Texas
The Latest Exercise in "Blue Texas" Wishful Thinking
The state's unlikely to vote Democratic by 2024
Texas electoral politics tend to elicit sensationalism. Jeb Bush has suggested the Lone Star state, which voted for Romney by 16 points in 2012, could somehow turn blue in 2016; Ted Cruz, who doesn’t even favor comprehensive immigration reform, similarly said that new Hispanic voters would turn Texas blue and bury the GOP alongside the Whigs. READ MORE >>
The Driskill Hotel, a Romanesque brick and limestone hulk at the corner of Old Pecan and Brazos streets in downtown Austin, is the closest thing the Texas capital has to old-world glamour. The hotel also happens to be haunted, supposedly, by the ghost of the man whose portrait hangs at the stairs to the bar just off the lobby: Colonel Jesse Driskill, a cattle baron who made a fortune during and after the Civil War peddling longhorn to a famine-stricken region. READ MORE >>
What's to Come in West, Texas
After Wednesday's fertilizer plant explosion, the town is still picking up the pieces
You can see pretty much all of West, Texas, from I-35, which connects the town—which is not in western Texas, but the heart of the state—to Dallas in the north and Waco just south. A collection of only 2,674 people, according to the Census Bureau, West was famed—until this week—rather modestly for pretty great kolaches, sweet pastries filled with meat, cheese or fruit, and its Czech immigrant farming heritage. READ MORE >>
The Hell of American Day Care
An investigation into the barely regulated, unsafe business of looking after our children
It was 5:30 in the morning when Kenya Mire looked down READ MORE >>
Gun-Toting Carpetbaggers
My quest to find a New Yorker who moved to Texas because of gun control
Back in January, commentators had a good chuckle when Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott posted online ads saying, “Keep your guns, come to Texas.” Subtle as a strip club flier, it was a pitch to residents of New York, where Governor Andrew Cuomo had recently signed new gun-control measures into law following the Sandy Hook massacre. READ MORE >>
The gun I want to talk about wasn’t an assault rifle. It wasn’t purchased illegally. It didn’t fall into the hands of a crazy person. It wasn’t fired in anger. It wasn’t fired by accident. It wasn’t fired for money.It was fired in fear. So far, our latest national gun dialogue has addressed firepower, on which we’ve agreed to disagree, and personal responsibility, on which we’re set to hear more soon. But there’s a deeper truth about guns. And it has to do with fear. READ MORE >>
