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A Woman's Touch Juvenile inmates can make inviting targets for sex offenders—and women are the most frequent perpetrators. Is the Texas Youth Commission ignoring the problem?

ON THE COVER ILLUSTRATION BY DANIEL HERTZBERG LEFT Inside the Corsicana Resi- dential Treatment Center, one of 19 Texas Youth Commission facilities PHOTO BY LAURA BURKE

A06 WOMAN'S TOUCH by Laura Burke Juvenile inmates can make inviting targets for sex offenders—and women are the most frequent perpetrators. Is the Texas Youth Commission ignoring the problem?

CASH FLOW DOGGONE JUSTICE by Forrest Wilder by Joe RAarastiale A tiny Texas town takes on T. Boone An ode to old-fashioned violence. 12 Pickens—and tries to save its water. 17 Listen to a REGULARS 2.0 DATELINE: 25 BOOK REVIEW 28 PURPLE STATE podcast with 01 DIALOGUE SAN ANTONIO The Corps of Time Warp Laura Burke 02 POLITICAL Close to the Bone New Orleans by Bob Moser talking about INTELLIGENCE by Barbara Renaud by Char Miller "A Woman's 05 EDITORIAL Gonzalez 29 EYE ON TEXAS Touch," and 05 BEN SARGENT'S 26 POETRY by Michael Stravato watch a video of LOON STAR STATE 23 STATE OF THE MEDIA by Harvey Shepard Forrest Wilder's 19 HIGHTOWER REPORT Calling George W. CORRECTION: In "A Ruling by Bill Nlinutaglio 21 URBAN COWGIRL for Capture" (Aug. 20), we interviews for The Road to incorrectly said that the "Cash Flow." Texas Supreme Court hadn't 24 CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK Compromise yet heard Edwards Aquifer www.texasooserver.org UGK 4 Life by Ruth Pennebaker Authority v. Day. In fact, the by Josh Rosenblatt court took oral arguments in the case in February. The decision, however, is pending. A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES SINCE 1954 •IPwr*-41,

OBSERVER VOLUME 102, NO. 16 1111.0011E FOUNDING EDITOR Ronnie Dugger Confederate Texas EDITOR Bob Moser MANAGING EDITOR From the article "Troubled Times" (Aug. 6): Slavery "was not a moral quandary in Chris Tomlinson

SENIOR EDITORS Dave Mann, 1860 for most Texans, and thousands of them would die in brutal conflict before it Michael May

WEB EDITOR Jen Reel started to become one. If,150 years later, Texans still can't talk about what slavery

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER Melissa del Bosque made of us, then part of our history remains trapped inside that peculiar institu- STAFF WRITERS Abby Rapoport, tion." To me, unless people in the lower south stop using the term "states' rights" Forrest Wilder ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Julia Austin as the reason for the war, they have not owned up to the gravity of what they did CIRCULATION MANAGER Candace Carpenter 150 years ago. "States' rights" is a rationalization, not a reason for the war—an OFFICE MANAGER Lorraine Blancarte attempt to make something dishonorable look honorable. Bill Wilson

ART DIRECTION EmDash LLC DALLAS

COPY EDITOR Rusty Todd POETRY EDITOR BENEATH ALL THE CHIVALRIC REFERENCES TO THE We absolutely should measure and report growth. Naomi Shihab Nye South, we must acknowledge the brutal blood- TEA gave us a growth model that doesn't ever mea- INTERNS Laura Burke, stained reality of slavery. That was why the war sure growth, while telling us it did. By no measure John Eller came about. As for the alleged "slave rebels" who should that exercise be scored as "passing." CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Scott Hochberg Emily DePrang, Lou Dubose, were murdered for setting the fires that came to be James K. Galbraith, Steven known as the "Texas Troubles"? Seems to me the STATE REPRESENTATIVE, HOUSTON G. Kellman, Joe R. Lansdale, very least thing we could do in Dallas would be to Robert Leleux, James E. name schools or parks after them, as we have Civil McWilliams, Char Miller, Bill Minutaglio, Ruth Pennebaker, War generals throughout the state. Once, years ago, Perry's Fuzzy Math Josh Rosenblatt, Kevin Sieff, I tried to tell friends that Texas was not a Southern WHEN Gov. RICK PERRY RAN FOR GOVERNOR THE FIRST Brad Tyer, Andrew Wheat state, but someone quickly interjected: "Texas was time, he made a campaign promise to serve no more CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS a Confederate state." If you start in East Texas, each than two terms ("Knock, Knock, Who's There?" Jana Birchum, Alan Pogue, Aug. 6). It is bad enough that he did not keep his Matt Wright-Steel town has a monument near the courthouse for the Confederate dead. But eventually, small towns stop promise; but what really upset me was during the CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS Michael Krone, Alex Eben having such monuments. It is in those towns where Republican Primary against U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Meyer, Ben Sargent the West begins. Brad O'Brien Hutchison, when Perry had a TV ad saying the state TEXAS DEMOCRACY DALLAS of Texas has a budget surplus under his leadership. FOUNDATION BOARD Shorty after Perry won the Republican Primary, Lisa Blue Baron, Carlton it came out that there is no surplus, but a deficit Carl, Melissa Jones, Susan Longley, Jim Marston, Test-Test now at $18 billion. Did Perry tell the truth or is that Mary Nell Mathis, Gilberto JUST TO MAKE SURE MY POSITION IS CLEAR, I HAVE ALWAYS just "fuzzy" math? It's time for a new governor. Ocarias, Jesse Oliver, Bernard advocated for a testing measure that would allow I don't care if you are a Republican, a Democrat, a Rapoport, Geoffrey Rips, Geronimo Rodriguez, Sharron schools to receive credit for registering progress Tea Partier or a Libertarian; a politician should be Rush, Kelly White, Ronnie with underperforming children, and I continue to truthful and should not mislead the people in any Dugger (emeritus) do so ("Passing Fancy," Aug. 20). The problem is way, form or fashion. Sam Merrell CHAIR, TEXAS RETIRED PUBLIC OUR MISSION that the Texas Projection Measure never measures We will serve no group or progress, or growth, nor was it designed to. It's a pre- EMPLOYEE COUNCIL OF AFSCME party but will hew hard to diction method, useful in deciding how much growth the truth as we find it and is "enough" to make sure a student has a reasonable the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole chance to pass in the future. The Texas Education truth, to human values above Agency skipped the part about measuring growth all interests, to the rights of and went straight to the prediction. So the student humankind as the foundation A of democracy. We will take who makes no progress and fails gets the same orders from none but our own TPM score as the student you describe who starts conscience, and never will we far behind and makes great progress but still fails. overlook or misrepresent the Using TPM, the great teacher and the poor teacher truth to serve the interests of Sound Off the powerful or cater to the are treated equally, based only on where the student ignoble in the human spirit. lands, without regard to where the student started. [email protected]

SEPTEMBER 3, 2010 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 1

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DISPATCH FROM REYNOSA The Dead City Saint Death DEATH GREETS VISITORS TO REYNOSA THESE DAYS. ON THE It's the only place where anyone in Reynosa seems PHOTO BY EUGENIO DEL BOSQUE outskirts of this gritty industrial city across the Rio to find comfort. Grande from McAllen, a shining, white altar to the The altar wasn't here a decade ago when I worked skeletal specter la Santa Muerte (Saint Death)—a in Reynosa as a reporter. The city was different. It had favorite of the poor, the disenfranchised, and the a vibrant plaza and a healthy tourism trade. Families criminal underclass—stands guard at her post, a strolled downtown. Reynosa was never pretty, but it smiling grim reaper, a fitting saint for these times. was alive. It had hope. Now the mood is fatalistic. The My husband and I stop at la Santa Muerte on the city itself has become a victim of the drug violence edge of town. As my husband snaps photographs, that has killed more than 28,000 people in Mexico

READ more about la Santa a silver pickup truck careens down the highway at since 2006. The restaurants and small businesses Muerte at Ixlo.com/rnuerte high speed with its hazard lights flashing. It weaves downtown are closed. The ice-cream store is gone. dangerously in and out of traffic. Moments later, a Shop owners can't afford the extortion payments Mexican army convoy of several Humvees speeds charged by organized crime. Weeds sprout from the down the highway in pursuit, the soldiers' assault fronts of boarded-up discos. Shuttered restaurants rifles glinting in the afternoon sun. Fear courses tagged with graffiti crumble under the August sun. through me as I realize what's happening. I'm stand- Two weeks ago, someone threw a grenade at city hall. ing at the side of the road, and a sliver of Mexico's It stands deserted now. In the streets, no one smiles; drug war is headed right for me. I pretend not to see no one makes eye contact. them. As they pass, I think it would be fitting if I had It's not only the narco-traficantes that residents have to take shelter behind the altar to la Santa Muerte. to worry about. The failure of the army to curtail the

2 THE TEXAS OBSERVER WWW.TEXASOBSERVER.ORG THE STATE ENCE OF TEXAS violence has emboldened other criminals—kidnap- In an odd twist, the name that did come off the pers, carjackers and anyone else with nothing to lose. ballot was the Democratic nominee, John Cullar, The bullets could come anytime from anywhere. When a Waco attorney and longtime activist. Cullar was people speak about the cartels or organized crime, they never a serious candidate; Democrats had nomi- whisper, even sitting in their own living rooms. I hear nated him the day before filing suit. Sales tax again and again: "Don't use my name," and "You didn't So the case has been wrapped up neatly. Birdwell collected hear it from me." A lawyer tells me he tried to file a law- has no credible opponent and likely will continue to suit, but the courthouse no longer functions. Another serve a state he's resided in for only three years. But, (in billions) resident tells me she can no longer visit friends in the hey, close enough. —ABBY RAPOPORT neighboring city of Rio Bravo. The Gulf Cartel has checkpoints there, and you must pay to enter the city. 2005 They wear uniforms, she says, like an army. DEPT. OF INJUSTICE Meanwhile, from her post at the edge of the city, la $7.018 Santa Muerte smiles. This is her dominion now. Tim Cole's Legacy —MELISSA DEL BOSQUE WHEN THE TIM COLE ADVISORY PANEL ON WRONGFUL 2006 Convictions gathered for the first time on Oct. 13, 2009, the first person the judges, prosecutors, inno- $7.596 DEPT. OF DISPUTED ELECTIONS cence attorneys, reform advocates, and legislators on the panel heard from was Cole's half-brother, Cory 2007 Home Cooking Session. "Tim died in prison while being oppressed," TEXAS' 5TH COURT OF APPEALS TURNS OUT TO BE MORE he told them. "Let's not let it happen again." $8.038 sentimental than you might imagine. Home, the court They took Session's plea to heart. Ten months later, recently ruled, really is where the heart is—at least in on Aug. 25, the panel members finalized a report that 2008 the case of Republican state Sen. Brian Birdwell. recommends strong reforms to Texas' criminal justice Birdwell won a special election in June to replace system. If the reforms are enacted, the number of wrong- $8.281 the retiring Kip Averitt, a Waco Republican. Birdwell, ful convictions in Texas would decline immediately. 2009 a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, is perhaps Cole is perhaps the most famous of the many Texans best known for his inspirational recovery following who have been wrongly convicted. The former Texas the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon. He sustained burns Tech student was imprisoned in 1986 for a rape he $7.832 to 60 percent of his body and had 39 surgeries. He didn't commit. For 13 years, Cole wasted away in Source: Texas Comptroller gradually recovered, founded a Christian ministry prison, while the man who committed the crime tried of Public Accounts for burn victims, and even started fishing again. to convince authorities Cole was innocent. Cole died in Problem is, he did it all in Virginia. Even getting prison from asthma complications in 1999—a decade the fishing license. before DNA testing proved his innocence. Last year Although he maintained property in Texas, Birdwell Gov. Rick Perry made Cole the first Texan to be exoner- only moved back to the Lone Star State in 2007. In fact, ated posthumously. The Legislature created the advi- Birdwell voted in Virginia elections in 2006, an act that sory panel with one of two bills bearing Cole's name in requires voters to declare their residencythere. You might the 2009 session. assume that would make him ineligible for the Texas The causes of wrongful convictions are no secret. The Senate, which requires five years of Texas residency. No. 1 problem is witness misidentification, which has READ the Court's Birdwell But you would be mistaken. After winning the contributed to about 75 percent of flawed cases, accord- decision at txlo.com/Birdwell special election to serve the final months of Averitt's ing to the New York-based Innocence Project. Botched term, Birdwell was nominated for the November forensic evidence, made-up testimony from jailhouse ballot to serve a full four years. Sensing a chance to snitches, and false confessions also are major factors. steal a Senate seat; Democrats filed a lawsuit seek- The panel took on all these issues. It recommends ing to boot Birdwell from the ballot. The case seemed that Texas require all law enforcement agencies to straightforward: Birdwell, according to his voting adopt standard procedures for police lineups. That records, hasn't been a resident of Texas for five years. would prevent coaching eyewitnesses to identify a The Democrats' case fell victim to that tried-and- suspect or stacking lineups so a suspect stands out. true legal device: the technical loophole. On Aug. 19, The panel recommends that police officers record the 5th Court of Appeals in Dallas—comprised entirely their interrogations to reduce false confessions. And it of Republicans—ruled in Birdwell's favor. The justices wants Texas courts to ban jailhouse informants from wrote that Democrats should have first asked the state the witness stand unless their testimony can be verified. Republican Party to remove Birdwell from the ballot These ideas aren't new. Many have failed in the before going to court. In its 12-page ruling, the court Legislature for years. The key question is, how much barely mentioned Birdwell's residency. clout does Tim Cole's name and story carry? Will the

