Politics Becomes Personal Texas Lawmakers Have Made Themselves Part of Women’S Most Difficult Decisions

Perry muscles the LCRA | guatemala’s archive of tragedy | science vs. religion in glen rose

05 |april 20 | 2011 | 2012

politics becomes personal Texas lawmakers have made themselves part of women’s most difficult decisions. IN THIS ISSUE ON THE COVER photo by Matt steel

LEFT Two sisters watch the exhumation of their mother and four small siblings. The sisters were present in August 1982 when soldiers shot their relatives, but they managed to escape. They spent 14 years in hiding in the mountains before resettling in a new community and later requesting the exhumation. Near the village of San Francisco Javier, Nebaj Quiché, 2000. photo by Jonathan Moller

12the long road home by Saul Elbein Prosecutions, mass graves and the Police Archive provide clues in the deaths of thousands of Guatemalans.

the right not to know it’s all about the by Carolyn Jones water, boys The painful choice to terminate a by Mike Kanin Observer 08 pregnancy is now—thanks to Texas’ new 20 Is Gov. Perry trying to take over sonogram law—just the beginning of the torment. the Lower Colorado River Aurhority? ONLINE Discuss the Texas REGULARS 25 BIG BEAT 37 NOVEL APPROACH 42 POEM sonogram law 01 Dialogue It’s Hard to Be Latina Harbury’s Fight for Alone and see readers’ 02 Political in Texas Human Rights by Damon V. Tapp reactions to Intelligence by Cindy Casares by Robert Leleux Carolyn Jones’ 06 Tyrant’s Foe 43 STATE OF THE MEDIA first-person 07 Editorial 26 POSTCARDS 38 EAT YOUR WORDS Where’s the Line account (more 07 Ben Sargent’s Tracking Creation Still Waters Between Journalist than 1,100 loon Star State in Glen Rose by Emily DePrang and Source? comments), 24 state of Texas by Robyn Ross by Bill Minutaglio and read our 39 BOOK REVIEW coverage of the 30 DIRECT QUOTE A Public Wake for a 44 FORREST FOR THE TREES demise of the Fighting AIDS in Texas Texas Troubadour Demographics No Women’s Health as told to Sarah Angle by Brad Tyer Longer Destiny for Program at Democrats www.texasobserver.org 32 CULTURE 40 PICTURE SHOW by Forrest Wilder Lessons from the Bernie Packs Folksiness New Deal But Little Depth 45 EYE ON TEXAS by Cecily Sailer by Josh Rosenblatt by Melanie Burford A Journal of Free Voices since 1954

OBSERVER Volume 104, No. 4 dialogue Founding Editor Ronnie Dugger Abuse Can Happen Anywhere Editor Dave Mann As a survivor of childhood abuse, my heart goes out to the children described in the Managing Editor Susan Smith Richardson “Heritage of Abuse” story (March issue) who were victimized. Words cannot ade- Publisher Piper Stege Nelson Multimedia Editor Jen Reel quately convey the harm that was done to them. Web Editor Jonathan McNamara But as I read the article, I was deeply troubled by its message that the abuse was staff writers Melissa del Bosque, Forrest the result of the conditions at the Homestead Heritage community. I am not a Wilder, Emily DePrang and Patrick Michels member of Homestead Heritage, nor have I ever been. But I know several members Circulation Manager Candace Carpenter of the community, and I know that at least some of the claims in the article were Bookkeeper Krissi Trumeter Art Direction EmDash false or misleading. Copy Editor Brad Tyer Looking beyond the specific claims, though, I found an even greater cause for Poetry Editor Naomi Shihab Nye Fiction Editor David Duhr concern. The article reinforces the myth in our society that child abuse is the result Contributing Writers of certain cultures or beliefs, sometimes characterized as cults. … The horrible real- Hannah Carney, Lou Dubose, Saul Elbein, Alex Hannaford, Steven G. Kellman, Joe R. ity is that child abuse, including sexual abuse, happens in every community. Lansdale, Robert Leleux, James E. McWilliams, Bill I hope that Texas Observer readers look beyond the sensational claims in the Minutaglio, Josh Rosenblatt, Ellen Sweets, Brad Tyer, article to examine their own families and communities. The Texas Department of Andrew Wheat Contributing Photographers Family and Protective Services has information on the signs of abuse and how to Kelly Lynn James, Sarah Lim, Alan Pogue, Matt Wright-Steel report it (txlo.com/stopabuse). Only when each one of us takes responsibility for Contributing Artists Michael Krone, Alex Eben protecting the children in our communities will the problem be properly addressed. Meyer, Ben Sargent Judith (the author’s last name was withheld at her request) Texas Democracy c a m e r o n Foundation Board Lisa Blue Baron, Carlton Carl, Jen Cooper, Melissa Jones, Susan Longley, Jim Marston, Mary Nell Mathis, The Truth about Let There Be Light Gilberto Ocañas, Bernard Something is really wrong with this picture Rapoport, Ronald Rapoport, Homestead Heritage Geoffrey Rips, Geronimo (“To Avoid Blackouts, Texas Regulators Plan to Rodriguez, Sharron Rush, My family was in [Homestead Heritage] for five Artificially Boost Profits for Utilities,” March 8, Ronnie Dugger (emeritus) years when I was a teenager, and I can person- texasobserver.org). Why not re-double efforts to Our mission ally attest to the truth of this article (“Heritage put solar panels on every building, beginning with We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to of Abuse,” March issue). Thank you, Alex houses, NOT businesses, to make the state more the truth as we find it and [Hannaford], for telling it like it is. I grieve over the energy self-sufficient AND save the grid without the right as we see it. We lives and the families that have been damaged, and raising consumers costs. It would also create a are dedicated to the whole I grieve over people I love very much who are still in ton of jobs. Kelley Smoot Garrett truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of the group. God has been faithful to heal and restore p o s t e d at fa c e b o o k . c o m humankind as the foundation in my own family and has blessed me beyond my of democracy. We will take wildest imaginations, and it is my prayer that oth- orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we ers will find the healing, joy and freedom that only overlook or misrepresent the He can give! Leah Leach truth to serve the interests of p o s t e d at texasobserver . o r g the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. Sound Off contact us 307 W. 7th St., Austin, Texas [email protected] 78701, (512) 477-0746 or comment on facebook.com/texasobserver and texasobserver.org april 2012 the te xas observer | 1 Political Intelligence

The Cronyism Beat Prescription for Profit On March 1, Texas ushered in a bold new system The pharmacy benefit managers act as middlemen in to repay pharmacies for their Medicaid customers’ this new system. They, of course, take a little profit prescriptions. for their troubles. Used to be, Texas reimbursed all pharmacies at When the Legislature considered the new plan LEARN how pharmacies are the same rate, based on a price list posted online. For last year, independent pharmacists warned it would losing out at txlo.com/pbms each transaction, pharmacies got a $6.35 dispensing run them out of business. They would be backed into fee. Simple enough. money-losing contracts because they can’t buy drugs Under the new plan, the state contracts with a at the same wholesale rates as big chain stores. But handful of managed care organizations, which, in proponents of the new system said the state could save A change in Medicaid turn, hire outside companies called pharmacy ben- $50 million a year by handing over Medicaid pharmacy policy is putting pharmacies out of business. efit managers (PBMs) to negotiate lower rates with reimbursements to managed care. The state Health istockphoto pharmacies, and pass the savings on to taxpayers. and Human Services Commission (HHSC) pegged

2 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org Political Intelligence projected savings at $56 million over two years. War-on-the-Poor Files TRIVIATEXAS With former Rick Perry staffers Mike Toomey, Last spring, the Ann-Marie Price and Victoria Ford lobbying on their Galveston’s House Texas Legislature behalf, the pharmacy benefit management com- passed House panies got their way. State officials said there were Divided Bill 15, the safeguards in place to ensure that nobody lost cov- Three and a half years after Hurricane Ike controversial erage and no pharmacies were run out of business. wrecked Galveston, an ugly brawl over public hous- law that requires “Any company that sets the rates too low to ensure ing still consumes the island. Even though a legally women to have our clients have that access will end up losing its con- binding agreement mandates that all 569 govern- a sonogram and tract with the state,” HHSC spokesperson Stephanie ment-subsidized apartments destroyed in the storm hear a description Goodman told The Dallas Morning News. must be rebuilt, opponents are determined to drive of the fetus before Even after the program’s first week, results government-subsidized housing out of Galveston. an abortion. In were impressive. They say that rebuilding public housing would hurt total, 88 state In South Texas, a few independents like Mom’s the housing market and makes no sense in light of an lawmakers either Pharmacy in Weslaco shut down after the program’s anemic job market. coauthored first day of implementation. The McAllen Monitor Many island residents believe the opposition to has been following the closings in the Rio Grande rebuilding is little more than a social engineering the bill (in the Valley, where 400,000 of the state’s 3.2 million experiment driven by racism and fear of the poor. Texas House) Medicaid patients live. “The whole thing is they don’t want poor people or cosponsored John Calvillo, a pharmacist in Mission who leads in town,” said David Miller, head of the Galveston it (in the Texas the Rio Grande Valley Independent Pharmacy chapter of the NAACP. Miller, who grew up in pub- Senate). Of those Association, says he’s heard of independent pharma- lic housing, said he’s disgusted by the notion that 88 coauthors cies receiving dispensing fees from $2 to 50 cents. people relying on subsidized housing are shiftless and cosponsors, “The PBMs have great lobbyists, they can use and lazy. “Just because you’re poor doesn’t mean how many were smoke and mirrors and make them believe they’re you’re not an upstanding citizen and you don’t care women? going to save a lot of money,” Calvillo says. He says about the rules.” the new system is far more complex than the old one, “There is nothing more cruel than saying that a) None and incredibly opaque. He’s seen a single PBM using people who lost their homes to the hurricane should b) 18 75 different reimbursement rates, depending on go away and not come back,” said John Henneberger, c) 37 which pharmacy it’s doing business with. a veteran housing activist and executive director of d) 2 “We honestly do not know what we’re going to be the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service. e) Women aren’t paid. They send us a take-it-or-leave-it contract,” “That’s the clear message that’s being conveyed by a permitted to Calvillo says, and “they never negotiate with us, even number of white people in Galveston.” coauthor bills though they told the state they would.” The conflict erupted shortly after the storm, which in the Texas When pharmacists descended on a hearing at the destroyed four of the island’s six large housing proj- Legislature. Capitol in January, House Public Health Committee ects and scattered residents far and wide. Hurricane Chair Lois Kolkhorst conceded the new system was Ike also drove up rents and left the affordable hous- basically a “black box.” The next month, pharmacists ing stock in rough shape. tried to block the program with a pair of federal suits. The public housing debate has taken a nasty In the Valley, state Sen. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen, turn in recent months. Mayor Joe Jaworski and the and state Rep. Sergio Muñoz Jr., D-Palmview, have Galveston Housing Authority unveiled a plan late taken up the cause. Hinojosa called the reimburse- last year that would replace the barracks-style proj- ment rates “unacceptable,” and has met with HHSC ects, razed after the storm, with new mixed-income commissioner Tom Suehs about the program. developments interspersed throughout the commu- READ the Observer’s previous coverage of Calvillo says the logic used to support this new pro- nity. The rebuild is viewed broadly as a chance not Galveston’s housing issues gram—cutting costs by adding extra players between just to bring low-income residents home, but also to at txlo.com/galvhousing pharmacies and the state—is flawed. “How are they give federal housing policy a fresh start. going to save money by inserting two for-profit com- But in November, Galveston City Council voted panies between us? It doesn’t make sense,” he says. 4-3 to reject the plan. More recently, a three-member The margins those pharmacy benefit managers are faction on the council has been floating a resolution trimming off the prescription costs are ending up in calling on the state to deny federal tax credits for

California, Rhode Island and Wisconsin, where the low-income housing in Galveston. It’s become clear

management companies are based. that the debate is about more than housing. bills. the read

exas lawmakers don’t don’t lawmakers exas T

“They’re really throwing us into the deep end,” he says. “[The public housing residents] aren’t going to most

n their defense, defense, their n I epublicans.

“I don’t think the state realizes what they’ve done.” work,” one citizen said at a housing authority meet- R er: er: sw n A b) 18: 18: b) ll ll

—Patrick Michels ing in February, according to Galveston’s Daily News. A

april 2012 the te xas observer | 3 “I worked all my life, and I’m not going to have this talk oF Texas come in and destroy what I’ve worked for.” Many in Galveston see the anti-public hous- women’s health pushback edition ing effort as reckless, endangering the island’s free-wheeling reputation and its ability to tap state and federal dollars. “It sends a message to Washington; it sends a “Perry’s Facebook message to Austin; it sends a message right here on the streets of Galveston that this council or certain members of this council simply don’t want lower-income families and individuals liv- page is drawing ing in this community,” Betty Massey, a prominent Galvestonian and chairwoman of the housing authority, told City Council in January. thousands of Public housing opponents now have two mayoral candidates to choose from—both Beau Rawlins and Lewis Rosen are running against Jaworski on anti- comments public housing platforms. “My position on rebuilding public housing is very simple: Don’t do it,” writes Rosen, a retired businessman, on his campaign website. pointedly taking But there seems to be little opponents can do other than delay the inevitable. In May 2010, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development him to task for approved an agreement that obligates Texas to rebuild all the public housing lost on Galveston Island due to Hurricane Ike. cutting off federal Just don’t expect much of a homecoming celebration. —Forrest Wilder

funds for women’s Dispatch from the Drug War Tweeting the health programs.” Disappeared —Washington Post, March 19 Mexico is in the midst of a kidnapping wave. No one knows how severe it is because Mexicans don’t trust “I would like your opinion since the government or the police, which often collude with drug cartels; so they often don’t report the I can’t make medical decisions crimes. But anecdotally, Mexicans say the number of myself being a woman and all.” kidnappings and disappearances is rising to unprec- —Comment posted on Gov. Rick Perry’s Facebook page. edented levels. In northern Mexico, besieged citizens have turned to the social networking service Twitter to find their “Governor, I have this unusual loved ones. Working together, they’ve formed an online citizens network that collects information discharge, but I don’t have about the missing and “tweets” it, along with a pic- any health insurance right ture of the victim, into cyberspace. One Twitter user, who prefers to remain anonymous for safety rea- now. You’re an expert in LEARN more about Mexicans using Twitter in the sons, calls himself “Don Alejo” after a folk hero killed women’s health—could you drug war at txlo.com/twi near Ciudad Victoria in 2010 by cartel henchmen. He says the group has collected approximately 250 take a look?” names of kidnap victims so far. “The problems really —Comment posted on Perry’s Facebook page. started to begin in 2009,” he says of his home state of Tamaulipas. “Three busloads of people disappeared, and the government did nothing about it, and the “Rick, How do you feel about media were too scared to report it.” the new comfort glide OB Since 2009, the network of citizens using Twitter to look for kidnapped individuals has grown to cover Tampons? I’m having a real hard several states, including most of northern Mexico, time with them.... Could you Don Alejo says. On a typical day, Twitter users across Mexico will send out a string of messages, each with have them repealed for me?” a description and a picture of the missing person. A —Comment posted on Perry’s Facebook page. typical notice reads like this: “Disappeared Dulce Romero Ortiz in #Xalapa #Ver 06/07/2010 Have

