APRIL 4, 2008 I $2.25 I OPENIN,9tHE EYES OF TEXAS FOR FIFTY THREE YEARS

War of the Wells The Railroad Commission has failed to protect Texans from pir 60,vvt, drillers, so citizens ar fight back on their 9w By RUSTY MIDDLETO

Despite its own scientists* objections, state regulators are greenlighting a massive nuclear waste dump in West Texas, ) 1Z,RFS 1 \\'1[ 1 )ips

e**A'AutatAtikanp,,,,,,,, APRIL 4, 2008 Dialogue The Texas Observer A CRY UNHEEDED victims navigate the legal system in FEATURES Laela Threadgill was my sister, and the process of obtaining protective this article ("See No Evil;' March 7) orders, divorces, child support, and WAR OF THE WELLS 6 explains everything. Emily, you are an additional resources. Through our The Railroad Commission has failed to amazing writer, and more messages unique Legal Access to Rural Shelters protect Texans from oil and gas drillers, like this need to be brought to peo- initiative, TRLA works closely with so citizens are learning to fight back ple's attention to let them know how shelters in our service area to provide on their own. unprotected women really are. Laela domestic violence victims with legal by Rusty Middleton was extremely afraid. I remember one assistance from the moment they seek time she stood outside the police sta- outside help. GOOD TO GLOW 10 tion calling for help, but no one came We strongly encourage people need- Despite its own scientists' objections, state to help her! ing legal assistance in the Austin area regulators are greenlighting a massive Megan Threadgill to contact us at 512-374-2777. More nuclear waste dump in West Texas. via e-mail information on our services and con- by Forrest Wilder tact information for our other offices BITE BACK! 16 MEMORY LANE is available at www.trla.org. How Americans can reclaim their food. An I really enjoyed the piece about the Kevin Dietz excerpt from Swim Against the Current. early years of the ACLU in Texas ("The Texas RioGrande Legal Aid by Jim Hightower with Susan DeMarco ACLU in Texas—The Early Years," Austin March 7). DEPARTMENTS Such glimpses into the history of GRINGO MADE GOOD progressive activism in a regressive Mr. Hoinski writes in a way that just state like Texas are fascinating. The pulls you into the music and wraps DIALOGUE 2 fact that people have been willing to you up in the border tensions that face

EDITORIAL 3 struggle against such difficult odds is many in Texas ("Tear Down the Wall," 7). reassuring, and somehow offers hope March As an Hispanic American, POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE 4 that we may one day emerge into the it's nice to see a "gringo" like Mr. 20th century. The 21st century may Hoinski really get into this important BOOKS & THE CULTURE remain beyond reach for some time issue. I'd love to see more from him in yet. the Observer. POETRY 20 Bill Cowan Daniel Galaburda by Jorge Antonio Renaud Beaumont via e-mail

SINO EYES 21 Thanks, Dave Richards, for helping NO WALL HIGH ENOUGH This year's FotoFest explores the ironies us remember those who have made a Excellent report, Melissa del Bosque and intricacies of China. difference ... including you! ("Holes in the Wall," February 22). by David Theis Tom Green Thank you for pointing out the finan- via e-mail cial and political innuendos, and THE RIGHT WAY, RECLAIMED 26 for punching holes in the myth that by Emily DePrang MORE HELPING HANDS this wall was spearheaded by people Texas RioGrande Legal Aid who care about illegal immigration. AFTERWORD 29 commends The Texas Observer for Couldn't our tax dollars be spent more by Michael Erard its recent look into the resources wisely than having so much money go available for victims of domestic toward a wall? Cover photo by Steve Satterwhite violence in the Austin area ("The Safe Allissa Chambers Place," March 7). Victims of domestic via e-mail violence often face numerous legal difficulties in separating from their Thanks for your excellent article on abuser, protecting their children, and the border fence. I hope some national rebuilding their lives. TRLA is proud to newspaper picks up the story to make offer its services, both in Travis County it more widely known. and throughout Central, South, and Bob Baker West Texas, to help domestic violence Los Angeles, California

2 THE TEXAS OBSERVER APRIL 4, 2008 74311TOR1 AL Fool's Gold

I 'm coming to you as an opti- What that means is that sometime in In other ways, of course, soldiers die, mistic fellow," George W. Bush May, many of us will get a $600 check which is less exciting, as 4,000 American announced at the Economics from the government, and if we're patri- families and counting have learned the Club of New York on March 14. otic, we'll buy ourselves new washing hardest way possible over the last five Most economists agree the machines or espresso makers. (If we're years. Or soldiers return home physi- country is already in a recession. smart, we'll put a down payment on cally disfigured or mentally scarred, or Many believe we may be on the precipice that new, 85-mile-per-gallon Chinese both. Even here, there's apparently cause of an economic depression, just steps scooter; oil prices spiked to more than for optimism, for as Bush asserted in removed from a run on the banking sys- $106 a barrel the day the president a Pentagon speech on March 19, "The tem. At the same time, we've just passed a acknowledged the slowdown.) surge has done more than turn the situ- macabre milestone—the five-year mark— That's the president's short-term solu- ation in Iraq around—it has opened the in the war in Iraq. Intelligence analysts tion: a homeland cash surge built on door to a major strategic victory in the agree that al-Qaida has regrouped and debt and designed to push a stalled broader war on terror:' is growing stronger. These are President American economy over the speed Unfortunately, we can't all indulge in Bush's likeliest legacies. bumps of a mortgage industry in melt- Bush's rosy outlook. That luxury, as F. But the president refuses to blink. down, skyrocketing gas prices, a credit Scott Fitzgerald knew, "is the content of This could be because he is steadfast crunch, and a belly-flopping dollar. small men in high places." and positive of outlook. Or it could be But don't be downhearted. The presi- Maybe Bush is already—in his mind's because, as Oscar Wilde formulated in dent isn't. As Bush clarified on March eye—enjoying a comfy retirement, col- The Picture of Dorian Gray, "The basis of 18 to an audience of dockworkers in lecting high-dollar speaking fees or tee- optimism is sheer terror:' (Thus an opti- Jacksonville, Florida, "... I want people to ing up at a Dallas country club. He will mist, as lexicographer Elbert Hubbard understand that in the long term we're not have any trouble paying the mort- defined it, is nothing more than "a neu- going to be just fine. People will still be gage on his ranch or keeping Crawford's rotic fellow with gooseflesh and teeth able to work." ATV fleet gassed up. No children of his a-chatter, trying hard to be brave.) For example, people might look for will die in this war. He can afford the "It's clear our economy has slowed," jobs with the military-industrial com- luxury of assuming something good the president bucked up and acknowl- plex, a sector promising almost limit- will turn up. For the president, some- edged on March 7, "but the good news less growth, not to mention glamour. thing always has. If it doesn't, say, for is, we anticipated this and took deci- (The president told military personnel the rest of us, that won't be his problem sive action to bolster the economy, by in Afghanistan via video conference on for long. It will fall to the unfortunate passing a growth package that will put March 13, "It must be exciting for you person who takes the presidential oath money into the hands of American ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, of office in January 2009 to try to fix workers and businesses." you know, confronting danger:') Bush's mess. ■

THE TEXAS OBSERVER I VOLUME 100, NO. 7 I A Journal of Free Voices Since 1954

Founding Editor Ronnie Dugger James McWilliams, Char Miller, The Texas Observer (ISSN 0040-4519/ paid. Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk CEO/Executive Publisher Carlton Carl Debbie Nathan, Karen Olsson, USPS 541300), entire contents copy- rates on request. Microfilm available Executive Editor Jake Bernstein John Ross, Andrew Wheat righted ©2008, is published biweekly from University Microfilms Intl., 300 N. Managing Editor Brad Tyer Staff Photographers except during January and August Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Associate Editor Dave Mann Alan Pogue, Jana Birchum, when there is a 4 week break Publisher Charlotte McCann Steve Satterwhite between issues (24 issues per year) Indexes The Texas Observer is indexed Associate Publisher Julia Austin by the Texas Democracy Foundation, in Access: The Supplementary Index to Circulation Manager Sandra Beckmeier Contributing Artists a 501(c)3 non-profit foundation, 307 Periodicals; Texas Index and, for the Art Director Leah Ball Sam Hurt, Kevin Kreneck, West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. years 1954 through 1981, The Texas Observer Index. Investigative Reporter Melissa del Bosque Michael Krone, Gary Oliver, Jim Marston, Mary Nell Mathis, Telephone (512) 477-0746, Toll-Free (800) 939-6620 Poetry Editor Naomi Shihab Nye Doug Potter Gilberto Ocanas, Jesse Oliver, POSTMASTER Send address changes E-mail observer®texasobserver.org Copy Editor Rusty Todd Bernard Rapoport, Geoffrey Rips, to: The Texas Observer, 307 West 7th Editorial Advisory Board Staff Writer Forrest Wilder Geronimo Rodriguez, World Wide Web DownHome page Street, Austin, Texas 78701. David Anderson, Chandler Davidson, Marketing Asst. Robby Brown Sharron Rush, Kelly White, www.texasobserver.org. Periodicals Dave Denison, Sissy Farenthold, Editorial Intern Leah Finnegan, Brad Ronnie Dugger (Emeritus) Postage paid at Austin, TX and at addi- Books & the Culture is funded Briggs, Tobias Salinger Lawrence Goodwyn, Jim Hightower, Sr.. tional mailing offices. in part by the City of Austin Kaye Northcott, Susan Reid In Memoriam Contributing Writers through the Cultural Arts Nate Blakeslee, Gabriela Bocagrande, Texas Democracy Foundation Board Molly lvins, 1944-2007 Subscriptions One year $32, two years Division and by a grant Robert Bryce, Michael Erard, Mary Margaret Farabee, Bob Eckhardt, 1913-2001 $59, three years $84. Full-time stu- from the Texas Commission James K. Galbraith, Melissa Jones, Cliff Olofson, 1931-1995 dents $18 per year; add $13 per year on the Arts. Steven G. Kellman, for foreign subs. Back issues S3 pre-

APRIL 4, 2008 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 3 POLITICAL It:ATE:WOE Rk CE Hate on the Rise

