A favorite, as good for Sunday morning as it is for Saturday night.
No related posts.
[...]edited by: Ted McLaughlin,
Texas Editor
There’s nothing quite like the views of the universe from the Hubble Space Telescope. Here’s the latest from HubbleSite.org. Notice the ghostly X-pattern of stars. Here’s how HubbleSite describes it:
The magnificent galaxy NGC 4710 is tilted nearly edge-on to our view from Earth. This perspective allows [...]
What does Bill White’s candidacy mean for Texas? What does it mean for Texas Democrats?
It’s auspicious, I think, that White’s announcement is accompanied by a weather flurry of white stuff, a white run-up to Christmas (and the January filing deadline).
Here’s what I like best about Bill White: [...]
Most doctors recommend regular checkups for their patients. A physical is designed to screen for the issues that most commonly threaten our health; often this involves doing lab tests, x-rays, and, at certain times in life, procedures such as mammograms, colonoscopies, and tests [...]
In Robert Draper’s well-done NYT Magazine piece on Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison, Perry goes on about how under his leadership, Texas is no longer hard — it’s gone all “urbany.”
“I think it was Sheridan that said, ‘If I owned hell and Texas, I would [...]
Tomorrow is a big day for The Nobelity Project, the national theatrical launch of our film One Peace at a Time at Austin’s Arbor Cinema. This isn’t the end of the road I’ve been traveling for three years on this film. If we sell enough tickets in the next [...]
Somalian pirates have established their own stock exchange to manage their booty, the Financial Times reports. The New York exchange is known as NYSE. Will pirate traders work at YAR?
Will YAR be admitted to the International Federation of Stock Exchanges (IFSE)? Will Mexican [...]
I’ll admit it. I was a little wary about seeing The Messenger. Sure, it looked like a beautiful film, but I was worried about putting myself through a movie about an injured Iraq war veteran, Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) who returns home to be [...]
TMZ exclusive: "Twilight" heroin baggies
How about this for a blockbuster movie? Twilight of 2012, in which a Mayan chieftain tosses some star-crossed teenage vampire lovers into a volcano in hopes of gaining one more shopping day before the end of the world.
The Twilight Saga: [...]
After glowing reviews and wide acclaim, Austin’s John Pipkin won the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize for his debut, Woodsburner, which was published by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday in April. The awards were announced November 9 at the Center for Fiction’s Annual Benefit and [...]
I’ve joked before that not far in the future, there will be Corporate Creationists who argue that God created corporations, that they could not possibly have evolved from human beings. Today, organizations that operate under corporate charters transcend in power and glory our national organization that operates [...]
When we last checked in on Godzilla and Mothra – AKA Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison – they were skirmishing with their histrionic and hysterical press releases.
Since then, they have continued sniping at each other, though few are paying attention now. That’s because both rolled out [...]
If I said that country music holds a key to progressive political success, would it sound so out of tune that you’d stand up and walk out on me?
Hit the door then, or lend me your ears, because I believe that’s the case. I prefer Americana or [...]
Nicholas Lemann suggests in the Chronicle of Higher Education that journalism schools might be able improve news coverage of city halls and statehouses.
… journalism schools ought to explore, and are already exploring, the possibility of becoming significant producers of original news reporting to make up for [...]
If you are among my family and you want to cause a disturbance, or possibly create a diversion to cover your escape, the way to do it is to lean in close to me or one of my sisters and say, “President Kennedy is dead.” Without fail, [...]
Freedom from Want
Michael Quinn Sullivan of the GOP front group, Empower Texans, distributed a Thanksgiving video in which he claims the first Thanksgiving was actually a celebration of capitalism over socialism — some 200 years before anyone ever thought up industrial-era socialism in the first [...]
When I told my mother I planned to write about the mural she painted on the side of her garage she said, “Don’t you dare say that it’s of a Mexican whorehouse.” She paused to reflect before continuing, “We could just let them figure it [...]