4 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org you seen her?” Each hashtag followed by a city name examination of evidence from rape cases state- means the notice will be disseminated to Twitter wide, requiring even the smallest law enforcement users in those towns. agencies to report how many rape kits they’ve left Sometimes they get lucky. “We have found chil- untested, then submit them to a crime lab. dren with a parent in another town and girls that These being lean times in Texas, the Legislature have run away from home,” Alejo says. Last year they passed the bill without allocating new funding to the helped locate a teenager from Tapachula, Chiapas, cause. It’s up to crime labs and police departments to in southern Mexico. “Thank you Twitteros for help- raise money to test the old evidence. ing Lulu return to her house safe and sound!” wrote “One of the solutions offered by 1636 is that we’d one Twitter user beaneath a picture of a pretty young get a complete picture,” says Torie Camp, deputy woman in a turquoise top. director of the Texas Association Against Sexual Because of their ability to organize online, social Assault. Law enforcement agencies were required to media users are frequently threatened by criminal report their rape kit backlogs to the Department of syndicates through Twitter and on Facebook pages. Public Safety (DPS) by mid-October of last year. Their online activity is constantly monitored. Some That hasn’t happened. social media users have even been killed in the border DPS records obtained by the Observer show that as city of Nuevo Laredo for reporting the movements of of January 23—three months after the deadline—just drug cartel operatives. Don Alejo said the deaths fright- 86 of the state’s 2,647 law enforcement agencies had ened people in the network, but they won’t quit. “I am reported their backlogs. threatened on a daily basis. But I do this because I love The 86 include some of Texas’ largest police my country. No one pays us a peso for this,” he says. “I departments, like San Antonio (2,077 untested rape get very angry about what’s happening, and I want to kits) and El Paso (56). But DPS records don’t show help. It’s sad, but nothing will change in Mexico until that Dallas, Houston or Fort Worth police have the government is free of corruption. We live in the reported their totals to the state. The second-largest shadow of corruption.” —Melissa del Bosque backlog so far reported to DPS comes from Amarillo, with 950 untested kits. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice reported 16 untested kits from Dept. of Untested Evidence alleged prison rapes. In all, DPS records account for 5,686 untested Backlogging the kits in active investigations—and that number will only increase. Backlog “I think the lack of reporting to the state is cer- Over the past three years, a series of investigations tainly a problem—I can hope that it’s just a lack into major police departments in Texas revealed a of awareness of this requirement,” Camp says. In shockingly large backlog of untested rape kits—the emails to local law enforcement, though, officials at collections of swabs, hair, fibers and clothing typi- regional DPS crime labs described, step by step, just READ more about untested cally collected from a woman or a man who reports how agencies should comply with the new law, right rape kits at txlo.com/utrk having been sexually assaulted. down to putting the words “SB 1636 OLD CASE” on Backlogs of thousands of untested kits have made their submission forms. headlines in Houston, San Antonio, Fort Worth and Before the law passed last year, it drew opposition Dallas, prompting efforts in those cities to finally test from some police officials who said there’s no reason the evidence. Last year, the Texas Legislature passed to test all the old kits. It’s expensive, crime labs are a law—Senate Bill 1636, authored by Democratic swamped, and in many cases, victims already know Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth—to mandate the person who raped them. But that’s hardly an attitude to build policy around. For a victim who’s just been raped, having their lips, cheeks, vagina or anus swabbed for evidence is no small ordeal— they do it because they believe it will help bring their rapist to justice. And even if a victim can identify the rapist, there’s a benefit to running the offender’s DNA through law enforcement databases. “I think there are a lot of repeat sex offenders out there,” Camp says. “But because the kits have not been tested, for a variety of reasons, we don’t know Records from untested they’re out there.” Texas rape kits. —Patrick Michels photo courtesy of taasa april 2012 the te xas observer | 5 Tyrant’sFOE Sending Knowledge to Texas Inmates nly his legs are visible as Skot Odierno digs through a huge wooden box outside the squat green building in East Austin that houses the Inside Books Project. The box is packed with donated books for Texas prisoners. Scooping up a stack to take inside, Odierno, the project’s volunteer co-coordinator, says the haul of hundreds of books represents about a week’s worth of donations for the nonprofit organization, the only one of its kind in Texas. The scene is reminiscent of Odierno’s introduction and retirees, hustle to find books that prisoners have to Inside Books 12 years ago. “I was Dumpster-diving requested. Requests range from the practical to the Obooks a lot at Half Price Books,” says Odierno, 41. “I poignant. One inmate asks for trade manuals on heard about this and started bringing books. Then I electrical work and science textbooks. Another, an started volunteering with them.” aspiring poet, asks for anything about Buddhism. Odierno gradually became more involved in the One volunteer fields a letter asking only for a book project, and now spends 20 to 30 hours a week helping about making pop-up greeting cards. “That’s all he run the organization. “I work in Zilker Park—that’s my asked for,” the volunteer keeps repeating as she real job,” he says, laughing. “Or the one I get paid for.” searches the shelves. The work is worth it to him because of the unique While volunteers pull books and package them, Skot Odierno mission of Inside Books, which was founded in 1998. Odierno does paperwork and ping-pongs around the Helps educate prisoners He says books help take the edge off life in the Texas room helping tie up “loose ends.” In an average week, by donating books prison system, the second-largest in the nation, with he’ll perform anything from administrative duties to more than 156,000 inmates. grunt work: hosting fundraisers, coordinating vol- State prisons have libraries, but inmates have unteer sessions, sorting books onto library carts and limited, and, in some cases, no access to them. And, organizing the space Inside Books occupies. Odierno adds, the selection of books is limited. Odierno says the organization responds to about “What we do is send books to individuals so they are 700 letters a month. If a specific requested book isn’t their property, and they can do what they want with available, volunteers will find something on the same “The most them,” he says. subject to send. Some subjects and titles are off limits, The books also help prisoners pass the time—and due to restrictions placed by the Texas prison system. requested learn something, Odierno says. “It might help you Books dealing with fighting, gambling, or containing educate yourself so when you get released you can nudity are forbidden. books are get a job.” The most requested books are dictionaries, and Odierno helps coordinate book mailings twice educational books are also hugely popular. The edu- dictionaries, a week at Inside Books’ headquarters. The space, cational aspect of reading is something Inside Books donated to the group free of charge, looks something prioritizes, leading to a spin-off called Sending and educational like an independent bookstore, with dim lighting Solidarity, Odierno says. The six-month-old initiative and an eclectic array of sagging couches, tables and sends books to 140 teenagers in the Clements Unit in books are also mismatched chairs. A bar like one you might see at a Amarillo, an adult prison where educational opportu- coffee shop stands along the back wall. A small maze nities are limited. hugely popular.” of labeled shelves includes an array of titles. A book Inside Books currently averages a four- to five- about Samoan mythology shares space with a book month delay between request and delivery. Odierno about the philosopher Kant and some pulp fiction. says there’s a need for similar projects across the state. With the cache of books the donation bin has net- “Right now we’re talking to some people in Dallas ted, you might expect the shelves to be crammed full, who want to start a book project too,” he says. “I but Odierno and the 10 or so volunteers working on a don’t know what will come of it, but that’s one thing Thursday night in late February keep the stock mov- we’ve always wanted, to get other cities to do this.” ing. The volunteers, including high school students —Nick Swartsell

6 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org editorial The Attack on Women’s Health

ntil recently, most Texans had abortion politics trumping good public policy. It’s probably never heard of the Women’s even more troubling given the larger trend. Last These policies Health Program. It was one of those spring, the Texas Legislature sliced more than 66 out-of-the-way, good-government percent from the state family planning program’s are the result programs that consumes a relatively budget. That program, though a separate pool of small amount of money—about $40 money from the Women’s Health Program, has a of Republican million annually—but does copious similar mission: prevent unplanned pregnancies. good: paying for health screenings and birth control The Legislature—at Perry’s behest—also passed politicians Ufor 130,000 low-income, uninsured Texas women. the state’s harsh new sonogram law, which took Now it’s ending. Here’s the short version in case effect in January. It requires most women seek- pandering to you haven’t been following along: Texas had to ask ing abortions to undergo a sonogram and listen to a the federal government to renew the Medicaid funds description of the fetus at least 24 hours before the their base. that largely pay for the Women’s Health Program. procedure. If anyone doubts the trauma of hearing That typically would be pro forma, except this time a description of your soon-to-be-aborted child, we Perry’s administration announced it wanted to suggest they read Carolyn Jones’ powerful first-per- exclude Planned Parenthood from providing services son account, on page 8 of this issue. under the program. The feds deemed that a violation Taken together, cuts to family planning and con- of federal law. Texas did it anyway. The program is traceptive services, and the sonogram law, compose a expiring in a flurry of finger-pointing. broad attack on women’s reproductive rights. Perry says the state will create its own version of These policies are the result of Republican politicians the Women’s Health Program—without the nine-to- pandering to their base, a highly motivated, organized one federal matching funds, and without Planned and effective segment of social-conservative voters. Parenthood, which currently provides more than 40 In Texas, which boasts by far the lowest voter percent of the services. Texas health officials promise turnout in the nation, this small fragment of the pop- that poor Texas women won’t lose services. We’ll see. ulation wields disproportionate power. It’s long past This development is a troubling example of time for those who disagree to push back.

loon star state Ben Sargent

april 2012 the te xas observer | 7 T T

The Ri ght to Know The painful choice to terminate a pregnancy is now—thanks to Texas’ new sonogram law— just the beginning of the torment.

By Carolyn Jones Photo by Jen Reel

8 | the te xasT observer www.texasobserTver.org april 2012 the te xas observer | 9 Halfway through my pregnancy, I learned that my baby was ill.

Profoundly so. My doctor gave us the news kindly, but magician, and our bleak choices still lay ahead. still, my husband and I weren’t prepared. Just a few Next a genetic counselor explained our options minutes earlier, we’d been smiling giddily at fellow and told us how abortions work. There was that word expectant parents as we waited for the doctor to see again, and how jarring and out-of-place it sounded. us. In a sonography room smelling faintly of lemon- Weren’t we those practical types who got married in grass, I’d just had gel rubbed on my stomach, just seen their 30s, bought a house, rescued a dog, then, with blots on the screen become tiny hands. For a brief, sensible timing, had one child followed by another? exultant moment, we’d seen our son—a brother for Weren’t we so predictable that friends forecast our our 2-year-old girl. milestones on Facebook? Suddenly something was Yet now my doctor was looking grim and, with chair wrong with our story, because something was wrong pulled close, was speaking of alarming things. “I’m with our son. Something so wrong that any choice we worried about your baby’s head shape,” she said. “I made would unyoke us forever from our ordinary life. want you to see a specialist—now.” Our options were grim. We learned that we could My husband looked angry, and maybe I did too, but bring our baby into the world, then work hard to palliate it was astonishment more than anger. Ours was a pro- his pain, or we could alleviate that pain by choosing to found disbelief that something so bad might happen “interrupt” my pregnancy. The surgical procedure our to people who think themselves charmed. We already counselor described was horrific, but then so seemed had one healthy child and had expected good fortune our son’s prospects in life. In those dark moments we to give us two. had to make a choice, so we picked the one that seemed Instead, before I’d even known I was pregnant, a slightly less cruel. Before that moment, I’d never known molecular flaw had determined that our son’s brain, how viscerally one might feel dread. spine and legs wouldn’t develop correctly. If he were That afternoon, my husband and I drove through a to make it to term—something our doctor couldn’t spaghetti of highways, one of which led us to a nonde- guarantee—he’d need a lifetime of medical care. From script building between a Wendy’s and a Brake Check. the moment he was born, my doctor told us, our son This was Planned Parenthood’s surgical center, part would suffer greatly. of the organization constantly in the news thanks to So, softly, haltingly, my husband asked about termi- America’s polarizing cultural debates. On that very nation. The doctor shot me a glance that said: Are you day, Planned Parenthood’s name was on the cover of okay to hear this now? I nodded, clenched my fists and newspapers because of a funding controversy with the focused on the cowboy boots beneath her scrubs. Susan G. Komen Foundation. These clinics, and the She started with an apology, saying that despite controversial services they provide, are always under being responsible for both my baby’s care and my own, scrutiny. The security cameras, the double-doors and she couldn’t take us to the final stop. The hospital with the restricted walkways assured us of that fact. which she’s affiliated is Catholic and doesn’t allow While my husband filled out the paperwork, I sat abortion. It felt like a physical blow to hear that word, on a hard chair in the spartan reception area and abortion, in the context of our much-wanted child. observed my fellow patients. I was the oldest woman in Abortion is a topic that never seemed relevant to me; the waiting room, as well as the only one who was vis- “I’m so sorry it was something we read about in the news or talked ibly pregnant. The other patients either sat with their about politically; it always remained at a safe distance. mothers or, enigmatically, alone. Together we solemnly I have to do Yet now its ugly fist was hammering on my chest. marked time, waiting for our turn behind the doors. My doctor went on to tell us that, just two weeks Eventually we were called back, not to a consult- this,” the prior, a new Texas law had come into effect requiring ing room, but to another holding area. There, the staff doctor told that women wait an extra 24 hours before having the asked my husband to wait while a counselor spoke to procedure. Moreover, Austin has only one clinic pro- me in private. My husband sat down. Posters above us. Before viding second-trimester terminations, and that clinic him warned women about signs of domestic abuse. might have a long wait. “Time is not on your side,” my Meanwhile, I was enclosed with a cheerful-looking he could doctor emphasized gently. For this reason, she urged counselor who had colored hair and a piercing in her us to seek a specialist’s second opinion the moment we nose. Feeling like someone who’d stumbled into the even start to left her office. “They’re ready for you,” she said, before wrong room, I told her between choked sobs how we’d describe our ushering us out the back door to shield us from the arrived at her clinic on the highway. smiling patients in the waiting room. “I am so sorry,” the young woman said with com- baby, I began The specialist confirmed what our doctor had feared passion and nudged the tissues closer. Then, after a and sketched a few diagrams to explain. He hastily moment’s pause, she told me reluctantly about the to sob until I drew cells growing askew, quick pen-strokes to show new Texas sonogram law that had just come into could barely when and where life becomes blighted. How simple, effect. I’d already heard about it. The law passed last I thought, to just undraw those lines and restore my spring but had been suppressed by legal injunction breathe. child to wholeness. But this businesslike man was no until two weeks earlier.

10 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org My counselor said that the law required me to have Finally, my doctor folded the paper and put it away: another ultrasound that day, and that I was legally “When you come back in 24 hours, the legal side is obligated to hear a doctor describe my baby. I’d then over. Then we’ll care for you and give you the informa- have to wait 24 hours before coming back for the pro- tion you need in the way we think is right.” cedure. She said that I could either see the sonogram A day later, we returned to the clinic for the sur- or listen to the baby’s heartbeat, adding weakly that gery that had us saying goodbye to our son. On top of this choice was mine. their medical duties, the nurses also held my hand and “I don’t want to have to do this at all,” I told her. “I’m wiped my eyes and let me cry like a child in their arms. doing this to prevent my baby’s suffering. I don’t want Later, in reviewing the state-mandated paperwork another sonogram when I’ve already had two today. I I’d signed, I found a statement about women who may don’t want to hear a description of the life I’m about to opt out of the new sonogram edict. It seemed that end. Please,” I said, “I can’t take any more pain.” I con- minors, victims of rape or incest, and cases in which the fess that I don’t know why I said that. I knew it was fait baby has an irreversible abnormality might be spared accompli. The counselor could no more change the the extra anguish. I asked the Planned Parenthood government requirement than I could. Yet here was staff about this and, after conferring privately, they What good a superfluous layer of torment piled upon an already thought that my child’s condition might have exempted horrific day, and I wanted this woman to know it. me from the new sonogram rules. They apologized for is a law that “We have no choice but to comply with the law,” their uncertainty, explaining that the law was so new adds only she said, adding that these requirements were not they’d not had a chance to understand what it means in what Planned Parenthood would choose. Then, with practice. “Could I have skipped the 24-hour wait, too?” pain and a warmth that belied the materials in her hand, she I asked, wondering whether that extra day of distress took me through the rules. First, she told me about might have been avoided. “No,” a staffer replied, “the difficulty my rights regarding child support and adoption. mandatory wait applies to everyone.” to perhaps Then she gave me information about the state inspec- A few weeks later, I decided to clarify this for myself. tion of the clinic. She offered me a pamphlet called A I asked the Department of State Health Services, the most Woman’s Right to Know, saying that it described my the agency responsible for implementing the sono- baby’s development as well as how the abortion program law, who exactly is exempt. The department painful and cedure works. She gave me a list of agencies that offer responded by email: “A woman would still be subject free sonograms, and which, by law, have no affiliation to the sonogram but would not be required to hear an difficult with abortion providers. Finally, after having me sign explanation of the sonogram images if she certifies in decision a reams of paper, she led me to the doctor who’d per- writing that her fetus has an irreversible medical con- form the sonography, and later the termination. dition as identified by a reliable diagnostic procedure woman The doctor and nurse were professional and kind, and documented in her medical file.” Based on this and it was clear that they understood our sorrow. They reply, it seems that the torturous description I’d borne can make? too apologized for what they had to do next. For the was just a clerical mistake. third time that day, I exposed my stomach to an ultra- However, in looking through the paperwork I sound machine, and we saw images of our sick child signed for Planned Parenthood, I noticed that the forming in blurred outlines on the screen. Department of State Health Services had issued tech- “I’m so sorry that I have to do this,” the doctor nical guidelines four days after I’d been at the clinic. So told us, “but if I don’t, I can lose my license.” Before for three weeks, abortion providers in Texas had been he could even start to describe our baby, I began to required to follow the sonogram law but had not been sob until I could barely breathe. Somewhere, a nurse given any official instructions on how to implement it. cranked up the volume on a radio, allowing the inane Again, I asked the agency about this, and a spokesman pronouncements of a DJ to dull the doctor’s voice. replied as follows: “No specific guidance was issued Still, despite the noise, I heard him. His unwelcome during that time, but clinics were welcome to ask words echoed off sterile walls while I, trapped on a questions or seek guidance from their legal counsel if bed, my feet in stirrups, twisted away from his voice. there were concerns.” “Here I see a well-developed diaphragm and here I My experience, it seems, was a byproduct of complex see four healthy chambers of the heart...” laws being thrown into the tangled world of abortion I closed my eyes and waited for it to end, as one waits politics. If I’d been there two weeks earlier or even a week for the car to stop rolling at the end of a terrible accident. later, I might have avoided the full brunt of this new law’s When the description was finally over, the doctor effect. But not so for those other young women I saw in held up a script and said he was legally obliged to read Planned Parenthood’s waiting room. Unless they fall me information provided by the state. It was about into one of those exemption categories—the conditions the health dangers of having an abortion, the risks of under which the state has deemed that some women’s infection or hemorrhage, the potential for infertility reasons for having an abortion are morally acceptable— and my increased chance of getting breast cancer. I then they’ll have politicians muscling in on their private was reminded that medical benefits may be available decisions. But what good is the view of someone who for my maternity care and that the baby’s father was has never had to make your terrible choice? What good liable to provide support, whether he’d agreed to pay is a law that adds only pain and difficulty to perhaps the for the abortion or not. most painful and difficult decision a woman can make? Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. That ugly word, to Shouldn’t women have a right to protect themselves pepper that ugly statement, to embody the futility of from strangers’ opinions on their most personal mat- all we’d just endured. Futile because we’d already made ters? Shouldn’t we have the right not to know? our heart-breaking decision about our child, and no Carolyn Jones is a freelance writer based in Austin. incursion into our private world could change it. Read more of her work at www.carolynjoneswrites.com. april 2012 the te xas observer | 11 Illustration by Rebecca Sanchez 12 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org

Prosecutions, mass graves and the Police Archive provide clues in the deaths of thousands of Guatemalans.

