New Year

How the New Year’s focus on dieting can have a negative impact

The National Weather Service issued a wind advisory for much Texas as a massive storm moves across the United States. We have the latest on conditions statewide.

Friends, family and colleagues of the late longtime congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson are gathering in Dallas today to reflect on her legacy.

Made any New Year’s resolutions? The Standard’s Sarah Asch looks into how the body positivity movement has challenged longstanding messages about health and dieting.

A major baby formula recall is sparking concerns among families and politicians.

And remembering legendary Texas journalist Stanley Walker.

A look back at the stories that shaped Texas in 2022

New laws that took effect, decisions from the courts that made history, the fight for social justice and more; it’s 2022 in review. With the Texas Legislature set to reconvene in just days, it’s worth looking back at how much Texas changed over the past 12 months, and what those changes may tell us about what’s to come in the new year. We’ll turn a spotlight on politics and a campaign season that didn’t turn out as expected, the economy, technology and much more as we reconsider the year that was across miles and miles of the Texas, today on the Texas Standard:

New Year

Is the start of a New Year a clean slate? Or does it come with unreasonable expectations? This Typewriter Rodeo poem invites us to not overthink it — and just jump in.

Making Change Stick

It’s that time of the year when we resolve to drink less, exercise more, save money, etc. It may feel really good to intend to do “better” in the new year, but as Dr. Art Markman and Dr. Bob Duke discuss in this episode of Two Guys on Your Head, real change takes planning and hard work. Why is that?

It turns out we have no idea why we do most of the things we do on a daily basis. And as long as our behaviors are driven by factors that operate below our conscious awareness, we may not know how to change. As the Two Guys point out, effective change can happen when we start from the outside in. When we look at our environments first we can make space and cultivate relationships that help us become our best selves.

The Texas Standard’s favorite stories of the year

After a year covering miles and miles of Texas, what did our producers pick as standout stories? With a new year dawning, we asked our team of producers and reporters to hand pick some of the standout stories we’ve shared over the past 12 months. From amateur astronomers making celestial discoveries to a reconsideration of labor leader Cesar Chavez, and a mysterious tradition involving a certain Sam Houston. We offer a collection of unforgettable voices and tales from 2022 today on the Texas Standard:

Merry Listmas!

It’s the last Breaks podcast of 2022! To celebrate, Confucius and Fresh debate the importance of end-of-the-year lists and discuss their hopes and predictions for 2023.

You’ll learn Christmas Hip-Hop Facts about the songs “Santa Claus Goes Straight to the Ghetto,” “All I Want For Christmas is You,” “This Christmas” and more.

Fresh States the Unpopular Opinion that people don’t have to be formally trained in hip-hop to be considered professional rappers.

Confucius talks about the trial of Megan Thee Stallion and Torey Lanez, the outcry over Brittney Griner‘s release, Gunna’s release from prison, and more.

 

Resowhat?

It’s the time of year when many people try to reset, make ambitious goals, or aim to try something new — or not. That was the inspiration for this Typewriter Rodeo poem.

Farewell 2020

It has been a bit of a rough year. Some might say, “dumpster fire.” This Typewriter Rodeo poem is a (not-so-fond) farewell.

Quitting Facebook

Many of us threaten to do it, but most don’t go through with quitting Facebook. Leaving the social media site that connects us virtually with so many people can sometimes leave us feeling even more isolated, but it just might be what we need to feel more connected in real life. That was the inspiration of this Typewriter Rodeo poem.

The New Year & Responsibility

Reflecting on 2018 and welcoming 2019, Rabbi and jazz historian Neil Blumofe connects jazz and reinvention, then recites “New Year’s Recipe” by Carlos Drummond de Andrade.

Music: Art Tatum – “Prisoner of Love”

New Year’s Eve

How do you celebrate? Or do you? That was the inspiration for this Typewriter Rodeo poem.

Texas Standard: January 3, 2018

North Korea wants to re-open communication with South Korea, and protests in Iran raise tensions. We’ll explore how the U-S might balance these dual crises. Also, the flu is going around. Doctors say wash your hands, stay home when you’re sick and, yes, get the flu shot – even though it might not protect you. Plus, if you’ve been on the roads at all this holiday season you might have this question: why do Texans speed so much? We’ll try to answer it. And a question for you: hows that New Year’s Resolution going? Feel like you’re about to burn through your self-control already? Some advice from Texas researchers about to keep your motivation battery running. Those stories and a whole lot more on todays Texas Standard:

On The 20th Century, And The 22nd

With 2018 upon upon us, let’s look 100 years back at 1918, and let’s make some guesses about the coming year.