Thanksgiving means “Alice’s Restaurant,” Arlo Guthrie’s warm and funny song about his friends Alice and Ray, their Thanksgiving Day feast, his conviction for littering, the draft, and the spirit of America. For years now, an Austin radio station, KGSR, 93.3 (you can listen online here) has played “Alice’s Restaurant” [...]
To listen to the ASA Oceanis song “Animals”, click the “PLAY” arrow right here:
Pat Miller (left) & Aaron Reynolds
ASA Oceanis plays this Saturday night at the Carousel Lounge in Austin, as the band gears up to release their debut album, Nobody [...]
My relationship with my patients is a collaboration, in which we both focus on their health or the health of their loved ones. We work together to verify health, leaving as little as possible to assumption, and that’s why regular physicals are so important.
In health [...]
To paraphrase something Joe Garagiola once said about baseball, politics is a funny game. It happens that I read, or looked at, Garagiola’s book, Baseball is a Funny Game, when I was eight years old and on my first ever trip to Austin, a trip that included [...]
Honor is a characteristic in short supply during these polarized political days, days in which political success seems to depend not on honor, but on the lack of it. Too many candidates show a willingness to sacrifice truth and the well-being of their fellow citizens to [...]
The Texas Tribune reports just now that former Ambassador Tom Schieffer is dropping out of the governor’s race, clearing the way for Houston Mayor Bill White to drop in.
DogCanyon reported last week that a shakeup was coming at the top of the Democratic ballot. [...]
In 1968, not long after the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, Louis Armstrong went to the ABC Records studio to record “What A Wonderful World.” It was written by George David Weiss and legendary producer Bob Thiele (Coltrane, Mingus, Gillespie). Armstrong hoped the [...]
There’s a persistent refrain among Sarah Palin fanatics — and New Confederacy governors like Rick Perry — that they want to “take back” America from the thieves who took it from them. You can read some of these quotes in Kate Zernike’s NYT’s story on Palin:
“It [...]
We don’t know why we yawn.
Bored? Sleepy? Just woke up? Or is it a signal of arousal, that is, time for bed? Or a signal of relaxation, a sign to others that we feel safe and so they can feel safe?
Scientists don’t know, but are you yawning [...]
Big procedural test vote on health care reform today in the U.S. Senate. Here’s a message for them.
UPDATE: The Senate voted to cut off the Republican filibuster of its health care reform bill, 60-39. Now the real Senate debate begins.
Related posts:[...]
The sheer volume of the nutty screaming from the Right can obscure the rank hypocrisy of the GOP’s attacks on health care reform. So let’s clear up a few things.
Health care reform is about getting our neighbors better health care, reducing unnecessary suffering and early death. “Socialism!” [...]
Alice & Ray's Place, of Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant Thanksgiving Day Glory
Next week is Thanksgiving, the day we all give thanks that we don’t have to watch what we eat. It’s acceptable, nay, expected that you [...]
Diego McGreevy (left) and Lee Shipman
I’ve read that perhaps one in a hundred thousand aspiring screenwriters manage to break into Hollywood. Texas screenwriting partners Brian McGreevy and Lee Shipman have beat those daunting odds.
Shipman, a tall, lanky Corpus Christi native, wears signature [...]
On his trip to in Beijing, President Obama was asked the following:
Right before you left for this trip in Asia, you announced that you were going to convene a jobs summit. This smacks of one of those classic Washington answers to a tough problem: convene [...]
What is better than this story and a Man in Black hit song — sung by his daughter, Roseanne Cash?
Nothing.
No related posts.
[...]
Many of my patients are as concerned with costs as with the state of their health. Because of that, I work with them to make sure health care is both affordable and comprehensive. By far, the cheapest form of health care is prevention. So in [...]
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has played her Charlie Brown’s Lucy-and-the-football trick one more time. Nope, she’s not resigning from the Senate. “AAARGH!” shout Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Attorney General Greg Abbott, and various other would-be GOP placekickers who are now forced to cool their heels.
Health care [...]