The Long Road Home

by Saul Elbein

n December 19, 1980, the last day she her voice. The car and driver hadn’t made it back to was seen alive, Alaide Foppa left her her home. Had he heard from Alaide? mother’s house in Guatemala City on When he got that call, Solórzano said later, he knew her way to the airport. he would never see his mother again. At 66, Foppa was an internationally Foppa was never found. There was never a body. knownO leftist poet and feminist. When the CIA-backed There was never a certificate of death. Foppa, the car, Guatemalan military overthrew the country’s elected and the driver vanished as though they had never been. government in 1954, Foppa had moved her family The most chilling thing about Foppa’s disap- to Mexico. From there, she watched as Guatemala’s pearance is how ordinary it was. In those days in new military leaders quickly moved against their Guatemala, as in other right-wing dictatorships, opponents. They rolled back a decade of democratic people simply vanished. Some, like Foppa, were reforms. They banned trade unions and left-wing well-known intellectuals. Some were labor leaders, political parties. And as their control over the country journalists, leftist activists. Some were just unlucky, tightened, their critics began to disappear. mistaken for someone else. Foppa was a very visible part of a group of During the 36-year Guatemalan civil war, the Guatemalan intellectuals who denounced human military regime killed over 200,000 people. The vast rights violations in their country. By the 1960s, majority were Mayans from rural areas. Some 45,000 her name began appearing on the regular lists of people, including Foppa, were disappeared, mostly “known subversives” published by Guatemalan anti- in and around Guatemala City. Consider that the communist organizations. People on the lists often national population is only 8 million, and you start to ended up dead. get a sense of the scale of this trauma. That December she had returned to Guatemala City When the war ended in 1996, a loose umbrella of to visit her ailing mother. When the visit ended, her human rights and victims rights groups began to mother’s driver took Foppa to the airport for her flight organize. They demanded justice for their dead, who back to Mexico. were slowly being discovered in mass graves. But the She never made it. Julio Solórzano Foppa, her eldest military, along with the police, had spent a lot of time son, was living in Mexico City then. That afternoon he trying to bury the truth. For the last three decades, got a call from his grandmother. There was panic in Guatemalans like Solórzano have been trying to

the te xas observer | 13 literally dig it up. Between the upcoming trials of for- analogous to the U.S. Secretary of State. On Castañeda’s mer military leaders, forensic evidence from mass advice, Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo formed graves and the 80 million documents about police a commission, including Solórzano, leading legal activities at the National Police Archive, the families scholars and a prominent newspaper publisher, to fly of Guatemala’s missing and dead hope the truth will to Guatemala and investigate Foppa’s disappearance. finally emerge. President Portillo gave them his private plane. They were ready to go when the chancellor sum- On November 13, 1960, six years after the coup, a moned Solórzano. He had just received a Telex from group of left-wing junior officers from the national mil- the Guatemalan military government, to whom the itary academy revolted against the ruling junta. Their Mexicans had explained their mission. revolt failed, and the survivors hid in the hills, estab- “They said, ‘We, too, are very worried about the lishing a Marxist guerilla movement, the Movimiento whereabouts of Doctora Alaide Foppa,’” Solórzano Revolucionario 13 Noviembre, or MR-13. This began a civil war in which most of the victims were civilians killed by one or another of the military governments in power during those years. These killings and disappearances happened largely in secret. Entire villages disappeared, their inhabit- ants shot or burned and buried in mass graves. The army depopulated huge swaths of the Guatemalan high- lands. In urban areas, the military kidnapped dissidents off the streets in broad daylight. Even today, there is no complete list of names of everyone the military and police killed. Army officials from that period, to this day, deny there were massacres. If there were, one has argued, they were the fault of “rogue officers” or “the guerillas.” Solórzano, though, was in a unique position to find answers about his mother’s disappearance. Julio Solórzano grew up as expatriate roy- alty in Mexico, where his parents were leading lights of the Guatemalan community that fled there after the 1954 coup. His father was Juan Jose Arevalo, the former president who led the 1944 “October Revolution” that overthrew the military and established Guatemala’s recalled when I met him at his office in Guatemala brief democratic spring. His stepfather, Mario City. “‘We too are trying everything to find her, and Solórzano, was a cabinet advisor to the next president, we welcome the commission you’ve named. But Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, when he was overthrown in we think that it is our duty to warn you that inter- the CIA-backed military coup in 1954. national communism, in its efforts to make the The day after Foppa’s disappearance, Solórzano and Guatemalan government look bad, may cause harm his sister threw all their resources into finding her. ... to come to them.’” They knew that if their mother was still alive, it would He grimaced. “It was a clear threat, and we all took likely be for only hours or days more. it as such. You have to remember that less than a year But it was December 20, the start of the Christmas before, a bunch of indigenious activists had occupied holidays. Across the world, government and human the Spanish embassy in Guatemala City. The army rights offices were closed. By the time they were able burned it down with them inside. So they didn’t really to arrange meetings, they had lost days. Solórzano’s have a whole lot of respect for international law.” LEFT TO RIGHT: Three women sister flew to New York to talk to the UN Commission The rest of the commission, Solórzano said, was watch as the remains of relatives and friends who on Human Rights. Solórzano flew to Paris, where waiting in the next room. The chancellor looked at were killed in the early 1980s he watched Julio Cortázar, the famous Argentine Solórzano. “What do you think?” are exhumed. Nebaj, Quiché, 2000; The remains of a writer, give a heartfelt speech to the French Senate Solórzano said, “Well, we know the Guatemalan family that was killed by an asking lawmakers to help find Foppa. Human rights government has been behind all the repression. We army patrol in the summer of 1982. Relatives asked that representatives at the UN and the Organization of know they’re probably behind this disappearance.” If their bodies be exhumed and American States made inquiries. there was any reason to think Foppa was alive, he said, returned to them for a proper burial. Nebaj, Quiché, 2000. In Mexico, Solórzano met with Jorge Castañeda y he would fly to Guatemala with the commission and photos by Jonathan Moller Álvarez de la Rosa, the Mexican Chancellor, a position take his chances trying to find her.

14 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org The commission was willing, the chancellor told beginning of the post-war period, there had been a split him. They would fly on his decision. between the old military regime and the human rights “It was a very hard decision,” Solórzano told me. “But organizations. The surviving members of the regime in the end I said no. I said, ‘We have no evidence she’s viewed the growing human rights investigations into alive. We have no excuse to risk these people’s lives.’” the war and attempts to identify the dead with grow- He paused. “With very few [exceptions] the disap- ing unease. They fought the investigations by refusing peared never reappeared in Guatemala.” to help and, occasionally, with murder. In 1998, Bishop The commission dissolved. Solórzano’s brother, Juan Jose Gerardi, a driving force behind the Recovery eventually, heard something about their mother. Three of Historical Memory, a project to provide a record of of Solórzano’s siblings had gone back to Guatemala to war atrocities, was bludgeoned to death in his garage in join the Marxist guerillas fighting the regime. Two or Guatemala City. Three military officers were convicted three months after Foppa’s disappearance, Solórzano’s of his murder and sentenced to 30-year terms. A key part of the military leaders’ defense was that there was no proof of what they had done. There were no records. During the But, human rights workers say, the thing about totalitarian governments 36-year is that there are always records. “When I came here in the ’90s,” Guatemalan Marcie Mersky, a human rights worker with the New York-based civil war, the International Center for Transitional Justice, told me, “it was right after military regime the war. We went to go request files from the police. They said, ‘Sorry, we killed over destroyed them.’ “It was bullshit. No repressive 200,000 people. bureaucracy ever destroys documents. Ever. They can’t do it. If they say they’ve destroyed them, they’re lying. They may be hidden, but they’re around.” There is no better symbol of this principle than the National Police Archive. In 2005, an explosion at a police station in a rough neighbor- hood on the outskirts of Guatemala City revealed a giant store of hidden records. Firemen rushing in found piles of documents—records of the National Police, dating back to its founding in 1880. In a country where the actions younger brother Mario called him in Mexico. He said of the police had always been carried out in deepest the guerillas had received a report that Foppa had been secrecy, the discovery was a big deal. tortured and killed the day of her capture by a death The archive is now located in a corner of a police sta- squad run by a high-ranking Guatemalan minister. tion, part of a sprawling compound that houses the Mario and another brother later died in the Guatemala headquarters of the Sixth Corps of the Guatemalan mountains. The report was never confirmed. National Police. During the war, the Sixth Corps was notorious for repression, and the base saw a lot of traf- When the military handed power to Guatemala’s fic. There are persistent rumors, possibly groundless but new civilian government in 1996, it did so under the endlessly repeated, that bodies of the disappeared lay express understanding that soldiers and officers were beneath its floors. never going to be held accountable for what they had I went to the archive on a gray and rainy day in done during the war. For almost the entire period October. My cab pulled up to the guard station outside since the end of the civil war, the dictator-generals the archive. Past the gate were rows of featureless con- who ran the military have maintained prominent roles crete buildings. Unsmiling National Police troops with in public life. Until January of this year—when he was submachine guns opened the gate and waved us into a indicted by a Guatemalan court on charges of geno- muddy parking lot surrounded by a low concrete wall cide and crimes against humanity—Efraín Rios Montt, decorated with murals. who ran the government during some of Guatemala’s I got out. The cab drove away. In the distance I heard worst years, served in the country’s Congress. gunshots from a police firing range. A Guatemalan in His indictment is largely due to the efforts of a net- a raincoat walked up to me. “Who are you?” he asked. work of international and Guatemalan human rights I told him. “Oh,” he said. “You want Gustavo.” groups created when the civil war ended. From the Gustavo Meaño Brenner was a large man with glasses. april 2012 the te xas observer | 15 He was the national coordinator for the Police Archive. change or political whim in Guatemala, because con- He was sitting in a waiting room with a Guatemalan ditions that made it possible for the archive to be open journalist and her family; she had dragged them out of and stay open may not always be there.” bed on a Saturday morning to come look at documents. To protect the documents—and to make them “Well,” Brenner said, “let’s go.” He led us around accessible worldwide—UT helped the Guatemalans the building. We came to an iron door to a 30-foot-tall digitize them. On December 2, 2011, UT’s Benson Latin concrete warehouse. Brenner opened it. American Collection unveiled its new digital version We stepped through. Behind me, one of the of the 13 million archive documents catalogued so Guatemalans swore softly. We were standing in a cav- far. Since the site went live, it has received more than ernous room 100 yards deep. The wall was punctuated 105,000 page views, about 43 percent of which came with alcoves that could have once been cells. from Guatemala. Instead of people they held paper. All around us, According to UT archive researcher Kent filling every corner of the room, were great untidy Nowsworthy, the National Police Archive doesn’t usu- dunes of documents 10 feet high. Some were in ally yield anything as incriminating as the information marked boxes or folders: “Homicides, 1947-1948.” in the Quevedo y Quevedo case. Most of the archive is Others were tied in loose bundles, or simply loose. administrative, and most of the evidence it reveals is on The air smelled of mildew and wet paper. The only the order of placing particular police units at specific sounds were the dull hum of the air conditioner and places at specific times. When researchers can combine the distant, persistent gunshots from the firing range. such documents with other information—an eyewit- When the archive was discovered, the Guatemalan ness account of a kidnapping, for instance—the archive Public Ministry—the equivalent of an attorney can be a powerful tool in tracking the disappeared. general’s office, charged with investigating the old This approach was used in the case of Edgar regime’s crimes—took over responsibility for the Fernando Garcia, a labor activist who disappeared in 1984. The prosecution found archive documents ordering the police Fourth Corps to cover a march where Fernando Garcia would be. They found docu- Government officials found investigation records, ments commending two police officers, Hector Roderico Ramirez Rios and Abraham Lancerio license applications, officer commendations— Gomez, for an unnamed operation involving contact with two “subversives.” and records of the movements of specific units “There’s no document that says, ‘Congratulations for killing this guy,’” Nowsworthy told me. “But work- during the civil war. Also, occasionally, they ing downward, the prosecution can say, we have documents pointing to the larger counter-insurgency found evidence of murder. campaign happening at the time, and that tie operations of the army with operations of the police. Then moving down, there are documents which specifically records to keep them from disappearing again. In order the unit these guys belong to to cover this march. its initial sweep, the Public Ministry estimated that Other documents that explicitly label the march as a the archive held 80 million documents, and workers subversive activity. Then, finally, the commendation, immediately started going through them. Many got which proves [the police officers] were there.” sick; the documents were impregnated with mold. In 2011, Ramirez Rios and Lancerio Gomez were Now workers wear masks. found guilty of the forced disappearance of Fernando Government officials found investigation records, Garcia and sentenced to 40 years in prison. license applications, officer commendations—and Solórzano hopes the archive will help turn up inter- records of the movements of specific units during nal documents about his mother. So far, he hasn’t the civil war. Also, occasionally, they found evidence found much, but he’s hopeful. of murder. In 1979, Fernando Quevedo y Quevedo, The archive has become a magnet for those in search a union leader at Coca-Cola, was shot to death. The of answers about what happened to their loved ones. archive held a hefty file on Quevedo y Quevedo: his Sometimes the traces they look for are surprisingly movements, his politics. Finally, researchers found an faint. “I remember close to when we opened,” Brenner internal report with just one line: “Quevedo y Quevedo said, “a woman came to us looking for information killed by multiple bullet impacts.” about her daughter. The daughter was a violinist. She When the archive was discovered, Julio Solórzano was studying to be in the national conservatory. One had been working as a cultural affairs coordinator, day she went out for her music lesson and never came touring the world with a Mexican dance troupe. That back. Her mother went looking for her, but no one job had brought him into contact with Karen Engle at knew anything. No one could tell her anything. the University of Texas’ Rapoport Center for Human “Finally she came to us. We went through the The trajectory of a bullet Rights. For two decades, UT had been involved in records. All we could find was a copy of the daughter’s through the skull. These ongoing human rights efforts in Guatemala. Perhaps, application for an ID card. Just a form with her picture remains were exhumed from the grounds of a convent in Solórzano suggested, the center could coordinate and fingerprints. Joyabaj, Quiché, that was with the archive. “I felt horrible. This woman came for answers, and I occupied by the Guatemalan Army in the 1980s and used “We thought it was important that the archive couldn’t give her any. as a garrison, torture center, could always be accessible,” said Charles Hale, direc- “But she wasn’t mad. She held the paper. She and clandestine cemetery. Santa Cruz del Quiché, 2000. tor of UT’s Teresa Lozano Long Department of Latin caressed it. She said, ‘Oh, niña, mi niña.’ Because at photo by Jonathan Moller American Studies. “It needed to not be vulnerable to last, after everything, here was proof her daughter

16 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org april 2012 the te xas observer | 17 “The tragedy of the desaparecidos is that the crime never ends. Until they are found, you never get to know what happened.”

had existed. No matter what, here was something she together, piece by piece. Somewhere on site, a stereo could hold onto that proved her daughter was real.” was playing Nirvana. “See here?” Barrios said. “The hips and skull?” He In a corner of La Verbena Cemetery, on the out- held up a piece of bone. “Totally shattered. Massive skirts of Guatemala City, there is a rough excavation trauma. Probably a car accident. Died without ID and site ringed by cinder block walls and covered in pre- ended up here.” fab plastic roofing. At one side of the site is a long “So not the police,” I said. room filled with 11,000 black plastic trash bags. Each He sighed. “Probably not. But there are people they bag contains a body pulled from one of La Verbena’s killed whose bones look like this. And there are ones four mass graves. If Alaide Foppa was anywhere, like this”—he rummaged around a side table to pick Solórzano had told me, she was likely here. up a skull with a bullet hole above the right eyebrow— The site is run by the Guatemalan Forensic “who might have been killed by gangs. But until we Anthropology Foundation, or FAFG, the outfit pri- can identify all these people, we’ll never know.” marily responsible for searching for the bodies of the After skeletons are reassembled, anthropologists disappeared. It has been the foundation’s job to dig up take DNA samples from the femurs to compare with bodies, identify them and determine how they died. In that of the families of the disappeared. The founda- the 17 years since its founding, it has become the big- tion runs a national campaign, “Mi nombre no es gest, best-equipped forensics outfit in Latin America. XX,” or “My name isn’t XX,” asking anyone looking Its evidence has been used in many prosecutions. for relatives to donate DNA samples. (“XX” is how The head anthropologist on site, Jorge Mario Guatemalan morticians record unidentified bod- Barrios, walked me around. ies, their version of “John Doe.”) The campaign has “Most of these people aren’t desaparecidos (disap- had partial success. Thousands of people—Julio LEFT TO RIGHT: Don Nicolás, a Maya priest, holds a cross that peared),” he said. “But a lot of them are. According to Solórzano among them—have had their cheeks lists the ages of his massacred the other records, from places like the Police Archive, scraped for DNA. Many others are scared to come relatives. CPR-Sierra, 1993; A few days before reburial, we think there are probably 300 here.” forward. During the war, showing too much interest remains are returned to the During the period when Foppa disappeared, if you in a desaparecido—even a family member—was a sure families. Each family prepares the coffins, carefully laying the were abducted from Guatemala City, your body gen- path to getting disappeared yourself. bones out with new clothes, erally ended up in an unmarked grave at La Verbena, That fear, Barrios said, is still alive, and it’s pol- textiles and other objects in the simple pine boxes. With love along with other unidentified bodies. If no one luted Guatemalan society. and with great respect, they claimed the body, it would eventually be thrown into “People say Guatemala is a violent country,” he prepare the remains of their loved ones for the Mass, wake, a mass grave. In 2008, FAFG investigators found four said. We were standing outside the camp, eyeing and burial. Nebaj Quiché, 2001; of these mass graves, each 80 feet deep. the two National Police guarding the place. He was Relatives and supporters carry the remains of 120 people who We walked past a couple of forensics guys in face smoking a cigarette. “They see that we’re second- were massacred in the 1980s masks who were opening one of the trash bags, clean- highest in murders. They see robberies and attacks through the principal streets of Nebaj Quiché, 2001. ing off one of the bodies. We came to a table where on buses. And we Guatemalans say, ‘Well, this is how photos by Jonathan Moller two anthropologists were putting a skeleton back it’s always been.’