SEPTEMBER 3, 2010 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 3

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READ more about Tim Cole's Legislature stash the report in a drawer? Or will law- case at bdo.com/cole makers consider criminal justice reforms that would have saved Cole's life? We'll begin to find out when the Legislature convenes in January. —DAVE MANN THE DRIVER AFFAIR

DEPT. OF LITERALISM "Now you're PolitiFact's Tough Crowd scaring the heck THERE'S AN OLD TEXAS PROVERB: ONE MAN'S JOKE IS another man's slander. PolitiFact Texas doesn't bother to distinguish. The collaborative venture between the Austin out of American-Statesman and the national PolitiFact project at the St. Petersburg Times investigates political claims to see how accurate they are—what printv editor Gardner Selby calls "truthiness." After exam- Louis XIV ining a statement's veracity, PolitiFact Texas slaps PHOTO COURTESY WIKI-COMMONS it with a rating on the Truth-o-meter: anything

JJ from "True" to "Pants on Fire" (which comes with a nifty graphic featuring animated flames). —state Rep. Joe Driver. R-Dallas, when asked by It's serious business—perhaps too serious. Associated Press reporter Jay Root about pocketing For instance, state Democratic Party Chair Boyd reimbursements from the state for travel expenses Richie recently accused Gov. Rick Perry of "spending already covered by his campaign. He has vowed to Texans' hard-earned money to live like Louis XIV." repay the more than $17,000 he collected illegally. PolitiFact explained in more than 800 dour words why Perry's rental house, while opulent, isn't quite "Woody Guthrie said it best: Versailles. In its piece, PolitiFact Texas acknowl- edged that "Democrats said Richie was joshing," `I've seen all kinds of men: but that didn't stop it from rating the statement some rob you with a six "Pantalon en Feu." 71 No good line goes unchecked. Jeff Weems, the gun; some with a fountain pen. Democratic candidate for Railroad Commission, —Franklyn, commenting on the Dallas Morning News website observed in June that his reclusive Republican oppo- nent "saw his shadow on the primary day and no one has seen him since." PolitiFact noted dryly that "Republicans will not do "Democrat Jeff Weems says Republican foe has been anything except vote for him CHECK out PolitiFact at an out-of-sight groundhog since March primaries." txlo.com/Politifact After investigating, PolitiFact rated it "Barely True." again. According to him, Jokes are worth investigating, Selby says, because stealing from taxpayers is "you're not guaranteed that a voter's going to get your joke." True, and the PolitiFact staff has shot perfectly acceptable." down a variety of seriously false assertions, from —John Coby, Houston blogger Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White's claim that Perry is the highest-paid state employee, to Perry's statement that White helped the Obama "If campaigns are rarely won administration on cap-and-trade legislation, to or lost on ethical questions, reminding U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee that there's now only one Vietnam. then would that mean the But Hector Uribe, a Democratic candidate for Land people that vote for him Commissioner, found his trousers alight for a bit of political satire. His campaign issued a tongue-in- advocate thievery?" cheek press release in January lauding the candidate's —Candace Duval, Austin role in No Country for Old Men. It mentioned that "Uribe's Republican opponent [Land Commissioner and noted gun enthusiast Jerry Patterson] threatened to shoot him last week." Given the tone, it was hard to take the release seriously. The statement still got a "Pants on Fire," though readers who finished the arti- cle saw the label was granted for "making us laugh and for reminding us not to take this stuff too seriously." They might need more reminding. A FOR THE LATEST political analysis, read Bob Moser's Purple Texas at By the way, there's no need to fact-check that www.texasobserver.org/purpletexas proverb at the top. We made it up. —ABBY RAPOPORT

4 1 THE TEXAS OBSERVER WWW.TEXASOBSERVER.ORG The No-Show Governor

IVEN ENOUGH OPPORTUNITIES, EVEN increasingly difficult. Most of Perry's events (in fair- the most disciplined politician will ness, Bill 'White's, too) these days are nowhere near Perry seems eventually say something stupid. Austin, where many of the state's political reporters So it's common for incumbents are based. Most of them have a better chance of land- intent on with a comfortable lead in the polls ing an interview with Thomas Pynchon than sitting to limit debates, press conferences, down with this state's highest public servant. running a and unscripted moments to reduce While avoiding public scrutiny may be good politics the chances of an election-altering gaffe. It's called in the short term, ultimately it will be self-defeating if campaign running out the clock. Perry ever runs for higher office. In a national campaign, But Gov. Rick Perry is taking it to unacceptable he won't be able to sidestep reporters and debates. without levels. He seems intent on running a general election There is a larger concern here than politics: the campaign without communicating with anyone who public's right to know. There's no shortage of major communicating doesn't follow his Twitter feed. issues facing this state, and voters deserve to hear He's refused to schedule a single debate with his how the incumbent governor will deal with those with anyone Democratic opponent, Bill White. He's announced problems before returning him to office. How does he won't meet with newspaper editorial boards dur- he plan to address the state's looming budget deficit, who doesn't ing the campaign. Those decisions break not only now estimated at perhaps $18 billion? Would he cut with Texas political tradition, but with his own the education budget or lay off teachers? How would follow his track record. Perry has met with newspaper edito- he reduce Texans' home insurance rates, among the rial boards in previous campaigns, and he debated highest in the country? Twitter feed. his Democratic opponents in 2002 and 2006. In fact, Perry seems intent on coasting through the campaign the 2010 campaign could be the first Texas governor's without addressing any of these issues. That's a shock- race in 20 years without a single debate. ing concept in a functioning (we like to think) democ- It's come to the point that anyone who wants to ask racy. At the very least, Perry should change his stance Perry an unscripted question has one option: Ambush and agree to debate. A politician who walls himself off the governor at a campaign event. That's becoming from the public is not worthy of elected office. LI

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ONE EVENING IN NOVEMBER 2007, an 18-year-old inmate in Beaumont's Al Price Juvenile Correctional Facility was stretched out on his bunk when a female guard named Janice Simpson entered his room. The facility was short-staffed that day, so nobody was watching or listening when Simpson, 45, Abil(11111111'S asked to see the teenager's penis. Or when he showed her. Or when she told him she liked what she saw. Later, at about 3:30 a.m., the two had sex on the gray, stained carpet of the facility's concrete-walled "group room." Earlier that year, 390 miles away at the Gainesville State School, a 25-year-old cafeteria worker named TOUCH Tabithea Leach asked a juvenile inmate to accompany Juvenile inmates can make her into a walk-in refrigerator. Leach asked another inmate to keep watch. When she emerged from the inviting targets for sex refrigerator, Leach was smiling. "I owe you big time," she told the lookout. When the young man came out, offenders—and women are the he looked upset. His friend asked what happened. He was reluctant to say anything, but he did say he had most frequent perpetrators. "Tucked her." Not long afterward, the lookout heard Leach teasing the young man about his difficulty Is the Texas Youth Commission becoming erect. These incidents, documented in reports the ignoring the problem? Observer obtained from the Texas Youth Commission (TYC), the agency that runs these facilities, even- tually resulted in both the women being fired, con- victed of violating the young men's civil rights, and placed on probation (four years for Simpson, five for Leach). Neither the perpetrators, nor the vic- tims, nor Leach's lookout, reported the abuse. Word leaked out through the facilities' rumor mills, and investigators eventually began asking questions. Neither incident has received much attention until now. Beaumont's local news station mentioned Simpson's arrest once. One reason, experts say, is that sexual abuse perpetrated by women is often seen as relatively harmless, if not consensual. It's also seen as taboo. 'We don't want to talk about female sexual devi- ance," says Karen Duncan, author of Sexual Predators: Understanding Them to Protect Our Children and Youths. Women, Duncan says, "are not supposed to be sexually attracted to kids." Those perceptions don't jibe with reality: Nationwide, 95 percent of sexual abuse allegations in juvenile cor- rectional facilities were against female employees, according to 2008 findings released this year by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. That number is striking when you consider that just 42 percent of the facilities' employees were women in 2008. (In 2009, 50 percent of Texas Youth Commission employees were female. The justice bureau will not release percentage breakdowns of sexual offenses by female employees in Texas, or at individual facilities. The bureau cites confidentiality as the reason.) Simpson's and Leach's convictions were two of only five stemming from scores of sexual- misconduct allegations against TYC staffers since 2008. A shocking sexual-abuse scandal in TYC facilities three years ago prompted officials to take allegations and rumors of abuse more seriously. While legislative reforms mandated that an independent inspector general must investigate all allegations of sexual misconduct by TYC staffers at its 10 institutions and nine halfway houses, SHIA TERSTOC K convictions continue to be rare.

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 1 7 One reason: These cases are usually "he said, she said" scenarios, with no forensic evidence and no wit- nesses. Some allegations were proven false. In other cases, because the inmates were mentally impaired, as many TYC inmates are, their testimony was not con- sidered credible. In the Bureau of Justice Statistics' report, 10 of 12 Texas facilities surveyed had higher-than-average rates of alleged sexual abuse. Two Texas facilities were among the 13 nationwide with the highest reports of sexual victimization—the Corsicana Residential Treatment Center and the Victory Field Correctional Academy in Vernon. At Corsicana, 23 percent of inmates said they'd had sexual relations with facility staff in the previous year. Why are so few allegations being investigated? Why are convictions so rare? One reason may be the predominance of abuse by female staffers. Research indicates that women are less likely than men to be reported for sexual misconduct. That's not just a prob- lem in Texas: Societal myths and double standards about female sexual abuse often leave victims unpro- tected, while increasing the likelihood that the women will re-offend. As Duncan notes, women are supposed to be nurturers, not abusers. When we hear about female sex offenders, people either shrug or look away. "It makes us uncomfortable," she says.

IF THE TEXAS YOUTH COMMISSION is known for Right: The TYC facilities now have a 24-hour hotline where anything, it's the 2007 sexual-abuse scandal that inmates can report abuse made headlines, led to top officials' resignations, and and other problems. PHOTO BY LAURA BURKE spurred serious-minded reforms. In the Observer story that ignited the scandal, Nate Blakeslee (now a staff writer for Texas Monthly) documented a pattern of radical reforms. These included creating an Office of abuse at the West Texas State School, where two male the Inspector General to investigate complaints, an TYC administrators sexually abused at least 10 male independent ombudsman to watchdog the agency, The Dallas Morning READ Nate Blakeslee's TYC students over a period of years. and a reporting center that takes "hotline" calls from story at txlo.com/tcy News' Doug Swanson and The Austin American- kids in all TYC facilities 24 hours a day. Thousands of Statesman's Mike Ward soon followed with damning cameras were installed in the 19 remaining facilities. stories that demonstrated the depths of the problems, Employee screening was instituted to weed out likely and the lengths to which officials had gone to cover offenders, and employees were required to undergo them up. Though some inmates had reported abuse training designed to promote an environment free to staff members, their allegations had been brushed of sexual assault and intimidation. The state also aside repeatedly. A volunteer math tutor eventually got took measures to shrink TYC's population, which the story out to the Texas Rangers, who mounted an had nearly tripled in the 1990s thanks to "get-tough" investigation and collected heaps of evidence in 2005. juvenile-crime legislation, by requiring counties to Even so, the two administrators had been allowed to house low-level youth offenders in local detention quietly resign until the story went public. halls. Newly hired officials vowed to "eliminate the Texas newspapers eventually uncovered hundreds previous appearance of a 'closed society' at TYC." of allegations of sexual misconduct by correctional offi- Several TYC officials agreed to be interviewed for cers and other TYC staff. Texas' juvenile corrections this story. They allowed me to visit the Corsicana agency was slammed by both press and legislators, not Residential Treatment Center. Citing confidential- only for concealing the allegations at the West Texas ity, they would not allow me to speak with guards or State School, but for gross mismanagement and a lack inmates, or to attend training sessions for inmates of transparency in its operations. The TYC's executive and employees on appropriate relationships. During director resigned under pressure. Legislators replaced a tour of Corsicana, I spent nearly three hours inter- the TYC's board and fired several officials. Charges were viewing officials without seeing an inmate. "You brought against the former assistant superintendent of probably think there aren't even any kids here," one the West Texas School, Ray Brookins, who this April administrator joked. was found guilty of sexually assaulting boys at the facil- Cherie Townsend, who has won plaudits for her ity and sentenced to 10 years in prison. (The school's reform-minded leadership as the TYC's executive former principal, John Paul Hernandez, still awaits director since August 2008, told me she was "disap- trial on charges of engaging in oral sex with several pointed" by the federal report. "It didn't reflect the boys. The West Texas school was shuttered this year.) changes that have taken place within our agency, or In March 2007, Gov. Rick Perry signed Senate the culture which is developing that is far more posi- Bill 103 into law, requiring the agency to implement tive in TYC," she says. Townsend says she takes a "zero

8 THE TEXAS OBSERVER WWW.TEXASOBSERVER.ORG TYC to provide documents and data about Corsicana's policies, its operations and actions taken in response to the allegations. In June, several TYC and Corsicana "They will say, 'Who center officials were summoned to Washington for sworn testimony. The TYC was not asked to make are you going to tell? further changes for now; the federal investigation was aimed at "identifying common characteristics of insti- I can tell on mu." tutions with a high incidence of prison rape." TYC officials and sexual-abuse experts agree that the troubled characteristics of Corsicana's juvenile inmates contributed to the high incidence of reported sex abuse there. The agreement stops there. Do the inmates' SEE Time magazine's histories of sexual abuse and mental illness lead them narrated photo slide show of juvenile inmates in Laredo at to report more false allegations? Or do such histories txlo.com/laredjv make these kids easier targets for sex offenders?

