The Taos-ification of Marfa

For anyone who has spent time in West Texas -- and it's always capitalized as if it is its own country, because it is -- the region leaves a singular impression, no matter where you've been; Big Bend, Terlingua, Fort Davis and Balmorhea, and certainly Marfa and the Lights. Rustic, remote, desolate, its sprawling sparseness -- "wide open spaces", as the cowboys (and girls) sing -- always seemed, to me, to be at the very end of the Earth.

Or so I thought. Salon notifies us it's being taken over by the Californians:

A classic Western showdown has come to the hottest little town in the country. Set amid the cedar-shaded, yucca-dotted lands of West Texas, surrounded by grasslands as wide as the Serengeti, Marfa may be the last un-Starbucked place in America. In the past few years, a covey of A-list artists, corporate players and real estate speculators have descended on the tiny town (pop. 2,121). Enchanted by its spare beauty -- think "The Last Picture Show" with a Christian Liagre makeover -- they're also drawn by elite cultural institutions like the Chinati Foundation, dedicated to hip installation art, and the Lannan Foundation, a prestigious literary organization.

Trailing in the trendsetters' wake has been the national media. Marfa's press clips glow like newly lit luminaria. Publications such as Vanity Fair, Elle and ArtForum venerate Marfa's Victorian ranch houses and Texas Territorial adobes, the burgeoning art scene and its rich patrons. The movie "Giant" was filmed in Marfa 50 years ago, when its stars James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson could be seen kicking around town. These days, the scene makers include Dan Rather, Frances McDormand, Dwight Yoakam and Tommy Lee Jones. A National Public Radio station is coming. The real estate madness already has. Four years ago, Marfa adobes were selling for $40,000. They're now $200,000 and no doubt a good deal higher after the recent New York Times story, "The Great Marfa Land Boom."

It's a familiar pattern. Western havens like Aspen, Colo., Taos, N.M., and Missoula, Mont., were Marfas once, playgrounds for coast-hugging hipsters who could slip into jeans and the rustic camaraderie of the outback. But those towns are full up now, victims of their popularity. Now the sagebrush Medici come to Texas, piloting the corporate Gulfstream into tiny Marfa Municipal airport and bellying up to the jes-folks atmosphere of Joe's Bar, where the Bud Light costs $1.75. The town remains an aesthete's dream, devoid of Olive Gardens, Best Buys and any sign of the suburban middle class. Rather, Marfa is the honest texture of adobe and fine art set against a big sky. It's the simplicity of line and the haunting emptiness of the land.

*snip*

Today, on Marfa's main street, tony art galleries and wine shops are driving away traditional cafes and shops, whose local owners can't afford the new sky-high rents. Everywhere you go the townsfolk, independent Texans to the core, lament the changes to their community. The term "ChiNazi" is used locally to describe anyone from out of town who arrives with artistic ambitions and a superior attitude. Observes one local cattle rancher, who asked to remain anonymous: "We're filling up with triple A's -- artists, assholes and attorneys."

Rest at the link.

Regarding the Bolton appointment

Will Pitt explains why we just have to eat it:

Democratic reaction to (Bolton's recess appointment) was vehement. “John Bolton is a person who, in his personal relationship with government employees, has been abominable, mean, unreasonable and bizarre,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. Senator Chris Dodd, echoing Reid, said, “He's damaged goods. This is a person who lacks credibility. This would be the first U.N. ambassador since 1948 we've ever sent there under a recess appointment. That's not what you want to send up, a person that doesn't have the confidence of the Congress.”

That and a dollar won’t get you a Grande Whatever at the local Starbucks. It sure won’t stop Bush from sending this cretin to represent us in that world body in a day when international cooperation is not only important, but vital to the safety and survival of our republic.

But hey, why should we expect any different? Karl Rove and Lewis Libby betrayed our national security by outing a CIA agent who was keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. They did this to keep the lid on the lies and disinformation being spread about the threat posed by Iraq. A good portion of those lies were put forth by John Bolton. Unless history decides to do an about face, Rove and Libby will walk away from their crimes once Fitzgerald is put out to pasture, and Bolton will slip into the UN building by way of the back door.

It is what it is, and there is probably no stopping it. Perhaps, though, there is an object lesson in this. The American people are about to get yet another IMAX-sized example of what happens in government when the powerful do not suffer accountability. Perhaps the American people will remember this when they go to the polls in the 2006 midterms. Until then, however, we will continue to choke on it.

Uh, yeah. He's right.

The real question is: are we (that's 'we' meaning you and I) going to keep eating it, or are we going to start fighting back?

Update: Via Prairie Weather, the American Prospect explains why Bolton is essentially neutered anyway. And Pete suggests some alternate Boltons that would've worked out better.

Mix city council candidates and bloggers and what do you get?

One of the causes of global warming.

Blogging live from Kaveh Kanes in downtown H-Town, where brunch and free Wi-Fi are being served. A semi-full report later, but I'll put it over here.

Update: Discussion and comments from nine candidates and seven bloggers is here.

Texans for Hackett is rolling

42 people have clicked on the links furnished by Greg (who hatched the idea) and participating Texas bloggers and have contributed almost $1,200, with an average donation of $28.45 . Richard Morrison fired up his listserv and collected a fourth of that total.

That's as of this morning.