South Austin Community Acupuncture
In the halls of Congress, politicians debate health care reform as the American public waits anxiously and often skeptically to see how things turn out. In South Austin, the folks at South Austin Community Acupuncture are doing their part to bring [...]
Molly Ivins, whom you probably know better as Molly, was the thinking person’s Norma Jeane Baker, whom you probably know better as Marilyn Monroe.
Beautiful spirits fit poorly into jars marked “celebrity icon.” It’s not a matter of fragility or weakness. It has nothing to do with old [...]
I used to be a news junkie when I was home with toddlers. I watched the morning news, the Today show, then the five o’clock news, the 5:30 national news, 6:00 local (again), and once again the local news at 10pm. I read a local newspaper every [...]
So, the nation’s weightiest campaign arms dealers waltz about the Big Easy talking like Emily Post and asking the rest of us to put our napkins in our laps. That’s the news from New Orleans, where James Carville and Mary Matilin hosted a gathering of [...]
Here’s a little Willie Wednesday item that was worth waiting the 3 1/2 weeks I’m behind. Sunday night, 11/15. 7 p.m. Central, PBS is broadcasting the new Austin City Limits episode with Willie Nelson and Asleep at the Wheel. I haven’t seen the edit, but I was there for the [...]
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison announced late yesterday that she won’t resign the Senate until after the March gubernatorial primary. She is, of course, campaigning against Gov. Rick Perry. Houston Mayor Bill White and former Comptroller John Sharp are running for the Hutchison seat that is suddenly not empty. So was [...]
“Well, you know we’re probably too old for this
Maybe the rest of the world is too young
We drive five hundred miles to get loose and get wild
And stay up ‘till the last song is done.”
- Gary P. Nunn, Terlingua Sky
There is a time [...]
DD Dagger aka Allyson Lipkin, has just released a groundbreaking new Indie Pop album “Femmie Auteur.”
An auteur is a “filmmaker whose individual style and complete control over all elements of production give a film its personal and unique stamp.” Apply the moniker to a musician [...]
Chad Nichols and Pam Colloff
Pamela Colloff wrote Texas Monthly’s cover story on the Aggie Bonfire. It’s been ten years since the bonfire’s tragic collapse and Colloff created an oral history of the tradition, in which “students and alumni who chopped logs, hauled timber, [...]
Like a too-slick Marvel Comics villain, the famously well-coiffed Rick Perry stands in his expensive tailored suit (Italian? English Socialist Tweed?), and leads his Midland Country Club audience in a kind of awkward, unpoetic “We Shall Overcome” moment. These Midlandistas just don’t look like there’s much left [...]
“Loud & Rich” is the official tour title of Richard Thompson and Loudon Wainwright III’s current joint excursion, and it’s clear that they mean it as a joke. But tickets were $40 at the door and $45 in advance, which is not exactly going to bring in [...]
Here’s one thing Big Government Conservatives adore: sovereign immunity. You can’t take your case against the state of Texas to court unless given permission by the Legislature. And in recent months, two giant organizations, neither of them state agencies — the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association and the [...]
“Leap, and the net will appear.”
–John Burroughs
John Burroughs’ line perfectly distills the meaning of the oft-used phrase, leap of faith. But the origin of the phrase is Kierkegaard, who actually said ‘leap to faith’. Completely different. A leap of faith is a leap from this side [...]
The Houston Chronicle and KHOU-TV in Houston delivered devastating reports last night and today regarding the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association. In a nutshell, emails uncovered in a homeowner’s lawsuit against TWIA show the association engaged in a systematic and ongoing effort to deny claims or [...]
My heart goes out to everyone at Ft. Hood. I grew up in an enlisted man’s family and lived on Army bases in Kansas, Germany, and California. I know how strong and tight base housing communities can be, especially when there is a war on. When tragedy [...]
Get Smart's "Cone of Silence"
UPDATE — Speaking at the Senate Criminal Justice Committee meeting this morning, chairman John Whitmire told John Bradly his desire for secrecy would be rejected. Transparent, public oversight key to responsible governing, Whitmire says.