A MOMENT OF SCIENCE The religious science. Its latest charge is to develop York or Braveheart. Kids count, too—a right is one seat away from a majority on a new high school course about the must-see for them is Gods and Generals, the State Board of Education. The funda- Bible in literature and history. House Bill but only after they've finished their mentalists have been waging a creation- 1287, by Pampa Republican Rep. Warren homework. Murrah recommends that the ist-abstinence-only jihad over textbooks Chisum, requires the Bible course to be League's children be home-schooled and and curriculum standards for the past ready for classrooms by 2009. follow a curriculum based on books by decade. Last month, the Texas Freedom Asked by the Dallas Morning News League member and evangelical pastor Network, a nonprofit that bird-dogs the whether the board will explore adding J. Steven Wilkins. religious right, released its 2008 report intelligent design—creationism—to the While Murrah glorifies the South, he on Texas schools and the state board. state's science curriculum this year, doesn't mean south of the border. "I have The report is a warning to those who board member David Bradley had this frequently asked that the laws concern- might be concerned that the board is one to say: "If some of my associates want ing protecting our borders be enforced," member away from debunking evolution to believe their ancestors were monkeys, he said. The League earned its berth on and advocating medieval chastity belts. that is their right. I believe God is respon- the hate list for its position on illegal Currently the 15-member board sible for our creation ... Given that none immigrants. holds eight moderate Republicans and of today's scientists were around when The Center's Intelligence Report has Democrats, and seven fundamental- the first frog crawled out of the pond, documented a surge in anti-immigrant ist Republicans. Besides a loathing of there is no one who can say exactly what hate groups, added to the roster because evolution and sex education, the group happened." Two moderate board candi- they target individual immigrants rather of seven has something else in com- dates, Mary Helen Berlanga of Corpus than immigration policy. According to mon—religious conservative sugar daddy Christi, a Democrat, and Pat Hardy, a Potok, anti-immigration sentiment is uni- James Leininger, who has contributed Republican from North Texas, fought off versal among hate groups. Hate groups more than $200,000 to their campaigns. more conservative opponents during the "have profited very greatly from the The board wields significant clout. It primary in March. Berlanga still faces a debate on immigration as it has become decides on the textbooks for 4.3 mil- Republican opponent in November. more and more rancid," Potok said. lion Texas schoolchildren. Along with Texas has only one group on the California, Texas sets the schoolbook LONE STAR HATERS Texas has the Center's list that is focused solely on standard for the nation because of its second-highest number of hate groups immigrants. Members of the Livingston- size. This year the board will also revise in the country with 67, according to a based Border Guardians live in such all the state's curriculum standards, recent report by the Southern Poverty profound fear of terrorist immigrants including biology and environmental Law Center. California leads all hater that their Web site (www.borderguard- states with 80 groups. ians.org ) peddles body armor. Protection ADVERTISEMENT Mark Potok, the Center's Intelligence comes at a price: the Kevlar ballistic vests Project director, defines a hate group start at $199. as any organization that, in its platform statement or the speeches and writings PAYBACK TIME FOR WEST It was HACKED! of its leaders, declares another group of bound to happen. The well-documented people as lesser. Sports blogs are not and heated rivalry between Midland and High Tech Election included. neighboring Odessa has extended to poli- Theft in America Jeff Murrah, Texas state chair of the tics. Odessa state Rep. George "Buddy" League of the South, wishes the center West is running for a ninth term in the Learn why YOU will NOT be selecting would tighten its parameters regarding Legislature. Hindering West's re-election the next US President. This hate group designation. The league, clas- chances is his opposition—tepid though fascinating book exposes the truths sified as "neo-Confederate" by the law it may be—to the state rep from Midland, about taxpayer swindling, election center, has offices in Austin, San Angelo, Tom Craddick, who also happens to be stealing, electronic voting machines, lredell, and Tyler. On its Web site, www. speaker of the Texas House. and offers solutions to save elections. texasls.org, Murrah encourages members West, who faces an April 8 runoff for HTTP://HACKEDELECTIONS.COM to understand and support the plight of the GOP nomination, has represented the South by celebrating Jefferson Davis' Odessa in the Legislature for 15 years. birthday and watching Gangs of New Craddick has served Midland for nearly

4 THE TEXAS OBSERVER APRIL 4, 2008 ..›. for 76 days. His crime? Four years later, VAIIK‘Vmm.Km Yee, now resigned from the military, still doesn't know. "The charges of capital crimes were dropped, and I was honor- ably discharged," he says. "But I still don't know why my rights as a U.S citizen were stripped by the U.S. government." Yee, 39, who converted to Islam after graduating from West Point, spoke on March 29 at the University of Texas School of Law about his persecution at the hands of his own government. "My goal is to educate people about the reali- ties of Guantanamo and the erosion of our civil liberties," he told the Observer. Despite his exoneration, Yee's e-mails are still being monitored. He suspects his phone is also tapped. The govern- ment seems to know about his activities almost as quickly as he does. "I had been planning a trip to England, and an FBI agent asked me if I was going overseas," he says. Yee says the FBI confiscated all of his personal belongings after he was 40. Word at the Capitol is that the two— to overthrow Craddick at the end of last arrested in 2003. "I meet with an FBI like the cities they represent—have never session. agent periodically, and they release been especially close. One is a gruff, Then there's the usual flow of GOP some of my stuff," he says. "I recently retired oil engineer who comes from campaign money—or in West's case, got back my computer, and it had been blue-collar, hardscrabble Odessa, home lack thereof. It's no secret that Craddick ripped open." to oil-field workers and roughnecks. The has a big say in which candidates get Kristine Huskey, a professor at the other is a deal-making, get-his-way busi- big checks from the richest Republican UT Law School, helped bring Yee for nessman from well-to-do Midland, home donors. West hasn't received contri- the university's speaker series. Huskey of oil company owners. It's no wonder butions from the usual megadonors, has served as legal counsel for sev- these two would mix like oil and ... well, though they haven't contributed to his eral detainees in Guantanamo. Like Yee, you know. opponent, either. He's also received scant Huskey says she is certain the federal The well of animosity deepened early money from political action committees government taps her phones. "A lot of in the 2007 legislative session when in Austin (the exceptions being the oil my calls get dropped," she says. Marc West opposed Craddick in the speaker's and gas and real estate industries), an Falkoff, a Chicago lawyer who spoke at election. West voted with challenger Jim indication that much of the lobby doesn't the Rothko Chapel in Houston earlier Pitts, a Waxahachie Republican, on the want to cross Craddick. this month, said he is party to a law- key roll call—a record vote that has unof- In fact, West's opponent, former state suit with several other lawyers who ficially become Craddick's enemies list. District Judge Tryon Lewis, had out- represent Guantanamo detainees to West has retroactively claimed that raised West by $99,332 to $58,896 as determine whether their e-mails and he never formally opposed Craddick's of early March, according to campaign phones are being monitored. "I believe re-election as speaker. To back this up, finance filings. the NSA has been monitoring my e- Pitts recently told reporters in Odessa a If Lewis wins, the political rivalry in the mails and phone for some time," he said. bizarre story that West voted with Pitts Permian Basin may be shortlived. Lewis As with previous government spying only because Pitts' son, who is close with already has pledged his support in the scandals—COINTELPRO surveillance and West, asked him. speaker's race to Craddick. infiltration in the 1950s and 1960s, and Whatever. You needn't drill down too the Central American solidarity move- far to find the truth. Pitts recently BIG BROTHER CALLING In 2002, Army ment break-ins in the 1980s—it may be came to Odessa to campaign on West's Chaplain James Yee went to Guantanamo decades before the American people behalf along with three other rebellious Bay to serve his country and ended up learn how badly their right to privacy has Republican House members who tried blindfolded and manacled in a Navy brig been violated. ■

APRIL 4, 2008 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 5 David Fredrick (far right) counsels Wise County residents on how to fend of oil and gas drilling. eighbors say they move in quickly. Suddenly a tall, garish, mechanical contraption belch- ing fumes and noise dominates the neigh- borhood. Heavy trucks pound the streets. War of the These are the signs of the drilling rigs that are spreading across Texas. Depending on howISI much oil and gas lies beneath the ground, they can stay for a few months or years. High demand, combined with Wells improvements in drilling technology, is making it cost effec- tive to go after the last deposits. In 2000, there were 7,974 The Railroad Commission has failed wells completed in Texas. By 2007, that number had nearly to protect Texans from oil and gas doubled to 14,247. Industry observers have taken to calling it a "stampede," and drillers, so citizens are learning to prospecting drillers are bumping up hard against an expand- fight back on their own. ing Texas population. Protests and lawsuits are increasing. Almost everywhere there is intense oil and gas drilling these days, citizens' groups have formed to fight pollution, safety, By RUSTY MIDDLETON and proximity problems. These groups include people like Evie Corso and her hus- Photos by CHRISTINE MIDDLETON band, who bought a home in a subdivision just outside the northwestern city limits of Fort Worth. They were dumb- founded when a "mechanical monster" moved in next door. The machines infiltrated the neighborhood and stayed for about two months. Just a few feet from Corso's back fence squatted a 120-foot drilling derrick surrounded by tanks and huge service machinery. A roaring generator poured out

6 THE TEXAS OBSERVER APRIL 4, 2008 "What we have been directed to do by the Legislature is make sure that our rules help get as much hydrocarbon out of the ground as possible." Railroad Commission Chair Michael Williams

black diesel exhaust. The groaning, chugging, clanking sounds former private detective Jim Popp, contested the Railroad of machinery could be heard day and night throughout her Commission's permitting of a drilling waste disposal well subdivision. Heavy industry had transformed a quiet neigh- near their property. To no one's surprise, they lost. Most such borhood. permits are routinely granted. As of February 2008, there were "We don't sleep that much with all the lights, metal-on- 30,416 active injection and disposal wells in Texas, according metal sounds, and beeping vehicles. Sometimes the walls of to the Railroad Commission. our house vibrate," Corso said before the machines left. "I have Where many may have given up, the Wise County residents asthma and moved here from California for better air quality, just kept fighting. The case went through the commission's and now my asthma's back because of the fumes." appeals process and state district court, all the way to Texas' Corso was helped and encouraged by Fort Worth Citizens 3rd Court of Appeals, where, to almost everyone's surprise, the Against the Drilling Ordinance, or FWCanDo. The group residents won. In December '07, the court ruled the Railroad fights an onslaught of thousands of gas wells planned within Commission had "abused its discretion" when considering the city limits of Fort Worth. FWCanDo pressured the Fort the public interest. The court ruled that the commission's Worth City Council to keep the rigs away from people's houses long-standing rationale for granting such permits—that the with setback rules, but there's not much the city could do for public interest was best served by facilitating oil and gas Corso, who lives outside its limits. The Texas Legislature has production—was too narrow. It ordered the commission to consistently defeated efforts by counties to gain control over reconsider the case and broaden its interpretation of public land use. As to regulating oil and gas activity; that's the sole interest to include public safety. According to David Frederick, province of the Texas Railroad Commission. the environmental attorney representing the group, it is too The commission has three missions, according to its Web early to tell how this decision will ultimately affect commission site: "[S]tewardship of natural resources and the environment; decision-making (the commission is appealing). Nevertheless, concern for personal and community safety; and support of the appellate court delighted the citizen's group and its many enhanced development and economic vitality for the benefit spin-offs, and the individuals fighting injection wells and other of Texans." intrusive oil and gas activities. Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams let homeowners "People all around North Texas were whooping and holler- know where they fall on the list at a jam-packed public meet- ing when they heard the news," said Popp. In the long interval ing on drilling issues in Nacogdoches in April 2007. Williams, between the beginning of the fight and the December '07 court whose campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry decision, Popp became a kind of itinerant evangelist, preach- far exceed contributions from any other regulated industry, ing about the danger of disposal wells and the scant protection said, "What we have been directed to do by the Legislature is the Railroad Commission offers the public when problems make sure that our rules help get as much hydrocarbon out of arise from oil and gas operations. the ground as possible. If the Legislature wants to also tell me, Popp received a measure of vindication last November, `Mr. Commissioner, look at how much hydrocarbon you can when the Fort Worth Star-Telegram documented problems get out of the ground and consider other issues, I'd be more with injection wells in northern Texas. Among its findings, than happy to do that." the paper reported that after citizen complaints, commission Williams also told the crowd, according to participants, that inspectors finally looked at a 30-by-80 foot pit of oil and pro- the commission wouldn't and couldn't do anything about noise duction water at a disposal well in Parker County. The com- and loss of property value. (Williams did not respond to an mission reported: "Usable groundwater in the area is likely to Observer request for comment.) be contaminated by migrations or discharges of saltwater and The statement confirmed what many had suspected: The other oil and gas wastes from the subject well." Railroad Commission was not going to help them. They were Near Chico in Wise County, saltwater and drilling wastes going to have to help themselves, and in Nacogdoches and came bubbling out of the ground after a disposal well mal- other places across Texas, that's what they have been doing. functioned. And near Boyd, also in Wise County, the paper Recent citizen activism against oil and gas drilling really reported that high pressure discovered in four natural gas took off in Wise County, near Decatur, in 2005. The Observer wells indicated a disposal well nearby could be leaking first reported on this story and some related activism in East underground. Texas in 2006 (see, "What Lies Beneath:' May 19, 2006). A subsequent story by the Star-Telegram on a poll of It began when a group of Wise County residents, led by residents of Johnson and Wise counties, conducted by a Sam

