunken fold An August sun has gummed these lanes until a plastic surgeon removed to drag at children's soles. Their panting dogs one of Timmy's ribs to extend his jaw. guard moving spots of shade. Beneath their tongues, the grass puddles and greys. Now nine, Timmy can't hear from his deformed left ear, Cool beyond the curtained panes of glass, hidden beneath blond curls. Clairoled women add ice in instant tea and sit in dustless dens to drink alone. Doctors call his condition From here we cannot walk to shops Goldenhar Syndrome. They say it was probably caused nor visit over Kona in cafes. by Dad's exposure Our lawns and houses endlessly repeat; to the depleted uranium vagrant cats and mailmen wander dazed, fired by our soldiers during Desert Storm. feverish with déjà vu. I don't understand, after all that's happened,

No hedge grove maze could prove so hard to leave. how Dad can keep working at the munitions plant. The oval shrubs, the Ortho scented trees He says if he switches jobs, no new health plan dull the senses. The grid-locked fences will cover Timmy's pre-existing condition. carve and guard the mind. I think of all those veterans who returned when the Gulf War drew to an end, believing they had made the world a safer place for future sons and daughters. Unaware that they carried home, in their own chromosomes, tiny hibernating bombs, waiting to go off.

TERRY BARBIERI, a freelance poet and writer of fiction lives in Spring, Texas, with her husband, daughter, and an assortment of rescued animals: five dogs, two cats, a horse, and a donkey. Previously an ESL instructor to adult immigrants, Ms. Barbieri left teaching to run her husband's air-conditioning business by day and to pursue her writing by night. —Naomi Shihab Nye

OCTOBER 6, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 21 BOOKS & THE CULTURE The Incontinent Congress BY LOU DUBOSE fund the state's public schools. Republicans the administration's Yet the venal, the corrupt, and the dis- determination to pass the bill, although The Broken Branch: honest—remember Arlene Wohlgemuth House rules prohibit nonmembers How Congress is Failing the arguing that health insurance for indi- from lobbying on the floor. The bill American People and How to gent children infringed on the right was "debated" under a modified closed Get it Back on Track of poor parents to keep their children rule that prohibits amendments. The By Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. uninsured?—always surpassed the good. lobbyists who drafted and supported Ornstein A legislative system more corrupt, the bill had arrived at their positions Oxford University Press. compromised, and dysfunctional was through the K Street Project, a political 272 pages, $26 beyond my imagination. machine DeLay used to ensure that only Then I went to Washington to spend Republicans were hired by influential he cub reporter concluding a year following Congressman Tom corporate lobbying firms. his first day at the Legislature DeLay. As the morning dragged on with the was appalled by what he had It is with Majority Leader DeLay and vote count frozen at 215 yeas to 217 nays, witnessed: vacuous oratory, Speaker Denny Hastert's hijacking of DeLay threatened to sink the campaign ad hominem attacks, lob- representative democracy that Thomas of the son of Michigan Congressman byists buying votes, and a Mann and Norman Ornstein open their Nick Smith, who was retiring and sup- Tshoving match on the House floor. "If short, insightful book. They are spe- porting his son's effort to replace him. you think they're bad," said the cyni- cific. The act of hijacking begins at 3 Someone in the leadership apparently cal bureau chief, "wait `til you see their a.m. on November 23, 2003. Richard offered Smith $100,000 in campaign constituents." There's a certain received "Doc" Hastings announces from the cash if he would change his vote. Then wisdom in the timeworn newsroom speaker's chair that time for debate on DeLay went to work on Republicans joke. The men and women we elect rep- the Medicare prescription drug bill has Butch Otter and Trent Franks. They resent us and are probably representa- expired. "Members will have 15 minutes capitulated, changed their votes, and tive of us. to record their votes," Hastings says. other Republican representatives who As a reporter for this publication, I With this simple procedural step begins had just been phoned by the president thought I would never see anything as the most disgraceful public spectacle in fell in behind them. The gavel came base, corrupt, or outrageous as what modern congressional history. There down on a final winning margin of

I witnessed at the Texas Legislature. could be no better set piece with which 220 - 215. Chicken magnate Lonnie "Bo" Pilgrim to begin a book on the systemic failure The drug benefit vote even illustrated handing out $10,000 checks on the of Congress. the institutional failure in the Senate. floor of the Senate; Gov. George W. The prescription drug vote, extended After the bill was passed in violation of Bush promoting an emissions-control from 15 minutes to two hours and the House's canonical 15-minute limit bill drafted by a sludge-pit lobbyist; Ron 51 minutes, illustrates almost every on roll call votes, the speaker and the Wilson (in one of his better moments) institutional failure Mann and Ornstein chair of Ways and Means excluded criti- walking onto the Capitol steps in KKK discuss in a book that has already made cal Democratic senators from the House- drag; and 20 piss-wit House Democrats the Texas version of Oprah's Book Club: Senate conference committee. If House repeatedly voting for tort reform legisla- Former UT System Regent Bernard Republicans were the agents advancing tion paid for by the same interests that Rapoport's personal book distribution this particular fraud, Senate Democrats were spending millions to defeat them list. The bill was drafted by the were their passive collaborators, stand- at the polls. pharmaceutical lobby in collaboration ing silently as Minority Leader Tom I was also privileged to witness acts of with Republican members of the Ways Daschle was one of several Democrats courage and intelligence, such as Garnet and Means Committee. Democrats on barred from the conference committee. Coleman and Elliott Naishtat blocking the committee were shut out. It was a Mann, a senior scholar at the Bush's first attempt to privatize social major White House initiative, yet the Brookings Institute, and Ornstein, a res- services, Ernie Glossbrenner fighting Bush administration demonstrated its ident scholar at the American Enterprise for equitable school funding, Pete Laney contempt for Congress by refusing to Institute, use the 2003 prescription drug obstructing Bush's attempt to cut health reveal the cost of the program. Hastert vote to raise the obvious question: How insurance for children of low-income brought Health and Human Services did the Congress reach such a state of families, and Paul Sadler demanding a Secretary Tommy Thompson onto the dysfunction? system of taxation that would equitably House floor to impress upon reluctant They point out that the Republicans

