For a moment, you might think there has been an unfortunate accident. But, upon closer inspection, you realize: that critter is not dead — it’s simply trying to cool off in the Texas heat! That was the inspiration for this Typewriter Rodeo poem.
texas
Texas Standard: July 17, 2018
It’s being called by some treasonous; more and more Republicans now breaking with the President. Words matter. We’ll try to decode them. Also, MS-13, a hyper violent gang from Central America at the center of a new litmus test in U.S. politics. How much of a threat does the gang really pose in the Lone Star State? And how the zero-tolerance border backlash has put some San Antonio lawyers in the national spotlight raising 20 million dollars to help separated families. Plus in our spotlight on health: what looks like a psychiatrist shortage in west Texas. And east Texas bugs beware: the mosquito assassins are in the air. Those stories and so much more today on the Texas Standard:
Texas Standard: July 16, 2018
Testimony gets underway today in a challenge to Texas’ fetal burial law: a law that some believe is really designed to undermine abortion providers, we’ll have details. Also, half the kids under the age of five separated from their families under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance plan have now been reunite. But with a court-ordered deadline to complete reunifications fast approaching, we’ll take you to El Paso where people are trying to put families back together. And the toll of tariffs on Texas businesses. Plus attracting businesses and creating Texas jobs: how well do incentives really work? Those stories and so much more today on the Texas Standard:
Texas Standard: July 13, 2018
Can the U.S. reduce the number of asylum seekers without leaving them in limbo? Talks underway today with Mexico, we’ll explore the plan and its prospects. Also, if you’re traveling from Dallas to the Texas capitol in 20 minutes, you sure ain’t on IH-35. Instead, it’s the promise of a planned new transport system call the hyperloop. But how much of it is hype? And round up the herbicides. Texas A&M develops a clever way to kill the weeds currently choking Texas cotton growers. Plus state versus city: headed soon for the courts? Also the week in Texas politics with the Texas Tribune and much more today on the Standard:
A Well-Chewed Pen
If you’re someone with an oral fixation, you’ll relate to the panic felt when someone asks to borrow a writing utensil. That was the inspiration for this Typewriter Rodeo poem.
The Armadillo’s Texas Roots Reach Back To Ancient Times
Texas Standard: July 10, 2018
With a Kavanaugh on the court, what does that mean for Texas?
Coming up, a scholar on politics and the law from Rice University weighs in on how the new Supreme Court nominee might tilt the balance on issues that have become hot buttons in Texas politics.
Also, Todd Gilmann on the Dallas Morning News, with more on what happens next and the role for Texas’ two senators…
Is Texas too small for two vet schools? A&M says yes, Texas Tech says rubbish- or something quite like that.
Also, songwriting legend Radney Foster, conjunto like your grandad never knew- and the rest of what’s making news in Texas on this Tuesday.
Texas Standard: July 9, 2018
The president announces his choice for the Supreme Court -but is it his pick or someone elses? A brief history of high court picks and how tonight fits in- today on the Standard.
The Attorney General spends half a million dollars on expert testimony defending the state’s abortion restrictions. How much bang for the buck? You might be surprised –the Houston Chronicle’s Alejandra Matos joins us.
Help wanted signs dot the oilfields, not enough men to fill the jobs, the push is on for more women. And now something that may make the work a bit for comfortable for those new female roughnecks.
Plus, what a so-called failed school in Houston could teach the rest of Texas.
Texas Standard: July 6, 2018
Washington imposes tariffs on its biggest trading partner, China fires back with duties of its own. This means trade war–but what does it mean for Texas? That’s today on the Standard.
As Stevie Ray might say, “stranded caught in the crossfire”. We’ll explore possible collateral damage to the Texas economy as the result of this new trade war.
South Korea invaded- by fire ants. Now officials are calling on some expert advice- from Texans, of course. How A&M’s hoping to soften the sting on the Korean peninsula.
All that, plus the week that was in Texas politics, Dave Alvin of Blasters fame along with celebrated Flatlander Jimmie Dale Gilmore and more and more.
What Was That Roadkill?
It was gone way before you got there, all that’s left are clues — and smells. That was the inspiration for this Typewriter Rodeo poem.