FIFTY MILES EAST OF WACO, the Corsicana Residential Treatment Center is a sprawling maximum-security facility—or "campus," as TYC officials like to call it— housing up to 140 of Texas' most violent and disturbed youthful offenders. The facility was built as an orphan- age in 1899, and most locals still know it as the "state home." Its low-slung brick buildings, ringed by a high fence, sit between stretches of pasture and Corsicana, an oil boomtown that has seen better days. Corsicana had the first oil field west of the Mississippi, but the gushing stopped in the 1960s. Vacant storefronts dominate the red-brick streets of the downtown com- mercial space in this town of nearly 25,000. Everyone here knows somebody who works, or has worked, at the "home." But the population inside the facility is shrouded in myth. "Most of 'em were crack babies," says one city resident who requested ano- tolerance" approach toward sexual abuse. She sees nymity. "They have no conscience. If one of them gets the findings of the survey, conducted in mid-2008, as out, they'll kill someone before they are found." more of a reflection of the failures of the old TYC. "The Some of that fear is understandable. Seventy-five survey was done before many of these reforms were percent of the juveniles at Corsicana are violent enacted," she says, "and they certainly were done dur- offenders, compared with 58 percent in all TYC facili- ing a time when there was great upheaval and change ties. Every inmate at Corsicana has been diagnosed occurring within the agency." either with mental illness or mental retardation. They Townsend says that because the survey was done are more likely to have been sexually abused before anonymously, many of the allegations are surely false. they arrive: 54 percent have histories of sexual abuse. "We know that when you install phones, kids give hot- "Almost every kid you talk to here has some sort of sex- line tips all the time, and they'll often [make an alle- ual victimization in their past," says Laura Braly, superin- gation and then] say, 'No, I'm just kidding.' It's a way tendent at Corsicana. Braly, bespectacled and stout with of getting attention." James Smith, TYC's director of curly black hair, is 13 years into her career with TYC. She youth services, agreed, saying the allegations were lives at the facility and refers to the inmates as "my kids" "overwhelmingly" false. and the caseworkers as "my caseworkers." Officials pointed out that TYC inmates are, by defini- "A lot of my kids have been so victimized that they tion, troubled kids. At intake, 43 percent admit to being are highly, highly sexual," Braly says. "If you were on gang members. Eighty-five percent have IQs below the the Internet with pornography at 3 years old, that's all mean score of 100. Thirty-seven percent have serious you know. You don't know how to express yourself any mental health problems, and 31 percent enter the facili- way other than through sexuality, and you interpret ties with documented histories of being sexually abused. everything as being sexual." Braly says Corsicana's Corsicana, which had the highest rate of reported sexual caseworkers and psychologists train kids to commu- abuse, houses all of the state's juvenile inmates who have nicate "in other ways than sexual ways." She says it's diagnosable mental illness or retardation. "almost like what you would tell a younger child, like The U.S. Department of Justice was not so quick `good touch, bad touch.' These kids might be older, but WATCH a video on CNN about to brush off the report's findings. In March, the they've never really been taught that. So if somebody the Bureau of Justice Statistics Department began questioning TYC officials, focus- walks by and touches them on the shoulder, they go, report at tx1o.comicnnbjs ing particularly on the Corsicana Center, where nearly `I've been sexually assaulted.' one-quarter of the inmates alleged they'd had sexual Karen Duncan, the sexual-abuse expert, says she is contact with staff members. (The other facility with a "stunned" by such talk. When juveniles have experi- high number of reports, the Victory Field Correctional enced violent or ongoing victimization, she says, "it's Academy, has been shut down.) The Justice possible" that they would interpret, say, a pat on the Department's Review Panel on Prison Rape asked the shoulder as "something sexual." But these are rare

SEPTEMBER 3, 2010 THE TEXAS OBSERVER i 9 cases, Duncan says. "I have worked in this field for 30 you'll get a staffer who doesn't have a high level of "If somebody years," she says, "and I have never come across any- self-esteem, and if they're working with an older, thing like" what Braly alleges is the norm for Corsicana more sophisticated population, the kids kind of play walks by inmates who've been sexually abused. False allegations on that. Most teenage males who are not locked up ... of sexual abuse are unusual, Duncan says, and they fantasize about women that they come into contact and touches don't explain the findings about sex abuse at Corsicana. with: their teachers, their doctors, whoever," Smith Administrators at TYC counter with several exam- says. "Now you put them inside of a controlled envi- them on the ples of false allegations. Braly says that in the past, ronment, and the population of people to fantasize inmates desperate to speak to a psychologist falsely about is just the people who work there." Smith says shoulder, reported sexual assaults to get help with other issues. some young men from urban areas are so "sophis- Braly says she dealt with this problem by moving staff ticated" that they may have skills in "grooming" they go, 'I've psychologists into the kids' dorm buildings, "so you female guards to be sexual partners. Staff members don't have to make a false allegation to get to talk to have to learn, he says, how "kids can sometimes try been sexually the psychologist." to manipulate them." (Smith later told the Observer Braly says other inmates have realized that allega- this statement wasn't meant to blame the victims, assaulted." tions get them attention. She says one kid, "D" (his but rather to emphasize the training female staff name is confidential), made false daily reports for a require to maintain "professional boundaries.") while. Investigators would interview him, she says, That explanation provides a "cover for abuse," says and follow him around with a video camera. "I think he Cynthia Totten, a program director at Just Detention liked watching all these people scurry, and this person International, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit interview you, this person do this," Braly says. that seeks to end sexual violence in correctional facili- In a string of cases at Corsicana, Braly says she discov- ties. Female sex offenders, experts say, are the ones ered the juveniles were reporting abuse to go to the hos- who tend to use manipulation to get what they want. pital in Tyler for a sexual-assault exam, so they could eat "They are highly manipulative," Duncan says. "They LEARN MORE about female hamburgers and cookies after. She says one inmate told use coercion. Some people call it seduction. I call it sexual offenders by watching a Powerpoint presentation her this was his motivation for making allegations after `seductive coercion.' They do a lot of demeaning, and at txlo.com/offppt four or five such reports occurred in a week. they use a lot of masculine stereotypes, saying things James Smith, TYC's youth services director, offers like, What, you can't get it up?' This pattern seems another explanation. The juveniles, he says, some- to fit the case at the Gainesville State School, where times pursue their gatekeepers for sex. "Occasionally the cafeteria worker was needling her victim about his ability to perform sexually.

■ ow. Female sex offenders also invoke stereotypes about 4/ 4/ - . ••• female victimization to control their victims, experts say. In the case at the Al Price facility in Beaumont, the perpetrator allegedly threatened her victim by saying she would "press charges" against him if the story got out. This is common, Duncan says. "They will say, Who are you going to tell? I can tell on you.'" HAPPINESS 010.040.111 OF Juveniles who have previously suffered sexual abuse, www.p1anetittexas.com like so many of those incarcerated at Corsicana, might behave in more sexual ways than your average teen, GROWNUP GIFTS FOR KIDS OF ALL AGES Duncan says. But if a kid makes an advance to a female AUSTIN (512) NEW STORE staff member, "she is supposed to say, 'You wanna step NORTH SOUTH RESEARCH E. RIVERSIDE STASSNEY NEW STORE! IN AUSTIN back? Let's talk about what just happened here.' But 832-8544 443-2292 502-9323 441-5555 707-9069 CESAR CHAVEZ "female sex offenders engage" instead. When that hap- NEW STORE!! SAN MARCOS (512) 392-4596 pens, Duncan says, it's tragic. "We pay for these facilities 3111 E. CESAR CHAVEZ SAN ANTONIO (210) NEW STORE (East of Pleasant Valley to help the youth, and then they get abused instead." EAST CENTRAL EVERS MILITARY WEST AVE at Tillery) Cherie Townsend, the TYC's executive director, says 654-8536 822-7767 521-5213 333-3043 525-0708 247-2222 that most cases are "not about staff who are predators and intending to harm. It's often about crossing bound- aries," she says. Staff members "get into what they think is a positive relationship, and it crosses a line." "Best place to cure Duncan points out that nearly all sex offenders—male or female—imagine they are in a "positive relationship" The Hort what ails you" with their victims. "It's what every sex offender says: 'I was trying to help them.' " When the abuse is by women, Explore our Oasis of Duncan says, there's a tendency to sympathize with them and accept their side of the stories. She says prison Earthly Delights! officials, who have the most to lose by admitting such abuse, "tend to transform sexual offenses into things • extensive array of natural health they aren't." Drawing an analogy with the Catholic and bodycare products Church's handling of sexual abuse by priests, Duncan • comprehensive collection of herbs says that organizations faced with systemwide charges of sexual abuse tend to discredit reports, pull inward and www.theherbbar.com • great gift ideas and much more! try to protect themselves by blaming the victims. "That's been going on since the beginning of time," she says. .• Mn.-Fi.Sat. 10-6:30 200 West Mary • 444-6251 10r5- WWW.TEXASOBSERVER.ORG While TYC officials paint many Corsicana inmates to work toward becoming safe institutions. "In very as "sexually sophisticated" because of their histo- well-managed, well-run facilities, you don't see a "We pay for ries, experts note that sex offenders tend to prey on lot of sexual assault," says Michele Deitch, an attor- especially vulnerable kids. Juvenile inmates, Duncan ney and senior lecturer at the University of Texas at these facilities notes, are "highly vulnerable"—three times more Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs. likely than their adult counterparts in prison to report Late last month, four state and national advocacy to help the being sexually victimized by staff or fellow inmates. groups, including Texas Appleseed, sent a formal com- Juvenile offenders as young as 11 can be incarcerated plaint to the U.S. Department of Justice, alleging that youth, and in Texas—the youngest inmate at Corsicana is 12—but the TYC remains unable to ensure the safety of incar- even 18- and 19-year-olds can be susceptible to abuse. cerated youths. The groups say that inmates are still then they In terms of cognitive, emotional, and intellectual devel- being restrained improperly; that excessive force is opment, they are, on average, several years behind their used to control them; that medical, mental-health and get abused peers. (The median reading and math levels in TYC educational programs remain inadequate; and that facilities are four and five years behind the average, high numbers of assaults continue to occur, particu- instead." respectively.) An older teen might look like an adult, larly in the TYC's Beaumont and Corsicana facilities. Duncan notes, but "an 18- or 19-year-old inmate has the For a model of a "well-run" juvenile corrections emotional maturity of a 13- or 14-year-old." agency, many point to Missouri. Twenty-five years ago, Ignoring or minimizing sexual offenses by women the state eliminated its huge, rural detention facility, on boys comes with a cost. When young men are vic- which once warehoused 650 juvenile offenders, and timized, they not only suffer psychologically, but often established 33 smaller residential facilities and 11 day become sexual predators themselves. According to treatment centers. Fences and razor wire are absent from numerous studies, between one-fifth and one-third of most of these facilities. Inside, restraints are banned. The male sex offenders who victimize women were sexu- centers provide a homelike atmosphere for groups of no ally abused by women when they were young. more than 12 children and teens. Kids undergo therapy Even consensual sex behind bars can do lasting and establish trust in small groups. Missouri has one of harm. Whether it's a male or female staff member per- the lowest rates of recidivism in the country, 15 percent. petrating the abuse, Totten notes, "the power dynamic (Texas' recidivism rate is 40 percent.) is ultimately the same. That person holds the keys." In its post-2007 reforms, the TYC has taken some steps toward replicating the "Missouri model." But IN CORSICANA'S aging brick buildings, along its fluo- Texas will not be shutting down its large juvenile rescent-lit hallways, in the utilitarian dorms and stark detention institutions anytime soon. Harrell, now the recreation areas, cameras are now everywhere. It's the public policy director for the Southern Poverty Law same in all TYC facilities, where 13,000 cameras were Center in Montgomery, Ala., says "the foundations for installed after the 2007 scandal. Nearly every inch of the future are set," partly because of reforms passed the facilities is recorded at all hours. James Smith, in 2007. He credits Townsend, among others, with the youth services director, can see footage from any visionary leadership. Now comes the difficult work, of the cameras in his Austin office in real time. The he says, of "capturing the hearts and minds of staff' to idea is to create a virtual "panopticon," a place where change the culture in these facilities. A punitive mind- READ a story about the everything is always under surveillance. set dominated the TYC for decades, Harrell says. That juvenile corrections system in The cameras are meant to deter misconduct, and along doesn't change overnight. And reform efforts don't Missouri at txio.comirnissjc with other TYC reforms, they might be working. The mitigate the damage done to the youngsters sexually number of inside-the-system allegations against staff abused by those charged with protecting them. CO members for sexual misconduct has decreased in recent years, according to reports from the inspector general's office, from 90 in 2008 to five in the first quarter of 2010. "I think one of the challenges in the past was that if there were no witnesses and there wasn't any other evidence, one person said yes [that there had been an assault] and another said no," TYC director Townsend says. "Well, the video allows us to corroborate one or the other." Problem solved? Not completely. Unless an inci- dent is reported, administrators and investigators are unlikely to look at the camera footage. And kids with histories of sexual abuse have often been conditioned to stay silent. The solution for the problems at Corsicana might The Voice of the be outside the purview of TYC officials—and in the hands of state legislators. Will Harrell, the TYC's inde- pendent ombudsman from 2007 to 2009, says that a COMMUNITY correctional institution "is not appropriate for kids with serious mental health needs" in the first place. "They are the most likely to be victimized or to have some sort of crisis," Harrell says. These juveniles need to be in community-based mental health centers, he www.koop.org says, not a "secure lockdown environment." ) Meanwhile, other TYC facilities must continue (k?op SEPTEMBER 3, 2010