22 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 6, 2006 who control the Congress weren't the take that led to the temporary closing of a "Clinton-hater." Once the Republicans first to bend the rules to the disadvan- many non-essential government offices. on the Judiciary Committee joined tage of the minority party. The authors Newt's legacy—beyond a bitterly the hunt, DeLay seized control and compare the Medicare prescription drug divided institution—lies in the reforms drove the House toward impeachment. vote to the day Democratic Speaker Jim he imposed upon the House Republican When DeLay's impeachment campaign Wright stopped the clock to salvage a Conference. resulted in the loss of Republican seats 1987 budget reconciliation bill. Wright Gingrich dismantled the committee in the 1998 elections, it was Gingrich had already violated House procedural system that had evolved in the decades who was forced to resign. DeLay had rules by sending the bill back to the following the revolt against Speaker Joe refused to allow the House to con- Rules Committee to remove a provision Cannon in 1911. He reduced committee sider censuring the president, even as that had alienated a majority of mem- staffs, diminished the authority of com- it was evident that the Senate would bers. Then he adjourned the House mittee chairs, and reached around rank- never vote to convict. "For both of and immediately reconvened to start on ing Republican committee members us," the authors write, "watching the the next day's business. Aware that he to promote his loyalists, ignoring the House go through the impeachment lacked the two-thirds majority required established seniority system. The chairs fandango against President Clinton in to bring the bill back to the floor on the he put in place were required to take 1998 marked the low point in our three- same day it had been defeated, Wright loyalty oaths, making them an extension and-a-half decades of Congress-watch- created a new day. of the leadership office. Gingrich also ing. We didn't think they could sink any When Wright found he was still one reserved a large number of desirable lower. We were wrong." vote short and out of time, he kept the committee appointments for freshman "Lower" was the nadir the House of vote open for 10 or 15 extra minutes, he helped elect in 1994. The result was Representatives would reach after Bush until Texas Democrat Jim Chapman a shift from a "committee-based process" became president. With a Republican was brought out of the cloakroom to to a "partisan leadership-based process." in the White House, Majority Leader change his vote. The Republican rep- Power that had been diffused among Hastert became a lieutenant carrying resentative from Wyoming at the time committee chairs was and remains con- out the orders of the president, rath- was Dick Cheney, who said Wright was centrated in the leadership. er than the leader of an independent CC a heavy handed son-of-a-bitch who The authors are properly critical of branch of government. Under Hastert doesn't know how to operate any other Clinton's reckless involvement with and DeLay, the Republican House gave way." Cheney declared Wright's twisting Monica Lewinsky and his subsequent itself over to George W. Bush, abandon- of the rules "the most arrogant, heavy dissembling about it. Yet they find the ing any sense of what the authors refer handed abuse of power I've ever seen response of the Republican Congress, in to as "institutional patriotism!' in the 10 years I've been here." Not only particular Gingrich's House, an institu- While they implemented the legis- was the statement a crude violation of tional failure. Gingrich lieutenant and lative agenda of their president, the House norms at the time, it stands as Judiciary Committee Chair Henry Hyde Republican House leaders abdicated a perverse historical contradiction of a began the process, bringing in an outside their responsibility to oversee the exec- White House that recognizes no limits staff prosecutor the authors describe as utive branch. "When the Republicans to its power. Cheney would file unrelat- ed ethics charges against Wright, which were later pursued by Newt Gingrich. ''vv,4010,-YANSMIN Gingrich, the architect of the Republican landslide in the off-year elections of 1994, fills a large space in the history of the modern Congress, and the authors recognize his importance. The history professor from Georgia was elected on his third try in 1978 and began leading a group of conservatives focused on overturning the Democrats. Gingrich funded and coordinated the off-year House elections in 1994, when Republicans picked up 52 seats. Yet he failed to implement the policy agenda outlined in his Contract With America, and was outsmarted by President Bill Clinton in the budget standoffs, in which Gingrich made the tactical mis-

