Man’s Best Friend. The family pet. Hunting companion. Support animal. Texans have dogs for all sorts of reasons, in all sorts of shapes and sizes. But anyone who has ever spent time around a big smelly dog knows that it’s not all rainbows and games of fetch – sometimes, dogs just stink.
Archives for November 2016
Texas Standard: November 18, 2016
According to some in Sacramento, the election outcome is an existential threat. Has California become the new Texas? Plus Texas has legalized the medical use of cannabis oil, but the fees for doing business may make it impossible. A co author of the bill wonders if that wasn’t part of the plan, we’ll hear from her. Also, a prominent public figure delivers a concession speech: only this one’s not politics, it’s football. We’ll hear what the fuss is about, and why it matters in a larger sense. Plus a Texas history textbook from the 1950’s rediscovered, and reviewed. And the week in politics and much more coming up today on the Texas Standard:
Communication and Technology (Rebroadcast)
If you live in the modern world – as you most likely do – you’re probably seen it: two people standing next to each other, engrossed in text conversations happening on their mobile devices, while oblivious to each other or anything else happening around them.
Does that common occurrence make you reminisce about the good old days of landlines? You’re not alone. Many people pine for simplicity in this new world of immediate contact – all possible through our nifty mobile gadgets.
You can never be out of reach, never out of touch – and yet, you can stay constantly isolated in your own mobile, virtual world, blissfully unengaged in real time interaction with live people around you.
How does this new technology of immediate mobile contact influence and affect our relationships with real people, in real time, in real life?
Well, there’s benefits and drawbacks. As usual, the Two Guys on Your Head have some interesting insight.
Texas Standard: November 17, 2016
Oreos, Netflix, New Balance, Amazon: consumer boycotts as a proxy for the ballot box. But who’s buying it, and do they work? We’ll explore. Also he campaigned to repeal and replace Obamacare, but what would Trumpcare mean for texans? We’ll look at the range of possibilities. Plus the changing of the guard in Washington could leave a few holes in Texas politics. Who’ll fill the seats, and how. Also, did he really sell his soul to the devil? As San Antonio prepares to celebrate an iconic bluesman, a few myths get broken along the way. And the robots are coming: whose jobs will they take? Those stories and a whole lot more today on the Texas Standard:
This Song: Banks and Steelz // Lizzo
Welcome to the first episode of This Song’s 2016 Fall Season
As we of Team This Song are recovering from the presidential election and the death’s of both Leon Russell and Leonard Cohen, we have decided to celebrate the life of Mr. Cohen with this season’s first interview. Recorded at the 2016 Austin City Limits Festival in October this conversation features Paul Banks and RZA of the collaboration known as Banks And Steelz. Both these music biz vets are huge fans of not only Cohen’s lyrics (Banks says there are none better) but also his guitar playing (RZA has sampled the late Canadian’s finger-picking) and they have both obviously bonded over the late artist’s works. We then move to rapper/singer/flutist Lizzo (also interviewed at the 2016 ACL Festival) who takes us through a myriad of influences, talks about her love of outer space and ends up describing how her adopted city has acted as a catalyst for her creation.
Subscribe via iTunes or Stitcher to get the new episodes of This Song delivered to you as soon as they come out.
Watch Lizzo perform Good as Hell backstage at ACLfest
Listen to the songs featured in Episode 57 of This Song
Texas Standard: November 16, 2016
A bill introduced to end sanctuary cities across Texas… but wait a minute. Are there any sanctuary cities across Texas? We’ll explore. Also a new oil boom becomes a knife fight for land. We’ll hear where, what’s behind it, and who’s getting rich. Plus Texas leads the nation in wind power, but at times, has to give away electricity because there’s no place to store it. Now a possible solution, under our feet. And remember the surge? Years after the first rush of immigrant families across the border, a Texas city demands compensation…so far to no effect. We’ll learn the backstory and much more this hour on the Texas Standard:
The Queen of King Ranch
When Richard King, the founder of the King Ranch, was on his deathbed, he told his wife, Henrietta Chamberlain King “Don’t let any of that land get away from you.” At the time of his death in 1885, King’s famous ranch consisted of about half a million acres. He had amassed this land on the advice of Robert E. Lee, who told him that he should buy all the land in the wild horse desert that he could get hold of, and never sell it. Richard King followed this principle faithfully his entire life.
His wife Henrietta did not let him down. She ruled this ranch kingdom for about 10 years longer – in total – than her husband did, more than doubling the size of the ranch in her time.