•

ISTOCKPHOTO

A tiny Texas town takes on T. Boone Pickens—and tries to save its water. BY FORREST WILDER

TILE TEXAS OBSERVER 13 George Arrington, 77, has made and lost and remade a small fortune in oil. But in his semi-retirement, it's water that keeps him up at night. Arrington knows what to do with oil: locate, extract, sellif things go right, the checks roll in, and nobody complains. Water, he says, should be no different. "It's so darn similar to oil and gas, it's unbelievable," clusters of cottonwood and willow, and a small but Arrington says. Trouble is, his friends and neighbors— growing-nature tourism industry that boosters in many of whom make a nice living off of oil and gas Canadian—a civically sophisticated and progres- production—don't feel the same way. sive community—are promoting as an alternative to It's a sizzling August day, and we're bouncing declining oil production. around in the independent oilman's blessedly air- "The people in Hemphill County think differ- conditioned Suburban, navigating the caliche roads READ more about Canadian c ently," says Wilbur Killebrew, a Canadian native who at tdo.comicanadian and two-track paths on his 7,000-acre cattle ranch in lives in neighboring Roberts County. 'We want to Hemphill County, a square of rolling hills, red bluffs, preserve the land as long as we can and to have a sup- and cottonwood-lined streams in the windswept ply of water for as long as we can." northeastern corner of the Panhandle—pretty coun- It's a bold bid to keep their community from drying try that can startle visitors who expect this part of up and blowing away, the fate and destiny of many High the state to be flat, dry, and monotonous. Plains towns. It puts them in the crosshairs of powerful Arrington lives with his wife Jean in Canadian, the oil-baron-turned-water-marketer T. Boone Pickens, county's only town, to be close to his modest Arrington who plans to pump water to urban Texas. And it has Oil headquarters. He grew up on his ranch and knows landed Hemphill County in the middle of a heated debate it well. The property has been in his family for more over property rights—one that's increasingly being than a century. His great-grandfather, a Texas Ranger, fought all over the state as water supplies become con- purchased the first parcel in 1890 as the region emerged strained. "It's a little place with big conflicts," says Drew from a haze of buffalo-slaughtering and Indian-killing. Miller, an Austin attorney who represents the Hemphill From the truck, Arrington points out a grassy County Underground Water Conservation District. buffalo wallow, one of the subtle topographical Arrington has made common cause with Pickens. A George Arrington depressions that served as hiding places for Army few years ago, Mesa Water Inc., Pickens' water com- PHOTO BY FORREST WILDER soldiers ambushed by Kiowa and Comanche during pany, bought half of Arrington's water rights for $1 the nearby Buffalo Wallow Fight of 1874. million. Mesa placed an option on the other half, but They don't fight like that in Hemphill County any- Arrington claims actions by the Hemphill County "If we didn't more. But Arrington's on the warpath against his Underground Water Conservation District "renders neighbors, who he claims have confiscated 80 percent of the value of my water worthless." What's worse, he sell our water the water beneath his land and robbed him of a million goes to church with four of the five board members, dollars. "I'm not in this for publicity," Arrington says. who he claims refuse to discuss the issue with him. rights, we "I'm not in this for any other reason than to protect my "Democracy is dead in Hemphill County," he says as property rights." we rumble over a cattle guard. would just In contrast to the rest of the Panhandle, the peo- The water district, one of 98 in the state, is run by ple of Hemphill County have decided their water is a locally elected board that regulates groundwater in sit there and more valuable in the ground than out. In parts of the Hemphill County. Last year, the board voted to keep Panhandle, widespread pumping has dramatically 80 percent of the Ogallala beneath the county intact rub our big fat depleted the Ogallala Aquifer—a vast water reservoir over the next 50 years. Arrington's ranch is just a few underlying parts of eight states. Like the oceans, the miles from Roberts County, where the goal is to drain bellies and Ogallala was once thought to have a limitless yield. half of the aquifer by 2060. Roberts County—home Farmers imagined it to be a subterranean river that to the vast majority of Pickens' water holdings—is get drained," flowed freely across great distances. We now know bet- ground zero for Panhandle water mining. Arrington ter. Studies of the aquifer show that it barely recharges worries that the free-for-all across the county line and moves slowly through beds of sand and gravel. will dewater his property. In some counties, two-thirds of the groundwa- "In other words, they're saying you're going to get ter is already gone, used over the past six decades to your ass drained," Arrington says, his usually amicable irrigate corn, sorghum, and wheat. The Texas Water face turning sour. "There's no way to protect yourself." Development Board predicts that one-third of Texas' Arrington would prefer to drain his property him- portion of the Ogallala will be left in 2060. self, even if it means ruining the thing that he loves In Hemphill County, where the rugged terrain the most. Like a lot of landowners in Hemphill, makes irrigated farming difficult, water conservation Arrington is proud of his and his son Mike's efforts to WATCH a video has preserved Canadian's reputation as the "Oasis of preserve the land and surface water. They even make about Hemphill County at txlo.com/hemphili the Texas Panhandle." some money off of it: The Arrington homestead, a Around Canadian, the still-full aquifer feeds two-story, prefabricated house hauled in pieces to its numerous seeps, springs, creeks, and the Washita present location by train and wagon in 1919, serves as and Canadian rivers, which in turn support wild- a bed-and-breakfast for nature enthusiasts. life, including threatened species like the lesser The oilman gives a looping tour of the ranch's prairie chicken and Arkansas River shiner, defiant numerous water features: the trickling Washita

14 THE TEXAS OBSERVER WWW.TEXASOBSERVER.ORG River; the small cattle-watering holes fed by springs; contend that groundwater is a vested, private prop- the green-tinged fields naturally irrigated by a shal- erty right and is owned by the landowner "in place" low water table; the stands of giant cottonwood and beneath the ground—like oil and gas. From this radi- willow; and the deep creek behind Mike Arrington's cal legal theory flows the notion that pumping limits house. (Mike, George's son, runs the ranch.) imposed on landowners could constitute a "taking" of "Nobody loves springs in Hemphill County more property without compensation. "Now because of this than George Arrington," George Arrington declares. rule, all the buyers have disappeared," says Arrington. He and Mike, he says, have gone to considerable effort "It's like the water dried up, if you like. No market." uncovering springs, clearing invasive Russian olive trees In April, Mesa and Arrington filed suit against and implementing eco-friendly rangeland managment the Texas Water Development Board, claiming that techniques. "We love water. We like water. And we want Hemphill County can't set a different desired future water to be here forever. In other words, we're interested condition than the other groundwater districts over in conservation. But wise conservation is when every- the Ogallala Aquifer. one is treated the same. When you start discriminating Mark Meek, a county commissioner, disputes the against people, it's not conservation; it's confiscation." idea that regulating groundwater based on principles Arrington believes in the Rule of Capture, the fun- of sustainability interferes with private property rights. damental groundwater law in Texas that says you can "If this natural resource leaves, the only ones that are pump as much as you like, even if your neighbor's well going to benefit are those who sold their water," says runs dry. "If we didn't sell our water rights, we would Meek. "As far as the rest of the community, it's going to just sit there and rub our big fat bellies and get drained," be detrimental." Jim Bill Anderson he says. One day, Arrington says, his neighbors are going By law, the district can't directly prevent Mesa or PHOTO BY FORREST WILDER to "wake up and realize, hey these sons of bitches are Arrington or anyone else from exporting water if an draining all our water." Then, he says, it will be too late. end-user is found. But pumping limits prevents the company from maximizing production. "It's not the IN 2005, belatedly recognizing the state's need for long- Mesa is "breathing down the necks of this water term water planning, the Texas Legislature created a district, which is the most conservation-oriented in Wild West complex groundwater planning process. The Legislature the Texas Panhandle," says Laurie Ezzell Brown, edi- carved the state up into 16 groundwater management tor of the Canadian Record and a frequent Mesa critic. anymore. I areas, based roughly on the boundaries of major aqui- "They've challenged everything we've done. They fers, and ordered Texas' 98 groundwater conservation threaten lawsuits at every turn." wish it was." districts—locally-controlled regulatory boards—to work The conflict has broader resonance in a state com- on how they want their shared aquifers to look in 50 ing to terms with the limits of its water supplies. "It years. The process of setting so-called "desired future seems the entire state has one of two problems, and conditions" is clunky and complicated, but has the virtue both lead to litigation: Either there's too much water, of forcing communities to consider the future. or there's not enough," says Greg Ellis, executive In the Panhandle, as in the rest of the state, the director of the Texas Association of Groundwater result has been a patchwork of goals for how much Districts. "Those areas that have too little water are water remains. Groundwater Management Area 1, the going to be fighting over available supplies and fight- northern half of the Ogallala, decided to split its aqui- ing to go find alternative supplies somewhere else. fer into three portions and set a target for each area. In Those areas that have too much water, you're going to the far northwestern corner, where irrigators domi- see people fighting over who gets to get rich over sup- nate, the groundwater planners expect to have only 40 plying water to those areas that don't have enough." percent of the water left in 60 years. In 13 other coun- Pickens figured out the "get-rich" part a decade ago. ties, where irrigated farming is also widespread, the At least he thought he did. goal is to drain 50 percent of the aquifer in 50 years. These districts have long operated under the prin- PICKENS DIDN'T INVENT water mining in the ciple of "managed depletion." Managed depletion Ogallala; he just made it big business. In the 1980s, the takes as a given that the aquifer will wither away, but Southwestern Public Services Co., a regional power eases the economic and social pain of a dying agricul- company, purchased 100,000 acres of groundwater tural economy by gradually decreasing pumping. It's a rights in Roberts County, the county west of Hemphill. slower way to get to zero. The idea can also be under- The utility wasn't engaging in water marketing, though; stood in biblical terms: A day of reckoning is coming, it needed the supply for a proposed nuclear power plant. The project never got off the ground, and the util- VIEW the Mesa Water lawsuit but it can be postponed for a while. at tx1o.com/mesasuit Hemphill County, on the other hand, has never had ity needed to unload its investment. In 1997, the much pumping and isn't interested in water ranch- Canadian River Municipal Water Authority, which ing. The Hemphill County groundwater district set a provides drinking water to Amarillo and Lubbock benchmark of 80 percent left in 50 years. The strin- and nine smaller cities, bought 43,000 acres from gent rule has kept the barbarians from crashing the Southwestern Public Services for $14.5 million. gate. It has made the area off-limits for water market- A few years later, Salem Abraham, a prominent ers like Pickens or wholesale water suppliers like the Hemphill County businessman and philanthropist, Canadian River Municipal Water Authority, the No. 1 was making his own play. Abraham pooled his water owner of groundwater rights in the state. rights with other Roberts County landowners into a That doesn't sit well with Boone Pickens and Mesa 72,000-acre package, which they sold to Amarillo in Water. Mesa Water, Arrington, and private prop- 1999 for $20 million. erty legal activists like the Pacific Legal Foundation Pickens watched this with a mixture of unease and are attacking the edifice of regulation in Texas. They interest. The Canadian River authority wells were