OCTOBER 6, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 23 took control of Congress [in 1994], a routine authorization hearing. This Lowry have described as appropriations there was substantial aggressive over- was a hearing testing the very core "incontinence." sight—for the period when Bill Clinton reputation of the Defense Department The authors cite the work of Scott was president, that is—although the and the military. And they forgot the Lilly, who retired from the Democratic oversight of policy was accompanied key chart!" staff of the Appropriations Committee by a near-obsession with investigation Another egregious example of the and is a senior fellow at the Center of scandal and allegations of scan- Senate's failure to defend its position for American Progress. Lilly has stud- dal. But when George Bush became as a co-equal branch is the Republican ied "earmarks"—appropriations items president, oversight largely disappeared. majority's willingness to abandon the individual House members control—in From homeland security to the conduct filibuster—only to ensure that Bush's the highway bills enacted since 1956. In of the war in Iraq, from the torture judicial appointees are confirmed. The 1970 there were three earmarked high- issue uncovered by the Abu Ghraib rev- authors take on Senate Majority Leader way projects. The number went up to elations to the performance of the IRS, Bill Frist, who claimed in a USA Today 155 in the 1987 bill, "as many rank and Congress has mostly ignored its respon- op-ed that there is a 214-year-old tradi- file members demanded a piece of the sibilities. The exceptions—for example, tion of allowing every judicial nominee action?' After the Republicans became the bipartisan efforts in several areas by up or down votes before the Senate. the majority, the number of earmarks House Government Reform Committee "Why should George W. Bush's be treat- and their cost increased exponentially, Chair Tom Davis with his ranking mem- ed differently?" Frist asked. The threat starting with 583 in 1992, increasing to ber Henry Waxman—glaringly prove of filibuster unfairly kept Bush's judicial 1,850 at $9.5 billion in 1998, and most the rule." nominees from being brought up for a recently rising to "a jaw-dropping 6,371 Here I would take exception with the vote by the full Senate. In response, Frist earmarks, worth $23 billion," in the authors. While Tom Davis isn't as rabidly threatened to invoke what has come to 2005 bill. (Earmarks are not limited to partisan as previous government reform be known as the nuclear option, using a highway appropriations.) "Over the past chair Dan Burton, he rejects Waxman's straight-up vote, with the vice president 59 years there have been 9,242 earmarks:' requests for subpoenas far more fre- presiding over the Senate, to challenge according to Lilly's account. "Of those, quently than he allows them. When the filibuster—thus eliminating it as a 8,504, or 92 percent, have been inserted Waxman, a liberal Democrat from Los parliamentary mechanism that could be in the three highway bills enacted since Angeles, prevails, it is because he has used in other circumstances. Republicans took the House 10 years assembled a superior staff of investiga- "Here was the reality," the authors ago." It is not by accident that George tors that turns up information that respond. "For more than two hundred W. Bush holds the presidential record forces Davis' hand. years, hundreds of judicial nominees at of one veto in six years. He accepts an While not as accommodating as all levels had their nominations buried, appropriations process that is out of the House, the more narrowly divid- killed, or asphyxiated by the Senate, control as the price that two or three ed Senate also abdicated its constitu- either by one individual, a committee, generations of taxpayers will have to pay tional responsibility. One of Ornstein's or a small group of senators, before the to keep his party in power. Roll Call columns quoted in the book nominations ever got to the floor." The authors cover a great deal of serves to illustrate the Senate's failure to So we all now live with the Faustian ground in a book that is immensely oversee the executive branch. Ornstein bargain the Republican leadership of helpful to anyone puzzling through the describes a May 2004 Armed Services the Congress made with the president. systemic failure of the Congress. Yet Committee hearing at which Secretary Republicans on the Hill will do whatever general readers would have been bet- of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his is necessary to hold on to both branches, ter served by more anecdotal illustra- generals testified on torture in the Abu even if it requires surrendering the inde- tion of their technical arguments. For Ghraib prison. As Rumsfeld was telling pendence crafted by the authors of the example, they and Barbara Sinclair of the senators that the Pentagon staff had Constitution more than 200 years ago. UCLA have done fine work document- prepared a thorough briefing chart, one This new system of government divides ing the increased use of the modified of the generals interjected that they had power within the party, not among the open rule on the House floor. Lacking forgotten to bring it along. three branches. are accounts of how modified or closed "Oh my," said Rumsfeld. The systemic failure of Congress is rules have destroyed the deliberative For Ornstein, Rumsfeld's "Oh my" best illustrated by what appears to be process. When a bill comes to the floor response to leaving the critical piece of a tacit agreement between it and the under modified rules that allow no evidence across the river in Arlington president regarding appropriations. amendments, the minority and any defines the relationship between the Bush will not interfere with the pork- opponents of the bill are irrelevant. two branches. barrel appropriations the congressional Representative democracy becomes "Could anything more clearly dem- majority requires to remain in power, what Massachusetts Democrat Barney onstrate the contempt this depart- and the result is what conservative Frank describes as "plebiscitary democ- ment has for Congress? This was not columnists Kate O'Beirne and Rich racy." The leadership writes the bill, and