APRIL 4, 2008 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 7 just how porous it can be underground, gas was found to be venting through earth fissures and abandoned oil-well bore holes for a mile around the blast site. The fire lasted for days and burned about a square mile of property before air tankers finally managed to extinguish it. In light of the accidents and increased production, more communities began to organize, educate themselves, and fight back. In the small town of Era, north of Denton in Cooke County, neighbors discovered that a waste hauling company had bought nearby land and applied for a waste disposal permit on the site. Not only did the well pose a potential threat to groundwater, the tiny roads in the vicinity would be crowded with hundreds of tanker trucks hauling in the waste. Led by Donna Fleming, a professor at the University of North Texas, friends and neighbors formed a community group, raised money from bake sales and barbecues, hired a lawyer, and fought the permit at the Railroad Commission. Until recently, a 120-foot drilling derrick stood just a few feet from Evie Corso's Dozens of Cooke County residents, including their county back fence. commissioner, made repeated trips to commission hearings in Austin to testify against the well. At press time, the case remains unresolved. Further south near the towns of Cleburne and Stephenville, there was a "firestorm of protest against proposed dis- posal wells," said community activist Bill Gordon. More than 800 people sent letters of protest to the commission. Republican State Rep. Sid Miller and the entire Erath County Commissioner's Court joined them. As a result, several dis- posal well permits were denied, but the battle continues over others. For example, Dena Day, an accountant in Cleburne, and her family have spent $250,000 trying to stop a disposal well that was drilled nearby and upstream from property that has been in her family since the late 1800s. That case remains unresolved. There are many other such fights across Texas, often involv- ing polluted groundwater from oil and gas operations, such as in Panola County on the Louisiana border. After an Observer story, the Panola County issue, which involved polluted drink- ing water in a poor African-American community, got some national media attention in The New York Times, but more Railroad Commission candidate Dale Henry often such problems receive only local interest. It wasn't until the drillers started work in Fort Worth that the tension Houston State University professor, found residents thankful between the oil and gas industry and the public became a for the economic boost that oil and gas had given their com- major media concern. munities, but apprehensive about the "social costs." There are about 1,000 gas wells currently within the city limits of Fort Worth, and about 1,500 more on the way. hile the overwhelming presence and scale of oil "Eventually, they will run out of space to drill," said David and gas drilling and related activities alarmed Lundsford, a gas well inspector for the city of Fort Worth. The people, accidents and fires began to really scare intensity of this drilling activity has "ripped this community W them. apart," said Don Young, a Fort Worth native and glass artist In January 2003, a flash fire occurred near Rosharon, south who became angry when he found out the city planned to of Houston, when workers from BL SR Operating Ltd. were allow drilling rigs near Tandy Hill Park, just across the street unloading drilling waste by-product into a well. Three workers from his house. "We moved here because of this park," Young were killed, and four were severely burned. In 2005, there was said. "When I heard the city was going to allow gas wells on a dramatic explosion at a gas well near Mineral Wells, fol- top of the hill above the park, I decided I've got to do what lowed by burning of natural gas through fissures in the earth I can to stop this." of the half-acre crater created by the blast. Demonstrating Young began to educate himself about gas drilling and

8 THE TEXAS OBSERVER APRIL 4, 2008 "We'd like to see legislation that disposal wells not be allowed over aquifers. We tried to get that last session, but they rejected it." became increasingly disturbed by the prospect of thousands "questionable," according to their report. of wells being drilled so close to so many people. He started Frustrated by the lack of oversight from the Railroad speaking out publicly. His anti-urban drilling Web site eventu- Commission, many communities are looking to groundwater ally attracted hundreds of people to his Just Say No To Urban conservation districts to protect their water. First formed to Drilling Campaign. Fort Worth now has a moratorium on limit the sale and export of groundwater from rural areas, new disposal-injection wells within the city limits, partly as at least two of these districts in North Texas—Middle a result of his group's (FWCanDo) activism. Trinity Groundwater Conservation District and Hemphill Fort Worth and at least two other municipalities have used Underground Water Conservation District—are already using their ordinance authority to pass setback requirements for their limited authority to protect their water from oil and gas drillers. The 600-foot setback distance within the city of Fort operations. When drillers apply for disposal permits in their Worth has been criticized as much too close, but at least there districts, these groundwater districts oppose them, forcing is an enforceable setback. The Railroad Commission regulates the permit into a costly and time-consuming hearing. Then only spacing between rigs, not proximity to homes. The dearth they tell the drillers they will withdraw the opposition if the of protective regulations focused on people, and a perception drillers agree to water quality testing and monitoring. Still, if among affected communities that enforcement of existing contamination is detected, all the district can do is report it regulations is weak have made the Railroad Commission a to the Railroad Commission. focus of public ire. "Our ratepayers are getting charged twice," said Joe Cooper, Oil and gas drillers in Texas have relatively few restrictions manager of the Middle Trinity district in Stephenville. "First, on their activities—from drilling to pipeline construction to they have to pay to support the commission, and then they use of compressor stations, to heavy trucks, storage and col- have to pay the district to do what the commission should lection facilities, and waste disposal injection wells. Nor is be doing. Nobody feels certain that these things are being there much regulation on where they place their equipment. constructed properly. We'd like to see legislation that disposal For example, with minimal exceptions for hazardous materi- wells not be allowed over aquifers. We tried to get that last als, pipelines can be built virtually anywhere without regard session, but they rejected it." for proximity to houses. On a federal level, the oil and gas The same issues are also occurring in other states where industry has been exempted by Congress from the Clean Air there is intense oil and gas drilling, and some have come up and Clean Water acts. Even drilling wastes, known to be full with progressive solutions. Recently the states of Colorado of dangerous chemicals, have been exempted from classifica- and New Mexico passed precedent-setting legislation that tion as hazardous. creates the first sets of standards and rules protecting sur- The priorities and "ineffectiveness" of the Railroad face owners from the oil and gas industry activities. On a Commission deeply disturb Dale Henry, a petroleum engi- federal level, the House Oversight and Government Reform neer and former owner of a company that for many years Committee held hearings in October 2007 on the threat that plugged wells for the commission. He is in a Democratic oil and gas drilling poses to groundwater. That investigation primary runoff for a chance to take on Republican incumbent is ongoing. ■ Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams. Henry describes the commission as the "most dysfunctional organization I Rusty Middleton specializes in writing about natural resources and have ever known. The commission was always understaffed, the environment. He can be contacted at [email protected] . and many of the employees they have are untrained and inexperienced." The Railroad Commission has about one inspector for every 2,751 wells, although not all wells are on an annual inspection cycle. Henry said inspectors never verified the work he was doing, such as pouring the appropriate amount of cement into a www.planetktexas.com well, "because it costs too much to check it out." According GROWNUP GIFTS FOR KIDS OF ALL AGES to Henry, operators commonly and easily avoided even AUSTIN (512) NEW STORE minimal oversight by scheduling work when commission NORTH SOUTH RESEARCH E. RIVERSIDE STASSNEY 832-8544 443-2292 502-9323 441-5555 707-9069 personnel were off duty. Petroleum engineers hired by Dena SAN ANTONIO (210) NEW STONE ft/ Day in her permit dispute looked at the cementing work on EAST MILITARY CENTRAL WEST SAN MARCOS the injection well drilled near her property, and found it to be 654-8536 333-3043 822-7767 521-5213 (511)3924596

APRIL 4, 2008 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 9

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,141Vtaitk.47 Canisters of radioactive waste awaiting burial at the Waste Control Specialists site Courtesy of WCS Good t o Despite its own scientists' objections, state regulators are greenlighting a massive nuclear waste dump in West Texas. ow By FORREST WILDER

10 THE TEXAS OBSERVER APRIL 4, 2008 n February, hundreds of government regulators "Considering our political and businesspeople gathered in Phoenix for "Waste Management '08," the annual radioactive waste indus- support, considering our try confab. Amid the swag and schmoozing, industry local support, if a new insiders appraised the state of their business. The good news: The nuclear industry appears to be rebounding facility cannot be licensed in Ithe United States, providing potentially huge new radioac- in Texas it probably can't tive waste streams as planned reactors come online. The bad news: The number of landfills for burying low-level radioac- be licensed anywhere." tive waste is dwindling. One of the oldest sites, in Barnwell, South Carolina, will close to all but a handful of states on July Waste Control Vice President 1. That will leave 36 states, including Texas, with no place to send the radioactive waste generated by their nuclear power Bill Dornsife. plants, universities, hospitals, and companies. Since 1980, when the federal government delegated to the tal organizations and secure final approval from TCEQ for states the task of dealing with low-level radioactive waste, the second license, its remote site in Andrews County would not a single new landfill has opened. Ten attempts have been become the repository for commercial nuclear waste from made by states to develop one. The congressional Government Texas, and also Vermont as part of a "compact" between the Accountability Office estimates that the failed efforts in devel- two states. A loophole in state law, however, allows the state oping sites cost a combined $1 billion. compact commission, an oversight board appointed by Gov. The industry largely blames public opposition. "We just Rick Perry, to contract with other states and compacts for didn't get kicked out of South Carolina," said Steve Creamer, waste disposal. "For political reasons, we don't want anyone to CEO of Utah-based EnergySolutions Inc., the company that come knocking on the door until we get this up and operating, runs Barnwell. "We got brutalized and kicked out of South but I think there are some capabilities there Dornsife told his Carolina." Phoenix audience. Creamer estimated that the United States' 104 commercial Federal radioactive waste, mostly the leftovers from the U.S. nuclear reactors would generate 117 million cubic feet of waste government's atomic weapons program, is the most lucrative over their collective lifetimes. Federal nuclear facilities under of the waste streams contemplated by the company. In 2003, as decommissioning orders will produce millions more. Where part of Waste Control-backed state legislation that authorized will it all go? privatized radioactive waste disposal in Texas, the Legislature A subsidiary of Dallas-based conglomerate Valhi Inc., Waste granted companies like Waste Control the right to dispose Control Specialists LLC was in Phoenix to make the case that of Cold War-era federal waste as well as waste generated by it was on the verge of doing what no other company has been states. able to do—license and build a massive radioactive waste "[W]e just had to get the state law changed:' said Rod Baltzer, landfill. Waste Control president, at the conference. It probably didn't "Considering our political support, considering our local hurt that Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons owns Waste support, if a new facility cannot be licensed in Texas, it prob- Control through Valhi. Simmons is one of top campaign con- ably can't be licensed anywhere said Bill Dornsife, a Waste tributors to the state's Republican leadership. Control vice president. The new landfills would join Waste Control's expanding By early 2010, Waste Control officials told the conference- waste portfolio, all of which are clustered on the company's goers, the company hopes to begin disposing federal and state 1,338-acre site in Andrews County, near the New Mexico state radioactive waste at two adjacent Texas landfills in Andrews line. The company's radioactive waste treatment and storage County. All the company lacks are two final licenses from the plant opened in 1997. The license for that facility is "very Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. One, known unique Dornsife said, because it allows for "unlimited storage informally as the "byproduct license would authorize the time, and we could go to unlimited [radio]activity." disposal of 3,776 canisters of radioactive waste from a closed, There's also the hazardous waste landfill. Half of that dump Cold War-era processing plant in Fernald, Ohio, as well as mill is actually filled with radioactive waste, material the state has tailings from the Texas uranium mining industry. TCEQ has deemed "exempt" from radioactive disposal standards. The issued a draft license for the byproduct dump. company's efforts to broaden the exemptions are ongoing. The second license would allow the company to bury low- "[D]isposing of radioactive material at [hazardous waste] pric- level radioactive waste from federal and state sources, includ- ing is extremely cost-effective Dornsife said. ing nuclear reactors, weapons programs, and hospitals. With In their conference presentations, Baltzer and Dornsife failed both licenses, Waste Control could bury more than 60 million to mention the problems the company has encountered with cubic feet of waste over the span of 30 years, more than half worker exposure to radiation. And while Baltzer admitted that the volume of the new Dallas Cowboys stadium. the licensing process has been "brutal:' he didn't detail the rift If Waste Control can repel legal challenges by environmen- it has created within TCEQ between scientists and engineers,

