Central Texas top stories for September 11, 2024. State officials are considering whether to approve a new reading curriculum for elementary school students that includes Bible stories. Rent prices in Austin have continued to fall, even as rents in other large cities are going up. A mosquito infected with West Nile Virus was found in San Marcos last week, the mosquito season continues. Officials are honoring firefighters who were part of 9/11 rescue teams.
9/11
KUT Morning Newscast for January 13, 2023
Central Texas top stories for January 13, 2023. Austin ISD Superintendent search continues. AISD raising teacher pay. Leander ISD instructional materials. 911 holiday hold times. Abandoned oil and gas wells.
KUT Morning Newscast for December 9, 2022
Central Texas top stories for December 9, 2022. Austin Energy rate increase. Last day of early voting. Kyle runoff election. 911 staff shortages. Leander ISD staff retention bonus. Bijan Robinson wins Walker award.
Texas Standard: September 28, 2021
People of color accounted for 95% of Texas population boom in the last decade. What does this mean for political maps? Abby Livingston of the Texas Tribune helps us read between the boundary lines. Also hurricane season doesn’t end til November 30th, but is it already over for Texas? A team of Texas meteorologists with a bold prediction. And trouble for Houston’s former top cop Miami chief Art Acevedo…we’ll hear why. And the passing of a transformative force in higher education, remembering UTEP’s Diana Natalicio. Those stories and much more today on the Texas Standard:
Outcome Bias
A listener wrote in: “Please take a moment to address why September 11, 2001, is still a cultural touchstone, but February 26, 1993, was so easily forgotten.”
Thank you for the question Bob M. In this episode of Two Guys on Your Head, Dr. Art Markman and Dr. Bob Duke talk about remembering 9/11 and outcome bias.
Texas Standard: September 13, 2021
Making good on a threat: Texas is suing over school mask mandates. We’ll take a look at what we know about a lawsuit against six Texas school districts. Also tropical storm Nicholas is headed towards the Texas Gulf Coast. We’ll discuss what the state and coastal cities are doing now and the implications as oil production is still offline from Hurricane Ida in Louisiana. And twenty years ago today… a disaster along the South Texas Coast. Remembering the Queen Isabella Causeway Collapse. Plus the Republican Party and Texas are practically synonymous in current politics but things have changed over the decades. A look back today on the Texas Standard:
Texas Standard: September 10, 2021
The US attorney general says the Texas abortion law is one “all Americans should fear” in announcing a legal challenge to new abortion restrictions in Texas. We’ll hear about the justice departments plans. Plus officials hesitant to issue sweeping vaccine mandates out of fears of being sued may have it all wrong. So says a Texas scholar, we’ll hear why. And veterans, Gen-Z and 9/11… how different groups of Texans are reflecting on the attacks of 20 years ago. Plus the week in politics and much more today on the Texas Standard:
Texas Standard: September 2, 2021
The supreme court breaks its silence, refusing to block Texas’ new abortion law, which is one of the most restrictive measures in the nation. We’ll have the latest. Other stories we’re tracking: a legal challenge to Texas redistricting as two state senators members claim maps can’t be drawn in a special session, asking a judge to draw them instead. Plus memory and 20 years after 9-11. Also how Facebook hopes to take virtual office meetings to the next level… and how Texas may preserve its lead in wind energy by training a new generation to manage the growing number of turbines. All those stories and a whole lot more today on the Texas Standard:
Texas Standard: January 29, 2020
A race watched nationwide as a test of how well democrats are positioned to take the Texas house of representatives. We’ll take a closer look at the contest to replace and incumbent Texas house republican in district 28: why all the attention, and what the outcome does or does not tells us about changing politics in the Texas suburbs. Also, with only days till the caucuses, where do Texans stand in the presidential race? Brand new numbers from the respected Texas lyceum survey. Plus a Politifact check and a whole lot more today on the Texas Standard:
Texas Standard: September 12, 2018
This time, it’s for real: the National GOP worried that Beto O’Rourke has a real shot at tipping the balance on Capitol Hill. We’ll take a look at the details. Also, Bob Woodward’s book just out this week details chaos in the Trump Administration, but there’s nothing chaotic about the systematic dismantling of environmental regulations. What’s happening, and what it means for Texas. And Harvey dumped 127 billion tons of water on Texas last year: help from FEMA? A mere trickle so far. What’s holding things up? Plus kids at the center of a culture war over remembering the Alamo and so much more, today on the Texas Standard:
Texas Standard: March 16, 2017