24 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 6, 2006 members, denied the opportunity to —Murray, continued from page 11 Anglo-dominated neighborhoods in the improve it, vote "yes" or "no." and other [GOP funders] won't put any northern part of the district. It's another Mann and Ornstein disabuse readers more money into it. The Republicans one of these 10 or 12 districts around of the notion that the Republicans are are the Fort Apaches. Their neighbor- the state that were drawn by a very, very only taking to excess what Democrats hoods are shrinking. They are dying off. clever gerrymandering map in 2001, did for 40 years. Wright, described as They are moving out. but they decay over the 10 years of the a student of legendary Speaker Sam Census. The state House races are the Rayburn, tampered with the process, TO: What about Hubert Vo's race, where one place Democrats have a real shot of adding 10 to 15 minutes to the House former state Rep. Talmadge Heflin is try- making lemonade out of lemons from clock on one occasion. Hastert and Frist ing to get his old seat back? redistricting plans. have destroyed it. Gingrich described RM: I think this time Vo wins hand- himself as a transformative figure. He ily. Heflin does not have much money, TO: Are the demographic and political was. Before he collapsed under the and 2006 is not as good a year for changes in Houston a model for the rest weight of a $1.5 million ethics scandal Republicans as 2004. The Vietnamese of the state? and his failure to anticipate voter reac- community is larger. The Anglo com- RM: Countywide, I'd look at Dallas tion to the impeachment of Clinton, he munity is smaller. I just think it plays County. Dallas is a smaller county geo- transformed Congress into something out as again, reasonably competitive, graphically. It's half the size of Harris far less than what it was when he arrived but my guess: Vo wins with 55 percent and mostly built out. The demographic in 1978. this time and sort of puts that district to shifts there are much more dramat- What's to be done? bed going forward. ic. Democrats, if they don't sweep the The authors understand that quick county this time, are certainly going "reforms" enacted to address symp- TO: Is another potential for a Democratic to be doing so in a few years. Harris toms—such as measures aimed at pickup in the statehouse the race to replace County, bigger, with more new land the sort of corruption most recently Republican be Nixon? to develop, is somewhat behind the associated with Congressman Randy RM: First the disclaimer: My son Keir is curve. Most of our voters now are in "Duke" Cunningham and lobbyist Jack running [Democrat] Kristi Thiebald's the big metro areas. You have some Abramoff—aren't adequate. Congress campaign over there. It used to be a infilling in the close-in neighborhoods is unlikely to fix itself. They see some terrifically Republican district. In 1984, near downtown, where land values have hope in a more disciplined Democratic I think Reagan got 82 percent in that gone up. Lots of people want to live Party opposing the current majority, or district. But every presidential elec- there because of the commutes and cul- a presidential candidate with the cross- tion shows the Republican vote steadily tural attractions. But those new infillers, over appeal of a John McCain produc- dropping because, again, Anglos are while they are affluent, are not nearly ing a president who would be "more moving out, blacks, Hispanics, folks as reliably Republican as the people inclusive, less partisan, and less divisive from around the world are moving in. that move out into comparably priced than we have seen in recent years." And John Kerry, a pretty weak candidate, homes on the perimeter, such as they do they argue that a repudiation of the got 44 percent in that district. And if in Williamson County, Denton County, Republicans at the polls might "trim the you reran the election this time around, or Montgomery County. So having a party's ideological sails and diminish he might actually carry it. With no lot of these new inner-urban residents, the degree of polarization, while giv- incumbent, it's going to be the second Democrats can live with that. But they ing Democrats the self-confidence and most competitive district here, I think, get the big bonus in the huge donut incentive to work for policy change!' after the Martha Wong-Ellen Cohen around this inner-urban gentrification In the end, the most powerful agent of race. [Republican] Jim Murphy has zone, where the Anglo voters are mov- change they see is an electorate that will been elected to the community college ing out. And it's the subtraction of rise up and turn out the incumbents— board, so he has some political experi- Anglos more than the addition of par- the constituents we can only hope are ence. The Democratic candidate has not ticularly Hispanics that puts these areas better than the men and women they been elected, but she has been politically increasingly into play. ■ have put in charge. active. They are attractive candidates. It's not likely that help is on the way anytime soon. ■ TO: Are Democrats rerunning the LETTERS TO THE EDITORS Hochberg program for that race? Lou Dubose is a former editor of The RM: That district is kind of half Texas Observer. His Random House book way between the Vo district and the 307. W 7th Street Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking Hochberg district, literally and demo- Austin, TX 78701 (with co- of the American Presidency graphically. It has a lot of apartments [email protected] author Jake Bernstein) will be released in like Hochberg's in the southern half, mid-October. but it has the more stable and still