Texas Standard: July 3, 2018
Worried about a second American civil war? If it’s war we’re worried about, we may be facing the wrong direction. As Russia hosts the World Cup, no one seems to be paying attention to what the Kremlin is doing this moment in Syria: a bombing campaign and a fight that could eclipse the battle for Aleppo. Why few seem to care, and is that not Vladmir Putin’s calculus? Also, great expectations among Texans as they consider the promises of Mexico’s president elect. And the scourge of diabetes among hispanics in Texas, we’ll have details. And remembering the long forgotten trains that ferried orphans to America’s west. All that and much more on today’s Texas Standard:
Weeds
The nemesis of every gardener was the inspiration for this Typewriter Rodeo poem.
Texas Standard: June 28, 2018
The end of Rowe versus Wade? Not so fast say a Texas law scholar and a former law clerk to retiring Justice Kennedy, we’ll explore. And conventional wisdom has it that Kennedy’s likely successor on the court will be an ideological opponent of the landmark 1973 abortion rights decision. But in the end, such a challenge might not turn on Kennedy’s successor, we’ll hear why. And first it was bags, but now that Texas bag bans have been trashed in a court challenge, the spotlight turns to plastic straws, we’ll take a look at the latest. Also, digital savant Omar Gallaga with summer tech for kids. Those stories and so much more today on the Texas Standard:
Pink Cadillacs And Lucky 13: How Mary Kay Ash Built A Billion-Dollar Business
We have had dozens of rags-to-riches stories in Texas. These Horatio Algers had hardscrabble beginnings but built fortunes worth hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars.
But unfortunately – at this point, anyway – most of them have been male. So the women who did it were all the more impressive because they had headwinds to fight that others didn’t. They had higher mountains to climb. Makes me think of Ann Richards’ famous line: “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.”
Mary Kay Ash was one of those women.
Mary Kay already had a highly successful career with Stanley Home Products before beginning her empire, but that success was not recognized or rewarded. Twice, she was passed over for promotions in favor of men she had trained. Salt in the wound for sure. So she retired early, at 45, and went home to write an advice book for women in business on how to survive in a world of men. About halfway through that book she had a eureka moment. She realized that she had written a remarkable business plan. So with her husband and $5,000 in savings, she decided to launch Beauty by Mary Kay.
Sadly, just a month before the grand opening, her husband, George Hallenbeck, died. It was then that most all the men in her life – banker, minister, relatives – told her that she should forget about the business idea. Too risky. But she said no. She believed in her concept. It would work.
So on Friday the 13th – September 1963 – with the help of her son Richard, she opened Mary Kay Cosmetics in Dallas. From that day on, Mary Kay considered 13 her lucky number. Now that’s staring down superstition. The Mary Kay World Headquarters is 13 stories tall. It has 13 elevators and Mary Kay’s office is on the 13th floor, where it remains as she left it when she passed away in 2001.
Mary Kay built a company of, by, and for women. She wanted to create a business that would enrich women and help them achieve genuine success, to reap unlimited rewards, and to enjoy meaningful recognition for their excellence. Many women of her time, she said, “had not had any applause since they graduated from high school or college.” She would change that.
Meaningful recognition was not an “atta girl” on the last line of a corporate memo. She wanted women to feel the joy of being recognized and celebrated. She wanted them to have their own businesses, to be independent consultants. And when they were successful, they would be rewarded with loud ovations at corporate conventions, diamond-studded tennis bracelets, all expense paid trips to Paris where they’d stay at the Ritz and be chauffeured to the Louvre, and at home they would drive their own shiny pink Cadillacs.
And if they were in Germany, it would be a pink Mercedes. I made a pitch for Pink Pickup Trucks or Pink Suburbans for the Texas Consultants. They’re thinking about it, but I doubt seriously.
May Kay believed that the best way to empower women was to enrich them. But she wasn’t talking only about money; she meant emotionally and spiritually as well.
Anne Crews, who is a Mary Kay Vice President for public affairs and a board member of the Mary Kay Foundation, told me that when you would sit and talk with Mary Kay, you were the only person she saw. She looked you straight in the eye. It didn’t matter what was going on around her. She never talked to you from behind her desk, but would sit with you on her couch. She was warm and personable and genuine, seeing in you what you perhaps did not see in yourself. Her central belief was that there were unlimited opportunities to reach inward and achieve more.
That is why her corporate symbol was the bumblebee. “The bumblebee is aerodynamically incapable of flight,” she often observed, “but someone forgot to tell the the bumblebee.” This fit with her personal prime directive: “to help women see how great they really were.”