A tweak to a plan to ban sanctuary cities statewide: one that could make a big difference at the side of the road, we’ll explore. Also jammed 911 lines blamed for two deaths in Dallas: is a cellphone glitch gumming up the whole emergency system? And a regulation aimed at preventing another west, suddenly headed south. What this means for efforts to safeguard chemical plants and the people who live near them. Also a crime problem so bad the city’s police chief says you can’t arrest your way out of this one. We’ll hear the backstory. And the latest effort to curb fake news: is that a robot editing your Facebook feed? All of that and lots more today on the Texas Standard:
Texas Standard: September 8, 2016
After 9/11 she left New York for Galveston. Her mission today: to get permission to sue the Saudis for the death of her husband, we’ll explore. Also voter ID restrictions in Texas. You thought they’d been overturned? Now the state’s back in court over the issue. What it means as election day fast approaches. And there’s oil near them there hills: a surprise find in far west Texas and an 8 Billion dollar would-be windfall that’s got the world talking. Plus nursing homes in Texas: reports of violations on the rise. An embarrassment to be sure, so why’s the industry almost trumpeting the bad news? Those stories and lots more today on the Texas Standard:
V&B – ISIS in Context
In this episode of Views & Brews, KUT’s Rebecca McInroy is joined in discussion with Jeremi Suri from the LBJ school of Public Affairs, Middle East Historian Yoav Di-Capua, and Stephennie Mulder, Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture, to talk about the rhetoric, the iconography, the mythology, and the history around the development of Isis. Who are they? What do they want? And why should we care?
War Memorials, Trauma and Identity
This month on In Perspective, our roundtable participants discuss public memory in relation to grief, war, and memorials such as the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Two of our guests represent that museum, which commemorates the September 11 attacks of 2001 and the World Trade Center bombing of 1993. Also joining us are two distinguished faculty from The University of Texas at Austin and by a call-in guest who is an assistant professor and filmmaker from Northwestern University.
The Discussion
Kyle Henry, MFA, is an assistant professor at Northwestern University. He is the editor of Heather Courtney’s 2012 film, Where Soldiers Come From, among many others. His latest documentary project, Half-Life of War (2014), explores war memorials and asks the question: Do we memorialize wars to remember, or do we construct monuments and memorials so that we can forget? In this discussion, Henry describes how he works to distill emotional realities through filmmaking in order to get at larger truths.
Clifford Chanin, director of education at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, discusses the significance of technology to how September 11th was experienced and how it is remembered in the museum. He addresses the question of whether or not memorials have particular life spans, and explains the dramatic change in the nature of memorials over the past several decades.
Jenny Pachucki, oral historian and assistant curator at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, shares what it means to speak about tragic events and the value of listening to each other’s recollections of where they were during historical moments. She explains that the exhibits bring together a vast array of remembrances and celebrate the victims’ lives, rather than attend only to their tragic passing.
Richard Flores, Ph.D., is a professor of anthropology and Mexican American studies at The University of Texas at Austin. He has written extensively on the topic of public memory, particularly in relation to Texas history and the Alamo. He helps frame the discussion of public memory and history with reference to the particular purposes served by myth-making and memorials. He explains how the distillation of events and lives toward the symbolic might also silence the voices of veterans and gloss over ongoing conflicts.
Tom Palaima, Ph.D., joins us from the department of classics at The University of Texas at Austin. He is a MacArthur fellow who focuses on Aegean prehistory and early Greek language and culture. He offers examples from Greek antiquity to give context to the discussion of early war memorials in the form of songs and epics. Palaima categorizes memorials as one of two varieties: those created to benefit those affected by the war, such as veterans and their families; and those created to benefit the state and national identity.
What’s your perspective?
These In Perspective participants together question how we deal with the trauma of terrorism and war, how we might mourn collectively, and why we build public memorials. They seek to understand and to teach an understanding of public memory and the human costs of war. At the Texas Humanities Project, we hope that this engagement with war and public memory from a variety of points of view in the humanities will spark thoughtful discussion among listeners about the impacts of memory and memorials in your lives.
Check back this time next month for our third In Perspective roundtable.