An absolutely amazing example of the power of the netroots. Let's take it all the way to the finish line next Tuesday.

NOW I'm a believer

When they can beat Pedro Martinez on the strength of the mighty bats of Brad Ausmus and Adam Everett, then I think the Astros might have sump'm goin' on.

20-6 in the month of July (and three of those L's came at the hands of the division-leading St. Louis Cardinals fresh off the All-Star break).

Saturday night we'll go club-leveling to see Andy Pettitte square off against Tom Glavine. One of my guests is a big Mets fan. She has reminded me twice since I acquired tickets to this game about 1986.

I might not even boo Beltran too badly if the score is not close in the late innings.

"Fight 'em 'til Hell freezes over, and then fight 'em on the ice": Paul Hackett and David Van Os

One of my fellow H-Town bloggers started an online firestorm earlier this week when he suggested that there was no race in the state, or the nation for that matter, that Democrats should let go uncontested. As proof of committing this strategy to action, I give you the following:

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Paul Hackett is a Democrat, Marine, and Iraq War veteran running for Ohio's 2nd congressional district seat (vacated by newly appointed trade representative Rob Portman, who helped DeLay and Cheney twist enough arms to put CAFTA over the top last night), against Republican Jean Schmidt in next Tuesday's special election.

Hackett thinks Bush is a chickenhawk.

Schmidt has raised and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, Bush is making recorded phone calls into the district on her behalf, she is flying on private jets to DC to raise more money, and all of the rest of the typical full-court press is being applied by the GOP to hold on to a district that has gone at least 70% Republican for the last twenty years (28% for the Democrats in 2004).

Why? Because despite all that, polls show Hackett within the margin of error.

Oh yeah, the Republicans are also attempting to Swift-Boat him.

Join me, and these other Texas bloggers, one of whom has appointed Hackett an Honorary Texan, by doing what you can to support his candidacy in these few days before the special election next week.

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David Van Os, a former general counsel of the Texas AFL-CIO, is the Democratic candidate for Texas Attorney General. He received the President’s Citation for Achievement in Civil Rights from the NAACP in 1990, and he went to Florida in 2000 to assist the Democratic Party in that state's infamous vote recount efforts. In private practice as a labor law attorney since 1984, Van Os also advised retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, he of the CBS-Dan Rather/Dubya-TANG memo fame, during that affair.

This past week, Van Os named prominent civil rights activist Rev. Peter Johnson his campaign manager and traveled to Cass County, Texas, where a hearing was held by the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference regarding the circumstances of the assault of Billy Ray Johnson, a mildly retarded African-American man who was beaten badly by four white men and left for dead atop a fire ant mound. The FBI and local law enforcement officials investigated the case and came to the conclusion that what happened to Johnson was a crime based on his mental incapacity, not his race; thus no state or federal hate crimes or civil rights charges were lodged. The men charged and tried -- one of whom was working as a guard for the Cass county jail at the time -- received deferred adjudication, probation, and brief jail sentences of 30 to 60 days. (Two other recent deaths of African-Americans, one from hanging and one from a rifle blast, were ruled suicides by local authorities under suspicious circumstances. Chillingly, empty nooses have been found hanging from tree branches in apparent warnings. These reports have enjoyed a low profile in local media; it took a story in the Chicago Tribune to elevate the Johnson case to semi-public attention.)

In 1998 Van Os ran for the Texas Supreme Court against then-Justice (now incumbent Attorney General) Greg Abbott and was defeated. In 2004 he ran again for the Texas Supreme Court against now-chief justice Scott Brister and lost 58% to 41% (Bush defeated John Kerry in Texas by a count of 60-38).

In short, Van Os knows first-hand about David vs. Goliath matchups. He has won a few battles and lost a few, but he has always fought on the side of the little guy against the big-moneyed corporate and special interests, the ones who currently hold the Texas Supreme Court and the Legislature in a hammerlock. He is a progressive populist in the grand tradition of Texas liberals like Ralph Yarbrough and Oscar Mauzy. Here's a sample from one of his recent speeches:

It is time to discard the "avoid polarization at all costs" strategy, the "take no risks" strategy, the "appeal to everybody" strategy, and the "chase the middle" strategy. It is time to remember what Jim Hightower told us 20 years ago: "there's nothin' in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos." It is time to cease the followership strategies of scripting campaigns on the basis of what pollsters say people thought yesterday, and assert the leadership strategies of campaigning for what we know to be right based on our deepest convictions of what we want for tomorrow. It is time to stop worrying about whom we might offend if we speak truth to power, and start worrying about what value are our lives if we don't speak truth to power. It is time to cherish partisan Democrats and reject nonpartisan Nothingcrats. It is time to forget "right-left" analysis and install "right-wrong" analysis. It is time to replace the "liberal-conservative" spectrum with the "liberty-tyranny" spectrum. It is time to stop worrying about how to get money from big donors and start worrying about how to get more money into working people's paychecks. It is time to fight for better lives for voters instead of peddling promises to voters. It is time to treat public office as a duty, not a promotion. We must fight for the people, not in order to win their votes, but in order to win them justice.

Van Os considers it a successful fundraiser when a group of forty club Democrats in Houston pass the hat and get enough to pay his traveling expenses from San Antonio.

Do what you can for him.

(In the interests of full disclosure, I will be serving on the steering committee of Van Os' campaign.)