OCTOBER 6, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 25 BOOKS & THE CULTURE Dreams of Dominion BY DAVE DENISON dream of the movement is the restora- the mobilization of voters and activists, tion of an imagined Christian nation," not just against gay rights, but against Kingdom Coming: The Rise of she writes in Kingdom Coming. The the scourge of homosexuality itself; the Christian Nationalism dream entails more than winning a few battles waged against local governments By Michelle Goldberg battles here and there against abortion over evolution vs. "intelligent design"; Norton and gay marriage, or for the right to say the creation of a federal government 224 pages, $23.95 "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. "gravy train" for churches engaged in The ultimate goal, Goldberg reports, is faith-based social services; the use of American Theocracy: The Peril dominion. "The movement is built on a taxpayer funds toward ineffective "absti- and Politics of Radical Religion, theology that asserts the Christian right nence" programs rather than promot- Oil, and Borrowed Money in the to rule. That doesn't mean that nonbe- ing contraception; and the campaign 21st Century lievers will be forced to convert. They'll of right-wing activists against "judicial By Kevin Phillips just have to learn their place." activism" as they seek a takeover of the Viking Does theocracy in America seem court system in the name of conserva- 462 pages, $26.95 improbable? Goldberg concedes that tive Christian principles. we are probably "not yet close." And Even for those who know, in broad merica has never suc- she is aware that by paying attention to outlines, that all this religious agita- ceeded in building the views of outright theocrats on the tion is a fact of our current public life, a wall of separation political fringe, a journalist runs the risk Goldberg's reporting can inspire more between church and of sounding shrill or hyperbolic. than a few "Jesus H. Christ!" moments. state. It's been more But the case she makes, which is never I balked when she referred to the diver- like a rusty, chain-link shrill and only occasionally hyperbolic, sion "of billions of taxpayer dollars" Afence, poorly maintained and full of is that there are a lot of influential to "sectarian religious outfits" under gaps. Christians involved in politics who do the Bush administration. Billions? Well, And as anyone who has spent time not believe in democracy as we have yes. In March 2005, Goldberg notes, with a certain kind of activist Christian come to know it. On the margins are President Bush told a conference of knows, there is a viral theory going "Christian Reconstructionists" who religious leaders that the federal gov- around that says the founders of believe they are called to establish a ernment had doled out $2 billion in American democracy never intended to Bible-based republic that will rule in grants to faith-based groups. The year put up a wall, or even a fence, between the name of Christ for a thousand years before, it was $1.17 billion. Goldberg government and religion. All across the before the Second Coming. Only a frac- doesn't deny that a lot of ministering to land, young Christians are taught in tion of American fundamentalists may people in need is being done, some of it home schools, and in churches, and in share this theology, and yet not too by groups like Catholic Charities that activist-training programs that church- many steps removed are the views of have historically taken a mostly secular state separation is a myth. The founders televangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry approach to social services. But a good were godly pilgrims who envisioned a Falwell. Another half-step, and you've deal of the money also went, Goldberg Christian nation, not a secular society in got the Texas Republican Party, which contends, to "small religious organiza- which students are prohibited by court famously declared in its 2004 platform tions that put evangelism at the cen- order from praying in school. that the United States "is a Christian ter of their work" and are allowed With the elevation of George W. Bush nation." And from the loins of the Texas to openly discriminate against non- to the presidency and with a pliant Republican party sprang ... the current Christians in hiring. Some of it went, as Republican Congress in Washington, Bush administration. well, to programs run by the Rev. Sun not to mention a federal judiciary being When the networks of affinity become Myung Moon's Unification Church. stacked with more and more conserva- as extensive as they have in recent years, And a full accounting of all this spend- tive judges, there are good reasons to the result is a government that begins ing is impossible to produce, Goldberg monitor the many breaches in our fence to act as if the interests of Christian writes, because "the faith-based initia- of separation. For journalist Michelle churches are the interests of us all. tive is structured in a way that makes Goldberg, each incursion takes us closer What's good for the Southern Baptist it incredibly difficult to track where all to the transformation envisioned by Convention is good for America. the funds are going." a growing movement she aptly calls Goldberg looks at five key areas of Of course, the true believers can Christian nationalism. "The motivating Christian nationalist muscle-flexing: always be counted on to say the

26 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 6, 2006 'America is full of good people,' Goldberg writes, 'but something dark is on the loose.'

damnedest things. Goldberg's forays places, and they have significant con- society. I can only imagine the perplex- into the gatherings of religious-right trol over a lot of financial matters ity with which such Christian utopians activists led to conversations you just and some political matters. They would regard poor Michelle Goldberg, don't get living the cloistered life of have a disproportionate amount of a self-described "secular Jew and ardent the urban sophisticate. Give the author influence in our financial structure." urbanite" who admits she finds the credit for getting out there. Here she whole thing terrifying. Goldberg keeps is meeting up with two members of a Goldberg talks with people devoted turning to Hannah Arendt's 1951 work, group that brought former Alabama to "destroying Darwinism" and listens The Origins of Totalitarianism. Under Judge Roy Moore's exiled Ten to preachers who warn that same-sex the influence of Arendt, she finds Commandments monument to a rally in marriage signals "the annihilation of a "totalitarian elements" in the Christian front of the Texas Capitol. The founder civilization." She attends conferences nationalist movement, particularly in of the group, Jim Cabaniss, complains with activists who bristle at the very "its attacks on decadent internal enemies" that "People who call themselves Jews notion of "safe sex." (As one abstinence and in statements like this one from represent maybe 2 or 3 percent of our educator declared, "I will not teach my best-selling author Tim LaHaye: "We people. Christians represent a huge child that they can sin safely.") It would must remove all humanists from public percent, and we don't believe that a be easy enough to play such material office and replace them with pro-moral small percentage should destroy the for laughs, but Goldberg isn't interest- political leaders." values of the larger percentage." ed in lampooning. Her book portrays "America is full of good people," a nation of interconnected churches, Goldberg writes, "but something dark I asked Cabaniss, a thin, white- foundations, and activist groups—and is loose." haired man who wore a suit with of ambitious, charismatic preachers a red, white, and blue tie and a U.S. allied with Republican operatives. This evin Phillips would not dis- Army baseball cap, whether he was is the rise of Christian nationalism, and agree. In his sprawling book saying that American Jews have too it requires us to ask what kind of nation American Theocracy, Phillips much power. "It appears that way," we will have if the movement keeps K finds a lot of dark forces on he replied. "They're a driving force growing. the loose. behind trying to take everything to The question itself might seem a joy- Reading Phillips, one can't help but do with Christianity out of our sys- ous one to those caught up in the rapture be struck by what a difference four tem. That's the part that makes us of it. What kind of nation? One blessed decades makes. very upset." by God! A nation returned to the righ- When he began work in 1966 on teous path, rid of the evils of humanism, the book that became The Emerging Ed Hamilton, who'd come to the materialism, and sexual deviance. Even Republican Majority, it was only two rally from San Antonio, interjected, nonbelievers, surely, would enjoy the years after Lyndon Johnson's landslide "There are very wealthy Jews in high benefits of living in an upright, moral victory over Barry Goldwater. But