After a few decades of covering' [...]
Described as “enormous and black” on the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy web site, Bigfoot is stalking East Texans. And their elected officials are retreating to the Republican Party. Coincidence? I think not.
Back in September, a Big Thicket hunter (buckwild107 on Youtube) took some pictures of a [...]
William Tyndale once ridiculed the poor logic of a 16th Century blowhard by writing that, “the proof of his whole conclusion…hangeth by moonshine.” Tyndale of course, ultimately became a victim of moonshine when he was condemned as a heretic and strangled by real rope – and [...]
With all the recent talk of secession, it’s good to remember the actions of a man who influenced the process of Texas becoming part of the U.S in the first place.
James Knox Polk ran for president in 1844 on a [...]
The U.S. House of Representatives is debating the health care reform bill today. If you have a strong stomach, you can watch the debate on CSPAN.
As the drama unfolds, a few observations about health care in America and the Republican effort to keep 50 million of our [...]
I was once told that if you are not a liberal when you are young you have no heart, and if you are not a conservative when you are old you have no mind. I’m not ever going to be a full-on conservative, not in today’s [...]
Library of Alexandria
I have a few books, double-rows of them on floor-to-ceiling shelves in, well, just about every room in the house. I’ll fix the coffee for you, Represenative. Come check ‘em out. The representative is worried that Patriot Act reforms being discussed in [...]
The sign said “Authorized Vehicles Only” beside the open gate at the top of the hill so I paused to consider whether that meant me or not when a guy drove down the road toward me on a 60s vintage yellow Suzuki motorcycle.
I rolled down my window [...]
Americans who check in on politics out of duty or interest must feel like the narrator in Mark Twain’s story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” The poor fellow is asked by a friend back east to call upon one Simon Wheeler and inquire after [...]
Michael McGriff
Michael McGriff will return to Austin this Thursday to read from his first book of poetry, Dismantling the Hills.
Listing McGriff’s impressive awards and accomplishments—a Michener Center Fellowship at UT, a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford, winner of the 2008 Balcones Poetry Prize and an NEA [...]
This video was released as part of Bill McKibben’s global awareness-building exercise last week for 350.org, an organization promoting the idea that carbon emission levels above 350 parts per million are dangerous:
I’d like to treat this as a case study in visual metaphors and conceptual frames to show how [...]
Reading Michael Pollan’s books, Omnivore’s Dilemma and Botany of Desire, makes me want to stop eating corn and all that involves corn. Which is just about everything other than vegetables, rice and wheat. Oh sure, I can find grass-fed beef, but I can only afford it maybe [...]
The brand new Texas Tribune debuted with banner headline about the Tribune/University of Texas poll. Gov. Rick Perry leads Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison by 12 points. The news for Democrats is more muddled — and explained badly by the pollsters.
I don’t really know what to make [...]
Editor’s Note: The Texas Tribune launched today. The launch of a brand new, online news organization is itself big news. In the interests of balance, DogCanyon presents two views of The Texas Tribune, my own, and my friend and former Capitol Press Corps colleague [...]
When I heard the announcement about Texas Tribune coming along to add strength to government and political coverage in our state, I was deep into the details of a similar endeavor. There is one critical difference, however: our new journalism business is designed to make money. In [...]
Scientists have discovered the secret behind Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile. They say it has to do with which cells in the eye’s retina pick up the image. Depending on the light, the distance, the angle, etc., sometimes these cells communicate first to the brain, sometimes [...]
Back in the day, when people still spoke in hushed tones, or not at all, about the “big one”, and kids at school had weekly ‘drills’ that included hiding under your desk while you (fruitlessly) covered your head, the Eastern Bloc was often referred to as [...]
My parents used to tell me that I could sing “Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier” before I could talk. I don’t doubt it; I loved that show. Fess Parker, a Texan, played Crocket in television’s first three-episode mini-series, produced by Walt Disney in 1955. The [...]
