KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts
KUT and KUTX news and music podcasts for Austin, Texas and beyond
American history sometimes snuggles up close with what might be better termed American mythology. Take that story about a young George Washington chopping down a cherry tree.
But other bits of history based quite a bit more in fact are less well known — though just as extraordinary.
Texas Standard commentator WF Strong offers up one such story.
January 13, 2016
The Texas Rancher and the New York Banker
This story comes under the heading of “folklore,” a story that rises up out of the people and migrates and mutates. There is a New York version, a Jewish version, an Italian version, a Southern version and a Texas version, where I believe it originated, but that is likely because I am a Texan. It […]
Listen
December 30, 2015
The Story of James Dean and the Shamrock Hotel
James Dean – in the movie “Giant” – tells Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor that he has struck oil. And not only that, it’s payback time. James Dean was playing Jett Rink, a hard drinkin’, brawlin’, tough-talkin’ uncultured Texas wildcatter who struck it rich. But everybody in Texas knew that he was really playing Glen […]
Listen
December 16, 2015
Here’s An Apple Pie Recipe For Any Texan Holiday
Every Christmas my mom would bake eight pies: four apple and four pecan. Now, we wouldn’t eat all of those ourselves. Two would be given away to pie-less people and two would be placed in the deep freeze for some emergency of the future. Pies and money were similar in my mom’s mind. Save a […]
Listen
December 2, 2015
What You Might Not Know About the Texas Constitution
If you want to hold public office in Texas, you have to believe in God. You cannot serve even as dog catcher – if it’s an elected office, you must believe in God. Given the long history we have had of con artists, and scofflaws, carpetbaggers, and white-collar criminals holding public office around the state, […]
Listen
November 19, 2015
One Texan In The Global Village
There is an unusual map of the world that was once a popular poster. You still see it around in many places because it is a map that makes you see the world in new ways. This map reduces the world’s 7.3 billion people to a village of just 100 people. It keeps all the […]
Listen
November 4, 2015
6 Reasons Texas Is Better Than Alaska
There’s a popular bumper sticker up there in Alaska that says, “Making Texans Mad Since 1959.” That’s loosely translated — otherwise I couldn’t say it on the radio The allusion is, of course, to the fact that when Alaska became a state, Texas immediately got demoted to second biggest state. No doubt Alaska is geographically […]
Listen
October 21, 2015
The Top 12 Quotes From ‘Lonesome Dove’
Spoiler alert! In case you’ve been under a rock in Ogallala for the last three decades, this story contains spoilers for “Lonesome Dove.” Since I am, like many Texans, an amateur expert on “Lonesome Dove,” people often ask me what I figure are the most loved quotes from the miniseries. If I were wise, I […]
Listen
October 7, 2015
When the Young Lieutenant Met the Wild Mustangs
He was 22 years old, riding his horse south of Corpus Christi in the vicinity of what would one day be called the King Ranch. But that wouldn’t happen for another twenty years. This vast stretch of sandy prairie was still known as “The Wild Horse Desert.” In some ways it was a spooky place […]
Listen