APRIL 4, 2008 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 11 According to Waste Control, a ventilation system wasn't working properly, allowing plutonium and americium particles to escape into the lunchroom and adjacent hallways. who stridently object to Waste Control's plans, and agency processed. If that were the case, the actual doses might be much upper management that wants to approve the licenses. higher than company reports indicate. The audit notes that a preliminary review by John Poston Sr., n March 2005, Waste Control began processing radioac- a professor of nuclear engineering at Texas A&M, "suggested tive waste from the Rocky Flats plant, a site in Colorado WCS employee doses were ... seven times greater than the WCS- that manufactured plutonium triggers for the United assigned employee doses, but still below regulatory [limits]:' The States' Cold War-era hydrogen bomb program. On June agency has declined to release Poston's complete findings. 2, 2005, while processing this waste, a worker known in state The TCEQ audit also criticized Waste Control for waiting documents as Number 67 at Waste Control's mixed waste facil- months to suspend operations after it learned employees had ity was wounded on his leg by a piece of contaminated metal. been exposed. "It is my opinion that WCS management did not The company tested the worker's urine and feces, and found act in a timely manner in their decision to suspend operations elevated levels of two plutonium isotopes, as well as americium- until the source of the intakes could be identified!' wrote Sheila 241. Later in June, an independent expert determined that the Meyers, a TCEQ chemist who authored the audit report. Baltzer worker had probably inhaled the radionuclides. Over the next said the company began testing workers as soon as possible, few months, as processing of the Rocky Flats waste continued, and temporarily closed the facility once conclusive lab results the investigation expanded to include eight of Number 67's co- were received. workers. All but one tested positive for low levels of radionu- The radioactive contaminations were in large part prevent- clides, including one employee who hadn't worked at the mixed able, the audit noted. Waste Control acknowledged in a report waste facility for three years. On September 22, Waste Control on the incident that testing employee fecal samples could have management decided to suspend operations at the mixed waste caught the exposures sooner. That failure to test may be partly facility and expand the testing to virtually all employees. the fault of state regulators. In 2003, the Department of State In all, 43 individuals had been exposed to plutonium and Health Services dropped a requirement that Waste Control test americium, company testing showed, according to documents employees' feces annually for the presence of radionuclides. uncovered by the Observer. According to Waste Control, a Instead, the analysis could be "performed at the discretion of ventilation system wasn't working properly, allowing plutonium the [company's] radiation safety officer!' and americium particles to escape into the lunchroom and Four male workers tested positive for radionuclides in 2007, adjacent hallways. according to TCEQ documents. One employee told inspectors Waste Control maintains that the radiation exposures were in an August 2007 interview that "the air vents at the mixed not dangerous. The highest calculated dosage to any employee waste treatment facility had not been fixed completely!' was "less than 10 percent of the regulatory limits," according to In August 2007, Susan Jablonski, the head of TCEQ's radioac- a January 2008 Waste Control report. "We did find a handful tive materials division, provided her boss, Deputy Director Dan of employees that were over our planned exposures; they were Eden, with a written update on the review of Waste Control's below regulatory concern!' said company president Baltzer in two license applications. In the memo, which is stamped "con- an interview with the Observer. "We are very fastidious about fidential!' she identified "radiation protection" as one of four applying ALARA—as low as reasonably achievable—principles. major outstanding problem areas. "The radiation protection ... We did note that we had some ways to improve our program. issues appear not to be under control at the larger site she Partially as a result of this, we changed out our general manager wrote. "The apparent loss of control of radioactive materials ... We think some of the employees were not as thorough in also impacts the ability to establish true background [radiation] their conduct, in their operations, as they should have been!' at the site:' Background, or natural radiation, is necessary as a A TCEQ audit of the company's incident report questioned baseline so that leaks can be detected. Waste Control's dosage calculations and its handling of the TCEQ would not make Jablonski available for an interview. situation. Waste Control officials assert that the workers were The agency did not respond to written questions before the exposed to plutonium and americium-241 over a six-month Observer went to press. period covering the summer of 2005. In contrast, the TCEQ The TCEQ hasn't issued any violation notices to Waste audit, completed in spring 2007, posits that the exposures Control for the radiation exposures. "might have been going on since 2002, at least intermittently There have been other accidents involving radioactive mate- at a minimum!' The audit suggests that the company underes- rial at Waste Control's facilities. In October 2005, two state timated the number of batches of radioactive waste that were inspectors visited the site in Andrews to investigate a string of

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TCEQ whistleblower Glenn Lewis Photo by Daniel Carter

APRIL 4, 2008 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 13 contamination events, including the worker exposures. Their report notes three other "cross-contamination" incidents that "I felt that in clear had occurred in as many years: one involving tritium; one conscience I couldn't involving radon gas; and a leakage of americium-241 and pluto- nium-239 into a septic system. This string of problems "reflects grant a license with either defects in ventilation scheme or inadequate administra- tive controls to prevent cross contamination of facilities," the what was being inspectors wrote. proposed." Recently, Waste Control agreed to pay $151,000 in fines to TCEQ for contaminating septic systems on two occasions, and be close to radioactive waste. "I think there could be potential for elevated levels of heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, and exposures to significant doses of radioactivity," he wrote. mercury at a railcar unloading area. His overarching concern, shared by the other former staffers, relates to the site's physical location. Serna said he is convinced o far, the accidents have not derailed the company's that the geology of the site is unsuitable for containment of activities. Yet stiff resistance from TCEQ personnel radioactive waste for thousands of years. in charge of reviewing Waste Control's proposals That view was echoed in an August 14 memo prepared by S has put the company on the defensive. One of the two TCEQ engineers and two agency geologists. The proximity company's fiercest critics, Glenn Lewis was brought on at the of a water table to the disposal site "makes groundwater intru- TCEQ's radioactive materials division to manage any contro- sion into the disposal units highly likely," the four wrote. Their versies concerning the application. He quickly soured on the memo stated that "natural site conditions cannot be improved process. "It was obvious from the beginning that the enabling through special license conditions" and recommended denial legislation was written for the benefit of, and largely by, this of the license. The next day, Susan Jablonski conveyed those applicant," Lewis said. "That raised immediate concerns about concerns to Deputy Director Dan Eden, who reports directly how objective a review of the application could possibly be." to Executive Director Glenn Shankle. Waste Control "states the In December, Lewis left TCEQ after serving 25 years in Texas second water table is no closer than 14 feet from the bottom state government. of the low-level landfill," read her memo to Eden, which is In all, three former TCEQ employees who worked on the stamped "confidential." A staff analysis, she wrote, "shows that Waste Control license applications said they left the agency the water table may be closer than 14 feet." because of frustration with the licensing process. All three Company president Baltzer told the Observer that the former came to the conclusion, after years of working on the appli- staffers' fears are outdated and overblown. Once Waste Control cations, that Waste Control's site is fundamentally flawed. heard that staff had lingering concerns about the groundwater "After years of reviewing the application, I submitted my situation, the company began drilling new boreholes and wells professional judgment that the WCS site was unsuitable," said to verify that water wasn't present in or near the landfill. Waste Patricia Bobeck, a hydrogeologist who worked on the byprod- Control has spent $3 million on the drilling and found no uct application. "Agency management ignored my conclusions water, Baltzer said. "WCS's license application demonstrates and those of other professional staff, and instead promoted that the site will protect human health and the environment issuance of the licenses." and that water will not intrude into the proposed disposal units Encarnacion "Chon" Serna, Jr. an engineer, said he quit under any credible scenario," he said. • in June 2007 when it became apparent that a license for the In September, the two TCEQ teams working on Waste low-level radioactive waste landfill would be issued despite Control's applications gathered to rehearse a presentation they staff objections. At the end of the staff's technical review in would be giving Executive Director Shanlde later that day. "The August 2006, Serna and other staff members decided the entire gist was to communicate the impossibility of licensing application was "very, very deficient" and couldn't be approved. either facility," said Lewis, who resigned in December. "As we Nonetheless, TCEQ mangers decided to move forward, giving were adjourning, [Deputy Director] Dan Eden remarked to the company until May 2007 to address some problem areas. [TCEQ attorney Stephanie Bergeron Perdue], 'We have to find "Around that time I started getting the idea that these people a way to issue a byproduct license. This was after an hour-long are going to license this thing no matter what:' said Serna. "I presentation on why it would be unwise to issue a license for felt that in clear conscience I couldn't grant a license with what either the byproduct or low-level application." was being proposed." As staff opposition grew, Waste Control took its case to Serna said that when he left, there were still "thousands of the agency's upper management. Lobbyist and attorney Pam questions in every area of review." For example, he had trouble Giblin, who represents Waste Control, met with Shankle once determining accurate calculations of radiation doses workers in September and twice in November, according to agency might expect to receive when handling soil-like "bulk waste." records. Baltzer left nine messages for Shankle and four for In 2006, Serna wrote in an internal e-mail that he'd come across Eden between July 2007 and January 2008, according to 57 scenarios in Waste Control's plan in which workers would phone logs that reflect only missed calls. Eden met with Waste

14 THE TEXAS OBSERVER APRIL 4, 2008

Control officials at least five times during that period. Former Republican Congressman Kent Hance, a Waste Control inves- tor and chancellor of the Texas Tech University System, paid Love the Observer? a visit to Shankle's office in early November. Cliff Johnson, a principal in Textilis Strategies, an Austin-based firm that SPREAD THE WORD! lobbies for Waste Control, visited with Shankle in September. Shankle also met with Giblin, Baltzer, and Mike Woodward, a Waste Control lobbyist and attorney with Hance's law firm, during that period. The TCEQ higher-ups were in a bind: Their own technical experts had unequivocally recommended denial, and two members of the team had left in disgust. Yet the agency's man- 1111111111111111.111f agers still wanted to push the licenses forward. Att,A., "In late October, Susan Jablonski acknowledged in writing eiexastbser to senior management in the agency that faulty site conditions exist and that they cannot be corrected through license condi- tions:' said Lewis, the former staffer. "What is baffling is that Ms. Jablonski—at the same time acknowledging the inherent impossibility of correcting a bad application—still pledged to support whatever nonsensical recommendation her boss may decide to pursue." By late October, Waste Control had a draft license in hand for its byproduct dump. TCEQ Executive Director Shankle had chosen to deal with his staff's objections by adding stipulations to Waste Control's licenses, including a requirement that the company conduct further studies on erosion, groundwater, and possible fractures. In March, he rebuffed the Sierra Club's call to rescind the license. A draft license for the low-level landfill is currently being written. ■