18 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org UT’s Benson Latin American Collection unveiled its new digital “But that violence came from somewhere. Those represent the first time in international history that bodies in the ground were put there by the authori- a country has prosecuted genocide internally. version of ties. The men who killed them are still free. They Solórzano thinks this will be hugely significant for are still in power. I think much of the violence in our Guatemala. But at the same time he acknowledges the 13 million culture comes from that. Violence was done to the that the impact of the trials will largely be symbolic. people, and the people responded with violence.” The men who kidnapped his mother may never stand [Police Archive] “You think the connection is that strong?” I asked. trial. Her body may never be found. “Yes.” He thought a second. “During the early years “The tragedy of the desaparecidos,” he said, “is that documents. of the human rights movement, when the military left the crime never ends. Until they are found, you never death threats with human rights groups looking into get to know what happened. You never get to let go.” the disappearances, they liked to say ‘Dejen que los Foppa’s story, so far, has no ending, just a question muertos descansen en paz.’ [Let the dead rest in peace.] mark. Perhaps some finality may be found among the The government said, ‘We’ll kill these people, and you millions of pieces of paper in the Police Archive; per- can’t do anything.’ And for a while they were right.” haps there is no trace left at all. He dropped his cigarette on the wet grass. “For There is a bitter irony to this. While in exile in a while.” Mexico, Foppa wrote a poem expressing the pain of being separated from her home country. “My life,” Progress toward justice in Guatemala has she wrote, “is an exile without return ... been slow; so slow that for a long time it seemed My life sailed impossible that any of the perpetrators of the mas- In a ship of nostalgia sacres or disappearances would ever stand trial. I lived on the seashore Guatemalan law allows third parties to prepare Looking towards the horizon: cases against criminals, and as soon as civil war I imagined one day setting sail ended, Guatemalan and international lawyers, pros- towards my unknown home ecutors and human rights organizations started and the foreseen journey building cases against the generals—men like Efraín left me in another port waiting for departure. Rios Montt and his chief of armed forces, Hector The dream of home led Foppa back, one last time, Mario Lopez Fuentes. to Guatemala. At the poem’s conclusion, she asks, For almost two decades, though, these cases were perhaps sardonically, what she fled. “There is no lon- ignored. Until recently, only low-level perpetrators ger any promised land for my hopes,” she wrote, were tried. The men who pulled the triggers rather There is only a land than the ones who gave the orders. full of withered desires But in the last six months, several generals from a secret, buried homeland the old days—Rios Montt, Lopez Fuentes and oth- which from far away seems like ers—have been arrested and indicted for genocide. a lost paradise This is a groundbreaking development. The trials Saul Elbein is an Austin-based freelance writer. april 2012 the te xas observer | 19 or the better part of the past eight In 2003, the Legislature granted Perry’s office decades, the Lower Colorado River authority to directly appoint the LCRA board’s chair. Authority has played a key role in the Before that, board members had elected their own massive growth of Central Texas. The chair, vice chair and secretary. It was a dramatic organization, known more commonly change. Perry and his staff now had the ability to as the LCRA, is one of 14 public river control day-to-day board operations through a chair authorities that watch over Texas’ 15 of his choosing. By extending his reach to the levers major rivers. Its purview includes wholesale power that control the LCRA, Perry forced an end to then- Fsales—which originated with hydroelectric dams General Manager Tom Mason’s brief tenure. More dating to the late 1930s and early 1940s—water consequentially, Perry moved long-time ally Tim management, and environmental stewardship. Timmerman into the LCRA chairmanship. Oversight and leadership of the LCRA is Timmerman replaced Rebecca A. Klein, a former provided by a 15-member board of directors staffer in the White House of George H.W. Bush appointed by the governor, and thus subject who has also served as chair of the state’s Public to the whims of a Democrat/Republican/ Utility Commission. Klein is no raging liberal. She what-have-you administration. For the past had unsuccessfully run for Congress in 2004 against 11 years, that decision-maker has been Rick Democratic stalwart Lloyd Doggett. Klein and her Perry. The longest-serving governor in Texas husband (himself a former chair of the Nuclear history has exerted increasing influence Regulatory Commission under President George W. over perhaps the state’s most influential Bush) each contributed $2,500 to Perry’s recent pres- river authority—to the potential benefit of idential effort. She did not contribute to any of Perry’s Perry’s friends and water speculators. state runs. (Klein still sits on the LCRA board, where she now serves as vice chair.) The problem for Klein is that she’s not as close to Perry as Timmerman is. Timmerman and Perry go way back. In a 2010 piece, the Houston Chronicle reminded readers of a now well-known real estate deal involving the pair. “Timmerman steered Perry into paying $122,000 for a 9.3-acre plot that became critical to the construction of a 33,000-square-foot home being built by computer millionaire Michael Dell,” the article read. “Perry sold the land to Dell two years later at a profit of $343,000.” Is Gov. Perry There was also, the Chronicle reported, an issue regarding high-voltage LCRA transmission lines in trying to take and around the city of Hutto. Citizen preference was for the lines to go around, rather than through, the over the Lower city. The around route was opposed by Timmerman, Colorado River who was developing his Star Ranch residential project along the alternate corridor. Timmerman was Authority? appointed to the LCRA board and the organization steered its lines back through town, away from By Mike Kanin Timmerman’s property. Both Perry and Timmerman have denied exerting undue influence on the project. Still, a stain remains. Timmerman is both a developer and a major political donor to Perry. Since 2000, Timmerman has contributed more than $83,000 directly to Perry’s state campaigns. Long-time watchers of the LCRA and some former board members worry that Timmerman was appointed chair to push the governor’s agenda. Timmerman inherited an organization that had continually expanded its reach. The LCRA was born of an effort to bring portions of Central Texas out of it’s all the literal dark, but some argue that over the past two decades in particular, as it built water infrastructure for small municipalities across the Hill County, the LCRA has overstepped. In delivering water to more and more communities, the organization has ignored the possibility that there may not be enough water about the to sustain the level of development visited upon Central Texas. Now, with its board seemingly bowing to the governor’s office, and a general manager strip- ping away layers of staff and experience, critics fear the LCRA may be wide open for plunder by develop- water, boys ment interests and water speculators. 20 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org Except for a summer break in July, the LCRA’s By supporting Mason, the board ran afoul of Perry’s board of directors meets at least once a month. office. One former board member, who requested ano- Before they get to the serious stuff, directors like to nymity, said that as the most recent crop of directors’ take a few minutes to recognize departing employees. terms expired, Timmerman hand-picked five new direc- Over the past year, the number of ex-LCRAers tors who would hew more closely to the governor’s line. has been on the rise. By February, the utility had lost The resolution acknowledging another depart- nearly 6,000 years of collective experience in the pre- ing board member—Llano County’s W.F. “Woody” ceding 12 months. The losses cascaded through a host McCasland—followed Raun’s. The resolution closes of critical LCRA operations and ran the gamut from by noting that the LCRA is “grateful” to McCasland experienced field hands to experienced managerial for his “candid and constructive dialog and consider- staff—folks who knew the volatile business of utili- able initiative.” ties and were equipped to help the organization pivot Part of that candidness was McCasland’s steady sup- to meet its ever-changing needs of balancing power port of Mason. McCasland, Raun and former board generation, water utilities, and managing the river. member B.R. “Skipper” Wallace were part of a board Critics argued that it was an irreplaceable brain drain. majority that continued to back Mason even as pressure The LCRA pointed out that it was expecting many from Perry’s office mounted to fire Mason. “We had the of the departures. Official speculation suggested a recent change in retirement benefits prompted some of the exodus. But a recent culling by General The problem isn’t that Perry has been Manager Rebecca Motal that relied on voluntary and involuntary force reduction to cut staff factored in as installing friends and allies on the LCRA board. well. The agency is facing tough economics. Because the organization receives no fiscal support from the The problem is the policy that will follow. state, it is entirely reliant on its own devices for revenue. In addition to hefty losses associated with its majority of the votes on there,” McCasland said, add- purchase, construction, and eventual sale of more ing that Mason was “the best thing that we had.” Under than 30 municipal water utilities in central Texas, Mason and the board that supported him, McCasland the LCRA is staring at a loss of 10 of its 43 wholesale said, organizational transparency increased. “We were electric customers by 2016. That could bring the util- turning the LCRA around,” he said. ity as much as a 50 percent drop in revenue. Wallace confirmed McCasland’s account. “[The Underneath the disarray lurks a current of rumor governor] wanted us to go along with what he wanted that the organization has undergone a major, and to do, and I wasn’t going to do that,” Wallace said. “It negative, cultural shift. That perception broke into wasn’t good for the people of Texas or the LCRA.” the open on August 24, 2011, when the sitting board “[A] majority of the board agreed with me,” he con- paused to send off five of its own. It first passed reso- tinued. “Tom was doing a great job.” lutions honoring outgoing commissioners Richard Raun was more reluctant than her former colleagues Scott and Ida Carter. There were accolades and to go into detail about the politics. Still, she said she acknowledgements of hard work. Board members “sometimes” felt pressure from Perry’s office to make rushed to offer motions of approval and seconds. certain decisions, though she declined to elaborate. Scott and Carter offered gracious comments. As for Mason, Raun said, “He was doing an awe- Former board member Linda Raun of Wharton some job,” adding later that “it was disappointing to County came next. Motal listed a host of Raun’s con- me that Tom made the decision to [resign].” tributions during her six-year tenure. Departing members of the board weren’t the only Raun then approached the podium and began what LCRAers honored in August. After the board bid started as another genteel speech. “I feel very fortu- farewell to Mason’s defenders, Motal read a resonate to have had a small part, in the last six years, of lution honoring the now-former general manager such an amazing organization,” she said. himself. It cited his 24 years of service to the LCRA, But Raun became more pointed as she continued. much of which had been spent as the organization’s “We ... worked very hard as a board to be united and deputy general counsel and general counsel. It noted [to] look at the basin as a whole ... Every decision we accomplishments in all phases of LCRA business and made, I can honestly say, was based on what was best noted that, under Mason, the authority had begun for LCRA, and what was best for the basin as a whole the difficult process of selling off its water and waste- ... I hope that philosophy continues, because if the water utilities. Then the resolution turned to the board is not following that philosophy [then] no one organizational change that McCasland had refer- else will either, and it’s very difficult to accomplish enced. Mason was credited with helping the LCRA anything unless you have that mindset.” become more transparent through the publication Raun’s statement could be read as a nod to insid- of business plans, and cited for his role in posting ers. The board that Raun served on determined what expenditures on the organization’s website. was best for the LCRA and what was best for the basin, The sitting board closed with praise of its own. as Raun put it. For about four years that meant keep- Motal offered a resolution that read in part: “[Mason] ing General Manager Tom Mason in his job. Mason has exemplifies three of his favorite mottos: When you earned a reputation for openness, bringing transparency expect the best from people you usually get it; there to LCRA decision-making. Under Mason, the LCRA is no right way to do the wrong thing; and no act of seemingly considered development and utility projects kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” based on the basin’s needs, not what was best for devel- When Motal concluded, the audience gave Mason opers. But that wasn’t the agenda Perry had in mind. a standing ovation. april 2012 the te xas observer | 21 Mason was named the LCRA’s ninth general comment for this story.) He was replaced by Motal, a manager in 2007. He followed the reign of Joe Beal, former chair of the Travis County Republican Party. who is widely remembered for the construction of Mason had contributed to Democratic candidates, wind-power transmission lines and a series of water including $500 to Bill White’s 2010 gubernato- lines that helped support development in the Hill rial run against Perry, but partisan politics doesn’t Country. Beal’s critics thought him too in-line with explain the changes at LCRA. McCasland, who also the familiar LCRA pro-growth-at-all-costs agenda, wasn’t reappointed to the board, has donated thou- which clashed with growing environmental concerns sands of dollars to various Perry campaigns. Wallace in an environmentally sensitive region. Mason—a leans Republican too; he thinks Perry’s 12 years in seasoned environmental attorney—was at least office have been mostly positive. If the general man- superficially something of a change. ager shuffle was about Mason’s political affiliation, it Mason’s run, it seems, was spoiled by politi- would be logical to assume that the board of Wallace, cal machinations. Perry appointed Rebecca Klein McCasland and Raun would never have hired him in to chair the board in 2008, just a year after Mason the first place. became general manager. McCasland says that Klein What’s happening at LCRA seems less about par- tried to remove Mason “immediately,” but could tisan politics than cronyism. “He’s wanting to take never get the necessary votes. care of his buddies,” says McCasland of the governor. At the time, it was widely rumored that Perry “There were some people [the governor] wanted us favored his legislative affairs director and former to hire,” he says. “We didn’t do that ... We would not state Sen. Ken Armbrister for the general man- vote to hire [Armbrister].” ager position. The board went with Mason, and Though Armbrister may be qualified for the gen- Armbrister remained in Perry’s office. eral manager position—he spent substantial time Klein served as LCRA chair for three years. Perry in the Legislature working on natural resources McCasland is appointed Timmerman as her successor in January issues, to the chagrin of those who considered him 2011. McCasland says that Timmerman played a key a development-friendly figure—it should be noted harsh in his role in naming replacements for the five most recent that taking over the LCRA would have meant quite a board departees. “It got to the point where the chairman bump in salary. In Perry’s office, he collects an annual assessment of ended up really picking the majority of the directors.” income of $176,460. In his last year on the job, Mason Raun is more circumspect. “Five of us rotated off, stood to make $345,000. his colleagues it’s a normal cycle,” she said. “But we also were the A Perry spokesperson denied that the governor’s ones that hired Tom Mason.” office influences the board on internal decisions. He who have been On May 1, 2011, Wallace was more direct. “I guess also pointed out that the governor has the right to Perry finally found someone for my place that make appointments as he sees fit. appointed [Horseshoe Bay Republican Senator Troy] Fraser In fact, for some former board members, the prob- couldn’t veto,” he tweeted amid speculation that Fraser lem isn’t that Perry has been installing friends and to the board. had dragged his feet to keep Wallace on the board as allies on the LCRA board. The problem is the policy long as possible. “Been great working with you.” that will follow. “They sold Timmerman had swept away the core of Mason’s support on the board. The next move wasn’t hard As growth outpaces Texas’ water supply, munici- their soul to to figure. Mason resigned in summer 2011 and took palities find themselves reaching further to bring ever a job with the Austin law firm Graves Dougherty more acre-feet of water to their doorsteps. Drought the governor.” Hearon and Moody in late November. (He declined to and development has made water scarce all over Texas. Against this backdrop, water speculators, some with connections to Perry, have been trying to sell water to the LCRA. 1411 EAST 7TH STREET (512) 628-4466 TAKOBARESTAURANT.COM In September 2010, the Austin American- Statesman reported on what the paper termed a “massive deal.” The plan was to work with a handful TE of rights-holders to pump groundwater out of a host EBRA of Central Texas counties and into a $400 million CEL pipeline to San Antonio. San Antonio would have received 80 percent of the water. The groups involved have been referred to as “water developers”—a euphemistic turn for water speculators—firms gobbling up water rights in the hopes of selling them for a profit down the line. Former Williamson County Commissioner K Frankie Limmer’s company End-Op and a firm EE called Sustainable Water Resources—which included W San Marcos Developer Terry Gilmore, attorney Pete OBA Winstead, and engineering consultant Paul Bury— at AK were part of the deal. T The Statesman’s Asher Price described the potential agreement in a manner that might alarm those who worry about who controls Texas water. “In effect, they are competitors aiming to corner

