Texas Observer reader,
Gall. We live in a state whose top leaders have entirely, vastly, monumentally too much goddamn gall.
Just five days after the deadliest Texas flood in 104 years, Governor Greg Abbott announced a special legislative session not narrowly focused on the disaster but rather covering a Christmas list of far-right pet political projects including a Trump-led redistricting power grab. At the time of his announcement, more than 150 human beings were still officially missing in the Hill Country.
By the time you read this, you’ll already know how that special session turned out. You might even—God help you (me, us all…)—be already following stories about a second one. So it goes. Today’s news moves at an unnatural speed, accelerated by technology, and today’s politics do the same, unimpeded by accountability.
Maybe you know that all too well, or feel it, something like a buzzing in the brain dispersing complex thoughts or strong moral sentiment. Maybe that’s part of why you picked up this magazine, a journalistic product whose norms developed in a bygone era but may be most needed today. Novelty, clarity, challenge, curation, empathy, elegance—all features of this form that are disfavored by profit-driven algorithms.
In this issue, I hope you’ll find and enjoy these sorely missed anachronisms. Whether in our investigative features that tackle stubborn policy issues—each amounting in its own way to state mistreatment of the vulnerable—or in our shorter pieces that illuminate a Jewish case against border militarization, an intellectual battle over Texas history, and, yes, the state of screamo music in Austin bookstores.
It’s a pleasure to edit this stapled stack of papers you hold in your hands (or PDF you view on your screen), even in shadowy days for our profession. As always, I hope you’ll find pleasure, alongside the inevitable indignation, in reading it.
Anyhoo, I’ve spent too long writing this. It’s time I got back to studying various forms of witchcraft to ward off that second special session…
Solidarity,
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