But it wasn’t easy. She had to break her husband’s golden rule soon after he died. Henrietta King not only inherited half a million acres, but also half a million dollars of debt. She had to sell some of the land to bring the King Ranch back to life. Under Henrietta King’s firm but fair hand – and with the expert help of her son-in-law, Robert Kleberg – the ranch was soon growing again; and then flourishing. By the turn of the century, the King Ranch was trying new techniques in irrigation, range grasses and cattle breeding. By the 1920s they’d created their signature breed: Santa Gertrudis cattle.
Henrietta met Richard King when she was just 18 years old, in Brownsville. She was the quiet daughter of a Presbyterian minister and King was a hard-drinking, rough-around-the-edges, riverboat captain. Sounds like a country-western song. When they married, Henrietta said about her honeymoon: “I doubt it falls to the lot of any a bride to have had so happy a honeymoon … we roamed the broad prairies of the ranch. When I grew tired, my husband would spread a Mexican blanket for me and I would take my siesta under the shade of a mesquite tree.”
This rough-hewn honeymoon she so praised showed that she was made of the right stuff to help build a ranch out of inhospitable land and a brutal climate. Indeed, she was so tough, it’s said that when bandits wanted to attack the ranch house, they waited for Mr. King to be around because he could be bargained with.
Henrietta faithfully reigned over the ranch for 70 years. But her influence extended well beyond the King Ranch boundaries.
It has been said that the work of a philanthropist is like that of an old person who plants trees. They plant even though they know they will never live to stand in their shade. And so it goes that the institutions Henrietta King started are far more important today than they were in her time.
She donated land that would become Texas A&M University in Kingsville. She constructed the city’s public high school. She donated land and money to build Spohn Hospital, which is today Corpus Christi’s largest, most advanced hospital.
Mark Twain once said that you can tell the importance of a person by the size and nature of their funeral. When Henrietta King died at the age of 92, 200 vaqueros on horseback escorted her funeral carriage to the cemetery. Some of them had ridden two days across the ranch to get there in time. These men were known as Kinenos, the King’s men.
At her grave, the 200 vaqueros, one by one, circled her casket as it was lowered, and they tipped their hats in reverence for the great lady, “La Reina” – the queen of the King Ranch. Then they galloped on back to their duties on the ranch, which now consisted of 1.2 million acres.
Texas Standard: November 15, 2016
Money, religion and wait, there’s something else that’s not part of polite conversation, right? Talking politics at work: a how to guide. We’ll explore. Also in the ongoing stare down between Texas and the EPA, did someone just blink? We’ll explore why Washington regulators are taking Texas off a clean air blacklist. The iconic retailer Neiman Marcus build its brand selling luxury goods to the wealthy, now it soon may be looking for a shopper of another sort, we’ll explain. And how much would you pay for the handcuffs used on Lee Harvey Oswald …do I hear 50 thousand dollars? Also remembering Gwen Ifill and much more today on the Texas Standard:
Gary Younge (Ep. 2)
In his interview with Gary Younge, editor at large for The Guardian, UT Austin Professor Ben Carrington begins with a reflection on Younge’s article following Stuart Hall’s passing entitled, “Stuart Hall: A Class Warrior and a Class Act.” Younge praises Hall for not being interested in sounding clever or performing academic stardom.
This is particularly notable because, according to Younge, it is common for academic stars in the current era to say things that are catchy, “like dangling baubles that make people sit up and think you’re clever.” On the contrary, Hall had a “soft and nurturing presence” and wanted to be useful rather than dominating.
This was evidenced in the way that Hall would “almost appear without a trace when he came into a room.” Younge first became aware of Stuart Hall when he was 7 or 8 through Hall’s position at the Open University, but then became more familiar with his work reading Marxism Today, especially “New Times.”
In addition to the relevance of his ideas, Younge reflects on how meaningful it was to see a black man as an intellectual who could say what he had to say but also keep his integrity intact. For Younge, it was significant that Hall did not appear embittered or insecure, that he “seemed happy in his skin” and that “he didn’t have to put someone else down in order to build himself up.”
Younge remembers his last communication with Hall, which was an exchange over Younge’s “Ethical World Cup.” Commenting on the loss of Hall, Younge states that while “there was never a time where we didn’t need him… arguably we need him now more than ever, though I guess that was always true.”