22 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org the water-rich underground reserves around the Wallace closed his goodbye to the LCRA with a Simsboro formation of the vast Carrizo-Wilcox frank assessment of the role of a board member. “To Aquifer, which stretches beneath the counties east [be asked] to ... serve on this board by the governor and northeast of Austin,” he wrote. “Under the river is probably one of the biggest challenges you as a authority’s plan, they would lay down their differ- board member will ever take on,” he said. “You’re ences to make money collectively supplying water to asked to make multi-million-dollar decisions that the San Marcos area and San Antonio.” affect millions of people on things that very likely Around the same time, San Antonio issued a call you know absolutely nothing about.... Now, you’re for 26 billion additional gallons of water. The plan given the opportunity to get educated, and the fell through when Limmer’s End-Op company failed longer you serve on the board—at the end of six to acquire the rights for its portion of the water. years you’ll know pretty much what the hell is going Seven months before Price’s story on the Limmer on. But then it’s your time to move on, and let some deal, a similar pitch had been made to the LCRA by other fella take your spot, become educated, and be a Sustainable Resources, represented by Gilmore and proponent of LCRA throughout the state of Texas. Winstead. McCasland says that Timmerman—then “This is probably one of the greatest public service not yet board chair but already a sitting board mem- opportunities I’ve ever had an opportunity to make,” ber—and Scott Spears, husband of the director of he continued. “It’s been a great ride.” Perry’s appointments office Teresa Spears, pushed Though McCasland was as gracious in his remarks hard for some kind of arrangement with Sustainable to the board as Wallace , he was more candid in a later Water. “They were trying to promote water out of interview. “The last six years serving on this board Milam County,” McCasland says. “They wanted the have really turned me off,” he said. “The things that LCRA to buy the water and build a pipeline.” are going on are just ridiculous.” Price’s reporting in the Statesman offered the McCasland says he worries about the future of the blow-by-blow: “John Dickerson, a board member LCRA. “I realize politics, I’m 77 years old,” he said. from Matagorda County, asked how much the proj- “But I think that our governor has crossed the line.” ect would cost. Terry Gilmore told them water would He is harsh in his assessment of his colleagues who cost in the $900s per acre-foot, including the $220 have been reappointed to the board. “They sold their million cost to build a pipeline and other infrastruc- soul to the governor.” ture to deliver it. Currently, LCRA sells water at $138 Mike Kanin is an Austin-based freelance writer. He an acre-foot out of the Colorado River.” covers the LCRA for the Austin news site In Fact Daily. Price noted vocal skepticism from Wallace, who still was on the LCRA board at the time. Though nothing came of the push, McCasland believes that Winstead is still trying to sell groundwater to the LCRA. Perry’s office announced a list of three potential replacements for departing LCRA board members Advertise now in The Texas Observer at the end of March 2011. An El Campo real estate manager for the Legacy Trust Corporation named J. Scott Arbuckle and former Pflugerville Mayor John Reach the perfect audience Franklin would eventually make their way to the board. Bobby Limmer wasn’t so lucky. for your business. Limmer is a dermatologist who specializes in hair restoration. He’s also Frankie Limmer’s brother. Support The Texas Observer. Though Bobby Limmer was not a partner in his brother’s enterprise, and insisted that he would What’s not to like? recuse himself should an End-Op project ever come before the board, he was forced to pull his name from consideration. At the LCRA’s January 2012 board meeting, Motal Contact [email protected] or 800-639-6620 announced that the organization would begin a search for an additional 100,000 acre-feet of water supply. The move came roughly six months after Mason’s departure, when the last of Perry’s most recent slate of board appointees took their seats. Timmerman, responding to the Observer by email, refutes the idea that the governor’s office exercised any inappropriate influence over board decisions. He further denies that the board felt pressure to force Mason from his job. Asked about the failed Sustainable Resources water deal, Timmerman wrote that he and Spears didn’t lean on colleagues to accept the deal. Unprompted, however, he then connected that deal to Motal’s recent call for 100,000 more acre feet of water. “It’s an ambitious goal, but doable,” he wrote. LCRA, it seems, will continue looking to buy water from speculators. april 2012 the te xas observer | 23 STATE OF TEXAS: The Cuts to Women’s Health BY DAVE MANN TEXAS LAWMAKERS ARE DRASTICALLY reducing the two programs that deliver family planning services, contraception and health screenings to poor women. Last spring the Legislature cut funding for the state family planning program by 66 percent. Texas also hasn’t renewed another program that serves a similar function—a part of Medicaid called the Women’s Health Program—set to expire on March 31. The cuts are widely seen as an attack by social conservatives on Planned Parenthood. Texas already has the third highest teen birth rate in the nation. The result of these cuts will be more unplanned pregnancies.

THE CUTS THE COST Elimination of Women’s Health Estimated increase in Program would cost Texas State has already unplanned pregnancies cut more than leading to births covered $40 million by Medicaid: At least in federal funds. $60 million, nearly 20,000* 66% from its family planning services.

THE IMPACT Texas women who lost services due to Cost to Medicaid program cuts to state family planning program: of 20,000 more births: 284,000* $99 million*

Number of Texas women currently enrolled in Women’s Health Program who may lose services on March 31: 130,000

*Based on Legislative Budget Board estimates of impact of cuts to state family planning services. Doesn’t include loss of Women’s Health Program = approximately = approximately 24SOURCE | the: teWomen’sxas o bserHealthv erProgram data from Health and Human Services Commission 10,000www.texaso1,000bserver.org cindycasares big beat

It’s Hard To Be Latina in Texas hen I was growing up, I’d imagine life in the 21st century and wonder what kind of amazing advances we’d be living with by then. If Hollywood was to be believed, everyone was going to have a flying car and a moving sidewalk outside their Old white home. We were well past the civil rights and women’s movements, so surely in another 20 men grasping years racism and sexism would be almost non- frantically at existent, if not eradicated. A woman had already their last been nominated for vice president, so the political future looked bright for women. WSurprise: There are no moving sidewalks outside on March 12 to block the law from going into effect vestige of the average home and my car is still not only stuck before the upcoming May presidential primaries. to the ground, but runs on gas, for which people The department refused to “pre-clear” the new law, power is what’s and wildlife die each year. But the biggest surprise saying the statute disenfranchises some of the state’s is how far we’ve regressed in the areas of civil and minority voters. happening in this reproductive rights. Between anti-Latino sentiment The day after the DOJ’s decision, Texas Attorney and the assault on women’s reproductive health, General Greg Abbott filed suit, challenging a key state today. Texas has done more damage to goodwill between provision of the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965, itself and Latina voters than I’ve seen at any other which singles out Texas and several other states with time in my life. histories of minority discrimination. The Voting Let’s start with Planned Parenthood, which was Rights Act mandates that these states get pre-clear- forced out of the state’s Medicaid-funded Women’s ance from the federal government on any changes Health Program (WHP) in March. Texas law pro- to election laws. Which is why Texas had to get pre- hibits any organization that provides abortion clearance from the DOJ in the first place. Abbott services from getting funds from the Women’s asked a federal panel that is currently reviewing the Health Program. The Texas Legislature also cut the Voter ID law to allow Texas’ lawyers to take the DOJ state’s family planning program from $111 million to to court. Texas’ challenge to the Voting Rights Act $37 million, and then put Planned Parenthood and could end up before the Supreme Court. other traditional family planning clinics without While Gov. Rick Perry has described enforcement comprehensive coverage at the bottom of a three- of the Voting Rights Act as “continuing and pervasive tiered list of recipients. The result is that many federal overreach,” he sees nothing overreaching thousands of low-income women who use Planned about his party’s gangly new voter districts, which Parenthood for basic health care, birth control and reach all the way from Austin to San Antonio, and cancer screenings will be without coverage. nothing overreaching about the sonogram probe he Then there’s the Voter ID law the state passed and his right-wing cronies are forcing into the uteri last year requiring voters to present a state or feder- of Texas women who seek an abortion. ally issued photo ID at the polls. Voters without the Old white men grasping frantically at their last required identification may receive a provisional vestige of power is what’s happening in this state ballot, but it will be counted only if they return and today. They know the decisions they make now will present an approved ID within six days of the elec- affect whether they remain a relevant political force tion. The problem, as opponents have repeatedly in 20 years, and they aren’t messing around. noted, is that the people least likely to have an ID are The rest of us can overreach, too, by standing up for Latinos. Hispanics make up only 21.8 percent of all our voting and health care rights. Texas can become a registered Texas voters, but account for more than 38 state that represents the majority of its citizens, or it percent of registered voters who lack proper identifi- can continue to discriminate. It’s up to us to decide. cation, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. I, for one, will use the platforms available to me to For that reason, the Justice Department moved overreach my way to a place at the table.

april 2012 the te xas observer | 25 Glen rose postcards

Tracking Creation in Glen Rose by Robyn Ross

n the beginning, God created dinosaurs and “There’s a track right there,” he says in a deep humans, and they walked together in Texas. Texas drawl, pointing. “That hole is where my dad At least, according to many people in dug one out.” Glen Rose. If the river weren’t up, McFall explains, we’d see The small town about 40 miles southwest man tracks just a few feet away, in the same strata of of Fort Worth is home to some of the best- rock as the dinosaur tracks. preserved dinosaur tracks in the world; it’s The 113-million-year-old dinosaur tracks, first also a heavily Christian community where many discovered in 1909, are an important part of Glen Ilocals interpret the book of Genesis literally. Rose’s livelihood, bringing thousands of visitors a Their belief is bolstered by a phenomenon in the year to attractions like Dinosaur Valley State Park riverbed. Alongside the dinosaur tracks are what and Dinosaur World. The town’s tourist industry, resident R.C. McFall and others call “man tracks”— accounting for $23 million in annual revenue, was tangible proof of biblical creation accounts and a built largely on the jaw-dropping fact that fossils this refutation of the theory of evolution. old are still present today. Visitors can park their trail- McFall walks along the Paluxy River, careful not ers at the Jurassic RV Park (the tracks actually date to A billboard advertises to place his cowboy boot in a dinosaur track. Muddy the Cretaceous period) or stay at the Glen Rose Inn the Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose. water fills the fossilized footprints embedded in this & Suites, where the sign features a cartoon dinosaur. photos by Jen Reel rocky ledge. “The dinosaurs are what drive us,” says Billy

26 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org Huckaby, executive director of the Convention and we don’t know how time would have operated. If you Visitors Bureau of Glen Rose. “You can’t develop a believe in a superior being, he could manipulate time.” town of 2,000 into this kind of tourism revenue unless you’ve got something really special to promote.” According to geologists, the rock layer near Tourist literature describes the tracks as millions Glen Rose containing fossilized dinosaur footprints of years old, but not everyone buys the science. is 113 million years old. Dinosaurs went extinct 65 “I believe in the Bible,” McFall says. “I don’t believe million years ago, about 60 million years before the the world’s over 6,000 or 7,000 years old. Course, earliest humans appeared. So what are the riverbed everybody’s got their own interpretation.” man tracks? Beyond their appeal to tourists, the tracks have The answer comes from amateur paleontologist top to bottom: Dr. made Glen Rose a destination for scientists and reli- Glen Kuban, who’s studied those tracks since the ’80s. Carl Baugh, founder of gious pilgrims. In the ’30s and ’40s, paleontologists They’re actually more dinosaur tracks, Kuban says. the Creation Evidence Museum; The museum’s came to study the well-preserved dinosaur foot- Fossilized tracks were formed when dinosaurs— diorama of Noah’s Ark, prints, removing sections for display at museums in in this case the herbivore Paluxysaurus (similar to dinosaurs included. Austin and New York. Creationists, too, have come the Brontosaurus you to Glen Rose, hoping the man tracks can prove their learned about in grade hypothesis of a young Earth. The town has even pro- school) and carnivore duced its share of fake tracks—both dinosaur and Acrocanthosaurus (a human—which further confuse the issue. smaller cousin of Tyra But if there’s controversy among residents of Glen nnosaurus rex)—left Rose between science and religion, it’s below the surface. footprints in mud that dried and hardened. “Most everyone in Glen Rose that I know believes Later, a different type man and dinosaurs coexisted,” Alice Lance tells me of sediment washed into at the annual tractor pull. “The only conflict we have the tracks and, over mil- is when people move from metropolitan areas and lions of years, turned to have different value systems. I think some don’t have stone. Eventually rivers a strong [religious] belief system, and they’re more carved through the area likely to go with science than faith.” and eroded the softer, Biology teacher Wendy Thompson says that stu- later sediment, exposing dents sometimes ask about the exhibits, including the tracks. “evidence” of human footprints alongside those of Kuban, later joined by dinosaurs they’ve seen at the local Creation Evidence other paleontologists, Museum, or ask questions informed by their religious determined that the views. One student recently told Thompson how she “man” tracks are meta- and her father reconciled evolution with the Genesis tarsal prints made by account. God created the sun and moon on the fourth dinosaurs that, instead day; before that, a “day,” the student reasoned, could of walking only on their have been millions of years long. toes, let their heels drop “I just listened to her,” Thompson says. “It’s kind into the mud. The result- of a touchy thing.” ing elongated tracks Mary Adams, the niece of George Adams, who found appeared human-like, the dinosaur tracks more than a century ago, recently and the effect was compounded when mud collapsed delivered a presentation to youth at the First Baptist over the toe impressions or sediment filled them in. “How long Church warning them against belief in evolution. Kuban has presented his work at conferences and “If we were not created by God,” the 87-year-old published in scientific journals. Among paleontolo- was that week Adams tells me, “there’s no one to whom we are gists, the issue is settled: There are no man tracks. accountable. We can live exactly as we please.” Glen Rose residents are less sure. [described Adams’ presentation described how she was raised “I’ll be honest,” Sue Bussey says. “Some of the in a church-going home and believed a literal inter- tracks positively look like man tracks. But Dr. Baugh in Genesis]? pretation of Genesis until college, when she accepted took us to see the McFall tracks, and they don’t look evolution instead. She left the church and was mar- like a man’s track. There’s no definite toes. There’s a Until the ried, not entirely happily, to an atheist for 29 years. heel and an arch, but it’s very vague.” After their divorce she returned to Glen Rose and to Sue and her husband, Morris Bussey, run Bussey’s seasons were the Lord. Something Special, a bed and breakfast inn just off She calls the theory of evolution “the worst thing the town square. A western-themed bedroom sports established, that ever happened to me.” a list of “The Cowboy Ten Commandments.” (No. 10: For Adams, the idea that God may have worked the “Don’t be hankerin’ for yer buddy’s stuff.”) we don’t know miracle of life through the mechanism of evolution, Sue’s referring to Carl Baugh, a Baptist minister or that science explains “how” and religion explains who moved to Glen Rose in the early ’80s to research how time would “why,” doesn’t hold water. It’s “too much of a mix- the man tracks. Convinced of their authenticity, he ture,” she says. founded the Creation Evidence Museum to promote have operated.” “Mixing,” though, is how residents like Alice Lance the idea that the Earth is only a few thousand years reconcile science and religion. old, consistent with biblical timelines. The museum “How long was that week [described in Genesis]?” tends to attract more tourists and creationist pil- Lance wonders. “Until the seasons were established, grims than locals. april 2012 the te xas observer | 27 “I’m religious,” Sue Bussey says, “and I know God for creationists who sought dinosaur-era human The Creation made it all, but I don’t know or care if he made it in tracks as evidence for their young Earth theory. billions of years, or if he put time zones in there to From the 1950s into the ’70s, creationist publica- Evidence make it look like billions of years.” tions and a film publicized the claim, even as several Morris Bussey runs the Stone Hut fossil shop in groups of hopeful creationists concluded that the Museum sits an old whiskey cabin close to the state park and the tracks were not in fact human. Kuban first came to Creation Evidence Museum. Though his formal edu- Glen Rose hoping the tracks would provide evidence back from a cation stopped at sixth grade, Bussey knows a lot that the Earth was just a few thousand years old. His about fossils. conclusion to the contrary contributed to his grow- dramatic curve Unlike his wife, he’s not religious. “You ask me ing skepticism of that perspective. what I believe in, it’s the almighty dollar,” he says, Still, the faithful continue to visit the area today. in the road to pointing upward. Betty Gosdin of the Somervell County Heritage Center Over the years, the Busseys have learned from pro- showed me the card that visitors from Restoring Dinosaur Valley fessional geologists and paleontologists. “One thing Genesis Ministries in Kansas had left with her a week they taught us was about pseudofossils,” Sue says. before my visit. Their mission: “Sharing the truth of State Park. “That’s a wannabe fossil. Either someone’s made it, creation and restoring a biblical foundation.” which happens around here, or more likely it’s just a rock that looks like a fossil.” The Creation Evidence Museum sits back from a dramatic curve in the road to DinosaurV alley State Park. Most locals know that fake fossils have been in Inside, the building’s open floor plan is reminis- Glen Rose since the ’30s. The first fossil carvers had cent of a church, with a central gathering space and economic motives, not religious ones. a balcony running along the perimeter. A T. rex head Until the ’70s, Somervell County, where Glen Rose that appears to be bursting through the back wall is located, was one of the poorest counties in Texas, overlooks a smatter of glass cases holding artifacts. several locals tell me. Chopping cedar posts and mak- Baugh, the museum’s founder and curator, shows ing moonshine were important sources of income. me the highlights: loose blocks of rock with human During Prohibition, Glen Rose was known as the footprints he describes as evidence of a young moonshine capital of Texas. Earth. Some show what Baugh says are overlapping It’s easy to understand why, during the Depression, human and dinosaur tracks. It’s easy to see distinct residents would be tempted to dig dinosaur tracks heels and toes on these prints, unlike the metatarsal out of the riverbed and sell them. Or even carve pseu- prints Kuban has documented in the riverbed, and dofossils by hand. Ironically, fake tracks ultimately not hard to imagine them being what Sue Bussey brought lasting attention to the town’s real tracks. would call pseudofossils. In 1938, American Museum of Natural History field Baugh estimates that his museum hosted 15,000 researcher Roland T. Bird was on his way back to visitors annually until the recent recession cut those New York from an expedition to New Mexico when numbers in half. he stopped at a trading post and found freestanding Baugh speaks in the gentle, measured tones of a sets of both human and dinosaur tracks from Glen practiced orator. At 75, he recently retired from an Rose. While he immediately recognized the human 11-year stint as host of a creationist TV show. He says tracks as carved, he decided to detour through Texas he accepted evolution as truth until the Paluxy tracks to investigate. Bird excavated a dinosaur trackway (a changed his mind. Now, “it requires more faith to left to right: Visitors at set of impressions) from the Paluxy River and took believe [evolution] than it does to accept one single the entrance of the Dinosaur Valley State Park; (right) it to New York, where it’s displayed in the museum. postulate,” he says. “That postulate is that there is a A fossil at the Creation Though Bird never supported the idea of man creator capable of creating life of his choosing.” Evidence Museum portrays a human footprint under a tracks, his mention in a 1939 article of a human foot- After our interview, I wander past the partial dinosaur print. like print in the Paluxy made Glen Rose a destination replica of Noah’s Ark and the gift shop. A plaque in

