KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts
KUT and KUTX news and music podcasts for Austin, Texas and beyond
After months of stalemate, are the Texas House and Senate finally making progress on school spending?
For millions of years, the bones of a tiny dinosaur lay undisturbed in what are now the shores of Lake Grapevine. We’ll learn about a new species.
El Paso residents are concerned about the growing number of high-speed chases in their city.
And: Are city parks set to decline? A new law could make it tougher for urban areas to procure parkland.
Bath time, teeth brushing, stories, songs. The little one seems all settled — and then — a scream, a call, a cry. What could possibly be the matter? That was the inspiration of this Typewriter Rodeo poem.
As March rolls in, the effects of the February winter storm continue to ripple across rural Texas. We’ll have a conversation with local officials. Also, a new month, the rent is due, and the home is still a wreck broken pipes, to water damage and worse. Any of this sound familiar? What are your rights? We’ll get answers from an expert. Also a new COVID-19 vaccine gets federal approval. What it means for Texans waiting to get the shot. And the state’s biggest university temporarily waves the SAT and ACT requirement. The shape of longer-term things to come in higher ed? And Texas researchers connect the dots on dinosaur extinction. All those stories and more today on the Texas Standard:
Defense Department Money reallocated to build a border wall gets the green light from the U.S. Supreme Court. What the decision means for Texas. Plus, one of the longest serving members of the Trump administration steps down, and a Texas congressman being talked about as his replacement as the new director of national intelligence, we’ll have details. And give me a home where the cattle won’t roam? The Texas attorney general gets tapped to weigh in on a fight over keeping cattle at home on the range:
Texas Democrats and Republicans introducing legislation to stop the separation of families illegally entering the U.S. With all eyes on what’s happening in South Texas right now, lawmakers of both parties now scrambling to push legislation to deal with whats been described as a humanitarian crisis. But will the bills make a real difference, or is it just for political show as the outrage grows? We’ll take a closer look at what’s being proposed. Also a troubling new report on first responders and suicide, we’ll take a look. And encouraging news to tackle climate change: taking carbon out of the air… is it for real? And if so, how soon will it happen? Those stories and more today on the Texas Standard:
This time Charlottesville, next time College Station? The warning from white nationalists and the pushback from students, we’ll have the latest. Also, while you were sleeping or trying to avoid the blazing heat: the Texas legislature mopping up last minute business as the special session enters its closing hours. We’ll take a look at what’s passed and what hasn’t. Plus: ready-fire-aim: a gun adopted by scores of police departments raises concerns in Dallas and Houston, concerned about accidental discharges. And what’s a small town to do when there aren’t enough kids for the football team? Six man football struggles with a stigma. Those stories and so much more today on the Texas Standard:
In red state Texas, is Senator Ted Cruz concerned about a challenge from a Democrat? You Beto believe it. We’ll explore. Also a listener asks whether in Texas politics, it’s possible for one ordinary person to make a difference? Our correspondent answers with not one but five suggestions. And the Keystone pipeline gets the green light but why would Mexico be worried about that? So a few extra pounds or more, diet? No live it. Research shows America’s surrendering the battle of the bulge. And Fort Worth: film capitol of Texas? A lone star director shoots for the moon. All that and a whole lot more today on the Texas Standard:
First it was federal prisons. Now, what could be a sea change in how the US handles families crossing the border. Also can Texas hold it’s liquor laws? A sobering challenge from the nation’s biggest brick and mortar retailer, and billions of dollars in the balance. Plus in advance of a major storm expected on the gulf, the state’s insurer of last resort finds itself in the eye of a storm over rate hikes…or more precisely, a lack thereof. And the winds of change for Corpus Christi? How a longtime staple of the economy could get blown away by a wind farm. Plus what college credit has to do with the compass…and a whole lot more. Today on the Texas Standard:
Another attack. Again in France. At least two Americans killed, reports they were Texans. We’re following that. Also in this country… ongoing tensions in police-community relations. A Texas leader calling out the President for his reactions to recent events. And funding for fighting Zika… what Texas can expect from Washington. Plus a Texas Youth Orchestra takes its talent overseas… performing classical pieces in the cities where they were written. And a new study may have you questioning everything you thought you knew about dinosaurs. Also why we may soon be seeing more of those loud law office commercials. Those stories and lots more today on the Texas Standard:
On these warm summer nights, I see them often as I drive home on FM 803. They sometimes stop, frozen for a few seconds, their eyes reflecting my headlights in an eerie red – and then they dash off into giant clumps of prickly pear, where predators can’t follow.