SEPTEMBER 3, 2010 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 1 15 close enough to his 68,000-acre ranch that pumping "There's just so many more feasible options for the "At the bottom would partially drain his property. The choice was cities they're talking about," he says. "It doesn't seem clear: Pump or be pumped. to make any sense whatsoever." of this hill we're In a sense, Pickens was following the Rule of Dallas-Fort Worth could find cheaper, more acces- Capture to its logical conclusion: To defend your prop- sible water in East Texas or Oklahoma. The Metroplex going down, erty, you must pump first and faster. cities could tap existing reservoirs, or try the cheap- In 1999, Pickens formed Mesa Water and began est option: water conservation. San Antonio, over 500 there is a brick buying water rights from neighbors in Roberts and miles from Roberts County, is exploring the costs of surrounding counties. His first purchase was the desalinating seawater from the Gulf of Mexico. wall. When the remaining 65,000 acres held by Southwestern Public Besides, Satterwhite argues, Mesa isn't offering a Service. Mesa's entrance set off a bidding war between renewable supply. "It would only be a 20- or 30-year water's gone, the river authority and Mesa. Today most of the water supply, and then it's over," he says. "They'd drain this in Roberts County is spoken for. Mesa has amassed area completely." it's gone." enough water rights to supply about 200,000 acre-feet, Regardless of whether Mesa's water ends up in or 65 billion gallons, of water each year to urban Texas. Amarillo or Dallas, the result will be the same: The Pickens' business proposition has never been that Panhandle will become that much drier. hard to understand: Buy water and wait until some booming city (Dallas, San Antonio) is thirsty and THE DAY AFTER VISITING with Arrington, I meet up desperate enough to pay the asking price. Estimated with Jim Bill Anderson at his 5,280-acre spread on the revenues over 30 years: $1 billion. "There are people Canadian River, a working cattle ranch that's won acco- who will buy the water when they need it," he told lades for preserving native prairie grasses and wildlife. Business Week in 2008. "And the people who have the In many respects, Anderson and Arrington are cut water want to sell it. That's the blood, guts and feath- from the same cloth: They're Canadian natives, large ers of the thing." landowners, politically conservative, protective of Mesa never quite cracked Hemphill County. 'We private property. They attend the same church. But set here in Hemphill County and seen how it works," Anderson takes a different view of groundwater. He said Mark Meek, a county commissioner. 'We like dresses like a cowboy—blue jeans, white Stetson, and what we have—we like the creeks, we like the springs, boots—but the 59-year-old is fluent in the science of we like the big cottonwood trees, the scenery and the the aquifer, the complexities of groundwater regula- fall foliage. And you know, there's not many places tion, and the subtleties of Hemphill County's ecol- left like that. We just could not understand how large ogy. A member of the Hemphill County Underground water exports fit this picture." Water Conservation District, Anderson confesses to Marty Jones, an Amarillo attorney who represents being a reluctant regulator. Mesa Water and Arrington, concedes that the Mesa "When I was growing up, no one would ever have pipeline-to-Dallas idea has never been popular in the thought we'd be regulating water, but the pressures of area. But he bristles at the notion that Pickens is steal- population, that's where it's coming from," Anderson ing the Panhandle's water. "It's private property," says says as we cruise his ranch in a bulky feeder truck. "It's Jones. "If the Panhandle wishes to keep it here, there's hard for me as a regulator because I want to be left a simple solution, and that's to have [the Canadian alone more than anyone. But it's not the Wild West River Municipal Water Authority], who's already set up anymore. I wish it was." to do this, purchase it. Or the city of Amarillo purchase Where Arrington sees profit in mining the aqui- it. They're big enough. It wouldn't make a dime's worth fer, Anderson sees a percentage in leaving it under- LEARN more about the Rule of Capture at of difference in a water bill. There's a very simple solu- ground. "I'm not happy that George is stressed out txlo.com/therule tion—they simply purchase it. But they don't take it." over it," he says. "But the local people and the board Someday they might. Mesa Water and the Canadian don't want the springs and streams dewatered, and River authority have been in on-again, off-again they sure don't want it exported to Dallas. negotiations for a year. The wholesale water supplier "There's no do-over, there's no whoops," says already has what Mesa desires: a pipeline and a mar- Anderson, "unless they pump water back from Dallas ket. The authority owns a 358-mile aqueduct that runs and put it back in the aquifer." south from Roberts County to Amarillo and then to The fundamental question in the Panhandle is, Lubbock, Tahoka, and Lamesa. when? When does the water run out? It is a fact of "I hope someday we end up with [Mesa's water]," nature that it will. People only get to choose when. says Kent Satterwhite, general manager of the "At the bottom of this hill we're going down, there is a Canadian River authority. "That would nearly dou- brick wall," says Anderson. "When it's gone, it's gone. ble our supply." People say it might be 20 years from now. Well, good For the time being, Mesa says it still prefers to sell Lord, my grandson is only 4 years old." to a big city downstate. Does Dallas or El Paso or San Near the end of the tour, Anderson drives to the Antonio need Pickens' water? No buyer has come edge of a bluff overlooking the Canadian River. It's a forward yet, and the costs of building a pipeline are beautiful view of a lush river valley. Wide red sandbars exorbitant. Amy Hardberger, an attorney and water hug the edges of the stream as it executes a lazy turn. specialist with the Environmental Defense Fund Meadows of native prairie grass, dotted here and there of Texas, thinks construction costs and the energy with trees, roll down to the water's edge. involved with moving water could sink the project. "I The Spanish explorers who trekked the area hun- think it's somewhat overly simplistic to say if a city dreds of years ago would have found a scene much like needs water badly enough, they will buy it," she says. this one. Whether it survives for another few hundred "Something has to get it there." Satterwhite agrees. is an open question.

16 THE TEXAS OBSERVER WWW.TEXASOBSERVER.ORG HINGS HAVE CHANGED. THE world has evolved. A punch in the mouth ain't what it used to be. Once you were more apt to settle your own problems, or have them settled for you, by an angry party. Teeth could be lost, and bones could be broken, but mostly you just got a black eye, a bloody nose, or you might be found temporarily unconscious, face down in a small pool of blood out back of a bar with a shoe missing. These days, even defending yourself can be tricky. It seems to me a butt-whipping in the name of justice has mutated to three shots from an automatic weapon at close quarters and three frames of bowling with your dead head. There are too many nuts with guns these days, and most of them just think the other guy is nuts. An armed society is a polite

photo by Matt Wright-Steel THE TEXAS OBSERVER society only if those armed are polite. Otherwise, it My entertainment was my mother and that silent just makes a fellow nervous. drive-in and the fistfights that sometimes occurred Still, not wishing back the past. Not exactly. But there in the honky-tonk parking lot, along with the colorful are elements of the past I do miss. There are times language I filed away for later use. when I like the idea of settling your own hash—without We were so poor that my dad used to say that if it gunfire. Sometimes the other guy has it coming. cost a quarter to crap, we'd have to throw up. There When I was a kid in East Texas, we lived in a home wasn't money for a lot of toys, nor at that time a TV, that sat on a hill overlooking what was called a beer which was a fairly newfangled instrument anyway. WATCH a video of Lansdale joint or honky-tonk. Beyond the tonk was a highway, We listened to the radio when the tubes finally glowed giving a tour of where he grew and beyond that a drive-in theater standing as tall up at tx1o.com/lansdale and warmed up enough for us to bring in something. and white as a monstrous slice of Wonder Bread. Dad decided that the drive-in, seen through a You could see the drive-in from our house, and from window at a great distance, and a static-laden radio that hill my mother and I would watch the drive-in with a loose tube that if touched incorrectly would without sound. What I remember best were Warner knock you across the room with a flash of light and a Bros. cartoons. As we watched, mom would tell me what hiss like a spitting cobra, were not proper things for a the cartoon characters were saying. Later, when I saw growing boy. He thought I needed a friend. the cartoons on TV—something we didn't have at the Below, at the tonk, a dog delivered pups. Dad got time—I was shocked to discover Mom had made up the me one. It was a small, fuzzy ball of dynamite. Dad stories out of the visuals. My mom was a dad-burned named him Honky Tonk. I called him Blackie. I loved liar. It was an early introduction to storytelling. that dog so dearly that even writing about him now But this isn't storytelling. This is reporting, and makes me emotional. We were like brothers. We what I'm about to tell you is real, and I was there. It's drank out of the same bowl, when mom didn't catch one of my first memories. So mixed up was the memory us; and he slept in my bed, and we shared fleas. We that, years later, when I was a grown man, I had to ask had a large place to play, a small creek out back, and my mother if it was a dream, or fragments of memories beyond that a junkyard of rusting cars full of broken shoved together. I had some things out of order, and glass and sharp metal and plenty of tetanus. I had mixed in an item or two, but my mother sorted And there was the house. them out for me. This is what happened. It sat on a hill above the creek, higher than our house, My mother and I stayed at home nights while my surrounded by glowing red and yellow flowers immersed dad was on the road, working on trucks. He was a in dark beds of dirt. It was a beautiful sight, and on a mechanic and a troubleshooter for a truck company. fine spring day those flowers pulled me across that little

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LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY & MUSEUM RSVP: www.austinfilmfestival.cominewithe_fence AP OBSERVER creek and straight to them as surely as a siren calling to a mariner. Blackie came with me, tongue hanging out, his Dad grabbed him by the ankles tail wagging. Life was great. We were as happy as if we had good sense and someone else's money. and slung him through the I went up there to look, and Blackie, like any self- respecting dog, went there to dig in the flower bed. flowerbed like a dull weed eater, I was watching him do it, probably about to join in, when the door opened and a big man came out and mowed down all those flowers, snatched my puppy up by the hind legs and hit him across the back of the head with a pipe, or stick, and even made a mess of the dirt. then, as if my dog were nothing more than a used condom, tossed him into the creek. was still alive. Flower Man didn't move. He lay in the Then the man looked at me. shallow water and was at that moment as much a part I figured I was next and bolted down the hill and of that creek as the gravel at its bottom. across the creek to tell my mother. She had to use the Daddy took Blackie home and treated his wound, next-door neighbor's phone, as this was long before a good knock on the noggin, and that dog survived everyone had one in their pocket. It seemed no sooner until the age of 13. When I was 18, Blackie and I were than she walked back home from making her call than standing on the edge of the porch watching the sun my dad arrived like Mr. Death in our old black car. go down, and Blackie went stiff, flopped over the He got out wearing greasy work clothes and told edge, dead for real this time. me to stay and started toward the House of Flowers. I Bless my daddy. We had our differences when I was didn't stay. I was devastated. I had been crying so hard growing up, and we didn't see eye to eye on many things. my mother said I hiccupped when I breathed. I had to But he was my hero from that day after. Hardly a day see what was about to happen. Dad went across the goes by that I don't remember what he did that day, and creek and to the back door and knocked gently, like how he made something so dark and dismal turn bright. a Girl Scout selling cookies. The door opened, and No one sued. Then, events like that were considered there was the Flower Man. personal. To pull a lawyer into it was not only My dad hit him. It was a quick, straight punch and embarrassing, but just plain sissy. Today we'd be sued fast as a bee flies. Flower Man went down faster than for the damage my dog did, the damage my dad did, a duck on a june bug, but without the satisfaction. and emotional distress, not to mention bandages and He was out. He was hit so hard his ancestors in the the laundry bill for the wet and dirty clothes. prehistoric past fell out of a tree. I know the man loved his flowers. I know my dog Dad grabbed him by the ankles and slung him through did wrong, if not bad. I know I didn't give a damn at the flowerbed like a dull weed eater, mowed down all the time and thought about digging there myself. But those flowers, even made a mess of the dirt. If Flower I was a kid and Blackie was a pup, and if ever there Man came awake during this process, he didn't let on. He was a little East Texas homespun justice delivered knew it was best just to let Dad finish. It was a little bit like via a fast arm and a hard fist, that was it. when a grizzly bear gets you; you just kind of have to go Flower Man, not long after that, moved away, slunk with it. When the flowers were flat, Dad swung the man off like a carnival that owed bills. A little later we by his ankles like a discus, and we watched him sail out moved as well, shortly after the drive-in was wadded and into the shallow creek with a sound akin to someone up by a tornado. That's another story. LI dropping wet laundry on cement. Contributing writer JoeLansdale lives in Nacogdoches. We went down in the creek and found Blackie. He His most recent novel is Vanilla Ride.