It’s wildly inappropriate to pigeonhole Edgar Allan Poe in the horror genre. Still, it’s Halloween, and who better to spend time with than Poe? UT’s Harry Ransom Center, one of the world’s great cultural archives and libraries, recently launched the exhibition, From Out That Shadow: The [...]
Sort of an oxymoron, isn’t it? When you’re cruising, you’re free, unfettered, rolling through the hill country and playing your favorite rock ‘n’ roll, C&W, or Beethoven’s 9th as loud as you want, relaxing and enjoying the vistas rolling by and composing themselves to your soundtrack so [...]
Well of course the conversation started in a bar. Don’t they all?
It was the start of a happy hour for Glenn on his birthday. He and Tom Block, who also blogs the Dog, were seated across from me. As usual, Glenn was nursing a water, neat. I [...]
We agreed in a court order to quit illegally denying citizens their right to vote but we weren’t doing that in the first place and we won’t do it again but we’ll get the taxpayers to pay for the costs of the litigation to make sure the [...]
I don’t know what to make of a new U.S. News online readers’ poll. Sarah Palin is running away from the field on the question of who will hand out the best Halloween candy. Eighty percent award the prize to Palin. Michelle Obama is [...]
The trailer for The Messenger features Willie Nelson singing Amazing Grace, which in and of itself would make it perfect Dog Canyon viewing.
But more importantly, the film–co-written by Alessandro Camon and Oren Moverman–promises to be a stunner. This is Camon’s first screenplay, but he’s long produced intelligent movies, such as [...]
Broad thinking promotes happiness, and happiness promotes broader thinking. That’s the conclusion of a recent study published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences. The study, by Harvard’s Moshe Bar, suggests that broad, associative thinking — the ability to move smoothly and creatively from one thought to [...]
Ayn Rand
You probably know someone just now reading one of Ayn (rhymes with dine) Rand’s thick-as-a-brick books. Rand believed selfishness was the fundamental positive principle of human life. We are good when we tell other people to go to hell. We are at our best when [...]
One of the great errors in political reporting and analysis is the myopic focus on state elections in isolation, treating them as somehow removed from national and global events. In 2010, these events will play a great role in Texas election outcomes, just as they have in [...]
We built forts in the bayou, but they were hardly necessary. Who would follow us down the woody bluff and into the wilds of the cypress and oak lined waterway known as Brays Bayou? Only a fool or one of our own, if that’s not [...]
The Republican-controlled Harris County voter registrar has been forced to settle a lawsuit over the 2008 denial of 78,000 voter registration applications, one-third of the 240,000 received. The settlement is scheduled for discussion at the Harris County Commissioner’s Court on Tuesday.
Let’s make this clear. Republicans [...]
Denis Johnson's Cop Car
Denis and Cindy Johnson picked me up from the Phoenix Airport on Wednesday in their Chevy Caprice, an Austin Police Department cop car their son Dan bought for them at a cop car auction on Ebay. Denis, who won the 2007 [...]
When some bureaucrat at the Department of Defense sent a memo to Congress opposing Sen. Al Franken’s amendment to protect victims of rape, the neo-liberal bureaucracy was doing what bureaucracies always do. It was erasing the human in deference to a system, and with it all hope of morally defensible [...]
Earlier this month, Timmy Lee Porter walked into an Anchorage bank. He handed the teller a note: “This is a bank robbery, place 1 $100 bill on the counter or I will shoot you.” When the frightened teller moved slowly, the middle-aged Porter said, “I’m serious.” He [...]
Lascaux Cave Painting
Two thousand images — horses, stags, bison, the injured man. These are the upper-Paleolithic cave paintings of Lascaux, re-discovered by four teenagers and their dog, Robot, in 1940. The paintings are around 16,000 years old. Theories abound about these beautiful paintings. They’re [...]