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APRIL 4, 2008 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 15 im Hightower Susan DeMarco at home in Austin. Photo by Alan Pogue

ometimes, it's the small things in life that Bite Back! leave me stumped. Things like: How Americans can reclaim their • Glue. Why doesn't it stick to the inside of the bottle? food: An excerpt from Swim • When Noah brought two of every species Against the Current. aboardS the Ark, where did he put the termites? • The guy who invented bagpipes—what was he really try- by JIM HIGHTOWER with SUSAN DeMARCO ing to do? By nature, we are a questioning species. After "Mommy" and "Daddy," the first word shaped by our baby brains is "Why?" Indeed, many a toddler has driven parents bonkers with the incessant, highpitched repetition of this query. But as we get older, "Why?" becomes a radical question when directed to the actions of the Powers That Be—which is why most established institutions go out of their way to teach us, from school age forward, that ours is not to reason why. Accept things as they are, we are instructed, and just keep repeating to yourself:

16 THE TEXAS OBSERVER APRIL 4, 2008 It's for my own good. executives, shortsighted bureaucrats, and economists. These It's in the national interest. are people who could not run a watermelon stand if we gave It's the natural order of things. them the melons and had the highway patrol flag down custom- It's the magic of the marketplace. ers for them. Yet they took charge of the decisions that direct The experts know best. everything from how food is grown and processed to what our This mantra is foisted on us not only in the fields of busi- children eat in school. ness and politics, but also in the very conduct of our lives. They were not good deciders, because their interests are not The reigning ethos of America's corporate culture—its official ours. Agricorps don't see food as a juicy, luscious, nutritious religion, really—is consumerism. Kids, for example, no longer product of nature but as a profit center to be conglomeratized, just go out and play. They plug in to their electronic gizmos, industrialized, and globalized. We're not talking about the buy expensive brand-name outfits, get booked for playdates, making of some computer gadget here, but about our dinner! and learn from an early age that life's reward is buying stuff. The natural state of food production is that it's small-scale, Consumerism is not a "life it's a substitute for life. To elevate agrarian, and local. This is because plants and animals are liv- it to the level of a predominant social goal demeans the human ing creatures. Economies of scale are achieved at a surprisingly spirit, restricts our potential, distorts our society, and endan- small level, with both productivity and quality being enhanced gers our world. It's essential (and uplifting) that more and more by the ability of farmers and artisans to be personally involved people these days are questioning this superficial ethos, looking with their crops and livestock. for something deeper, and, in essence, asking, "What is life?" But the agribusiness powers perverted agriculture production After all, we Americans are not condemned to be passive from the high art and science of cooperating with nature into a recipients of whatever is doled out to us. We're a stronger peo- high-cost, high-tech process of overwhelming nature. ple than that, possessing both the individual fortitude and the To say that they take shortcuts with food in their mad dash collective rebelliousness to make big changes in the economic for profits understates reality. Let's be blunt: they torture food. and social terms of how we live. It's not the metaphysical that They apply massive doses of pesticides and artificial fertilizers people are exploring, but the practicalities and the personal to these living organisms. They inject animals with antibiotics aspects of living in a way that can be at once more satisfying and sex hormones. They turn lab technicians loose to alter the and more suited to our moral beliefs than what the shallow very DNA of organisms, manufacturing mutant "Frankenfoods:' consumer system dictates. They force grass-eating cows to become carnivores and even The basic question is this: cannibals. They blast fruits and veggies with ripening gas and Will we let greedheaded profiteers determine the boundar- zap them with radiation. They dose the finished foodstuffs with ies of our lives? Or will we take charge, blazing new paths for assorted sugars, artificial flavorings, trans fats, and chemical ourselves and our country? preservatives. What we're left with is "food" that has lost all It's in our character to question authority. After all, that's connection to our good earth and America's well-being. how America came to be. And, periodically, We the People (A long aside: In 1971, DeMarco and I were writing our first have had to make a hard assessment of where we were headed book. Titled Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times, it was an exposé of as a society ... and make important corrections to the course. how tax-paid agriculture research schools were using public Over generations, it has been this questioning instinct of funds for projects that benefited corporations at the expense grassroots people that has sparked a continuum of progressive of farmers, workers, consumers ... and food itself. The title changes. Corrections such as ending slavery have been huge referred to those hard, pale tomatoes wrapped in plastic that moral shifts. Such others as public education have profoundly supermarkets used to sell. Remember those tasteless nuggets? altered the way we live, more closely reflecting our egalitarian They were thrust upon us because California's agribusiness values. powers wanted to harvest their crop mechanically, rather than Every important change began with commonsense people hiring farmworkers. Thus, in the late 1960s, the agriculture having doubts about the status quo and asking questions aloud, school at the University of California, Davis, dutifully produced which emboldened others to say, "You know, I was wonder- a tomato harvester. ing about that same thing." When enough people spoke up, a There was only one small problem: the machine crushed the social awakening spread, and multitudes of people started to tomatoes. So, the plant breeders at Davis, ever dutiful to corpo- take action individually and in groups. At this point, the people rate interests, returned to the lab, and—voila!—they designed a became a movement ... and change began to happen. hybrid tomato that was hard enough to withstand the machine's grasp. Even then, it had to be harvested green. But, hey, no THE UPCHUCK REBELLION problem. Just gas those babies with a ripening chemical and This is not a phenomenon you find only in history books but they'll turn pink enough to fool consumers into thinking the is a living, integral part of our society. In fact, right now, we're in packages contain real tomatoes. the midst of a dramatic revolt over something that touches each What a deal! Agribusiness got its machine and a machine- of our lives every day in the most basic way: dinner. ready hard tomato at taxpayer expense—but within a couple During the last fifty years, control over America's food poli- of years after this technological "achievement" was introduced, cies quietly shifted from farmers and consumers to corporate five thousand small tomato farmers in California were put out

APRIL 4, 2008 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 17 of business by the mass-produced machine tomatoes, and some fifteen thousand farmworkers lost their harvesting jobs. Your ORGANIC LABOR tax dollars at work. And what about consumers? Well, in the process of interview- Even the weakest area of the movement's ing policy makers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture [USDA] evolution—farm labor—is at last making gains. for our book, DeMarco discovered that the agriculture research Jim Cochran, an organic strawberry grower near establishment relegated consumer concerns to the "little ladies" Santa Cruz, California, is a leader in pushing the [remember: it's 1971] who taught home economics. Rarely were these women consulted when the plant breeders, engineers, and movement to get this part right. He is the first mechanics got together to "design" a food product. organic farmer to sign a United Farm Workers The official line was that while the new machine-harvested Union contract with those who labor on his farm. It tomato was not cheaper than nature's own, at least consumers provides wages of $8 to $12 an hour, medical and could buy it year-round. In an interview with a USDA official, dental care, a pension plan, and paid vacations. DeMarco commented that the off-season supermarket "toma- "Farmers need to see that it can be done," he said. toes" she'd tried had no taste and—other than shape—bore no relationship to the luscious tomatoes she'd grown up with in "We need to go from saying 'I'm doing the best I New Jersey. The official—in a sincere, life-moves-on tone—dis- can' to realizing that we should do more." missed this concern as a minor drawback: "Your children will never know the difference." End of long aside.) Michael Sligh, a third-generation farmer and Wrong. Even as he spoke, people were paying more attention, the founding chairman of the National Organic getting more concerned, and asking more questions than the Standards board, heads a coalition of farmers, aloof agribusiness power brokers could possibly imagine. Afood farmworker advocacy groups, and others that awakening was already beginning to take hold. It's understand- is developing a social justice label for organic able that the establishment would have been clueless about this, since it was driven by ordinary people, not by "leaders" (nearly production. The foods will carry a sticker certifying all of whom were in harness and pulling mightily for the indus- that the producer meets the standards of fair trial agriculture model) and not by the likes of today's Whole treatment for workers, which includes providing Foods empire (the company didn't exist when people began to decent wages, health care, and the right to move; it only came along later to ride the commercial wave of unionize. the awakening). DeMarco and I were in touch with this emerging movement Like fair trade labels and the organic label itself, through our work in the 1970s as codirectors of a public interest the social justice sticker will educate consumers, group with the unwieldy name of Agribusiness Accountability literally bringing home the message that labor Project. In addition to research and writing, we did a lot of speaking in cities around the country. Some of our friends issues are central to the very concept of "organic." were baffled that we were going into urban areas to raise what Not only can social justice labeling help workers, they assumed were farm issues: "Why are you talking about but it will also help to distinguish the participating agriculture?" farmers from the Wal-Marts that are trying to We weren't. We were talking about power. We asked consum- muscle in on the organic trade. er-minded audiences, "If you can't even control what's in your dinner, what can you control? Who decided to take the flavor The giants want to claim that their products out of tomatoes? Why are breakfast cereal prices so high? Who are organic, even if they're grown in China under says it's 'necessary' to dump eight billion pounds of pesticides every year on America's croplands, with the poisons contami- abominable labor conditions. The justice stickers nating the strawberries you give your kids as a treat?" up the ante on the global conglomerates, setting We were also talking about the emergence of a fledgling a standard of wholesomeness that their business populist political alliance that had enormous potential to upset model won't let them even try to achieve. It puts the best-laid plans of the food giants. Discussion of economic more power in the hands of consumers to shape structure is usually a boring snore producer, but we found that the economy. As Sligh said, "Every time we go to people quickly and easily "got it" when we merely held up a box the grocery store, we're choosing what kind of of Wheaties or a can of Campbell's soup, products that most people in the seventies had in their kitchens. We then described food system we want." what these packages held for the following: Farmers: On average, only 184 of the consumer's food dollar goes to the farmer (there's less than a nickel's worth of wheat in Wheaties. The box costs more).

18 THE TEXAS OBSERVER APRIL 4, 2008 Americans are not condemned to be passive recipients of whatever is doled out to us. We're a stronger people than that.