THEHIGHTOWERREPORT

HIDING WORKER INJURIES

ACCORDING TO THE LATEST underreporting of injuries workers who didn't want pressure managers and tell the truth. safety reports, work- by company doctors and bosses to know about company doctors to treat Of course, execu- place injuries are on the other health profession- injuries because the work- serious injuries with ban- tives are not hot to do decline in our country. als. Ina survey of 504 ers feared they'd be fired. dages instead of stitches. that. Every workplace Great! Only ... it's untrue. medical practitioners, Under OSHA rules, Also—get this—cor- can and should be Many burns, cuts, more than half told any injury that requires porate injury reports made safe. That won't poisonings, and other investigators they had more medical treatment are based on the honor happen without honest on-the-job injuries been pressured by bosses than first aid must be system! From Wall Street reporting of conditions, are deliberately hid- to downplay illnesses and registered in a com- to BP, we've seen how followed by real punish- den from the federal injuries. More than one- pany's "injury log." A high much honor there is in ment of violators. Occupational Safety and third said they were asked injury rate increases the Corporate World. While —JIM HIGHTOWER Health Administration. to provide insufficient company's worker com- OSHA does conduct occa- FIND MORE INFORMATION Last November, treatment to workers so pensation costs and can sional audits of injury on Jim Hightower's work— the Government injuries would not have prevent it from qualifying rates, workers are rarely and subscribe to his award- winning monthly newsletter, Accountability Office to be reported. More for government con- interviewed, leaving it to The Hightower Lowdown— found widespread than two-thirds knew of tracts. So top executives corporate executives to at www.jimhightower.com

SEPTEMBER 3, 2010 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 19 SAN ANTONIO DATE LINE Close to the Bone by

LIVE IN A CITY OF STORIES. EXPLODING, MYSTICAL, blaze with the red coral of hibiscus that grows every- straining-at-the-leash, Lorca-esque rhapsodies where, and with murals and graffiti displayed on walls made of green, ripening pomegranates and the along with ads for motor oil. Whiffs of tamales drift worship of crepe myrtles, belovedness and its down the block, tired and gordita prostitutes saun- violation, scores of abandoned dogs, and the ter by, the two-legged and four-legged perros chasing gangster opera of red-shirted redemption. I them. The latter wait patiently, tails wagging, at the live in El Hueso, the true capital. of San Antonio, bus stop—good luck talismans with fleas and mange.

igoe_th-i3E19%.A- BA PTISMA LS gfIRST COMMA/VA/ DRESSES f- O/RLS DRESSES TOR ALL OGVASS/ONS

FROM LEFT: A man and his the most soulful city in Texas, a mile west of the pinche According to the Guadalupe Westside Community granddaughter walk home on a hot summer day in the West- Alamo. El Hueso, pronounced Wes-Oh, is the unof- Plan, sponsored by the city of San Antonio and pub- side. PHOTO BY JOAN FREDERICK; ficial Westside, the oldest barrio in San Antonio with lished in May 2007, the official, historic Westside bor- A baptismal store, and a mural on the Westside PHOTOS officially designated borders. Unofficially, El Hueso's ders were chartered in 1837. You enter after crossing BY JOHN FISCH; Kids playing borders depend on who's remembering, because there the Guadalupe Street Bridge. In 1881, Southern Pacific by a broken waterline on the Westside. PHOTO BY SAM LERMA are no maps for this place of memory, culture and Railroad completed the San Antonio-El Paso route, Catholic-taught respeto, where ancestors are sometimes following ancient trails and bringing back more people buried in backyards alongside half a dozen pets. Hueso carrying the shreds of the past. The people of the mis- means bone in Spanish, the mero-mero beginnings, the sions, and the blacks who came with or before the Anglo truth, origin, the blood-wire that holds up all the other settlers. Came y hueso. Flesh and bone. Separately, and stories like a neighbor's just-washed Fruit of the Loom mixed. Guadalupe Street is part of the famous Old Pecos chones. I think I've been looking for this place all my life. Trail, also known as Comanche Trail, used by Native To get to El Hueso, leave the Alamo, head west over WATCH a video of a mural Americans, Spaniards, soldiers, merchants and the rail- being painted on the Westside the Commerce Street Bridge, and pass the county jail. roads to navigate the rattlesnake terrain of Texas. at tx1o.com/mural You'll know you're here when you start getting a little Then came a flood and a revolution. In 1921, la inun- nervous about the bail bond signs, the metal recycling, dacion destroyed much of downtown, and many more the places where they make ornamental steel bars families relocated to El Hueso, followed by people flee- in rainbow colors, the men with aboriginal tattoos ing the Mexican Revolution, in which 10 percent of the on their faces, and the omnipresent railroad tracks. population of Mexico perished. People say Guadalupe You'll know you've arrived when the bungalows are Street was surely like Paris, sharing her joie de vida of also churches with hand-painted signs declaiming music, art and urban life. Maybe that's why there is a Jesus and La Luz poetics. Here, the tire-repair shops street called Amor here. Guadalupe Street, the corazon,

20 THE TEXAS OBSERVER WWW.TEXASOBSERVER.ORG the commercial heart of the Westside, encompassed the 6-footer with a knife and a little help from Bud two theaters, gas stations, icehouses, a plaza, an elegant Light. Chopped the snake's head off but its body kept San Antonio dance salon, family corner stores we call tienditas, and going, threading its way through the hurricane fence the glorious las carpas, Mexican tent shows. Imagine we're talking over, la head going in another direction. is the cultural revivalist fever with no praying—only drinking, laugh- Just to show what it's made of, he says. ing, singing, family. It was a city-within-a-city that was Viste the woman who goes by on the bike at night? and political the truest, authentic San Antonio. There is something— She was taken by a million martians, Batman says. Por a jonosewle beating underneath the rundown streets— eso no 'sta pretty no more. Swears her body got taken by epicenter of that seems like poverty and graffiti only to anyone who them, exchanged for the fat one she's got now, believe can't or won't see more than the skin. me, era some'n before. A long time ago, Batman dated Latino life—and San Antonio and its Westside are the Mecca for her. Promises to tell me the rest of the story next time. Mexican-Chicano-Tejano-Mexican-American He rides his bicycle to the Alamodome several times El Hueso is the Latinos throughout Texas. From Radio Jalapefio a week. He's on the assembly and clean-up crew after to Flaco Jimenez, to voting-rights pioneer Willie games and concerts. Sometimes he works 12-hour mother l! Velasquez, to Vicki Carr, to the dozens of murals, to days. He was a single father, and one son has a good the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, to the origins of job at the Toyota plant, and the younger one, I'll call Entiendes, MALDEF and the Edgewood ISD's lawsuit challeng- him Mario, dropped out of high school and lives with ing the public financing of schools, San Antonio is the Batman and his own 2-year old, Robin—a Batman mendes? cultural and political epicenter of Latino life—and El fanatic, too. I suspect Mario has trouble reading Hueso is the mother lode. Entiendes, mendes? because he rubs his eyes a lot, asks me to read the dog No more late-night carpas, but la mUsica weaves chow package for his pitbull puppy. He makes confes- through El Hueso around my streets—Morales, Ruiz, sions about his past when he drinks, says he's despised

Sabinas, Colorado, Monclova—like the syncopated for being who he is and has almost given up. rumbling of skateboarders in the evening. The accor- A neighbor I miss a lot is Rachel, who killed herself dion, a favorite and conjunto music fundamental, last year on Mother's Day. I think her husband did it, spices the air with a new kind of wind. At night I swear though she's the one who drank and drugged herself. the clouds are feathered and fluffed by the chords that Rachel was bipolar and walked around in a medicated drift from open windows and porches and ascend daze sizzled by cheap wine. She told me her story in through old oaks, huisache and pecan trees to the sky. bits and pieces, like being forced to dance for her My neighbor Batman apologizes for all the late- father's friends when she was 7. Rachel loved listen- night music. He's not the only one. I tell him he's ing to the Westside music in the afternoons before her got competition from his son's old-school rap. refrigerator-sized husband got home, liked to sit out- Firecrackery cumbias are popping down the block, side on her secondhand swing set with her three boys while the oldies-but-goodies, made right here, we and all the cats purring, Esteban Jordan's jazzified call the Westside sound float through the air. You polkas cooking just right. How come I didn't hear the remember those summers dancing barefoot in the punching before she told me? Wish she hadn't taken street until midnight? Here it's Garibay, Flaco, so long to confess how he flattened her bird bones by sitting on her. On New Year's Day, the policeman I Motown, Joe Jama, Eminem, Kenny Rogers. SEE photos taken by children Batman's not his real name, just his favorite tele- talked her into calling guessed at first that her jaw was who live on the Westside at vision show. He tells me about the snake that was crooked 'cause that King Kong broke it and wouldn't txlo.com/Westside getting bigger and bigger in my yard. It was the time take her to the doctor, just like he broke her nose. before my house's renovation, when nobody lived Nobody talks about Rachel. in my shotgun house except the snakes in the waist- When that King Kong husband came to tell me his high grass, and for a time 11 Mexicanos. He stabbed side of the story, I saw the fear in his face. He knows

SEPTEMBER 3, 2010 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 21 I know who did it. Said the doctors told him they'd The other night on Commerce, I saw a been-there never seen anyone who wanted to die so much. Calls woman sucking on a viejito maybe in his 70s, right his sons you dummies all the time, and they're strug- there at the bus stop. Working hard. gling in school. Want to be soldiers when they grow up. One afternoon, Batman tells me the latest across If I could give Rachel a color from El Hueso, she's our fence. Seems that the elderly woman across the a tea rose like the ones that grow in the oldest yards street came running to his house in the morning all with bursting-red perfume. El Hueso is undying panicked, dressed only in her negligee! Ayadame! flowers, Easter blues and fading lavenders, lemon- Por Favor! Her husband was dying, call 9-1-1! Batman yellows, soft morning-glory white. It's like Mexico found the 80-year-old man—naked, splayed out on here, but not quite because the purple-orange and the recliner, on the verge of leaving this world the turquoise-red combinations they like over there are way most men dream. Batman called the ambulance, expensive for us. Easier to drench a little house in and surprise, he made it! You think he was taking one look-at-me color. Something on sale that will last Viagra? Batman wonders. The men up and down the a good long time. People are tired from long days of street are already laughing, asking Batman for juicy construction work and nights of cleaning hospitals. details. All smirking and punching each other, This is BROWSE the website of a White paint is the cheapest, and it's clean, proper, the way to go. The viejita gave Batman a $10 bill so he Westside cultural institution at like the brick façades that now cover some of the wouldn't talk, that's why, I tell him. But the story was guadalupeculturalarts.org renovated houses. just too good, he says. Lots of people don't have cars, so they walk—no, At night, the old oak next door looms over my shot- they stroll. To the neighborhood schools, to St. Agnes, gun's roof like an old spirit, so all I can see are the to the Mount Olive Baptist Church, the dollar store, branches above my house. The other oak in the front to get barbacoa on Sundays at Garza's on Ruiz, to is the favorite of Baby Kitty, our spoiled tabby, and the Cozy Corner for a beer and maybe get lucky. Batman tree's girth is splitting the fence so it's now the corner takes his grandchildren to Farias Park, a one-block fence where Donkey, the chained mixed-pit, stands neighborhood park with a covered basketball court his hundred pounds and tries to press the fence down where you can get a glimpse of the HemisFair lights. for one more hug. On the other side, Batman and his son tell me about La Llorona, the legendary weep- ing woman since the time of La Conquista or Medea, depending, while the 4-year-old Robin cries to hold Supporting The Texas Observer Baby Kitty. Have you seen her? Who? Baby Kitty? No, with every referral and transaction. La Llorona, she's in the backyard. Alazan Creek, a sunflower-covered branch of the You Know Me murky San Antonio River (the other one is Apache Creek), winds through El Hueso and behind my (with a few degrees of separation) house. It divides streets in the process, and there Get real estate help from someone you know. are old-fashioned footbridges to get you across. La Call me today! Llorona, the ghost-woman dressed in white, San Antonio's betrayed woman who drowned her chil- dren at the river rather than have them taken from Larry Hurlbert, Realtor© . her, is also a Lady Death woman, a mother with 512.431.5370 • [email protected] hungry arms for her lost children, a wise-protecting woman, or sometimes, a witch. The Kinney Company, Real Estate Services, Austin, TX My neighbors say they understand why a woman www.thekinneycompany.com would kill her children rather than let them go with their abusive father. Batman says no, not all fathers are bad. Mario says he's run into La Llorona when he drinks too much. You think the story is true? Bad things happen here. Batman's brother is in prison. Mario got beaten up by the police some time ago for something he didn't do; his crime was wearing a red T-shirt. He Ruin Reign dreams of working at a warehouse, only he needs a driv- International Headquarters er's license. Batman got a lawyer for Mario. It's midnight on a Saturday night, and El Hueso is quiet as I step out on my porch and look at the rich- Inl Come Visit us for LUNCH! In addition to our organic est blue song of sky, wonder if some of those twinkles coffee, pizzas, empanadas, pastries and pies, we are from downtown. No one's sitting on the kitchen chairs tonight. Tomorrow's the Fourth of July, and now prepare made to order sandwiches, salads, there's gonna be picnics and camping with the fam- and even black bean gazpacho. ily. I can hear the quiet through the call and response of the woof-woofs, the chispita of bird wings settling in their nests, the fence-prancing of cats. Silence is an intermission in El Hueso. When it happens, you 3601 S. Congress off E. Alpine can really hear it. I guess this is why people leave this Penn Field • under the water tower place, but it's in our bones. El (512)707-9637 www.rutamaya.net Barbara Renaud Gonailez lives in San Antonio and is the author of the novel Golo liclrina. why did you leave me? check our site for monthly calendar

WWW.TEXASOBSERVER.ORG MINUTAGLIO

Calling George W.