Mary Kay had perhaps an unusual mission statement, for a corporation. It was quite simply Matthew 7:12 – the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” She believed that if everyone followed that rule, from top to bottom, in and outside the company, success would certainly follow. She frequently told the Independent beauty consultants to put that rule to work every day with their clients.
So what started small in Dallas, Texas, grew bigger than Dallas. Bigger than Texas. It grew all over the world to over 3 million independent beauty consultants in Russia, China, Norway, Peru – nearly 40 countries – doing over $3.5 billion dollars of business a year. What started small in Texas changed the world. That is why Mary Kay Ash was chosen by Baylor University as the Greatest Female Entrepreneur in U. S. History.
And her work for women has continued since her passing. She established the Mary Kay Foundation in 1996 to work on finding cures for cancers affecting women. The mission, says Anne Crews, has since expanded to prevent violence against women and children. Since 2000, the Mary Kay Foundation has made gifts of nearly $50 million to domestic violence shelters across America, including dozens in Texas.
Mary Kay said that she wanted to live her life so that in the end, people would say “she cared.” Given the phenomenal number of women whose lives she’s enriched, I don’t know how there would be any other conclusion.
Texas Standard: June 26, 2018
Critics call it the tent city at Tornillo, now set to be dismantled. Is it a sign of a policy change or strictly a business decision? We’ll explore. Also, you’ll get your kids back if you sign this paper to deport yourself. That’s the claim being made by some detainees and their attorneys at a detention center south of Houston. The Texas Tribune got the story, we’ll talk with one of the reporters. And a win for Texas before the Supreme Court and what it means for future legal claims over race discrimination. Also the populist, nationalist, politically incorrect candidate polls say is set to win Mexico’s election: and how he could change fortunes in Texas. All that and much more today on the Texas Standard:
Texas Standard: June 20, 2018
How much longer? If there’s growing bipartisan opposition to the policy of separating families at the border, why isn’t congress stepping in? Today on the Standard, Democratic Congressman Vicente Gonzalez of McCallen joins us to talk about gridlock in Washington and heartbreak on the border. Also, fears of an all out trade war with China rising. How it might play out in our own backyard. And how do you spell dynasty? T-E-X-A-S. A Lone Star sweep of the national spelling championships gets people wondering what’s in the water? We’ll find out. And 50 years after the landmark documentary Hunger in America turned a spotlight on San Antonio, we’ll explore its lasting impact. All of that and so much more today on the Texas Standard:
KUT Weekend – June 15, 2018
Texas Republicans hold their first convention since Donald Trump became president. Plus, the Democrat trying to defeat Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. And why can’t you swim in Lady Bird Lake? Those stories and more in this edition of KUT Weekend!
Subscribe at https://weekend.kut.org
Texas Standard: June 15, 2018
A huge lawsuit targeting an entire range of abortion restrictions in Texas. An organizer calls it the big fix, the state says it’s going nowhere. The story coming up on the Texas Standard.
Cities across the lone star state have instituted plastic bag bans–are those laws about to be trashed? A whole lot rides on three little words. We’ll hear why–and what they are.
Also, one year after America’s biggest online retailer announced it was purchasing Texas based Whole Foods- what’s happened to the store’s foodie culture? And what changes are happening in the grocery biz?
Plus the week in Texas politics with the Texas Tribune and a whole lot more.
Swarms of Daddy Long Legs
Did you ever reach up onto a shelf in a back yard storage shed, or get too close to the eaves of the house while standing on a ladder? Chances are you’ve met a few daddy long legs. That was the inspiration for this Typewriter Rodeo poem.
Texas Standard: June 14, 2017
File under “Texas Two Step”: Texas sues to terminate DACA, the federal government says it won’t fight back. Any guesses who’ll win? The story today on the Texas Standard.
Pete Williams of NBC News tells us about the lawsuit playing out in a Texas courtroom that could do a stealthy end run around orders to keep deferred action for childhood arrivals the law of the land.
Hurricane help from above? The Texas-made satellite that might save lives.
As the World Cup kicks off in Russia, a Texas researcher claims he can tell you the champion today. We’ll hear what’s in his algorithm.
And the virtual battle for your video box getting all too real at E3. Digital savant Omar Gallaga joins us and a whole lot more today on the 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?