Farmworkers: You could double the miserly wages they are thriving, with about three hundred of them across the country, paid and not raise the price of a can of soup even a penny. totaling $750 million a year in business and providing another Environment: Saturating fields with pesticides every year is way around the corporate system for local farmers, food arti- literally killing the soil and has contaminated nearly half of sans, and consumers. America's groundwater. • All levels of eateries—from white-tablecloth restaurants to Energy: With centralized agribusiness, the typical food prod- Dot's Diner—not only feature organic foods on their menus, uct travels fifteen hundred miles to get to your supermarket, but also pride themselves on having locally produced, seasonal wasting massive amounts of fuel. ingredients. Consumers: A handful of conglomerates monopolizes every • Such major wholesalers as Sysco, practically all supermar- aspect of the food economy, leaving consumers overcharged at ket chains, and giants such as Costco and even Wal-Mart now the cash register and shortchanged on quality. realize that the demand is so strong that they have to carry Let's see—farmers, labor, environmentalists, and consumers. some organic foods. Gosh ... that's most of us! The Powers That Be work diligently to Oh, and those kids who "will never know the difference"? keep us divided, but if we could come together in a movement They've been in the lead of this movement from the start. In that involved us all, something big could happen. the seventies, it was college kids who became the founders of And it is happening. Accelerating from the seventies, all parts food co-ops, organic farms, and other enterprising efforts to of the movement have had their individual upchuck moments get around that hard tomato. In the eighties and the nineties, it over the way the corporatized, industrialized, globalized food was young moms who asked, "What's in this stuff I'm feeding system is working, and they have been rebelling against it. my kids?" and searched out better alternatives. Movements, however, don't spring forth full-grown. Each part And today it's the kids and the grandkids of all of the previ- has to develop in its own way. In this case, the various parties ously mentioned kids who are helping to push good food into had practically no connection, no awareness that all were seek- that last refuge of awful "mystery meats" and prepackaged fat ing a better system. Although they had no central leaders, no bombs: the school cafeteria. The farm-to-cafeteria movement road map or plan, they've gradually found their way by finding has received little coverage by the national media establish- one another. ment, but it is spreading across the country. More than four hundred school districts and two hundred university cafeterias UP FROM THE GRASSROOTS now build their daily menus around fresh, mostly organic The result is an alternative food economy that has begun to ingredients bought from local farmers and food makers. flourish and a proud movement that is surging in popularity. Also, prodded by the example of Alice Waters—the pioneer- There are some eight thousand organic farmers today, pro- ing visionary and a tireless promoter of America's "good food" ducing everything from wheat to meat (and thousands more movement—many of the youngsters in these schools now grow farmers are making the transition to organic). some of their own food, as well as help to prepare and serve it, Some facts about the organic food market include the fol- as part of a spreading "edible schoolyard" program. Some are lowing: even adopting a concept called "edible classroom:' where food is • Sales of organic food topped $17 billion in 2006 and are used as an integral part of the curriculum, providing a tangible increasing at about 20 percent a year—ten times the rate of (and tasty) way to teach history, science, math, geometry, and other foods. other topics. •About 40 percent of American shoppers regularly buy some Just as good food springs from well-tended ground, so has organic foods. this grassroots movement. No one in a position of power— • Sales of organic beer (0, progress!) rose 40 percent in 2005. political or economic—made any of these improvements hap- Such entrepreneurial leaders as Morgan Wolaver, the maker of pen. In a remarkably short time, ordinary Americans informed a terrific line of organic brews sold under the Wolaver label, themselves, organized, and acted to assert their own values over have established an expanding niche for beers made with those of the corporate structure. Family by family, business by organic ingredients. (Disclosure: I have done extensive con- business, they have changed not only the market but the culture. sumer research into the quality of his suds, although I am not By taking charge of what goes on their plates, people are begin- under the influence as I write this.) ning to take charge of their lives. ■ • Direct sales from local farmers to consumers are boom- ing through some four thousand vibrant farmers' markets in Excerpted from Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish practically every city Can Go with the Flow, by Jim Hightower with Susan DeMarco, • Food co-ops (once the rather funky domain of hippies) are published by John Wiley & Sons.

APRIL 4, 2008 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 19 POETRY I BY JORGE ANTONIO RENAUD

AT LAST (for Andrea)

They lack the small amenities: a place to meet, sheets crumpled by their sway and cling, the scent of skin still slick with Olay's oil.

Flash is the color of their fuss, light, and quick to fade. They move in concert still; arms locked across a thin divide they rock and push aside the spark her flint skips off his angry stone. HER ARK They hug. He feels her rigid bones relax She felt the need. Tied her knots. and knows that this is home. A rope. A towel. A sheet. A This small embrace cord. is all the memory they need. She walks away to lead her life She touched their hair. Woke and he's led back to his. the first. Stroked her cheek. Left

her swinging in the air. Called the second. Held her hand. Fit the noose

around her neck and hugged the third. Kissed her lips. Slipped her softly from her

bed and as she swung, went back. Once more. Hung her head. Asked her final child to

please. Keep still. Don't weep. Closed her eyes and hers and hers and hers and joined them in their sleep.

JORGE ANTONIO RENAUD is a former copy editor at the Austin American - Statesman now serving time for robbery. He writes: "I write about things that truly move me, as did the recent spate of mothers killing their children. I cannot imagine the mixture of love/anger/despair that prompted that, but felt I had to write something about it." — Naomi Shihab Nye

20 THE TEXAS OBSERVER APRIL 4, 2008 in Beijing, subsidizing generations of American war debt, and demonizing the Dalai Lama. China's state-run news agency even offered official apologies for publishing an award-winning (and doctored) photograph purporting to show endangered antelope running unperturbed beneath China's $4 billion Qinghai-Xizang railway, which traverses the Tibetan plateau and which has drawn fire from environmentalists for its poten- tial impact on the rare animals. This year's FotoFest, considered in advance, felt an inch behind the curve instead of its usual strides ahead. That's only because we think we know more about China than we actually do. Walking through FotoFest's vast exhibi- tions, we are reminded just how restrict- ed our knowledge of China really is, and how much there is yet to learn. We can even see how limited in certain cases China's knowledge of itself has been until well into this century. Some of FotoFesfs most striking images were created by photographers who, as late as the 1930s, were literally exploring the western reaches of that vast country, document- Photo by Li Lang/Courtesy of FotoFest Riha Zhaojue, Sichuan Province man with bird) ing the land bordering Tibet just to show people back in Beijing and Shanghai what that distant part of China looked like. (More on these exhibits later.) Still, elements of FotoFest do look Sino Eyes familiar, especially the frankly propa- gandistic images from the era of Cultural This year's FotoFest explores the ironies Revolution: Red Guards reading from and intricacies of China. Mao's Little Red Book to passengers on a train—passengers who certainly By DAVID THEIS had compelling extraliterary reasons to look like they were listening with great interest—and the Great Helmsman himself looking down on the crowds of nder the guidance eries aren't just geographic and cultur- Tiananmen Square like a god. of co-founders and al. FotoFest 2004 focused on water as a Perhaps this is the place to talk about curators Fred Baldwin photographic subject just as the world the Chinese government's control of and Wendy Watriss, was becoming conscious of a loom- media and culture. Artists no longer FotoFest, the biennial ing crisis in the safe availability of this work under the absolute restrictions of Houston extravagan- fundamental resource. FotoFest even the Cultural Revolution. Some FotoFest za that ranks among the world's best opened an early exhibit of South African artists deal with subjects that at least photography festivals, has always been photography on the very day Nelson imply a critical view of government poli- something of a cultural agenda-setter. Mandela was released from prison. cies, even if all they really do is artfully It's only a slight exaggeration to claim So when it was announced that this acknowledge the presence of unwelcome that FotoFest's 1992 show of South year's festival would focus on China, the realities, such as the existence of Chinese American photography introduced the choice felt predictable. China is already Catholics, with their orientation turned continent to the world-photography everywhere: staging what promises to at least partially toward the West, or mainstream. And the festival's discov- be a controversial summer Olympics China's almost totally uncared-for men-

APRIL 4, 2008 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 21 .1Mtr Militia Women Training in How to Throw Hand Grenades Photo by Sha Fei/Courtesy of FotoFest tally ill. But it remains the case that no in assembling this exhibition; they relied Zedong, and finally of China's post-Mao Chinese can challenge the government instead on a network of contacts they "opening." Collectively, FotoFest tells of and win. Witness the 2004 case of a developed on various trips to China. The China's rush through history as it evolved Chinese journalist who was imprisoned festival is augmented with more openly in the span of 60 or so years from a cru- for 10 years for sharing with Western critical shows, such as the Houston elly poor, warlord-ruled peasant society media outlets the details of a govern- Center for Photography's concurrent to today's post-bicycle world of material ment memorandum on how the 15th Mined in China, which deals with the girls and boys. That's a world in which anniversary of the Tiananmen Square environmental and human costs of coal China has emerged as an imposing crisis should be downplayed. And before mining there, where approximately 6,000 regional power at the very least, with its western media outlets begin beating their miners a year die on the job. But such eyes on both Taiwan and outer space. It's chests about their relative enlightenment, "special collaboration" exhibits are ancil- also a world in which China has become note that Yahoo! helped the Chinese gov- lary to FotoFest, and are not FotoFest- a leading guarantor of American debt ernment track the journalist down. produced. and a prominent purchaser of American So while there are certainly some dollars. images of marginalized peoples, from hese caveats aside, FotoFest Besides the crash course in Chinese Catholics to Tibetans, on display, none 2008, Photography from China, history, there's also a good deal of fas- of the Chinese I spoke to at FotoFest 1934 - 2008, is a stupendous cinating nuance. For me, the highlights was willing to comment on the recent T encyclopedia of Chinese cul- are Ethnography, Photojournalism and crackdown in Tibet. ture and history—nothing less than the Propaganda, 1934-1939 (on display This is not to imply the slightest criti- biggest and most comprehensive display downtown in Allen Centers One and cism of any Chinese, artist or otherwise, of Chinese photography ever assembled Two) and Independent Documentary but simply to note that these are the anywhere, according to Baldwin. Photography 1985-2008 (in the Winter conditions under which Chinese art- The festival tells the stories of the Street Studios galleries just northwest of ists work. It is also worth noting that Japanese invasion of the 1930s, with its downtown). Baldwin and Watriss did not seek the stoking of Chinese patriotism, and the The former's photos are hung in the cooperation of the Chinese government triumph of the Communists under Mao middle of busy business tower lobbies.

22 THE TEXAS OBSERVER APRIL 4, 2008 Mental Hospital, Tianjing Province Photo by Lu Nan/Courtesy of FotoFest

It's something of a kick to look at the framed by a massive cloud as he stares by Weng Naiqiang, Xiao Zhuang, and magnificent black-and-white portraits off into the threatening distance. Sha Fei Wang Shilong, is the third leg of the of Tibetan nobility taken by Zhuang essentially invented Chinese photojour- Allen Center exhibitions. After the severe Xueben in the 1930s hanging in this nalism as he covered the Anti-Japanese black and white of the war images and antiseptic setting. The FotoFest catalog War, as the 1931-1945 Japanese occupa- ethnography, it's a relief to be confronted claims, without egregious hyperbole, tion and resistance are known in China, by the rich reds of these portraits of mass that "[Zhuang's] pictures appear to show and the 1946-1949 civil war between pro-Mao demonstrations in Tiananmen a group of people who have descended Communists and Nationalists. After Square. These displays of the Red Guard's from heaven to this barren land, people the Communists drove the Nationalists enthusiastic embrace of all things Mao who are living the most noble and pure off the mainland, Sha Fei would prob- moves viewers from the highly individual life of humanity." Several of the pictures ably have become a national hero if he Tibetan faces of Zhuang's ethnographic invite you to stop and look deeply, espe- hadn't, during a period of mental illness, series to immersion in the mass society cially the "Young Tibetan Noble Girl" murdered a Japanese doctor who was of Mao's Communist China. And they do with her piercing, otherworldly stare, treating him for pneumonia in 1949. As so uncritically. The images read as mostly her challenging (cruel?) lips, and her a condition for improved postwar trade heroic, and FotoFest's labeling and even spectacular head of hair. with China, the Japanese demanded Sha the catalog are politically neutral. This is Of the many human stories told in Fei's execution. After the Chinese army a straightforward display of propaganda FotoFest's China excursion, perhaps complied, Sha Fei became a nonperson art, but impressive for all that. Like the none is more striking than that of Sha despite the fact that his acolytes emerged films of Leni Riefenstahl, these photo- Fei, the great but almost unknown (in as the leading photographers (and visual graphs are aesthetically pleasing celebra- the West, and to a large extent in China) propagandists) of the Mao era. His name tions of despotic power. war photographer. If Robert Capa had is only now being retrieved as his elderly The single most moving cluster of been a Chinese patriot-propagandist, he protégés begin to speak out about their FotoFest exhibitions is on display at the might have produced work like Sha Fei's mentor. Winter Street Studios. A former indus- "The Front—Safeguarding the Country:' On the subject of Mao, the Cultural trial building, Winter Street requires an with its iconic image of a Chinese sentry Revolution section, featuring images epic show to properly occupy its massive,