TEND TO CONVENIENTLY IGNORE THE FACT THAT BILL O'REILLY WENT TO my high school. Yes, that Bill O'Reilly. At my old school, only boys were allowed. There were zealous men in long, dark, religious robes running up and down the hallways—and, yikes, some were praying in arcane for- How about eign languages. Some women who worked there were covered, head to toe, so that only their faces were showing. Maybe a bit like the people posing O'Reilly would run into at, say, a mosque (except these were priests and some tough nuns, not imams). So now we have O'Reilly, predictably, being the most polarizing mouthpiece attacking the proposed Islamic community center questions to near Ground Zero in Manhattan. He's argued that the feelings of the 9/11 families the man who should be respected. He has also deflected the larger issue of religious freedom, America's image overseas, and how all this anti-mosque reaction will be judged had once through the big prism of international relations. stood on the More cleverly, he has turned the focus of this hard What could reporters have done instead of follow- news story on its head by politicizing it, by throwing ing the O'Reilly gambit of bleeding politics into the rubble in lower attacks at "the far left" and beating up on Speaker of story? How about seeking some on-the-record com- the House Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi has done the right ments from Dallas resident George W. Bush, under Manhattan, a thing by suggesting that politics is in play—and sug- whose watch 9/11 occurred? How about posing some gesting that reporters stay on track, move beyond tough questions to the man who once stood on the few steps away political grandstanding, and find out who is funding the rubble in lower Manhattan, a few blocks away from mosque, as well as who is funding the anti-mosque where the proposed Islamic Center would be? from where attacks. For a second, she almost sounded like an Here's what the Washington Post advocated on editor with a conscience. its editorial page: "As president, Mr. Bush never the proposed The instant politicization of a hard news story stopped making the distinction between Muslims is nothing new in today's digital cycle. Obama was and the terrorists who pervert their religion. mosque pulled in: He said folks had a right to build a mosque As a politician, he understood the value to the in lower Manhattan if they wanted. Then he followed Republican Party of reaching out to minorities, would be? up the next day, saying he was not commenting on including Muslims. A word from Texas right now the wisdom of building the mosque, just underscor- could offer his would-be heirs a useful lesson." ing the right to build one. Bush is at home in Dallas. He is in a better posi- Sharon Grigsby, the deputy editorial page editor tion than Obama, in many ways, to be pursued by of the Dallas Morning News (disclosure: I worked journalists for an ambassadorial statement. Bush at the News for 18 years, and Grigsby edited some of wants to have a "policy institute" at Southern my stories and made them better) wrote: "The more Methodist University, where he and his apologists significant issue in my opinion is that after President say the great issues of the day will be explored. Well, READ the Dallas here's a great chance for the Texas media to ask him Morning News blog at Obama did the wise but politically dangerous thing tx1o.com/dallasobama of commenting, he WAFFLED and stepped back to step forward—and like Jimmy Carter, align him- from his original statement. That disappointed me self with the great issue of human freedom. He is, in greatly." Mike Hashimoto, assistant editorial page many ways, the perfect person for Texas journalists editor at the News, told readers that Obama had to pursue for a careful story about America's image, "backpedaled" and that Democrats might view the about this country's legacy of religious freedom and READ the Washington Post editorial at tx1o.com/postbush president's actions as "unwise." about the real lessons of 9/11. LI

THE TEXAS OBSERVER SEPTEMBER 3, 2010 123 •

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CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK UGK 4 Life by

N 1992, HOUSTON RAP DUO UGK RELEASED THEIR up for in brashness and style. When Jay-Z enlisted major-label debut, Too Hard to Swallow, and UGK to guest on his 1999 hit "Big Pimpin'," the group became the flag bearers for a new under- rose to national fame, to the disappointment of some ground hip-hop movement. The group com- Houston hip-hop fans who saw UGK as a symbol of prised Bun B and Pimp C, who had been regional pride. making music together since their high school One year before Houston's big break in 2003, Pimp days in the Gulf Coast city of Port Arthur. The C went to prison for a parole violation stemming from slang-ariven son of a professional musician, Pimp C drew on the an aggravated assault charge, and Bun B was left on soul and R&B records he grew up on to produce a his own. Initially reluctant to release records without new sound, mixing molasses-slow beats driven by his longtime collaborator, he appeared on dozens of skittering hi-hats with soulful bass lines, horn sec- tracks by other artists before releasing his solo debut, tions and wah-wah guitars. Combined with the duo's Trill, in 2005. Since Pimp C's death in 2007 because Southern twangs and slang-driven tales of life in of a combination of sleep apnea and codeine cough Ch d WWI Houston ghettoes, the tracks marked the beginning medication ("syrup" in Houston hip-hop slang), Bun of a local sound and movement that went national in B has released parts two and three of his Trill trilogy: sound and 2003—Houston hip-hop's annus mirabilis, which saw 2008's II Trill and the recent, cleverly named Trill OG. MCs Paul Wall, Mike Jones and Slim Thug (all UGK Trill OG finds Bun B surrounded by 24 guest artists. movement. proteges) slip the restraints of regional success. This may be a reflection of the scene he comes out of As MCs, Bun B and Pimp C were a classic hip-hop (in Houston, everyone performs on everyone else's partnership. Bun B employed a rich, authoritative tracks), but I can't help wondering if, after three years A mural dedicated to UGK on baritone, Pimp C a nasal whine. Bun B was stolid alone, Bun B isn't itching for a new musical partner. an abandoned building in their and unflappable; Pimp C was a loose cannon. Bun B's hometown, Port Arthur. Bun B is As a producer and an MC, Pimp C was the ideal foil on the left, Pimp C on the right. flow was virtuosic and rich in wordplay and rhyth- for Bun B, providing him the slowed-down, soulful PHOTO BY RODIC ALLEN mic variation; what Pimp C lacked in skill he made soundtrack to flow over and the vocal counterweight

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 24 WWW. TEXAS OBSERVER.ORG C. Over a track featuring a sparse electro-beat and WATCH a video from Trill OG to play off of. On Trill OG, Bun searches in every cor- at tx1o.com/bunbvideo ner for that kind of chemistry, from the depths of the some old-fashioned R&B horns (just like the old Southern underground, where he finds unapologetic days), Pimp C and Bun flow as if nothing has changed materialists Gucci Mane and Yo Gotti ("Countin' and no one is gone. Bun B has worked with the top Money"), to the heights of MTV fame, where he sum- MCs in the business—from Jay Z to Lil Wayne to mons hip-hop "it" boy Drake ("Put It Down") and Ludacris—but Bun B is still at his best with his origi- autotune master T-Pain ("Trillionaire"). nal partner, and he knows it. The duo pledged to stay LISTEN to Trill OG at The album's most telling collaboration takes place "UGK 4 Life," and Bun B seems determined to follow tx1o.comlbunb on "Right Now," which starts with a verse by Pimp through—no matter what. El

BOOK REVIEW Tabulating those escalating expenses—environmen- tal and human—has been a central concern of Colten's The Corps of recent scholarship. A geology professor at LSU, he has PERILOUS PLACE, written extensively about the costs associated with a POWERFUL STORMS New Orleans Louisiana made up of levees, channels, ditches and sea- Hurricane Protection in Coastal Loutsona walls. In Unnatural Metropolis: Wresting New Orleans by Char Miller from Nature (2005), he tracked the Sisypheon labor of draining the city's swamps, constructing elaborate HERE MAY BE NO BETTER WAY TO ACKNOWL- pumping systems to keep them dry, and erecting ever- edge Hurricane Katrina's fifth anni- taller bulwarks against rampaging waters. Each action, versary than to admit it offers a partial predicated on the assumption that technology trumped answer to that age-old paradox: What nature, required ever-larger financial outlays from happens when an irresistible force meets local, state and federal sources. As these investments an immovable object? Things break. increased, so did the commitment to their presumed The Cat-3 storm's power was such impact. Few doubted that this was money wisely spent that it buckled levees and caved seawalls; these hard- because almost no one challenged the wisdom of pro- PERILOUS PLACE, ened landscapes were no match for its force. Why do tecting communities located on such dangerous terrain. POWERFUL STORMS: we continue to pour billions of dollars into the con- The Corps is the chief champion of the human HURRICANE PROTECTION struction of new concrete structures along the Gulf, capacity to manage nature's fearsome force. Indeed, IN COASTAL LOUISIANA touting them as a fail-safe strategy to sustain human this book underscores its faith in an engineered By Craig Colten life on this imperiled shore? environment: The Corps contracted with Colten UNIVERSITY PRESS OF Some startling clues emerge in Craig Colten's detailed to write a history of its flood-protection activities MISSISSIPPI study of the role the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers has in Louisiana, believing that such a narrative would 192 PAGES, $40 played in providing hurricane protection on the Gulf. delineate its legendary role in defending the built The most ironic clue: Every time a Corps-built system landscape. Perilous Place, in this regard, does not has failed, it has been reconstructed. The more levees disappoint; it provides a careful account of the evolu- that collapse, the more levees we build. tion of the federal agency's actions and the shifting This terrifying pattern of devastation and rebirth political context in which they were shaped. In Katrina's is neatly captured in one of the storm-tracking maps Yet the Corps was not always in the business that accompany Colten's book: Between 1945 and of flood protection. As Colten recounts, its origi- shocking 1960, 16 cyclones spun across the warm waters of the nal mission was to maintain the navigability of the Gulf of Mexico before crashing into Texas, Louisiana nation's rivers, reworking "natural systems to serve aftermath, and Mississippi. So many lines dot-and-dash their human needs." Manipulating streamflow, it turns way across the illustration that it looks as if Nature out, was relatively straightforward. Ensuring that the Corps of was using this waterlogged region for target practice. these waters did not slosh into St. Louis or Vicksburg Perilous Place, Powerful Storms offers an intrigu- or New Orleans was another matter. Still, in the late Engineers ing explanation of why people have chosen to make 19th century, Congress expanded the Corps' respon- themselves so vulnerable by probing public reac- sibilities to include building levees to hold back and the local tions to policy-making activities after the floodwaters ravaging rivers. Its decision had momentous con- drained away. In March 1956, for instance, the Corps sequences. Expensive to build and maintain, levees communities held hearings in New Orleans and learned it needed also "consume land that might be put to other pur- to act fast. As one witness argued, much more robust poses," an investment that creates a "path depen- arrived at a facilities were required because "new dwellings by the dence on their builders." Once constructed, they are thousands" had been constructed in areas that in the almost impossible to remove or modify because their time-honored succeeding years had flooded; should the levees along very presence encourages development at the base Pontchartrain fail, he predicted, their collapse would of their seemingly solid banks. As people poured into conclusion— "endanger the lives and property of untold amounts." former floodplains, the Corps and the community His theory received a quick test a few months later locked themselves into a never-ending cycle of pay- pour more with Hurricane Flossy, which arrived packing winds ing for the construction of additional barriers. That's of 110 m.p.h. and churning up a 13-foot surge. Most why, if "an extreme event overwhelms the struc- concrete. of the southeastern portion of the Pelican State went tures," Colten observes, "calamity follows." underwater; levees were overtopped; thousands fled Disasters begat disasters. The devastating 1927 floods that scoured the Mississippi River Valley rein- BROWSE the website of to higher ground. The consensus that grew out of the the U.S. Army Corps of damage and danger was simple: This hurricane-prone forced the collective commitment to levees as the only Engineers, Team New Orleans area must be defended at all costs. line of defense, a behavioral response that the Corps at txlo.com/corps

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 25 SEPTEMBER 3, 2010 repeated in its later strategy to shore up the Gulf citizens have placed on the agency: Each storm has Coast. The bulk of Perilous Place is devoted to a step- reinforced the public's anxious calls for more preven- by-step discussion of these strategic decisions. tative measures; politicians have been complicit in the To do so required data, and in the late 1940s the creation of a Rube Goldberg-like maze of flood-control Corps created the so-called "standard project storm," structures and a matching bureaucratic tangle. LEARN about a citizen's group in New Orleans chal- projections its scientists have employed to estimate the Not surprisingly, the system's intricacy has worked lenging the U.S. Army Corps hurricanes' intensity and the damage they might inflict. against its success, as Katrina so bluntly exposed. Yet of Engineers at levees.org This information became the foundation for what its in that whirlwind's shocking aftermath, the Corps engineers believed would be a near-impenetrable zone and the local communities arrived at a time-honored around New Orleans and downstream parishes. On this conclusion—pour more concrete, simultaneously to marshy, flat and windswept ground, the Corps has been harden the land and its people's resolve. CO erecting an American Maginot Line. Char Miller is director of the environmental analysis The responsibility for this flawed project was not the program at Pomona College; he is editor of the forth- Corps' alone. Colten is particularly good at identifying coming Cites and Nature in the American West. the persistent pressure elected officials and frightened

THINKING ABOUT 111 A DEAD FRIEND rirltrr Attorney at Law by Harvey Shepard

How secretly critical I was 1105 N. Travis 254-697-3700 P.O. Drawer 752 Fax: 254-697-3702 of his passivity, his naiveté Cameron, TX 76520 [email protected] about the world, even

his embarrassment and awkwardness.