28 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org a corner reads, “The creator has endowed mankind doesn’t have much time for the idea of man tracks. with a prolific creative ability.” Upstairs an exhibit “As far as I’m concerned, that’s pretty much impossi- Dinosaurs called “Creativity of Man” highlights humans’ unique ble.” He shrugs. “But I know that a lot of people are very capacity to create—which creationists say God gave serious about it.” In fact, he said, one person suggested are good for to humans alone when he made them. It’s an unusual changing some of the lyrics in Land of the Dinosaurs to collection: arrowheads and tomahawks, an antique accommodate the young-Earth crowd—perhaps, the business. They one-cylinder Oldsmobile and a larger-than-life-size man said, it shouldn’t be mentioned that T. rex was 240 sculpture of Tom Landry. million years old. Dooley left the script alone. even creep “Creation science” allows believers to embrace a Dinosaurs are good for business. They creep form of scientific inquiry without discarding a literal into events at the expo center, such as the annual into events reading of the Bible. But there are better advocates “Jurassic Classic” barrel races. An Acrocanthosaurus than Baugh’s museum, says Andrew Snelling of track displayed in front of the expo center was exca- at the expo Answers in Genesis (AIG), a leading creation science vated when the second nuclear reactor was being organization based near Cincinnati. Snelling holds built. “That’s an interesting juxtaposition,” Dooley center, such a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Sydney in notes. “Dinosaurs, nuclear power. But that’s kind of Australia and is AIG’s director of research. He hasn’t what this community is.” as the annual visited the Creation Evidence Museum, but he cau- The state park is among Glen Rose’s main tions against learning about creation science there. attractions. Visitors are greeted by two giant “Jurassic “What Baugh presents there is sometimes spec- fiberglass dinosaurs—not Acrocanthosaurus and ulative—provocative, for want of a better term,” Paluxysaurus, but their more famous cousins T. rex Classic” barrel Snelling says. “That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t have and Brontosaurus, the latter name having since been those things, but people should realize it’s not the abandoned for scientific use. The models were part of races. mainstream of the creation movement.” He adds an exhibit at the 1964 World’s Fair funded by Sinclair that AIG and Baugh agree about the “big picture,” Oil—fake dinosaurs underwritten by dead dinosaurs. which is that the Bible gives an accurate account of Park patrons can see and touch dinosaur tracks in the Earth’s history. the riverbed when the water is low, but on the day of Baugh’s academic credentials, including the “Dr.” my visit the tracks were underwater. in his title, are dubious. The title comes from a the- People occasionally want to argue with park staff ology degree he earned from Louisiana Baptist about the age of the Earth, or about the park hav- University, an unaccredited school that operates ing hidden human tracks, but they generally aren’t mostly by extension. And there were no records of a locals, park operations trainee Robyn Dabney says. Utah college from which he says he received a biblical They’re creationists from as far away as Europe. archaeology degree. He’s claimed a lot more degrees It can be difficult for someone who believes in over the years. a 6,000-year-old Earth to hear a park interpreter Baugh says he’s motivated by the search for truth. describe 113-million-year-old tracks. “I don’t mind being controversial, because the truth “The part that’s hard for people is not that dino- has always been controversial,” he says. “Controversy saurs were here,” Dabney says, “but the time period, was introduced in the Garden of Eden, and it has fol- and how it can’t possibly match the time period that lowed until this very moment. It will follow me after they believe in.” I’m gone.” Just upriver from the state park, on R.C. McFall’s After years of poverty, Glen Rose’s fortunes place, the stillness of evening is broken by the spo- reversed when construction began on the Comanche radic rumble of distant thunder. We retrace our steps Peak Nuclear Power Plant in 1974. Suddenly the com- along the stone ledge above the river. munity was awash in tax revenue, which it invested McFall recounts how tourists paid his father for a in tourism infrastructure: two golf courses, an expo look at the tracks when he was a boy. I ask whether he center, a hillside amphitheatre. The power plant thinks humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time. keeps taxes low and schools well funded. Such ame- “Yeah, I don’t believe in the Darwin deal,” he says. nities attracted urban refugees to the picturesque “The Bible says God created everything, you know.” small town, and the population began to grow. We pause by a smooth brown stone the size of a The Texas Amphitheatre has hosted The Promise, kiddie pool that McFall says is a coprolite, or fossil- a musical about the life of Christ, since 1989. ized dinosaur dung. I ask him what he thinks of Glen Billboards and print ads proclaim, “I saw Jesus in Kuban’s conclusion that the Paluxy’s man prints Glen Rose!” a sighting shared by as many as 28,000 were made by dinosaurs walking with their heels visitors per year. down. He listens, then shakes his head. If a musical about Jesus plays so well, why not “When I was a kid, before the water eroded them, a musical about dinosaurs? Two summers ago the there were tracks that had five toes and an arch of a amphitheatre presented Land of the Dinosaurs, foot and a heel, just like a human being.” billed as “the world’s best live-action dinosaur musi- The evidence is gone, but the conviction remains. cal.” The show was a family-oriented drama starring For many in Glen Rose, science is a helpful means humans and animatronic dinosaurs. Only the of understanding the world, but an incomplete one. humans sang. Regardless of what paleontologists say about the I learned this from Mike Dooley, one of the show’s man tracks, the faithful in Glen Rose have seen what investors, who manages the expo center and amphi- God made in the Paluxy River valley. theatre. Dooley is a businessman who moved to Glen And indeed, it was very good. Rose for the schools, hospital and golf courses. He Freelance writer Robyn Ross lives in Austin. april 2012 the te xas observer | 29 direct quote Fighting AIDS in Texas As Told to Sarah Angle

n 1983, Jamie Schield went on a camping trip with a friend to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. But his friend was out of sorts; he was tired, out of breath and worried about the rash developing on his chest. Later, he told Schield he’d tested positive for HIV. His friend’s diagnosis motivated Schield to volunteer and later work at the Dallas Gay Alliance, now the Resource Center of Dallas. Today he’s co-chair of the state’s HIV-STD Prevention Community Planning Group and planning coordinator for the INorth Central Texas HIV Planning Council, which assesses the needs of north-central Texans living with the disease.

“In the past, the face of AIDS [in and 54 percent of those men are gay. Texas] has been mostly men, mostly “Another concern we have is that a gay and mostly white. In the ’90s large [number] of Hispanics, almost we saw the first major shift as more all men, are testing positive. They women became infected. It’s still heav- are testing positive and converting to ily majority male—78 percent of the AIDS within a year, which means these HIV-positive population in Texas are men have had the virus for at least men—we’ve just added more women. five years. We aren’t seeing this rapid The increase in women is significant, progression to AIDS in other commu- but it still makes up less than 25 percent nities. And we don’t know why. Are of the total HIV-positive population. they contracting it at a greater rate? “In Texas, unlike other parts of the Or has there already been a high inci- country, 85 percent of infections come dence of HIV in that population and from sexual contact. And many women it’s only becoming apparent now, when are getting the disease from their these men fall ill with something, go to male partners. We do have to focus on the ER, get tested and find out they women, but it’s still a male disease. have HIV? “In 2000, we saw a swing into “As of December 2009, 66,125 communities of color. The African- Texans were living with HIV. But the American infection rate is four times CDC [Centers for Disease Control] higher than it is for whites. The future estimates that another [20,000 people] [of HIV] is gay men, but it has really are living with the disease and don’t changed to gay men of color. That know it. That’s a big concern. Who are is where the epidemic has been and those people? What do they look like? will be. Seventy-eight percent of the That’s what the planning group will be Texans who have the disease are men, focusing on.”

30 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org photo by Jen Reel april 2012 the te xas observer | 31 culture

Lessons from the New Deal by Cecily Sailer

teven Fenberg’s Unprecedented the largest city in the South, helps the United States Power: Jesse Jones, Capitalism, survive the Great Depression and, while he’s at it, and the Common Good arrived on mobilizes the nation to win World War II. Inlaid in bookshelves late last year. It’s tim- Jones’ biography is the suggestion that government ing was apt, if accidental. National can—if it chooses—ignite the economy without fall- economic figures showed little ing headlong into socialism. change or promise, occupiers had Policy-makers at the U.S. Department of Treasury colonized city parks decrying income inequality, and have recently turned to Jones’ story for affirmation Smillions of Americans were stuck in a prolonged and and reassurance. In January, Timothy Massad, stew- disheartening search for employment. At the time, ard of the nation’s Troubled Asset Relief Program and even now, an economic turnaround story like (TARP), invited Fenberg to speak to his staff about the Fenberg’s reads almost like a fairy tale. Only it isn’t. relevance of Jones’ work in today’s economic climate. Jesse Jones (left), pictured with President Franklin Unprecedented Power—one of three finalists for TARP, established in 2008, was designed in part Delano Roosevelt, helped the Texas Institute of Letters’ Carr P. Collins Award to recreate Jones’ accomplishments as head of the implement the New Deal. Photo courtesy of texas a&M for nonfiction—is the story of a Tennessee kid turned Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), a piv- university press Texas businessman who, with some help, shapes otal government agency during the Great Depression.

32 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org Massad calls TARP “one of the least popular govern- Once Jones had the reins, he was dauntless in ment programs in recent decades,” but also one of his leadership of what came to be known as “The Inlaid in the most “effective and important.” The program res- Corporation.” Jones had seen the RFC under Hoover cued U.S. banks and continues its work repairing the as too slow and too poorly funded to fulfill its goals, but Jesse Jones’ nation’s collapsed mortgage market. Still, many peo- with aid from Roosevelt and Congress, Jones began a ple feel that TARP either did too little, or went too far. steady expansion of the RFC’s authority and impact. biography is the So it stands to reason that Massad would find Jones’ Within a year of Roosevelt’s inauguration, the RFC story inspiring. was not only lending, but investing. It could purchase suggestion that “So many people have said [of TARP], ‘This is just preferred stock in banks to unfreeze assets and loosen unprecedented,’” Massad says. “Well, it’s not. We credit (like TARP), but it was up to the banks to par- government did many of the very same things in the 1930s, and ticipate (unlike TARP). When executives bridled at [Fenberg’s] book is just a great documentation of that.” an RFC offer, fearing a government takeover, it was can—if it In Fenberg’s remarks to Treasury staffers early up to Jones to convince them otherwise. At an annual this year, the writer detailed the vast reach of the convention of the American Bankers Association, chooses—ignite RFC, established by President Herbert Hoover and Jones entreated the assembled bankers to “be smart, continued by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. for once” and “take the government in partnership.” the economy The RFC, under Jones’ leadership, became an effec- Jones naturally drew his share of detrac- tive and efficient machine for rehabilitating the tors as head of the RFC, with many claiming The without falling economy at nearly every level, from banks to rail- Corporation had ventured into socialism or nation- roads to housing loans to farming. As Fenberg notes, alization. But in nearly every case, Jones deployed headlong into the RFC supplied funds to each of the nation’s con- the RFC as a rescuer of last resort, allowing private gressional districts, and Jones’ keen attention to the industry first shot at jumpstarting the economy. As socialism. bottom line quickly won favor with political leaders Jones would say later, “I am not one who favors gov- on both sides of the aisle. By the end of his tenure, the ernment in business, but when business runs amok, bottom line was this: Jones’ RFC returned revenues, and private credit is no longer available, the govern- not deficits, to government coffers. ment must step in.” Jones’ efforts in Houston are also compelling When the private sector did fail, whether out and instructive. In 1931, he engineered a bank bail- of defiance or weakness, the RFC moved quickly, out in Houston, not with taxpayer money—he never often through subsidiaries. But the RFC rarely held elective office—but with bankers’ capital alone. initiated stimulus programs in isolation, instead Jones had delivered to Houston the 1928 Democratic engineering partnerships among government, National Convention and helped install the city’s business and municipalities. largest industrial landmark to date, the Houston “There are so many ways we can apply what Jones Ship Channel. did in the ’30s and ’40s to help solve our problems In October 1931, as owner of the National Bank today and, at the same time, make money for the of Commerce, Jones watched as depositors lined government, particularly when we’re so concerned up to withdraw their money from two of the city’s about our deficit,” Fenberg says. “It all goes back to largest financial houses. When he learned the banks ideology. It’s stopping us.” could last only through the weekend, he called every Jones enjoyed freedoms few politicians can claim banker in town to the top floor of the city’s tallest today. Political parties of his day were partisan, but building—which he’d built—and suggested they pull less divided and more easily moved by objective together $1.25 million to rescue their floundering results. Given his results at the RFC, Jones main- friends. The bankers argued until five in the morn- tained almost unprecedented support in political ing, then did it again the next day. By the time the circles, and he won allies with uncanny charm and dust settled, more than a dozen local banks and com- athletic glad-handing. Fenberg writes that Jones panies had gathered enough money to pay depositors “would sometimes corner a reluctant politician and and transition the faltering banks to new ownership. wrap his long arm around him so he could get closer The rescue also prevented the collapse of smaller, … His looming presence and the billions of govern- rural banks, which often kept their reserves in city ment funds at his disposal made Jones impossible to bank repositories. When customers arrived at Jones’ ignore and extremely difficult to turn down.” bank the next morning, he was there, sleepless, wait- More often it was sheer efficacy that earned Jones ing to greet them. his political appeal. The RFC operated at 1.5 percent It was this rescue, and his reputation as a can-do, overhead, compared to 10 or 15 percent in other gov- community-centric money whiz, that landed Jones ernment departments, and RFC employees were in Washington, D.C., for a second time (he had ear- known to work fast, taking the stairs to avoid the wait lier headed the Department of Military Relief during for elevators. Jones ran a tight ship, and despite hav- World War I). Hoover had just established the RFC ing only an eighth-grade education, he could process to stabilize the banking and railroad industries and large amounts of information with little effort. Fenberg generally guide the nation toward economic recov- cites economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who said ery, and he selected Jones as one of seven members Jones “gave the impression of somebody who was of the bipartisan board. Fenberg notes that Jones accustomed to handling … tens of millions of dollars.” later recalled, “I was convinced that conditions were A reporter recalled that Jones would hold simultane- rapidly approaching such a precarious state that only ous meetings in adjacent conference rooms. Carrying the federal government through unusual methods a bag of popcorn, he would step into each meeting and could deal with them effectively.” quickly “find out with two or three pointed questions Roosevelt named Jones chairman of the RFC in 1933. what shape a business [was] in.” april 2012 the te xas observer | 33 So when Jones wanted to renew the life of the Historian, writer, and University of Texas professor RFC, extend repayment deadlines for borrowers, or H.W. Brands won’t concede that the RFC was a key- increase loan limits, Congress quickly said yes. By stone of Roosevelt’s New Deal (it originated before 1940, the RFC had disbursed $158 billion in today’s the New Deal arose), but when it comes to World dollars. When the time came, the RFC could repay War II, Brands says, in an interview about Fenberg’s the U.S. Treasury its $7.5 billion in start-up capital book, that Jones and the RFC were pivotal in shap- and still have $2 billion in the coffers. ing the outcome. As the RFC’s reach expanded, so did Jones’ role “Historians often look at the New Deal as begin- in the administration. Though it was technically ning in 1933 and ending in 1938, then the next chapter illegal to hold two government jobs simultaneously, is World War II,” Brands says. “But there’s another Congress made an exception for Jones and unani- way of looking at it, and I think Jones did—that mously issued a joint resolution naming him World War II was the New Deal going international, Secretary of Commerce in 1940. At the same time, the New Deal going to war. The same kind of govern- the U.S. was realizing the war in Europe wasn’t likely ment planning and reorganization of the domestic to sort itself out. As President Roosevelt waited for economy was used to convert the peacetime econ- Congress to nearly double the nation’s military bud- omy to a wartime economy, and the RFC and Jesse get, Jones set to work—18 months before the U.S. Jones provided a bridge between the two.” entered the conflict—arranging loans for aircraft and Certainly, one of several lessons in Jones’s story is tank manufacturers to expand production. his ability to manage an operation so unwieldy and As it had during the New Deal, the RFC became a prodigious as the world’s largest lending institution central engine in President Roosevelt’s war efforts. (the RFC), and to do so with constant attention to taxpayer dollars—and the well being of the working class. So much so that Bleedinghearts may find certain pages worthy of applause, as when Jones interrupts a vacation to arrange a loan subsidizing For our menu and four years of back pay for Chicago schoolteachers. But anyone even slightly worn by the drag of this daily specials, text latest downturn should be enlivened by a capital-C Capitalist who viewed business as an agent for public PIES to 72727 from good, who believed government could be a catalyst for economic repair and who worked doggedly to any smartphone! rebuild the nation’s financial structure and prepare the country for unprecedented militarism overseas. Fenberg’s attentive prose and keen research don’t hurt either. Neither does Jones’ folksy comportment. Come by East Side Pies for a slice of our 1401 B Rosewood Ave Fenberg has created a comprehensive record of Farm to Table pizzas, made daily with Jones’ unique accomplishments, which have largely local produce from East Austin urban farms. Austin, TX 78702 512.524.0933 gone underrecognized. Probably few Houstonians, Now serving gluten-free options if they know who Jones was, could name his work at both locations! 5312 Airport Blvd. #G beyond the city limits, where he established the phil- Austin, TX 78751 anthropic Houston Endowment. Fenberg blames 512.454.PIES our general neglect of history, while historian Don Carleton likes to joke: “Everybody is overlooked in Texas history except for the Alamo defenders.” Carleton, director of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin, home to a portion of the Jones archive, is also quick to attest that “Jones embodies the positive role the federal government can play in a very rational, directed, responsible partnership with business.” This is the same message Fenberg shared with staff at the Department of Treasury earlier this year. For whatever reason, Jones’ story has gone largely unno- ticed since his death in 1956. Fenberg’s book may change that. “Each time I signed a book [at the Treasury Department], the recipient told me in one way or another how important it was to get the information in Unprecedented Power to the public, to other policymakers and to politicians,” Fenberg says. “I felt like I had, in some way, brought Jones’ voice back to Washington, where he once played a pivotal role in sav- ing the economy and preparing the nation for war.” Cecily Sailer is a freelance writer and education programs manager for the Austin nonprofit Badgerdog Literary Publishing.