OCTOBER 6, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 27 Phillips looked into the future and saw specter of theocracy that worries Phillips. (newer readers are that a backlash against civil rights legis- He says in his preface that a country as lation would lead Southern voters into large and diverse as America "goes about a new Republican coalition. By the time as far in a theocratic direction as it can SMART the book was published in 1969, it was when it satisfies the unfortunate criteria also clear that leftist revolutionaries in on display in Washington circa 2005: PROGRESSIVE the streets would further alienate middle INVOLVED Americans from liberalism. Phillips was An elected leader who believes him- one of the architects of Richard Nixon's self in some way to speak for God, a INFLUENTIAL victory in 1968, and when Nixon won re- ruling political party that represents election resoundingly in 1972, Phillips' religious true believers and seeks to GOOD LOOKING thesis of a new Republican majority in mobilize the churches, the conviction presidential politics looked prescient. of many voters in that Republican When Republican strength was con- Party that government should be 39 are (5'1 erver aaverasers r solidated in the Reagan years, it was guided by religion, and on top of it confirmed. all, White House implementation of But once the Republican major- domestic and international political ity was firmly in place, Phillips didn't agendas that seem to be driven by much like what he saw. He decried the religious motivations and biblical Get noticed by Texas Observer economics of the Reagan years in The worldviews. folks all over the state and nation. Politics of Rich and Poor (1990) and assaulted the alliance of both presidents n his final chapter, Phillips sug- Let them know about your Bush with the corporate elite in Wealth gests that "Evangelicalism under bookstore, service, restaurant, and Democracy (2002), and American George W. Bush probably expand- non-profit organization, event, Dynasty (2004). Now, in American political candidate, shoe store, coffee ed to levels of adherence and belief Theocracy, he surveys the effects of 40 I house, boutique, salon, yoga that it will be unable to sustain much studio, law practice, etc. years of mostly Republican rule. The further into the twenty-first century." question his book poses is whether the Look what happened when the other United States is heading for the fate of great powers went through periods of other empires that have crumbled in a religious fervor and then came to grips heap of hubris. If so, he says, the GOP with not being God's favored people. coalition he once championed "will Spain, Holland, and Britain today are share in the ignominy." irreligious. "Organized religion did This is really three books rolled into not profit from the great disillusion- one, and only the middle third is about ment when the various chosen peoples the influence of the religious right. turned out not to be," he writes. "It is Phillips sees three perils to American not hard to imagine something simi- power in the 21st century: an ener- lar happening in the United States by gy economy and foreign policy that 2030 or 2040 as two or three decades of requires a doomed "petro -imperial- cynicism claim religious as well as eco- ADVERTISE ism;" a rise in conservative Christian nomic and political victims." IN power that has turned the GOP into Most of the time it is hard to imagine THE OBSERVER! "America's first religious party;" and the America transformed into a land of tol- transition from a productive, manufac- erant, laid-back, nonbelievers. Instead REASONABLE RATES • GREAT EXPOSURE turing-based economy into one dom- of "the Texification of America," as inated by a "debt-and-credit indus- Phillips describes recent American Ca11 512-477-0746 and ask for Julia Austin trial complex." The author's analysis politics, it would be the Eurofication or e-mail [email protected] turns time and again to the factors that of America. The United States would caused the decline of imperial power take its place as an equal to Britain, in Rome, in 17th century Spain, in Spain, and the Netherlands. Dreams of keg, 06seruer recOersr 18th century Netherlands, and in Great dominion would have to be abandoned. Consider advertising your business Britain after 1914. In each case, Phillips But look on the bright side: We could or non-profit in the Observer. sees parallels—imperial overreach, fer- still try democracy. ■ vent religion, and precarious debt go GOOD FOR YOU • GOOD FOR THE OBSERVER arm in arm with decline. Dave Denison is a former editor of The Despite the title, it isn't really the Texas Observer.

