The latest issue of The Texas Observer tells how historic black gospel recordings are in danger of being lost and one man's campaign to save them.
Robert Darden, a former Billboard gospel music editor turned professor of journalism at Baylor University, has started the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project. Michael Hoinski talks with Darden about his work, a task so difficult and lengthy that it will likely outlive Darden himself.
Other stories in this issue include:
Feature - Letters from prison
When convicts enter the prison system, they enter a world beyond the comprehension of civilians. This issue features two submissions from prisoners serving time in state prisons. Both convicted to long term sentences, these men write with eloquence, poetry, and anger about their unseen lives and about the paths that lead them to incarceration. Photographs by Alan Pogue.
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Editorial: Break the Chain
More than 700,000 Texans are either behind bars or on probation. If state leaders and prison officials consciously set out to create the least effective, most destructive, fiscally unsound prison system possible, they probably couldn't match the irrationality of the Texas model.
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Texas Political Intelligence
Fencing over the Fence Tucked into the 2005 federal Real ID Act is a little-noticed provision with major implications for South Texas. Section 102 gives the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security unprecedented power to suspend any law that stands in the way of building a wall along the border. Privatization Pains The walking wounded gathered in a small town north of Houston, on October 27. They weren't soldiers, but representatives of military contractors in Iraq who feel they aren't receiving the medical treatment and disability benefits they deserve. Home Alone State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh (D-El Paso) calls it an approaching tsunami. In 2008, more than $300 billion worth of volatile subprime home loans will spike to higher interest rates nationwide, and a torrent of foreclosures will likely follow. In Texas, the effect may be severe.
www.texasobserver.org
Books
Thomas Palaima looks at A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency, Glen Greenwald's analysis of the rise and fall of the Bush administration.
www.texasobserver.org
The Cubin Engigma
Paul Christensen compares three books (Ismaelillo, Before Fidel: The Cuba I Remember, and Closed for Repairs) that plot a trajectory in the tormented life of Cuba, the island at our back door and one of the great enigmas of the American political imagination.
www.texasobserver.org
Afterword - CONFESSIONS OF AN EX-PROTESTOR
Outraged by the war in Iraq and the actions of President Bush, Emily DePrang began protesting as a student at The University of Texas. These protests gave her a sense of comfort and community. Then she was arrested and jailed. Hailed as a hero, she found her efforts empty and profoundly reevaluated how to bring peace to the world.
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And, of course, Jim Hightower's column, poetry, and more...
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