The Spaniards named them armadillos – “the little armored ones.” It was a term of affection and all who have lived in this land called Texas ever since have been fond of them. To me, they are the small animal version of an armored-up Humvee. And they are truly armored. A man in east Texas shot one with a .38 caliber pistol and the bullet ricocheted off the armadillo’s thick plating and hit the man in the face. He recovered. The armadillo could not be found.
They are impressive survivors. In fact, in the land before Texas, four million years ago, their distant relatives roamed the earth. The original armadillos, called glyptodons, reached a weight of two tons, about the size of a white rhino. Plus, they had club-like spiky tails. If they were running around Texas today, we wouldn’t have roadkill, we’d have car kill. We’d call them armadigantes – armored giants. We’d need thick steel fences for them, probably electrified like those in the original Jurassic Park movie. Not sure you’d want to go home with the armadillo in such circumstances.
Speaking of Jurassic Park, scientists, perhaps inspired by a scene from that film, compared the fossil remains of ancient glyptodons, to our modern armadillos. In 2016, two geneticists analyzed the ancient DNA of a glyptodon, comparing it with that of modern armadillos and found evidence that they are directly related. Why the original was so large or why its descendants became miniaturized is an unsolved mystery.
In Texas, the nine-banded armadillo is the most common, and down in South America they have what we now call “giant armadillos.” But they’re only six feet long if you include the tail, and weigh 70 pounds. Still, if I saw one of those around here, I think I would go the other way.
At the other end of the scale is the fairy armadillo, also from South America. It is only about four inches long and pink. You could hold it in the palm of your hand. Though our Texas armadillo can’t roll into a perfect ball, like the Brazilian three-banded one, it does have this special ability: the females give birth to four identical quadruplets every time, producing as many as 16 pups in a lifetime. Bet they’re glad they don’t have to send them all to college.
The Texas armadillo – the nine-banded one – has certainly worked its way into iconic status here. There are armadillo t-shirts, tattoos galore, armadillo lamps (no armadillos hurt in the making of the lamps), armadillo campers and trailers and armadillo restaurants that don’t serve armadillo. However, during the Great Depression, an era many blamed on President Herbert Hoover, food was scarce, and many people in Texas hunted and ate armadillos, calling them “poor man’s pork” or “Hoover hogs.” Later on, people blamed leprosy in Texas on armadillo meat.
No doubt, the best-known armadillo business, open from 1970-1980, was the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin. The nightclub was named after the armadillo in order to commemorate the fact that it was located in the old National Guard Armory. Though long out of business, the Armadillo World Headquarters helped lay the foundation for the world-class live music scene that thrives in Austin today.
To properly honor all the positive influences of the armadillo’s mystique in Texas, the 1995 legislature declared the nine-banded armadillo the official State Small Mammal of Texas. The law reads in part:
WHEREAS: …The armadillo, is a hardy, pioneering creature that chose to begin migrating here at about the time that Texas became a state; and
WHEREAS: The armadillo possesses many remarkable and unique traits, some of which parallel the attributes that distinguish a true Texan, such as a deep respect and need for the land, the ability to change and adapt, and a fierce undying love for freedom; and;
WHEREAS: [The armadillo is] a proud and indomitable as the state from which it hails.
RESOLVED: That the 74th Legislature of the State of Texas hereby . . . designate(s) the armadillo as the official Small State Mammal of Texas.
The Texas Longhorn was made the Official Large State Mammal in the same legislation.
And then we also have the unofficial honoring of the little armored ones in a famous song written by Gary P. Nunn. So the Armadillo is distinguished by legislation, protected by law, and immortalized in song. Is Texas a great country or what?