28 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 6, 2006 BOOKS & THE CULTURE Desert Vision BY JAMES HOGGARD Hard Country: Poems We see in Christensen's By Paul Christensen Thorp Springs Press 94 pages, $15 verse what we saw in or more than 30 years, Paul Christensen has William Carlos Williams: an been a prominent voice in Texas letters. An inde- engagement with the world, fatigable critic, strong poet, and radio host for anIF interview program, he has defined an embrace of art that some major literary concerns associated with his adopted state. In his criticism, he has given a range of vision that goes synthesizes ... the political far beyond that of many of his contem- poraries. He is also an award-winning and the aesthetic. writer of short stories. The poems of Hard Country make up his most recent- ly published work and present his read- ers with a thoroughly realized journey that begins at a point noticeably beyond geography of nature or spirit. In some mystery, he refers to himself in "Hiking that slurry described by so many small ways—its energies transcending self, At Burrito Canyon" as a "spectral / voices in a lot of contemporary poet- then recreating a newly transformed self walking stick on his way to God." ry. Going into the beautifully severe whose voice is consistently and deserv- The collection includes surprising rigors of West Texas desert country, edly strong—the collection renews an turns toward elegies and odes. What Christensen finds a complex of imagery observation Christensen makes about emerges is no retreat toward the archaic, and ideas that gives him access to what childhood perceptions that operate "at but a seasoned sense of craft and a depth one ought to acknowledge right away as the dizzy edge of learning." of understanding that lets Christensen a vision of experience. Embracing memories associated with sometimes operate as social critic as In dealing with the difficulties of the joys and griefs and mysteries of well as observer. In "Ode: On Growing powerful stonescapes, he shows he has family life—his father, mother, broth- Older," his voice is oracular and moving achieved genuine maturity as a poet. ers, son, and daughter—Christensen and informed by recent history. "The There is nothing surprising in that. conveys a sensibility that is authorita- Hutus," he says, "raid another Tutsi / Christensen has, for years, been the gen- tive enough to transcend the irritations village, killing everyone, hacking off the erator of rich ideas and engaging imag- of anxiety and the unrewarding points heads of caribou and dogs, and no one ery. In his latest collection, he composes of privacy that have characterized the / in my children's generation protests / a music equal to the strength of his work of many of his contemporaries. to the world." Rather than being smugly subject matter. Numerous uses of asso- This record of a journey into various accusatory, however, he adds bitingly, nance, for instance, amplify the internal kinds of desert, the hard country, is not "They're at the mall / and I'm at home rhymes and half-rhymes that polish the record of an escape; it is the source idling over my checkbook." Time and his phrasing and intensify the reader's of finely realized art. Christensen has a again we see in Christensen's verse what attention to it. His voice conveys an fully convincing voice when thinking we saw in William Carlos Williams: an elegance that comes from his ability to about the effects of the desert (both engagement with the world, an embrace bring poem after poem into a justifiable on himself as well as on a figure like of art that synthesizes, at a dependably order. Its music is not decorative, but a the theologian and mystic Meister high level, the political and the aesthetic. sign of well understood possibilities of Eckhardt). From his perspective the That in itself should command our symmetry whose source is the imagi- desert conveys presence in absence. attention; we have had so few examples nation rather than a sweetly ordered Including himself in the traditions of of that kind of excellence in variety. A

OCTOBER 6, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 29 • notable exception would be the master- is notable about Christensen's attention stone pile once a town, tanks rolling ful work of B.H. Fairchild. to craft is his ability to be precise in his / over broken dressers, tables laid for Another poem in particular—"Self- poetic effects. He does more than glance supper / and no one left to eat the Portrait In A Trash Can Lid"—con- at interesting subject matter and then food." In spite of these horrors and veys Christensen's sharply honed criti- let his phrases stay approximate. As numerous others in his Whitmanlike cal sense with an ability to find the numerous fine poets have done through list, there rises a simple gesture of fantastic in the ordinary. Slyly allusive, the centuries, he links the rough with hope: "Everyone cringing at the sound he also mocks the witty self-centered- the smooth, the informal with the for- / of planes, the sudden thud of mortar ness of John Ashbery and numerous mal. That tying-together of seemingly / falling on a nearby hill, or was that others who seem to find self-attention disparate concerns sparks his phrasing thunder?" more promising than it likely is. A con-- memorably. Even in dealing with traditional con- temporary figure whom Christensen's An even more subtle stirring of power cerns about mortality, Christensen sees sensibility would seem comfortable through allusion rolls like drumbeats synthesis more than separation, the rise with is Mark Strand, who often wittily at the close of "In The Garden," where of a new order rather than the aggra- parodies self with enthusiastic journeys the repetition of the phrase "put down" vating dissolution of an old one. This into the surreal. Listen to these phrases nods effectively toward Ezra Pound's is movingly present in "What Aging from Christensen's "Self-Portrait": "I paean against vanity and cry for integ- Is," where the spirit of reconciliation— can see where my eyes / should be, two rity in Canto 81. Christensen knows full in this case son with father through dark planets where the liars / live." In well—and demonstrates in his judicious memory—includes the past that lives the closing stanza, he imagines himself use of it—that allusions can marshal a in one with what at first seems to be strolling down a street adorned with wealth of forces to clarify meaning, not a disruptively vivid shock of humility. matter from the trash can: obscure it. What characterizes this new "Someone is coming to the surface," the collection is a bigness of voice and a speaker says, "someone inside me whom My feet shod in melon rinds, finely tuned critical sense. / I fought against for years." The closing my fingers adorned in cocktail In "My Summer Afternoons," lines of this deeply felt and finely ren- onions, Christensen extends his politically dered poem is worth quoting as a coda my tie a spine of catfish studded poetic range with a survey of disasters for the entire book: with blue bottle flies. in the world: "Now it's Darfur's time to run / with blood, Janjaweed machetes That flabby smile is mine now. I wear The long i's in rinds, tie, spine, and flies blazing in the grass," then "Not faraway his eyes, are so close together they create an ... bloody stumps from war along the god damn it, I even have his ugly echoic effect through assonance. What pipeline in Nigeria," and "Jenin? That ears. Aging has weakened my resolve against him; I am a haunted house in which his ghost roams freely, sharing my breath and blood.