34 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org Texas InsTITuTe of LeTTers fInaLIsTs Finalists for the Texas Institute of Letters awards for 2011have been announced by Darwin Payne, president. Winners from these finalists will be named Saturday, April 14, 2012, at the annual banquet to be held this year at the Menger Hotel in San Antonio. The Institute was founded in 1936 to recognize literary achievement and to promote interest in Texas literature. Authors must have lived in Texas for at least two years or their works must relate to the state.

JESSE H. JONES AWARD FOR FICTION ($6,000) Laura Furman, The Mother Who Stayed (Simon & Schuster); Stephen Harrigan, Remember Ben Clayton (Knopf); C.W. Smith, Steplings (TCU).

CARR P. COLLINS AWARD FOR NONFICTION ($5,000) Michael Ariens, Lone Star Law: A Legal History of Texas (Texas Tech); Brian D. Behnken, Fighting Their Own Battles: Mexican Americans, African Americans, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Texas (Univ. of North Carolina); Steven Fenberg, Unprecedented Power: Jesse Jones, Capitalism, and the Common Good (Texas A&M).

STEVEN TURNER AWARD FOR FIRST FICTION ($1,000) Brian Allen Carr, Short Bus (Texas Review); Siobhan Fallon, You Know When the Men Are Gone (G.P. Putnam’s Sons); and Miroslav Penkov, East of the West (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

TIL AWARD FOR SCHOLARLY BOOK ($2,500) Nicolás Kanellos, Hispanic Immigrant Literature (Univ. of Texas at Austin); Christopher Long, The Looshaus (Yale); Robert Lee Maril, The Fence: National Security, Public Safety, and Illegal Immigration along the U.S.-Mexico Border (Texas Tech).

HELEN C. SMITH MEMORIAL AWARD FOR POETRY ($1,200) Paul Christensen, The Human Condition (Wings); Jennifer Grotz, The Needle (Houghton Miffllin Harcourt); and Naomi Shihab Nye, Transfer (BOA Editions).

BOB BUSH MEMORIAL AWARD FOR BEST FIRST BOOK OF POETRY ($1,000) Joshua Edwards, Campech (Noemi); Jose Antonio Rodriguez, The Shallow End of Sleep (Northwestern); and W.K. Stratton, Dreaming Sam Peckinpah (Ink Brush).

O. HENRY AWARD FOR MAGAZINE JOURNALISM ($1,000) Michael Hall, “Falling Comet,” Texas Monthly; Skip Hollandsworth, “The Lost Boys,” Texas Monthly; and Mimi Swartz, “Super Collider,” Texas Monthly.

STANLEY WALKER AWARD FOR NEWSPAPER JOURNALISM ($1,000) Susan Carroll and Claudia Feldman, Houston Chronicle; Jordan Smith, Austin Chronicle; David Tarrant, Dallas Morning News.

TEXAS INSTITUTE OF LETTERS AWARD FOR CHILDREN’S BOOK ($500) Varsha Bajaj, T is for Taj Mahal (Sleeping Bear Press); David Davis, Fandango Stew (Sterling); Elaine Scott, Space, Stars and the Beginning of Time (Clarion); and Divya Srinivasan, Little Owl’s Night Out (Viking).

TEXAS INSTITUTE OF LETTERS AWARD FOR YOUNG ADULT BOOK ($500) Libba Bray, Beauty Queens (Scholastic); Pamela Porter, I’ll Be Watching (Groundwood); and J.L. Powers This Thing Called the Future (Cinco Puntos).

KAY CATTARULLA AWARD FOR SHORT STORY ($1,000) Rick Bass, “The Blue Tree,” Ecotone; Babette Fraser Hale, “Silences,” Southwest Review; and Bret Anthony Johnson, “Paradeability,” American Short Fiction.

FRED WHITEHEAD AWARD FOR DESIGN OF A TRADE BOOK ($750) Bryce Milligan for As If the Empty Chair by Margaret Randall (Wings Press); DJ Stout for Hard Ground by Michael O’Brien and Tom Waits (Univ. of Texas at Austin); and Barbara Werden and Lindsay Starr for Lone Star Law by Michael Ariens (Texas Tech).

SOEURETTE DIEHL FRASER AWARD FOR BEST TRANSLATION OF A BOOK ($1,000) James Hoggard for Oscar Hahn’s Ashes in Love (Host); Kurt Heinzelman for Jean Follain’s Demarcations (Host); and Dave Oliphant for Nicanor Parra’s After-Dinner Declarations (Host).

april 2012 the te xas observer | 35 Welcome to Utopia Notes from a Small Town BY KAREN VALBY Originally published by Spiegel and Grau and now available in paperback with a new afterword and reading group guide, this highly acclaimed book takes us into the richly complex life of a small Texas town. $15.00 paperback

The Texas Book Two More Profiles, History, and Reminiscences of the University EDITED BY DAVID DETTMER Continuing the story begun in The Texas Book: Profiles, History, and Reminiscenc- es of the University, this richly illustrated volume offers a highly readable, in-depth exploration of the personalities and events that have made the University of Texas at Austin what it is today. Focus on American History Series, the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin, Don Carleton, Editor 170 b&w photos • $34.95 hardcover

Last Launch Read more about these books online. Discovery, Endeavour, Atlantis BY DAN WINTERS university of Powerfully evoking the unquench- able American spirit of exploration, texas press award-winning photographer Dan Winters chronicles the final launches of Discovery, Endeavour, and Atlantis in this stunning photographic tribute to America’s space shuttle program. 90 color photos • $50.00 hardcover 800.252.3206 | www.utexaspress.com

Texas Furniture Friedrichsburg The Cabinetmakers and Their Work, 1840–1880 A Novel Revised Edition BY FRIEDRICH ARMAND STRUBBERG TRANSLATED, ANNOTATED, AND BY LONN TAYLOR AND DAVID B. WARREN ILLUSTRATED BY JAMES C. KEARNEY FOREWORD BY MISS IMA HOGG First published in Germany in 1867, this Back in print for the first time in thirty fascinating autobiographical novel of Ger- years and thoroughly updated, Texas man immigrants on the antebellum Texas Furniture is the definitive guide to the frontier provides a trove of revelations state’s rich heritage of locally made about the myriad communities that once nineteenth-century furniture and the called the Hill Country home. craftsmen who produced it. Jack and Doris Smothers Series in Texas Focus on American History Series, History, Life, and Culture the Dolph Briscoe Center for American 8 b&w photos, 17 drawings History, the University of Texas at Austin, $30.00 hardcover Don Carleton, Editor 36 | the te xas observer275 b&w photos, 8 maps • $60.00 hardcover www.texasobserver.org robertleleux Novel Approach Harbury’s Fight for Human Rights o read Jennifer Harbury’s books is to chart her progress toward becoming one of this nation’s most esteemed agitators. Almost 30 years ago, this Harvard-educated attorney made her first trip from Texas to Guatemala as a human rights observer. The genocide she witnessed there revolutionized her: A CIA-sponsored military dic- tatorship attempted, through acts of staggering cruelty, to annihilate the country’s Mayan underclass and crush democratic opponents. (See “The Long Road Home,” page 13.) Through an extraordinary series of events, Harbury Harbury writes. One of Everardo’s torturers was paid became more than an observer; she became a historic $44,000 in June 1992, the month he was witnessed Tparticipant in Guatemala’s democratic movement. bending over Everardo’s “bound and swollen body.” In Harbury’s first book, a 1994 anthology titled Harbury’s campaign to shed light on Everardo’s Bridge of Courage: Life Stories of the Guatemalan torture and death, on the other hand, paradoxi- Compañeros and Compañeras, she records the expe- cally represents our nation at its finest. As Harbury riences of the members of the Guatemalan National describes in her memoir, as well as in her most recent Revolutionary Unity (URNG) she came to know and book, 2005’s Truth, Torture, and the American Way: love in the ’80s. One person in particular claimed her The History and Consequences of U.S. Involvement in affections: URNG Comandante Efraín “Everardo” Torture, she dogged the American and Guatemalan Bamaca Velasquez, whom she married in September governments in the wake of Everardo’s disappear- 1991 in West Texas, where she has worked periodi- ance with considerable results. cally as a legal-aid attorney since graduating from In a riveting passage of Searching for Everardo, law school. Soon after marrying, Everardo returned Harbury writes of her 32-day hunger strike in late to war in Guatemala. On March 12, 1992, he was 1994 outside the “looming towers” of Guatemala’s captured by the military. For the next six to eight National Palace. As a white American, she was able Jennifer months, the military tortured him for information to stage protests in ways that Guatemalans could not that he didn’t provide, and then allegedly murdered in such a wantonly repressive political environment. Harbury him. It wasn’t until March 1995 that Harbury, with Eventually, her actions helped end United States the crucial assistance of journalist Mike Wallace and educational funding of the Guatemalan army—in became New Jersey Congressman Robert Torricelli, received addition to heaping considerable embarrassment on confirmation of her husband’s death. the leaders of both countries through media cover- a historic This chapter of Harbury’s life—including her age of her efforts. tragically foreshortened marriage and her unre- What’s most remarkable about Harbury is that she participant in lenting attempts to obtain the truth regarding just won’t stop. In the years since her involvement Everardo’s murder, as well as justice for his kill- in Guatemala, and her role in successfully pressur- Guatemala’s ers—is recounted in her heartrending 1997 memoir, ing the U.S. to ratify the United Nations Convention Searching for Everardo: A Story of Love, War, and the Against Torture, she’s only widened the scope of democratic CIA in Guatemala. In many ways, the memoir rep- her activism. In Truth, Torture, and the American resents the United States at its best and worst. Let’s Way, she effectively argues that our government movement. start with the worst: Harbury establishes an unde- has exported torture techniques worldwide. And niable pattern of direct CIA involvement in Central she continues to press suit in international courts American torture. She relays a relentless series against high-ranking Guatemalan military leaders of near-identical stories told to her by survivors, for the torture and death of her husband. in which “strange North Americans entered their “Nothing has changed in Guatemala,” she told me torture cells … Sometimes he asked the questions recently during a telephone interview from her West himself, and sometimes he even supervised … Always Texas law office. “It’s merely changed shape.” he had authority over the torturers. Always he sim- Harbury remains likewise unchanged. “This expe- ply left the victim to his or her fate.” This “standard rience has entirely stripped me of fear,” she said. operating procedure for the CIA” was well funded, “The most they can do is, what? Kill me?” april 2012 the te xas observer | 37 eat your words Still Waters by Emily DePrang

lice Waters is nervous. of every part of the food cycle would have students This shouldn’t be. Waters is growing fresh produce on school grounds, harvesting famous. Waters is loved. Her and cooking it themselves and enjoying it in the caf- image hangs in the National eteria. Waters believes that connecting children with Portrait Gallery in Washington, the origins and flavors of fresh food will do more to D.C., around the corner from Walt promote a lifetime of healthy eating than reading a Whitman’s. The New York Times chapter on nutrition in health class. calls her “the chef who revolutionized American fine Her vision was inspired by a San Francisco prison dining.”A She was the first woman to be named “Best garden program and realized at Martin Luther King Jr. Chef in America” by the James Beard Foundation Middle School in Berkeley 16 years ago. Waters, through and the only American chef to have received the her Chez Panisse Foundation, has since helped found French Legion of Honor. five other “Edible Schoolyards” around the nation. And yet, before an audience of about 1,000 on a Waters advocates a pedagogical version of the February evening in Houston, Alice Waters looks experience she had as a young woman in France in downright shy. the late 1960s. “It was the first time my senses were Randall Morton, founder of the Progressive Forum, completely awakened,” she recalled. “In France, I which, along with Urban Harvest, is hosting Waters, was suddenly surrounded by a way of life that was has just delivered a lavish but hardly overstated intro- all about touch and taste and aromas and sounds. I duction. He pointed out the extent of Waters’ legacy: was beside myself. Remember, this was a time in the in the national proliferation of farmers markets; the United States when all the supermarkets were her- wide availability of organic produce; the populariza- metically sealed and TV dinners and mechanized tion of values like sustainability and seasonality; and appliances were all around. You know, convenience, school lunch reform. None of this is news to Waters, efficiency, sterilization.” but she still looks a little stunned as she assumes the But in France, people shopped local markets for podium at the Wortham Center’s Cullen Theater. fresh, seasonal produce and meat, not because it was She spoke for about an hour, from notes, in a care- virtuous but because that’s simply how things were ful, thoughtful voice, stumbling occasionally. “I resist done. “The ritual of the table was central to family life,” public speaking,” she confessed. Waters said. “The family I stayed with had their chil- Alice Waters has been credited But she’d made this exception to talk about the dren come home [from school] for lunch. They had two with popularizing values like food sustainability and seasonality. “edible education” she hopes will become a regular hours to have lunch with their family. Imagine that!” photo by David Sifry part of all public schools. This sensory experience Those values—and flavors—would guide the rest of

38 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org her life. From Chez Panisse’s opening in 1971, Waters LPs from her personal collection. One was 1969’s Tomato tried to reproduce the tastes she experienced in France, Records release Our Mother the Mountain. I sat on the which meant finding fresh, locally grown, seasonal pro- floor by the turntable and cued it: duce. This, along with an emphasis on simplicity in an So I reach for her hand and her age of heavy, fussy food, and the serving of a single fixed- eyes turn to poison price meal per night, set Chez Panisse apart. That’s And her hair turns to splinters not to say it was a hit; the restaurant took eight years, And her flesh turns to brine and the intervention of a proper bookkeeper, to turn She leaps ’cross the room, she a profit. “The simplicity was of course born out of the stands in the window fact that we didn’t have any money,” Waters said. “But And screams that my first-born there’s something about the priorities that we may have Will surely be blind. gotten right. Food was front and center.” Who the holy hell was this guy? As Chez Panisse became more successful, Waters Despite a No. 1 country hit—Merle Haggard and began using it as a platform for activism. In 1987, Waters Willie Nelson’s 1982 take on Van Zandt’s “Pancho and helped organize one of the first benefits for AIDS vic- Lefty”—genuine Townes Van Zandt was and largely tims, a pair of events called Aid and Comfort. When her remains a cult taste, eagerly passed from acolyte to daughter, Fanny, went to Yale, Waters founded the Yale neophyte. One of the great pleasures of I’ll Be Here Sustainable Food Project, which maintains an organic in the Morning, Austin journalist Brian Atkinson’s farm on campus and uses the food in dining halls. She compilation of interviews with 41 contemporary also started the School Lunch Initiative in 2005, dedicated to improving the nutrition of school lunches. And she lobbied presidents Clinton through Obama to install an organic garden on the White House grounds. Michelle Obama finally broke ground on one in 2009 as part of her Let’s Move! campaign against childhood obesity. Now 67, Waters has only become more ambitious. “I want the next president, no matter who it is, to declare a state of emergency around childhood obesity and children’s health,” she said. “I believe our president could make a moral case for feeding every child at school a free, wholesome, and nutritious breakfast and lunch.” Waters acknowledges that the changes she seeks seem expensive, especially in an age of shrinking bud- gets and teacher layoffs. But she says it’s a matter of priorities. “After the banks got bailed out,” she quipped, “I figured, I don’t need that much. Just half.” The audience erupted in applause. Waters smiled, relaxed.