-Maggie Tate
Texas Standard: November 14, 2016
From cyberbullying bills to political ethics rules, what’s just over the horizon for Texas? We’re about to find out for real. Plus as the Feds send more force to the border, there are signs Texas law enforcement may lighten up on the southern frontier. We’ll hear why. Also, republican administrations are often thought of as good for the military business but some at Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth aren’t so sanguine about the future. We’ll explore the fight over the F-35. Plus it is a term that was coined by a police officer: suicide by cop. What’s being done to address the issue and what isn’t. All that and more today on the Texas Standard:
Ben Tankard, pt. 1 (Ep. 49, 2016)
In Black America producer and host John L. Hanson, Jr. speaks with Ben Tankard, pastor, pilot, motivational speaker, best-selling gospel-jazz musician, reality TV star, and author of The Full Tank Life: Fuel Your Dreams, Ignite Your Destiny.
Higher Ed: What Else Could Be Taught in School?
Most people who get at least a high school education will experience a pretty standard set of courses no matter where they go to school: Math, English, Social Studies, Biology, and the like. But are there things not being taught in schools that should be? What if the traditional academic slate were wiped clean and replaced with a new “road map;” what might that look like? In this episode of KUT’s podcast Higher Ed, KUT’s Jennifer Stayton and Southwestern University President Dr. Ed Burger discuss some things that could be added to curricula to enhance education – even well beyond school years. Now, don’t expect Ed to make concrete suggestions such as “more Math” or “less History.” Ed actually believes the tweaks are more about process than content and should focus more on learning itself than on any specific subject. Listen on to hear Ed and Jen discuss those tweaks, and to get the latest puzzler… which might sound a little familiar.
This episode was recorded on October 4, 2016.
Unity
It’s been a long year and a long week, no matter how you voted on Election Day. We are all tired, and starting to look towards the future. It’s worth remembering that even though we may have different points of view – in the end, we are all humans.
KUT Weekend – November 11, 2016
A round up of local election results. An Austin city council member participates in protests against Donald Trump. Looking deeper at a boom in suburban housing construction. Those stories and more in this edition of KUT Weekend!
Subscribe at https://weekend.kut.org
Texas Standard: November 11, 2016
The supreme court’s docket could get much lighter with a few strokes of the pen, and the impact for Texas could be profound. Plus the President elect promised to drain the swamp. But a Texas republican with first hand experience staffing the white house says that’s gonna be messier than Mr.Trump might imagine. We’ll hear why. And in the wake of Tuesday, how are conversations going around your dinner table? We’ll have some words of wisdom on how to keep the heat in the kitchen when relatives want to talk politics. Plus the week that was according to the Texas Tribune and much more today on the Texas Standard:
Election Results 2016
No matter which party you voted for last Tuesday, this election has revealed a lot about the psychology of our country. There is a lot of anger, alienation, and fear on both sides and it will take hard work to recover and move forward.
We might not be ready to do so now, and that is okay. We are all feeling the effects of the aftermath, and it can be tough to get a sense of perspective; in either victory or defeat.
However, in this edition of Two Guys on Your Head, Dr. Art Markman and Dr. Bob Duke, offer a few words of advice on how we can repair, forgive, and move on.
Texas Standard: November 10, 2016
Is governor Perry going to Washington after all? Why the president elect may be looking to Texas to fill some top jobs, we’ll explore. Also, a prominent congressman from Texas tells us the Senate should kill the filibuster. Not that there’s no precedent for such a rule change, as Senate democrats may recall. Plus Wendy Davis tells us this week’s vote stands for something perhaps less obvious: the need for a new focus on education. We’ll hear her explanation and the potential for a democrat challenge to Ted Cruz in 2018. And tips for your weekend getaway, how to eat tacos and write about them too and much more, today on the Texas Standard:
The Ticket: Post-Election Chat
The Psychology of Civic Engagement – Live
Everything from what motivates people to vote, to why we’re much more politically polarized today than we’ve ever been. In this discussion, KUT’s Two Guys on Your Head (Dr. Art Markman and Dr. Bob Duke) joins KUT’s Rebecca McInroy and The Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life to take a look at “The Psychology of Civic Engagement.”
V&B – The Psychology of Civic Engagement
Everything from what motivates people to vote, to why we’re much more politically polarized today than we’ve ever been. In this discussion, KUT’s Rebecca McInroy joins KUT’s Two Guys on Your Head (Dr. Art Markman and Dr. Bob Duke) and The Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life to take a look at “The Psychology of Civic Engagement.”