The deserts that Christensen has visited have done to him and for him what they have often done for other people with sizable sensibilities. They have lifted him beyond the limits of an old self and freed him for the possibilities of a new self that includes the past as intensely as it opens itself to the richness of the sub- lime strangeness of new vistas that one discovers one is already exploring. ■

James Hoggard, author of 17 books and Perkins-Prothro Distinguished Professor of English at Midwestern State University, was recently given the Lon Tinkle Award for excellence sustained throughout a career by The Texas Institute of Letters.

30 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 6, 2006 —Perry, continued from page 18 front of the courthouse, Perry was one of the first to disembark and was now wearing pressed Wranglers and a short- sleeved, khaki shirt. The crowd was much smaller here, consisting mostly of law enforcement types, and Perry kept his speech short. Since there seemed to be no media at this stop, I felt embold- ened to ask Black if I could join the group. He shook his head, cheerful as ever, and said, "I think we'll just leave it like it is." Everybody piled back into their vehi- cles. We passed more goats, sheep, and horses, as well as a lot of wild ani- mals, such as porcupines and rabbits, that had been flattened by the mon- 'ster trucks and SUVs that clogged the If horses could vote... bucolic Hill Country roadways. On one stretch of the highway, two farmwork- was not all sweetness and light. In the a camel, according to the San Antonio ers straddling a lawn mower paused park across the street from Ye Kendall Express -News. (Hoping to witness a little respectfully while the red-white-and- Inn, where Perry was giving his fourth unscripted action like this myself was blue bus passed. The wind knocked stump speech of the day, a small group one reason I had badgered Black.) both their hats off. of demonstrators was protesting the Bandera, the so-called cowboy capi- At Hondo's restaurant in governor's plan to build a network of tal of Texas, turned out to be the most Fredericksburg, about 100 people gigantic toll roads. "We'd like to send festive whistle-stop of all. Members of turned out. Though they seemed to a message to Gov. Rick Perry that we the Bandera High School band and be mostly white, pudgy people over don't want any toll roads in Texas. We the Bandera Posse were on hand to the age of 60, they were the governor's don't want the Trans-Texas Corridor greet the governor. Perry stroked the base, and he delivered his speech with either. We're very against foreign own- noses of the horses, gave a subdued gusto; repeating his remarks about ership, and we don't like the fact that "yee haw," then ducked into the China Ann Richards ("We didn't always these highway contracts are being done Bowl Restaurant. For the fifth time that agree philosophically"), his dig at in secrecy," said Byron Juen. A fellow day, he launched into his stump speech, Massachusetts ("That don't pass the protester named Carol also had unkind delivering his lines like they had just smell test in Texas"), and his line about words for the governor: "I'm a U.S. citi- popped into his head. Perhaps it was the Gov. Schwarzenegger ("Nothing tickles zen and a taxpayer. He's just a crook." proximity of the horses, but for some me more than to call up Arnold..."). A man hauling his household goods reason he had begun sounding like an Then it was back to squeezing shoul- in a flatbed trailer gave them a thumbs- extra from "Brokeback Mountains' "Pie" ders, slapping backs, shaking hands. "I'm up. But one of the Republicans exiting became "paaah." "For" was "fer." And glowing," Maria Oliver said later. "He's the rally taunted them mercilessly. "Toll "sky" stretched into "skaah." just the most handsome man I've seen them all! Toll them all! It's great driv- In the middle of his speech, the res- in a long time. My gosh, it's no wonder ing through Texas!" he shouted out his taurant's phone began to ring. No one he gets the woman vote." window. seemed to know what to do, and the By the time the shindig was over, I When he finished his speech, Perry damned thing wouldn't quit. The owner was starved and pulled into a store on indulged in a leisurely chat with a cou- started for the kitchen, then hesitated, Main Street to grab some food. But ple of people on the front porch of the thinking perhaps it was rude to walk I had to abort the mission when I inn. The protesters across the street con- out on the governor. After five or six spotted the bus in my rearview mirror. tinued to chant at him and wave their rings, Perry detoured from his script. Traffic was bumper to bumper on Main signs up and down, but they could have "Somebody pick up the phone!" he said. Street, and for the first time that day, I been grackles for all he cared. "It might be an order!" When the laughter got dropped from the motorcade. But Maybe all the hugging, handshak- died down, he added, "That's economic Boerne wasn't far away. I pushed in a ing, and talking were getting to Perry, development:' With that, he owned the CD and cruised through the country, because somewhere between Boerne house. Come November it looks like enjoying the smoky blue hills. and Bandera, he got down on all fours voters could give him a new lease on the ' When I got to Boerne, everything on the floor of the bus and imitated governor's mansion as well. ■

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