book review A Public Wake for a Texas Troubadour by Brad Tyer

n 1992 I was a freshly minted music critic in Houston, just returned from a sojourn in grungy Portland, Oregon, with a chip on my shoulder about overrated Texas-brand troubadours. So when songwriter Linda Lowe called to let me know about a con- cert she was promoting at Houston’s Main Street Theater—four songwriters sitting in chairs, Itrading tunes living-room style—she must have heard my skepticism. “Townes Van Zandt is on the bill,” she said, trying to sell me. “What,” I asked, “is a Townes Van Zandt?” If Linda was appalled, she kindly declined to show it. Instead she hand-delivered a batch of vinyl Van Zandt

april 2012 the te xas observer | 39 songwriters who knew and/or dug Van Zandt, is watch- The Van Zandt ing that moment of discovery—whichever particular song sparks it—splash and ripple into appreciation. remembered For Guy Clark, it came early and lasted a lifetime. And though Clark is oft-quoted on his more-tragic part- by his ner in rhyme, it’s still a shock to hear him recall thatV an Zandt had written only two songs when they met: “I’ll contemporaries Be Here in the Morning” and “Waitin’ Around to Die.” If those two songs bookmarked Van Zandt’s emo- was the genius tional range, they also mapped the trajectory of his career, and the word that recurs in these short inter- boy who went views is “sad.” The Van Zandt remembered by his contemporaries was the genius boy who went way out way out on the on the limb on the theory that songs matter, and that you had to give everything away to write a true one. It limb on the was a myth born in romantic poetry and lived in the shadow of the blues, and Van Zandt kept faith with theory that it until the branch broke. He died in 1997 at age 52, enfeebled, the victim of too much booze and too much songs matter. rambling. This book’s younger voices, the ones who discovered Van Zandt in his declining years, describe not just an under-appreciated songwriter, but a text- book alcoholic and unpredictable drunk more easily tolerated by old friends than by fresh-eared novitiates. Not everyone gets Van Zandt, and Atkinson includes an occasional tonic to cut the inevitable bittersweet. The wife of Billy Joe Shaver, unmoved by his poetic prowess, suggests that “Townes Van Zandt could make a lot of money selling razor blades at his shows.” Kevin Russell of Austin’s The Gourds “was not impressed with his voice or his playing style ... I just thought he was one of those hack Texas guys ... .” Russell eventually heard Live at the Old Quarter and came around, but unlike many hagiographers, he remains unprone the Picture show to overstating the case. The musical merits are better discussed over cigarettes Bernie Packs and cough syrup, but arguing Van Zandt’s greatness isn’t Atkinson’s goal here. Neither is biography. Nor is I’ll Be Folksiness But Here in the Morning the place for the uninitiated to start. That would be 2004’s Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Little Depth Townes Van Zandt, or Live at the Old Quarter. This book is a little more like a public wake. by Josh Rosenblatt Still, you can learn a lot about a guy from his wake. I learned that Van Zandt was “a real snob. He didn’t like n the Hollywood imagination, Texas gen- anything. He could keep his mouth shut louder than erally means West Texas. Writers and anybody ... .” I learned that he (at least) once “chained directors think about the state and see a himself to a tree so he wouldn’t drink.” In 1972 his vast, wide-open landscape that stretches to 19-year-old girlfriend was stabbed to death while run- infinity, unchanging and stark, a place for ning an errand for him while he recorded High, Low lost souls and big dreamers and criminals and In Between in California. Among songwriters at unmoored from society. A land made for least, Van Zandt’s most widely admired song seems to wide-angle lenses. Think of The Last Picture Show or be “Snowin’ on Raton.” IGiant or No Country for Old Men. These are movies Knowing such things isn’t necessary, and facts hardly as much about the disorienting, alien nothingness define a legacy that, according to these interviews, is of the landscape as they are about the people barely less a matter of style than of commitment to the art. But populating it. one likes to know them anyway. It may be heresy to say There are exceptions, of course. Hud—perhaps of Texas’ most vehemently acclaimed songwriter, but the darkest Texas movie ever made—took place Townes Van Zandt was equally adept at generating, in in the Panhandle, which makes the emptiness of his inadequate-to-fame way, a cult of personality. Jack West Texas seem welcoming by comparison. Office Ingram wrapped it up for me: “You just know that this Space captured the cubicle sameness of Dallas. And I’ll Be Here in the Morning: guy has a connection with a deeper place. I don’t put in Richard Linklater’s Slacker not only reflected the The Songwriting Legacy of Townes to listen to a song; I put it in to listen to him.” culture of Austin, it created the culture of Austin for Townes Van Zandt Observer copy editor Brad Tyer’s current favorite millions of filmgoers who had never thought of set- by Brian Atkinson TVZ song is the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss cover of ting foot in Texas. Texas A&M University Press “Nothin’.” His first book, Opportunity, Montana, will Though it appears the days are long gone when $24.95, 250 pages be published by Beacon Press in spring 2013. Linklater was daring enough to stretch the aesthetic

40 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org Richard Linklater’s new film Bernie is based on the true story of an East Texas man who killed his benefactress. Photo Courtesy of Millennium Entertainment

Pro-Care His new movie, Bernie, is Non-Emergency Linklater’s love Transportation letter to the place where he grew up: East Texas, a We Transport the Elderly mysterious, and Wheelchair Bound to provincial land of small towns Hospitals, Doctors and boundaries of moviemaking to capture the spirit of So Much More! a place, the writer/director is still occasionally in “behind the the business of telling the stories of Texas. His new movie, Bernie (which screened during last month’s pine curtain” We cover Houston and NE Houston, SXSW Film Festival, and which opens nationally this month), is Linklater’s love letter to the place where he that have done including Humble, Kingwood, grew up: East Texas, a mysterious, provincial land of Atascocita, Cleveland, Dayton and small towns “behind the pine curtain” that have done a great job of a great job of staying out of Hollywood’s line of sight. Porter. Call Pro-Care today for your Bernie tells the true story of Bernie Tiede, a boister- staying out of transportation needs at 281.812.1673 ous, well-loved assistant funeral director in the small town of Carthage who, in 1996, shot his elderly, decid- Hollywood’s edly not-well-loved benefactress, Marjorie Nugent, in the back four times with a rifle. To this day there line of sight. are many in Carthage who refuse to believe a man as www.pro-caretransportation.com generous and good-natured as Tiede could have shot Nugent or anybody else, despite his confession. Then there are those who believe Nugent had it coming, no matter who pulled the trigger. Based on a Texas Monthly story written by Skip Hollandsworth (who co-wrote the script), Bernie is a light-as-air black comedy that aims to raise questions about good and evil, perception and reality, and justice and decency, but in the end is really just an opportunity for Linklater to celebrate the quirky world he grew up in. The film is made up largely of “interviews” with actors playing citizens of Carthage, and the movie really belongs to them—to their accents, to their folksy witticisms and colorful turns of phrase, to their haircuts and their outfits and all the native idio- syncrasies that make East Texas East Texas. Like an anthropologist or a cultural linguist, Linklater is in love with the color of Carthage life and relies on it april 2012 the te xas observer | 41 buying And selling used And rAre books to give his movie the vitality it needs to convince the audience of a story he isn’t capable of telling. Linklater’s Bernie Tiede, and his Carthaginians, are cartoons, collections of mannerisms—a lilting voice, a manicured moustache, a love of Broadway musicals— that hint at homosexuality while providing Linklater ★ ★ comic cover to avoid the more telling parts of the story. Tiede’s tale cries out for a psychologist’s curiosity about the depths of human behavior, but Linklater has never been interested in controversy or darkness, and he believes too much in the decency of people to ask 1608 south Congress Ave. FridAy & sAturdAy 11–8 the right questions: Was Bernie gay? And if so, were his fascination and friendships with older women a 512-916-8882 sundAy – thursdAy 11–7 way to survive in a town that was intolerant of homo- sexuals? Did he murder Marjorie Nugent because, at long last, he had come to the end of his considerable ability to lie to himself and to those around him? Or was he just a criminal and pathological liar who was capable of convincing an entire town of his inimitable goodness while all along taking advantage of a rich old woman and plotting her murder? Some of the people of Carthage, many of whom knew Bernie Tiede and Marjorie Nugent, have voiced their displeasure with Linklater and Hollandsworth for turning their story into a comedy, no matter how black. Surely all that blood and deception—all that reality—deserves to be something more than just a punch line, they say. They needn’t worry. Bernie is a fantasy world. The names and the places and the events may be accurate, but any resemblance the movie has to actual life is purely coincidental. Like all good love letters, Bernie is a confection, interested in the world that could be, not in the world that is.

Alone by Damon V. Tapp The only sounds at dusk are the pump and the dog barking in the distance as I fill my car at the one gas depot W.W. Torrey in this small town. Attorney at Law And I wonder what the lives of these people are like 1105 N. Travis 254-697-3700 while I look from one end of the empty street P.O. Drawer 752 Fax: 254-697-3702 to the other. Cameron, TX 76520 [email protected] The dog barks again. The air has A Good Lawyer for Good People a bite to it. Damon V. Tapp is a retired accountant living in San Antonio.

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42 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org billminutaglio state of the media Where’s the Line between Journalist and Source? or the next several months, plenty of eyes will turn to Texas for insider intelligence. The emails of Austin-based firm Stratfor, a private global security analysis company, have been hacked and given to WikiLeaks. ¶In late February, WikiLeaks The Nation and started publishing more than five million emails from the company; the process could go on for months, maybe years. Rolling Stone WikiLeaks has partnered with 26 media outlets around the are predictably world, including Rolling Stone, to analyze and provide news not lingering coverage about the material. None of the outlets are in Texas. Initial findings from the correspondence -under because Stratfor is a private intelligence organisation over how the score the sadly redundant and deliberate ways that that services governments and private clients these FBig Government and Big Business work together. relationships are corrupt or corrupting.” emails were There is a mash-up of surveillance details about polit- The reaction in the U.S. media says volumes. The ical campaigns and activist organizations. There are Nation and Rolling Stone are predictably not linger- lifted from insights into how Dow Chemical, Lockheed Martin ing over how the emails were lifted from Stratfor. and Raytheon are linked to the Obama adminis- Rather they are fixated on what the emails contain. Stratfor. Rather tration, and hints about how the Department of The New York Times, on the other hand, has notice- Homeland Security, the Defense Intelligence Agency ably shied away from the content of the emails, they are fixated and the Marines fit into the mix. instead concentrating on criminal allegations and Beyond the evidence of government-and-business the role the FBI has played in investigating “data on what the collusion, the emails contain disturbing suggestions stolen from Stratfor.” Good luck finding any drilled- about the relationship between reporters and the down work in the Texas media about the information emails contain. elusive world of “intelligence gathering,” in which contained in the emails, or the extent to which it was reporters can grow far too close to the people they gathered from working journalists here and abroad. cover, influencing what they report and how they That lack of coverage doesn’t just indicate a lack report it. It’s an old problem, one that scorched for- of curiosity, but an ongoing culture in Texas media mer New York Times reporter Judith Miller, whose circles: Intelligence organizations, spin doctors exclusives about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and think tanks have long relied on sympathetic were later proved wrong. state journalists. Some young Austin journalists go Stratfor has posted a note on its website that to work as “open source intelligence monitors” for should resonate with anyone who questions how Stratfor. Some do research for Public Strategies (run journalism is practiced: in part by Mark McKinnon, who years ago was the “Stratfor has worked to build good sources in crusading editor of The Daily Texan, the University many countries around the world, as any publisher of of Texas at Austin student newspaper, before he geopolitical analysis would do. ... We have developed single-handedly invented George W. Bush’s media

Read more about Stratfor these relationships with individuals and partner- campaigns). Some journalists even move on from at txlo.com/stratfor ships with local media in a straightforward manner, years at the liberal news weekly The Austin Chronicle and we are committed to meeting the highest stan- to become affiliated with conservative policy shops dards of professional and ethical conduct.” like The Manhattan Institute. Alternately, here’s what WikiLeaks had to say Such “exchange” of information may also be less about how reporters from Argentina to Azerbaijan deliberate than the deals suggested in the Stratfor/ delivered information to Stratfor’s offices in down- WikiLeaks revelations. It could take other forms, town Austin: maybe some social lubrication at The Austin Club, “Stratfor did secret deals with dozens of media The Petroleum Club, The Houston Club. organisations and journalists—from Reuters to the One thing is sure: More emails are coming this Kiev Post ... While it is acceptable for journalists to swap year. And the more the story is ignored in the Texas information or be paid by other media organisations, media, the more it says about the Texas media. april 2012 the te xas observer | 43 forrestwilder Forrest for the trees Demographics No Longer Destiny for Democrats here’s a rule of thumb in journalism that “two’s a coinci- dence, three’s a trend.” Two of something may mean nothing, but find three examples and you’ve got yourself a story. So what to make of the two defections of Hispanic lawmakers from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in the past year? ¶First, state Rep. Aaron Peña, a four-term Democrat from the Rio Grande Valley, announced right before the 2011 legislative session that he was switching to the GOP. Then, in March of this year, another South Texas Democrat switched parties. This time it was freshman J.M. Lozano, who rep- Party, recently wrote in an op-ed that there are 668 resents a district that stretches from Kingsville to Democratic Hispanic elected officials in Texas to THarlingen. (Lozano’s a real piece of work. In 2010, he just 60 in the Republican Party. Beyond the odd ousted Democratic incumbent Tara Rios Ybarra by head-counting (how many Latinos do you have?), claiming that, “[what] we have to do is get rid of all Acuña’s argument obscures a more important point: the closet Republicans from the Democratic Party.”) The GOP already dominates Texas; it doesn’t need Are these isolated events, or signs of realignment? to win over every Latino, or even a majority. Victory Democrats have reacted by dismissing Peña and for Republicans lies in the margins. They need only Lozano as turncoats who represent nothing more peel off just enough Latinos to keep winning every than their own fevered egos. Democrats cling to the statewide office, both houses of the Legislature and comforting thought that Republicans are too extreme two-thirds of the congressional delegation. on immigration, voter ID, and spending on education Demographics, we are told, is destiny. But people Republicans and social services to gain a percentage with Latinos. and parties make their own destinies. For more than The GOP, after all, unexpectedly drummed a conser- a decade, Texas Democrats have failed repeatedly are making vative Republican, Victor Carrillo, off the Railroad to take advantage of the incredible potential among Commission in favor of a white guy who knew noth- Latino voters. The problem is well known: Latino a long-term, ing about oil and gas. The problem wasn’t that Carrillo turnout in Texas is abysmal compared to other was a no-name politician, but that he was a Spanish- states. In 2008, 38 percent of Texas Latinos went to sustained play surname politician in a xenophobic party. If the GOP the polls. In California the turnout was 57 percent. base turns on one of its own just for being Hispanic, Everyone knows this. The party’s old guard doesn’t for Hispanic how can it expect to bring Latinos into the fold? Well, put much time or effort into engaging and energiz- apariencias engañan. Appearances deceive. ing potential Latino voters. Rather, its main strategy voters in Texas. Texas Democrats have assumed for at least a involves putting a Latino at the top of the ballot— decade that population growth among Latinos will think Tony Sanchez for governor or Rick Noriega for translate—eventually, inexorably—into the resur- U.S. Senate—and hoping that Latinos will magically gence of their party. But Republicans are making turn out to vote. Guess what? It doesn’t work. a long-term, sustained play for Hispanic voters in There are signs that Democrats are finally going Texas. In classic conservative fashion, prominent on the offensive. The party recently launched The Republicans like George P. Bush launched a top- Promesa Project, an effort to get young Latinos to down strategy: recruiting and running Hispanic “promise” to act as “Democratic messengers to their Republicans in targeted districts. In 2010, voters families and social networks,” according to the proj- elected five Latino Republicans to the Legislature. ect’s website. The party is investing $1 million in it. One of those Republicans, Raul Torres of Corpus Better than nothing. Yet Promesa, modeled on the Christi, is now taking on long-time Democratic state “Great Schlep,” a 2008 initiative deployed in Florida to Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa. Democratic strategists get young Jews to convince their grandparents to vote will quickly point out that 2010 was just an incred- for Obama, is only a complement, not a substitute, to ibly good year for Republicans, and data suggests the dull, block-by-block work needed to enfranchise those five were elected largely by Anglos. Latinos. Until that happens, Texas Democrats run the Rebecca Acuña, spokesperson for the Democratic risk of becoming even more irrelevant.

44 | the te xas observer www.texasobserver.org eye on texas Melanie Burford

the fight for sugar hill Collin County Sugar Hill is a housing project in Texas’ richest county that has been economically and racially isolated for 40 years. This image is part of a photographic narrative commissioned by The Dallas Morning News and photographed over three years. The narrative follows the Jackson family, residents of Sugar Hill, and their pastor as the family struggles against poverty.

See more of New York-based photographer Melanie Burford’s work at www.texasobserver.org/ eyeontexas. CALL FOR ENTRIES: Seeking Texas-based documentary photography that captures the strangest state. Please send inquiries to [email protected].

april 2012 the te xas observer | 45 “What you need is sustained outrage...there’s far too much unthinking respect given to authority.” YES MOLLY IVINS DID SAY THAT...AND MUCH MORE

We invite you to join us for The 2012 MOLLY National Journalism Prize Dinner Thursday, June 7, 2012 6:00 p.m. Cocktail Reception | 7:00 p.m. Dinner Four Seasons Hotel, Austin, Texas

The MOLLY National Journalism Prize dinner, sponsored by The Texas Observer, celebrates the crucial role of investigative journalism and the independent press in today’s society.

The Observer has just announced that Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, world-renowned economist and New York Times columnist, will provide the keynote address.

Also at the dinner, The Texas Democracy Foundation will present the MOLLY National Journalism Prize to the 2012 winner.

The MOLLY is awarded annually for an article or series of articles, columns, or stories that need telling, challenge conventional wisdom, focus upon civil liberties and social justice and embody the intelligence, deep thinking, and passionate wit that marked Molly Ivins’ work. Past winners have hailed from The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Harper’s Magazine, The Nation, with honorable mentions to The Wall Street Journal, Mother Jones, and The New York Times. Join your friends, old and new, an irreverent and unbuckled celebration of cantankerous, courageous, and impolite journalism that is pure Molly.

For tickets and sponsorship opportunities, you can find more information at www.texasobserver.org/mollyaward or call Piper Stege Nelson at 512.477.0746. Tickets and tables sell out fast. Do not let this opportunity slip away.