APRIL 4, 2008 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 23 Cat, Reply is Negative Photo by Wu Gaozhong/Courtesy of FotoFest

Red Guards on Tiananmen Square Photo by Weng Naiqiang/Courtesy of FotoFest

24 THE TEXAS OBSERVER APRIL 4, 2008 beautifully lighted space. Independent Houston in which artist Chen Lingyang

Documentary Photography 1985 - 2008 offers 12 photographs of her vagina accomplishes just this. It's another three- taken during a year's worth of menstrual part exhibition that offers a glimpse cycles—with the recent news that actress into the opening of Chinese society Tang Wei has been blacklisted in China that occurred after Mao's death, and because of her highly erotic (but also which ended with the 1989 crackdown deeply moving) performance in Ang at Tiananmen Square. Lee's Lust, Caution. Perhaps mainstream All the Winter Street exhibits are films draw more official scrutiny than memorable, but Lu Nan's three distinct still photography. black-and-white series on various out- Some of the conceptual work is arrest- casts of Chinese society has the largest ing enough. Wu Gaozhong's "Reply number of photographs that will stop is Positive" series, which depicts the you in your tracks, if only because of his artist as sharing physical traits with a relatively daring choice of subject matter: variety of animals, is provocative, as is Tibetans, Catholics, and the mentally his catalog statement that "Animals and ill. The image of the violent mentally ill humankind are consumer goods ... in man whose impoverished family ties him this era." to a tree every day (and chains him to Other contemporary artists offer pre- his bed at night) because no treatment sumably ironic images of a young Red is available offers a biting comment Guard and a variety of takes on tradi- on the plight of the Chinese who don't tional Chinese landscape art. But this share in the boom. The photograph exhibition lacks the wallop on display "Mental Hospital, Tianjing Province," at Winter Street and the Allen Centers. MANNING & ASSOCIATES which shows a group of wretched men The carefully constructed personali- FINANCIAL SERVICES huddled together in the courtyard of ties shown in postmodern Chinese art their asylum, their features obscured by photography seem pale compared with wintry fog, is a true masterpiece. the faces shown in the ethnographic and A homegrown Texas firm, Finally, Li Lang's black-and-white pho- documentary exhibitions. Manning & Associates is a tographs from Sichaun Province capture, No doubt these artists reflect the con- fee-only financial planning with a symmetry that Henri Cartier- fusion and disorientation the Chinese and investment management Bresson himself would approve, the must feel as they hurtle from a virtual firm that specializes in socially responsible investments (SRI). harmony of a people, the Yi, who still live Middle Ages into an exciting but dan- Our advice is tailored to meet close to the land. gerous future, all in the space of a single your needs and your values. lifetime. third major FotoFest group- But one photograph at Vine Street ing is hung at Vine Street, seems likely to carry more meaning another huge, post-industri- for American viewers. It's Bai Yiluo's What we do: al building on the northern "Devaluation, 2005" which shows an edge of downtown. This show, Staged American banknote with hundreds Wealth Management

and Conceptual Work, 1994 - 2008, offers of tiny Chinese faces embedded in it. Asset Allocation a series of images of postmodern China. Most of them are smiling—but Ben The artists here have largely run their Franklin's tight lips look more than a Gifting Strategies images through a metaphorical proces- little worried. ■ Estate Planning sor, ironically juxtaposing snippets of traditional Chinese iconography with David Theis lives in Houston. He is the Miscellaneous Issues taunting, sometimes downright lurid, author of the novel Rio Ganges. images of China today. Given China's reputation for prudery, I was surprised to see the graphic sexuality LETTERS TO THE EDITORS 1200 Smith Street, Suite 1600 of some of these images. At Vine Street, Houston, Texas 77002 nudity is handled casually, if at times a tel. 713.621.6646 I toll free 877.309.8248 [email protected] bit sophomorically, and I struggled to 307 W. 7th St. Austin, TX 78701 connect these images—especially those www.manning-financial.com from "Twelve Flower Moths," a themati- [email protected] cally related show at the Art League of

APRIL 4, 2008 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 25 BOOKS & THE CULTURE The Right Way, Reclaimed BY EMILY DePRANG

The Great Awakening: FOREWORD BY JIMMY CARTER Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America By Jim Wallis HarperOne 352 pages, $25.95

used to know a woman in Austin who produced and directed les- bian comedies. Audiences loved the films, but reviews were invariably critical. "Not enough butches," one would say, or "conforms to heteronormative standards of beauty." The director's response was always the same: "Where's your lesbian film?" This retort came to mind as I read Jim Wallis' The Great Awakening, sub- titled Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post- Religious Right America. This apparent follow - up to Wallis' 2004 bestseller, God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, tries to navigate a new nonpartisan path between the Scylla and Charybdis of politics and religion. REVIVING FAITH & POLITICS IN A Wallis, an evangelical pastor with a life- time commitment to social justice, does POST-RELIGIOUS RIGHT AMERICA such a courageous job of reimagining a Christian take on controversial political issues that I'm loathe to point out his few blind spots and rhetorical weaknesses. After all, where's my politically viable, theologically sound rebuttal of the reli- JIM WALLIS gious right? AUTHOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING GOD'S POLITICS: Wallis believes that Christians—along- WHY THE RIGHT GETS IT WRONG AND THE LEFT DOESN'T GET IT side people of all religious and spiritual persuasions—should act as the conscience ofgovernment, always advocating a more IMM:MiNV just society without allegiance to any party. But before readers can enjoy the gay-bad" and embracing its destiny as children, and their biblical rediscovery spectacle of Wallis scripturally schooling an anti-war, anti-poverty, pro-environ- could well change the political issue of his contemporaries on everything from ment force in American politics. This poverty in the United States and around immigration to the Iraq war, they have is a thrillingly hopeful premise, but the world." A reader who yearns for this to get through the first hundred pages. Wallis' attempts at substantiation are statement to be true will be disappointed In these, Wallis tries to establish that the almost entirely anecdotal. Wallis writes, to learn that the supporting evidence is Christian political agenda in America "Millions of American Christians are a New York Times article about starving is already evolving beyond "baby-good, discovering God's concern for his poorest children, which Wallis' 8-year-old son

26 THE TEXAS OBSERVER APRIL 4, 2008 overhears him reading aloud. Wallis things are already happening and starts He lists many changes that could make often cites America's shocked and earnest exhorting his readers, passionately and abortion less necessary, including better youth, who resolve to save the world from poetically, as to how and why good things government support of poor working the injustices their parents have ignored, must happen. Wallis hits his groove when women, but never mentions accurate as a cause for hope. The reader wants he's no longer trying to prove something sex education or access to birth con- badly for this to be true, wants to trust and starts trying to do something—name- trol. The closest he comes is to hedge, that the coming generation's resolve won't ly, convince his readers that a radical "Most Americans support approaches cloud and thin with age, or be co-opted agenda of social change is their moral that would ... promote policies that pre- by the petty monsters that turned their responsibility, not only as Christians, but vent unintended pregnancies." While he parents' faith into sneering nationalism as rational and humane beings of any advocates government-subsidized child and rabid intolerance. But readers have spiritual stripe. With an openly Native care for single moms, he also says many seen this before. And readers want more American foundational concept of all lives women "are having second thoughts than hope to go on. as interconnected and all welfares inter- about the consequences of their choices:' One point on which Wallis thoroughly dependent, he broaches each new issue and quotes Duncan Collum, a columnist, makes his case that real change is afoot with a volley of Bible verses supporting who claims, "Many American parents is environmentalism. "Christians, in par- his proposals, then aims his appeals at the know in their guts that the way we are ticular, have too often seen the Earth reader's sense of justice. raising our children doesn't make sense. as merely a way station to heaven, an This is crucial; it's not mercy Wallis Of the mothers currently in the work unimportant stage prop for the human invokes, but a sense of fairness, eschew- force, only 16 percent say they would drama of salvation:' Wallis writes. But ing the paternalism of a ruling majority's choose to work full time if they felt they then he demonstrates that a new empha- magnanimity and instead presenting had the choice." The statistic's source goes sis on "creation care" (as faith-based an impassioned case for justice, for a uncited. Wallis also fails to consider that environmentalism has been re-branded) just world, and for the responsibility of a father might choose to stay home while is taking root. In 2004, the National every just person to create it. It's key to a mother goes to work. Association of Evangelicals adopted a new Wallis' mission that his allegiance lies On the subject of gay rights, Wallis policy statement urging Christians and with neither party, but while he picks the waffles. In an early chapter, "The Moral the government to "conserve and renew term "radical conservative" to describe Center," he gives the debate a single the Earth rather than deplete or destroy his agenda, Wallis reads more radically line: "It is possible to be strongly for it." In March 2005, a New York Times progressive than any conservative this marriage and the family without being article noted that the NAE was resolved reviewer has ever known. He goes far against gay rights." Later, in "Family to fight global warming. But in 2006, 22 beyond the moral commitments of those prominent leaders of the religious right who want justice as long as it doesn't raise signed a letter to the NAE saying, "We their taxes, and want religion as long as respectfully request ... that the NAE not it assures them a place in heaven. He Texas Hero adopt any official position on the issue of advocates (and provides biblical justifi- global climate change. Global warming is cation for) reparations for slavery, a path not a consensus issue." Wallis writes, "Five to citizenship for illegal immigrants, years earlier, so powerful a group of con- strong unions, international aid and debt servative Christian leaders probably could cancellation, women as church leaders, have tamped down a new evangelical religious pluralism, immediate interven- effort such as this. But this time, it didn't tion to stop the genocide in Darfur, a work." A month later, the NAE ran a full- ban on the death penalty and all forms page ad in The New York Times announc- of torture, and an end to the war in Iraq. ing the Evangelical Climate Initiative He renounces the labeling of America with the signed support of 86 prominent as a "Christian nation" thusly: "Does evangelical leaders. The religious right anybody really want to say that America would continue to deny global warming, has behaved in the world as a 'Christian and Jerry Falwell would later call the cli- nation'? For the sake of Christian integ- mate change debate "a tool of Satan that rity, I hope not." is being used to distract churches from Wallis also writes that while abortion is always a "moral tragedy:' it should not their primary focus of preaching the Stan Dollar, 2007 gospel." But few would listen. The power be banned. Rather, all available measures of the religious right, Wallis convincingly should be taken to make it a choice no Vee Sawyer Photography claims, is waning. one needs to make. It's here, in the social www.veesawyer.com After environmentalism, Wallis' focus conservative stuff, that Wallis shows he shifts. He stops trying to prove that good makes a better Christian than a feminist.