A Good Lawyer for Good People How it made me feel

I should help him

—and how I resented that feeling.

How I wanted something from him

but can't say what

except perhaps more words.

Now when suddenly I miss him

and realize he no longer exists

in this city...in this world, CentralTexas I wonder why Gardener his quiet caring

and steady gentleness KLRU-TV, Austin PBS, creates innovative television that inspires and educates. KLRU-produced programs that air statewide on klru were not enough for me. Texas PBS stations include Central Texas Gardener, Texas tv and beyond Monthly Talks and The Biscuit Brothers. Check your local listings. klru.org Harvey Shepard is a professor emeritus qfphysics at the University of New Hampshire.

THE TEXAS OBSERVER (ISSN 0040-4519/USPS 541300), entire contents copyrighted © 2010, is published biweekly except during April, July, October and December, when there is a 4-week break between issues (22 issues per year) by the Texas Democracy Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit foundation, 307 W. 7th St., Austin TX, 78701. Telephone MI OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE & (512)477-0746, fax (512)474-1175, toll free (800)939-6620. Email [email protected] . Periodicals Postage paid in Austin, TX, and at additional mailing offices. Soros Foundations Network POSTMASTER Send address changes to: The Texas Observer, 307 W. 7th St., Austin TX 78701. Subscriptions: 1 yr $35, 2 yr $60, 3 yr $85. Students $20. Foreign, add $13 to domestic price. Back issues $5. Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk rates on request. Microfilm available from University Microfilms Intl., 300 N Zeeb Rd, Ann Arbor MI 48106. INDEXES The Texas Observer is indexed in Access: The Supplementary Index to Periodicals; Texas Index; and, for the years 1954 through 1981, The Texas Observer Index. INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING is supported in part by a grant from the Open Society Institute. BOOKS & THE CULTURE is funded in part by the Texas cnhuml Art, Commission City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts. on the Arts

THE TEXAS OBSERVER Zs WWW.TEXASOBSERVER.ORG PENNEBAKER The Road to Compromise FORMER BUS DRIVER HAS SUED THE time off to rest and reacquaint herself with the Book Capital Area Rural Transportation of Job, her favorite book in the Bible. System, charging that the nine- county transit service discrimi- MAY 2010 nated against him based on his Anybody who wants to be part of a boring workplace religion when he was fired for should never come to CARTS—ha, ha! You probably refusing to drive a woman to a heard the allegations made by Harrison R. Smythe Sr. Planned Parenthood clinic in January. and Harrison R. Smythe Jr. that our driver, Harmony Meadows, tried to set them on fire when they asked to "Edwin Graning ...was 'concerned that he might be be transported to McBride's Gun Shop. The Smythes transporting a client to undergo an abortion ..." " are said to be contemplating legal action based on -AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN, JULY 16, 2010 their "Constitutional, God-given right to shoot any- thing we damn well please." Capital Area Rural Transportation We are sad to report that Harmony has resigned Center Employee Newsletter her position, effective immediately, to teach ashtanga yoga at a nearby ashram. Helen Ann Wesner will be FEBRUARY 2010 filling in, as needed. Hi! We are sorry to report Edwin Graning will no longer be a part of the CARTS family. We will all miss Edwin's JULY 2010 spontaneous sermons about the rapture and the pre- As you may have heard, Lance LeBeau refused to trans- cise temperature awaiting those who roast in hell. port a passenger since "she was obese and needed to Moving on, we are happy to welcome three new walk instead." The rejected passenger bashed in the van's drivers: Lance LeBeau, a former fashion consultant back window, causing $250 in damage. In other news, Too bad from Dallas; Helen Ann Wesner, whose hobbies are Harmony Meadows is returning to CARTS after a fire of memorizing the Bible and cross-stitching patriotic dish suspicious origin destroyed the House of Bliss Ashram. the news towels; and Harmony Meadows, who calls herself a "militant vegan and aspiring pyromaniac." (Ha! We can SEPTEMBER 2010 media isn't already tell Harmony has a wacky sense of humor!) After much soul-searching, weeks of controversy, a small grass fire outside our building, and three sit-ins, interested MARCH 2010 we have finally reached a re-thinking of our CARTS We're sure all of you read the news accounts of Lance workplace agreeable to all. Here is our new schedule: in happy LeBeau's refusal to drive three women to Chico's. As Lance told Channel 8, "Chico's is a horrible place. 6 A.M.: New employee Harrison Smythe Sr. will drive endings! Women come out of there looking like overdosed, the Armed and Dangerous Second Amendment dessicated Christmas trees. I'm just trying to save route. Open to carnivores, Tea Partiers, special dis- these women from themselves." counts for military vets, Branch Davidian survivors. We are happy to report that a resolution was Security provided by Harrison Smythe Jr. reached after the three women in question agreed 8:55 A.M.: Helen Ann Wesner will commandeer the to let Lance drive them to the new Nordstrom Rack Purity Route, stopping at Target stores and local store, instead. Too bad the news media isn't inter- churches (surcharge applicable for Roman Catholic ested in happy endings! churches). No fornicators, sluts or secular humanists. Passengers will meet for brief prayer denouncing the APRIL 2010 Obama administration before departing at 9 a.m. sharp. Well, it certainly has been an active spring around here! 11:30A.m.:LanceLeBeaudrivestheFashionSpectacular, We're guessing you all have heard about the law- stopping at boutiques and spas he deems acceptable. suit filed by the teenage couple against CARTS. Helen Discounts for those who sign Lance's Pro-Gay Marriage Ann Wesner, normally one of our most reliable and petition, addressed to his "very good friend, Rick Perry." steadfast employees, objected to taking the couple to Passenger height, weight, fashion-sensibility require- Mount Bonnell after dark. As Helen Ann explained ments will be strictly enforced. it, "I could tell from the looks on their faces what 1:30 P.M.: Harmony Meadows, recently acquitted they were gonna be up to there. I wasn't having no of arson charges, drives the I Brake For All Animals part of it. Next thing you know, they would have been Except People special, stopping at yoga studios, headed to Planned Parenthood!" vegan workshops. Free colon detox to first three pas- Until the lawsuit is settled, Helen Ann is taking sengers—but bring your own hose! LI

THE TEXAS OBSERVER SEPTEMBER 3, 2010 121 SER Time Warp

WENTY YEARS AGO, NATIONAL DEMOCRATS WERE EVERY BIT AS BEATEN and bedraggled as Texas Democrats today. Here was a party that hadn't been able to take long-term advantage of Watergate, for heaven sakes. A party that couldn't fend off a B actor lead- ing a fraudulent "conservative revolution." A party that in 1988 couldn't even manage to beat George H.W. Bush, who stood for nothing and couldn't articulate it. Here, in other words, was a desperate band of losers with two starkly different options going forward—the very same options that Texas Democrats now have, as they struggle to make the Lone Star a two-party state. Option A: Think bigger. Follow the right wing's to Gov. Rick Perry. Two years ago, Barack Obama Hope does winning example, beginning with Barry Goldwater's showed that Democrats could capture "red states" like insurgency in 1964, and build a fresh movement of North Carolina and Indiana by largely eschewing Lite not come in uncompromising, left-wing populism. Jesse Jackson's Republicanism and mobilizing just the kind of coalition 1988 campaign, when he darn near "stole" the of the disenfranchised that Jackson had once inspired. small, neat, Democratic nomination, had offered a roadmap, show- No state in the Union has more non-voters than Texas. ing the potential to create a new progressive coalition And when Bill White became the Democrats' nominee poll-tested fueled by formerly disenfranchised non-voters. for governor this year, it seemed entirely possible that Of course, that was gob-smackingly scary stuff for the party would travel the path that led to breakthroughs packages. But the rich white people who ran (and still run) both in other Republican-leaning states. The former Houston political parties. Which led to Option B: Think smaller. mayor is, of course, famously careful, congenitally mod- so far, sadly, Embrace the notion that the country had "gone con- erate and fiscally prudent. But he's also famous for his servative" in some irreversible and indelible way, and act of political bravery in the summer of 2005, when he the White remake the Democratic Party as a slightly kinder, invited tens of thousands of Hurricane Katrina refugees slightly smarter version of Reagan's GOP. to relocate to his city. This was Lite Republican heresy: campaign You know how that debate ended: Led by a cer- What, after all, were well-off white people (aka "the vot- tain magnetic snake-oil salesman from Arkansas, the ers") going to think about these huddled masses of col- does. national Dems seized on the Republican Lite option ored folk swelling the population of their city? But White and ran with it. Bill Clinton got elected after strategi- did not flinch. He showed rare guts. Maybe his campaign cally dissing both the Rev. Jackson and the rap artist for governor would be equally gutsy, equally attuned to Sister Souljah, while pledging to slash government jobs, doing the right thing rather than the conventionally "reform" welfare and further dismantle the New Deal. wise—and morally and strategically mistaken—thing? Add a dash of Ross Perot, sprinkle in a hilariously inept No such luck, at least not yet. White's campaign Bush re-election effort, and voila: The Democrats were has followed the disastrous Republican Lite formula back, and—ding dong!—the People's Party was dead. to a T. It's about "fiscal conservatism," running the Something else died with it: any lingering sense of state "like a business," talking tough about "border little-d democratic possibility in American politics. security," and appealing to that same old tiny, mythi- Campaigns became pander-fests aimed solely at a cal sliver of Republican-leaning "persuadables" who tiny sliver of well-off, white "swing voters." And with were registered Democrats in 1978. Which does so little left to distinguish the two parties' messages, nothing for Texas. Nothing for the people who need fear-mongering and character assassination became a strong, smart and active state government. Nothing the only ground to fight on. And it didn't even work for the Texas Democrats' future. And nothing for for Democrats, unless their Lite Republican candi- White's chances of winning. date had Clintonian charisma: The more Democrats Republicans like Perry are Jedi Grand Masters in mimicked Republicans, the more ground they lost. the art of small-ball, attack-dog politics. Democrats, The reason was plain to see: Why would people vote at their winning best, counter with vision, with for someone who's pretending to be a Republican, hope—hope not for something marginally better, but when they could simply vote for the real thing? for something substantially greater. And hope does It was a good question—and one raised, again, by not come in small, neat, poll-tested packages. But so Democrat Bill White's thus-far dispiriting challenge far, sadly, the White campaign does. CD

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 28 WWW.TEXASOBSERVER.ORG Michael Stravato

THE ASTRODOME Houston, 2005 "I don't know these two men's story because they declined to tell it. But the sudden joy in their faces as they spun around embracing in the center of the floor of the Astrodome, surrounded by others fleeing the Hurricane Katrina- flooded city of New Orleans, tells a whole lifetime of stories. This was Sept. 1, the first day of weeks I spent trying to photograph tens of thousands of people passing through there. From spending the night there, I still remember the collective smell of these people being very comforting; I thought it must be some kind of human-safety-in-numbers smell that my brain had long ago forgot."

;72()IT' of ichael S Ira vato's work al www.texasobservel -.orgi;yeontexas. CALL FOR EN TR I ES: Seeking Texas-based documentary photography that captures the strangest state. Please send inquiries to nry*texasobser verorg.

THE TEXAS OBSERVER SEPTEMBER 3, 2010 20

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