The White House today released the official Obama family portrait by Annie Leibovitz. In his new book of essays, Manhood for Amateurs, the writer Michael Chabon describes his reaction to seeing the Obama family in Grant Park on election night, after President Obama’s victory [...]
For GOP opposition researchers: Here’s why we are your worst nightmare.
Rest in Peace, Soupy.
No related posts.
[...]
Burning Synagogue
A couple of GOP county chairmen in South Carolina had to apologize for calling Jews penny pinchers in an op-ed defending Senator Jim DeMint’s opposition to Congressional earmarks. “There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by [...]
Lloyd Tripp and the Zip Guns.
In Austin’s Rockabilly subculture, beloved 1950’s styles and sounds still reign, but with a modern, hipster twist. Tattooed gals with brows plucked into careful arches and Betty Page bangs spend nights in honky tonks swing dancing with [...]
Judging by the two films of his I’ve seen, Peter Watkins would be a dead duck in a formal debate, for his natural tendency seems to be carrying ideas not just to, but far beyond, their logical conclusion. Watkins’ 1971 political Disneyland ride, Punishment Park, hammers out [...]
I love Texas. I love the Fort Stockton mechanic whose hunger keeps him from scrubbing all the grease from his hands before lunch at the diner. I love the Houston Fifth Ward parents working two jobs each so they can save enough for their three kids’ college. [...]
Dog Canyon, Big Bend, West Texas, just north of the Mexico Border. No sounds but birds and the crunching of sand and rocks under your boots. You figure the black bears, coyotes and mountain lions hear that crunching, too. Walking in the wilds of West Texas’ Dog Canyon will make [...]
Citizen journalist Mike Stark decided to ask Sen. John Cornyn about Cornyn’s vote to protect corporations from lawsuits by employees raped while on the job. Cornyn didn’t like the question. In fact, you can see in this video that he really didn’t like the question.
Cornyn was coming off the Hart [...]
Lost in the hoohah over the Colorado balloon boy incident is the simple fact that the strategy is practiced daily by a GOP that long-ago sacrificed truth to their inflated drive for power.
For instance, the GOP alleges that Obama has hidden his communist/fascist/socialist agenda in his ascending [...]
My friends kept talking about going to see Damon Bramblett at the Dry Creek Café and Boat Dock.
“He’s practically the best living country songwriter. And he’s totally eccentric. Only plays every so often at the Dry Creek.”
I’d long admired Bramblett’s self-titled, traditional country album, some of the songs [...]
David Medina, Gov. Rick Perry’s general counsel when Perry denied a stay of execution to Cameron Todd Willingham, was later cleared of arson-related charges in the fire that destroyed his home. Medina is now on the Texas Supreme Court. His wife, Francisca, was cleared of arson charges based on an [...]
American Great Awakening
Back in the late 1980s, I had a conversation with Molly Ivins about the religious right. I think they were calling themselves the Moral Majority then, doublespeak for being neither. At that time, about 90% of Americans identified as religious, and [...]
We are fast approaching the time of the next great battle over evolution. The Neo-creationists will be corporations, and they will argue that they could not possibly be descended from human beings.
This isn’t science fiction. Just the other day 30 Republicans voted in the U.S. [...]
Everywhere I go, people tell me they envy my glamorous life as a doc filmmaker. There’s no point in explaining the reality of shooting 18-hour-days in the developing world to them (but give me a couple of beers and I’ll try). For instance, you spend two years [...]
A few winners of Spiegel’s microscopic photo contest, plus a bonus close-up.
A Wrinkled Photoresist
Spiney Cow Thistle
The Anther of a Thale Cress
Bonus Photo (hat tip to L. Smith)
[...]
Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn poker.
Professor James McManus of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago goes the poker-faced Times one better. He says poker teaches us to see [...]
Glenn W. Smith, Reba Saxon, Mary Lowry, Turk Pipkin, Gregory Jackson, M.D., Rita Nakashima Brock, Cyndi Hughes, Elisabeth Piedmont-Marton, Hayden Childs, James C. Moore, whiskeydent