In 1918, there were fewer than 250,000 vehicles on the road in Texas. No driver’s license was required, by the way. Given that there were only about 5 million of us back then, we had one vehicle for every 20 people. That made getting to the family reunion a tight squeeze.

Today there are 22 million vehicles on the road in Texas – sometimes I think all of them are in the I-35 corridor when I’m there. There are 28 million Texans. Subtract the children and you have damnear one vehicle for every Texan of driving age. Since 1918, cars and trucks have proliferated far faster than Texans. We’ve seen a twenty-fold increase in vehicles and only a 6-fold increase in people. We’re adding cars and trucks faster than we’re making Texans.

In 1918, World War I ended. Incidentally, it was called The Great War then. It didn’t become WW I until we had a WW II, which created the unique war labeling. Many people have been talking about WW III for some time but fortunately, nobody has been able to produce it yet.

A million Texans registered for the draft and 200,000 fought in the Great War. Texas volunteerism was high, perhaps because Germany had offered Mexico a deal in the Zimmermann Telegram. They said that if Mexico threw in with Germany, Germany would help them get Texas back.

5200 Texans died during the war. About a third of them died from the other devastating event of that year, the influenza pandemic, better known as the Spanish Flu. It was particularly sad that we had soldiers survive four years of unholy trench warfare and mustard gas only to come home to die of the flu.

The Spanish Flu was unusual in that 20-40 year old adults were most at risk rather than children and old people. A common story of the time was of four healthy women who played bridge late into the night. They went to bed and the next morning, three were dead.

Children who survived the flu that year, some believe, went on to live healthier lives than most because they developed powerful immunities. My mother had the flu when she was eigh years old. She lived to be almost 102. She was in good company: Walt Disney had it, Woodrow Wilson had it, and so did Texas novelist Katherine Ann Porter, who later wrote a novella based on the epidemic called “Pale Horse, Pale Rider.”

A study by Vanderbilt University in 2008 found that people like my mom still had the Spanish Flu antibodies, working hard 90 years after they had the flu.

Texas cities like El Paso were particularly hard-hit, partially because of Fort Bliss, the military base there. 600 people died in El Paso, almost 1 percent of the population, and many more, of course, survived the flu.

Today, we have the flu vaccine, which was invented by Jonas Salk and Thomas Francis in 1933. So though a pandemic of the 1918 variety is not impossible, most experts feel it is highly unlikely. But we cannot say the same for World Wars. It always seems one surprise assassination of an obscure archduke away.

Turning to the future, what will Texas look like in 100 years, in 2118? All one can do is look at trends and guess. As Peter Drucker said, “Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights on while looking out the back window.” So with that warning, let’s try anyway.

If we go by the futurists at Google, we can predict that there will be fewer cars on the road, per capita, than now. We will have many types of public transportation such as self-driving buses and cars. Fewer people will own their own cars and trucks in the future. Experts believe we will simply hail self-driving taxis using some future version of smart phones which probably won’t be called phones anymore. I wonder if we will have taxi pickup trucks, nicely lifted, with an occasional set of longhorns strapped to the front, just for nostalgia.

I asked former official State Demographer of Texas, Steve Murdock (everybody’s go-to guy for the future of Texas) what the Texas population would look like in 2118.

“If Texas continues to grow as it has in the recent past, one would expect it to increase its population to more than 80 million by 2118. This assumes that Texas will obtain technology and other factors to increase the water supply,” he said.

From this number, we can see that this would put us in the neighborhood of present-day Egypt for size and population.

Murdock also said that in the 2050-2060 decade, Texas will be about 55 percent Hispanic and 20 percent white. It’s hard to predict trends beyond that point. He said we need very much to ensure educational opportunity for all or we will not have the success in the century ahead that we enjoyed in the last one.

My personal guess is that Texas will be incredibly urban in 2118, as compared to today, particularly east of I-35. DFW, Houston and San Antonio will be super cities. Austin may well be a kind of giant suburb of San Antonio. It’s quite possible that San Antonio and Houston will fight over city limit signs.

If the big tech giants have the future properly envisioned, our cities like Dallas and Houston will be more people-friendly – pushing vehicles out of our streets and reclaiming many as green spaces for walking and biking and sports. And we will all have artificial intelligence robots.

I just hope the robots say things like “howdy” and “fixin’to” and “while I’m up, can I get y’all a beer?”

So Long, 2016

Well, the year is finally coming to a close, and it’s time to celebrate a new trip around the sun. There were bad times, and… good times…?

But 2016 is over and that’s all there is to say.

The Art of Resolution (12.29.13)

As we turn to the new year, what will be different? Look to jazz for the innovation and inspiration, for discovery and improvisation. It’s the core of what jazz represents. It can also be applied to the lives that we live and the dreams that we have in order to make things matter.