APRIL 4, 2008 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 27 and Community:' he recalls confronting leaders of the hyperconservative Focus on the Family about their obsession with WWW.TEXASOBSERVER.ORG/BLOG gays. "I told them I was completely with them in believing that the breakdown of the family is a major crisis in America ... but then I said I didn't think gay and lesbian people are the ones mostly responsible for all this ... After a long discussion, they conceded the point and said they agreed that the breakdown of the family in America is attributable more to 'heterosexual dysfunction than to homosexuals."' It's a duh moment, and the reader might reasonably assume that Wallis is trying to reach a middle ground with the Our special blend of insight, analysis, and wit is now FOF-ers. Then comes this line: "Since the available in daily doses. Observer editors, staffers, and divorce rate is arguably a much greater bloggers are posting regular reports online about Texas threat to family and children than is gay politics, news, and culture. marriage, why is divorce much more acceptable to many religious conserva- tives than gay marriage is?" [Emphasis added.] For a theologian who advocates religious pluralism and respect for diver- Cesar Ch a N, Cesar Chavez and the Common Ansi , sity to fail to accept homosexuality as one tj, Lon/mon Sense Sense of Nonviolence of God's intentional variations is a deep 01 -Nonviolence. Jose-Antonio Orosco disappointment. Wallis advocates civil unions, equal rights and even church Orosco seeks to elevate Chavez as an "blessings" for same-sex unions, but original thinker. Chavez developed distinct he just can't get behind gay marriage. ideas about nonviolent theory that are Despite the many evocations of his hero, timely for dealing with today's social and Martin Luther King Jr., Wallis fails to see political issues, including racism, sexism, that separate—in every circumstance— immigration, globalization, and political cannot be equal. ea -*MOW' violence. That's what made me think of the les- University of bian comedy reviewers. In the quest for n New Mexico Press a just society, aspirants and advocates UNMPRESS.COM • 800.249.7737 are bound to offer differing conceptions, by margins small and large, of what that society might look like. On what points and to what degree are we willing to com- promise to build consensus? The Great Awakening is important not only because 2,11,10, SEctga it seeks to incite changes the nation sorely International Headquarters needs, but because it shows that the Bible Come Visit us for LUNCH! In addition to our organic is a sort of Rorschach test, as effective coffee, pizzas, empanadas, pastries and pies, we a tool for liberation as for oppression. now prepare made to order sandwiches, salads, If progressives can see past their justi- and even black bean gazpacho. fied mistrust of politicking pastors, they may find in Wallis not just an ally but a visionary, beckoning from the vanguard 3601 S. Congress off E. Alpine of social justice. ■ Penn Field • under the water tower (512)707-9637 www.rutamaya.net Emily DePrang is a writer in Pearland, check our site for monthly calendar Texas.

28 THE TEXAS OBSERVER APRIL 4, 2008 AFTE WO LO I BY MICHAEL ERARD Remembering Joe

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Illustration by Mike Krone emember Joe, my old is, Michael? A liquidity put? Phantom and a girlfriend who didn't know how friend from Alpine? He envelopes mailed from Alpine arrived to love me. I moved into a stone cottage would be 80 years old filled with clipped newspaper articles at a place called Cozy Courts, where this year, but he's long and forecasts of human greed high- Joe also lived. Just five years earlier, he gone. Survived cancer lighted with yellow marker. The words had hitchhiked from Milwaukee, living long enough to see the in my ears: Michael, you need a gun, and under bridges and in shelters, to escape truthR of God—he'd finally asked to see cash, small bills. the snow and a wife he'd hated for 40 a priest after a lifetime of avowed athe- So you don't remember Joe. Let years. When I met him he'd just gotten ism—and watch the twin towers fall. A me bring him back for you, then. In back from a steamer trip through the month later I was driving to Midland 1995 I moved from Austin to Alpine, Panama Canal. He told me stories about for a burial in a place he never wanted. a small town on the northern edge of how he mocked the senior citizens at But Joe haunts me still. Especially when the Chihuahuan Desert in West Texas, the senior center. This, I thought, is the the economic news gets bad. I can hear to spend a summer reading and doing way I want to grow old; this is how to his voice: Do you know what a derivative some writing, far away from the city stand up to life. He was 68; I was 26 and

APRIL 4, 2008 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 29 impressionable. live the life of a boy again: tromp in the Merver readers ore A self-taught man, he read Erasmus at desert as he pleased, eat beans from a 14, and his spiritual life fed on Charles pot off the stove, read books until dusk Darwin. Give me reason, logic, and com- sitting under the eaves of a cottage with SMART mon sense, he always used to say. In the his dog at his feet and the Southern 1970s he bought yen and made a kill- Pacific rumbling into town on the tracks PROGRESSIVE ing, but he'd grown up during the Great nearby and the swallows swooping down INVOLVED Depression in Brooklyn. To the end of over the swimming pool and creasing its his life, he kept most of his cash at hand, surface with their thirsty beaks. When I INFLUENTIAL all in small bills, stuffed in boxes of soap write about Joe I inevitably give more and cereal. The man with cash is king, he attention to the guns and the money, GOOD LOOKING used to tell me. The man with cash in his because I like breaking the dictum that house becomes paranoid, I replied. He a gun that shows up in the first chapter kept a .22-caliber pistol in a hollowed- must be fired by the end of the story. ($t9 ore 06server advertisers r out Bible on his dashboard and used to Not so here. For me his character is plot get up early on Sunday mornings, drive enough. to a railroad bridge east of town, set up I want you to know that he was a a limp piece of cardboard, and shoot voracious reader. Entomology. Forensic it full of holes in five seconds. He was sciences. Histories of the stock market Get noticed by Texas Observer practicing for a gunfight, he told me. and the Federal Reserve. Bible studies, folks all over the state and nation. In the corner of his one-room cottage mainly books that showed how the Bible leaned a baseball bat, a broom, and a recycles Mesopotamian myth. I also Let them know about your black matte double-pump shotgun. He bookstore, service, restaurant, want you to know about his generosity non-profit organization, event, kept a photocopy of the state laws about and his disdain. If you were a widow or a political candidate, shoe store, coffee use of deadly force folded in his wallet. kid or someone genuinely deserving but house, boutique, salon, yoga He wasn't bug-eyed paranoid, but stiff were having bad times, he would drive studio, law practice, etc. and unapproachable, his back leg always you anywhere and even give you money. cocked to flee or strike when anyone If a book was particularly good he would approached. He may or may not have buy an extra copy and donate it to the been a cop in Milwaukee. But he had library. If you were a priest or Christian sold washing machines and taught high believer, a stockbroker or a drug addict, school science. he would cross the street before saying Joe had come to Texas so he could "hi." I don't want to entomb him in a

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30 THE TEXAS OBSERVER APRIL 4, 2008 caricature, but look: This was a man who bewildering dust. Six months before, to defend Dennis, Joe turned on me. cackled with delight when he proposed while crossing the street, he'd been hit by "We've all had a hard life," he shouted. dressing as a devil in red pajamas, horns, a bicycle. Both his hips had been broken. "I could tell ..." Then he fell silent. I saw pitchfork, and forked tail, and dancing Later in the summer I heard a cop say, and heard flashes of the truth of his life down the aisle of the Baptist church on "That guy? If he didn't have bad luck, he and do not underestimate his resent- a Sunday morning. He read so avidly wouldn't have any luck at all." ments or the authenticity of their source. about the crimes of stockbrokers and the Dennis turned to us: "Hey Joe, you Who knows what he could have told me madness of crowds, you'd think someone know what?" if he had ever told it all? had cheated him out of millions. He was "No, what?" Joe said, after a long Joe wanted his ashes spread in the dry an excellent student of human pride and pause. Once he'd called Dennis a "space creek beds near Alpine, but maybe it's its kaleidoscopic delusions, a dogged cadet" and a "minister of Gawwwd." just as well that he's buried in Midland, critic of all that was pretentious and "They told me I can't get unemploy- where he can keep his eye on human vain, a bulldog and a lover of the desert ment benefits anymore," Dennis said. conflicts, the sort that defined his life. who left not a thing behind beyond what "What am I gonna do? I can't get money Listening to the priest at the funeral, I I do to memorialize him. Michael, people unless I'm homeless and out on the wanted to grab him and say, "If Joe were are people, you can't change people. street. What'm I s'posed to do? How's alive he'd smack your gilded missal and One day that summer I was outside a guy s'posed to pay rent, 'specially if dance a jig on the Astroturf of his own talking to Joe, leaning on his pickup he can't work?" He said this in a thick, grave, fling dollar bills to the wind and (which he called, mimicking a Mexican slobbery voice, and for a moment he moon the slabs of granite soon to be his accent, his peekup), when Dennis, a sounded like he might cry. He pleaded, neighbors." guy in his 30s who was one of our "What am I gonna do, Joe?" These days his voice still comes to neighbors, lumbered by on crutches Joe looked toward the street, up into me: Michael, if you want to write about like a giant uncomfortable bug. Dennis the tree, down at his boots. Finally he immigration, you should try the cemetery. was a Mormon who went into trances said, "I don't know, Dennis." They just won't stop coming. ■ every afternoon around 4 and spoke in Without a word Dennis turned away, tongues. Ha-hee-hee-ko-kuu-me-mee- as if he were familiar with this desert of Michael Erard is a contributing writer. maa-aa, he chanted, the nonsense syl- sympathy, and lumbered on his crutch- He hopes The Road isn't your retirement lables drifting among the cottages like es back to his cottage. When I tried plan.

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111IIII1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 =NM MAN ON. f•M• WOW •••■•

•IMO • ■••• The Truth NMIV •••• ONO. a novel by Geoff Rips •••• VIee • ■••• Im■ OPIRM /OMR ••••• winner of the 2006 AWP award for the novel •••■• • ■■• WNW SMMI MM. OMON OM. MEM 1•■■• ■MeN/ ■•■ BOOK SIGNING II••• =MY =WM ••■• ANTONIO, TX 1MM SAN MAD

MOM Wednesday, April 30, 5:00 pm MMP ONON 1.1■■• ••=. •••• The Twig, 5005 Broadway ■•••• .MNS =OM ORIN WM.

MOMS Called "a haunting debut" (by Publishers Weekly "...and a little •NEM WINO =MP MEM raunchy"), and "a hard book to describe and an impossible one to forget" ■■•■• MMIM

by novelist Nicholas DelBanco, The Truth is Geoff Rips' first foray into ONIMIS .1W NOM MM. long fiction. In it, he creates a moral universe in a series of tales narrated •■■ MEMO •••• ■•••• 411.■ by the hunchback Chuy Pingarron who spends his days on the front •••• •••■ 00.M 111•0•1 porch of a San Antonio whorehouse. !MN MEM •ISIO ■I■ *NI Rips is a former editor and frequent contributer to The Texas Observer. WEIM WM/ NOM •••■• 41.N• He currently sits on the board of The Texas Democracy Foundation, •••• •■••• MINIM which publishes the Observer. =ENO ••••• 1 1 111111111 0 1111111 1 111111111 1 11111111 1 111111111 1 11111111 1 111111111 1 11111111 1 111111111 1 11111111 1 111111111 1 1111111

APRIL 4, 2008 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 31 11TH CINE LAS AMERICAS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

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APRIL 16-24, 2008

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REGAL 111111AF111114011-11SE Cultural Arts American NATIONAL IINDOWNIF.NT Division Official Airline FOR TIE ARTS Aticrnotive & Indepen Films This protect is funded in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Ms Division and by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts.