if you want to save the Texas Observer, the best way is to contribute to this GoFundMe. best case scenario is the support humbles the board into backing down; worst case is the staff gets some financial support before their jobs disappear with no notice
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dan solomon
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I'm really a very complicated kind'a guy. senior editor . debut YA novel THE FIGHT FOR MIDNIGHT out June 20. masto:@dansolomon@journa.host (he/him)
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this is completely fucking baffling. there is no way that the observer would fail to hit its current fundraising goals based on the attention from the shutdown alone. (whether that would prove sustainable or not, who knows, but the lege is in session *now* and there’s work to do)
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I spoke to an @TexasObserver board member who said he pleaded with the board majority to consider alternatives to "assisted suicide," to involve the staff, alumni, and donors to find a way to avoid a shutdown. 1/x
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young speaker just now talking about the legislative fight happening indoors right now says “I know that we will win”; crowd breaks into the US Soccer chant in response
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JVN introduces the second speaker, , who talks about being born intersex and having surgery performed without consent as a child, pointing out that bills that would block gender-affirming care are written specifically to allow for those surgeries to continue
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owen shroyer from infowars showed up about an hour early to do his schtick; faith leaders led the crowd in “this little light of mine” to keep him from bugging people on camera. he had brought a clown horn but it got confiscated by DPS and he wandered off before the event started
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First disruption of the event comes at seven minutes in when a dude in a blue suit started shouting something to interrupt the first speaker; currently being drowned out by chants of “no place for hate” while Vets for Equality block him from the crowd with a large vinyl banner
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Filling out as things get started. Jonathan Van Ness from Queer Eye (ground floor, in pink) spent the last ten minutes before it started snapping endless selfies with fans. lots of faith leaders here too, expect that some of them will speak shortly
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rally at the Texas Capitol protesting the anti-trans/anti-gay/anti-drag bills this session is about to start; has a pretty sizable turnout for a Monday afternoon—I counted 260 on the second story, probably around 700 total
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in virtually all fatal traffic collisions, the driver was wearing shoes, ban shoes
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so glad olivia wrote this- not sure anyone better understands what’s at stake here
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I’ve never talked about this publicly, but I’ll admit it now: It was a fluke that I even got my first journalism fellowship at @TexasObserver; here's a piece mourning my favorite storied institution, feat. @KoltenParker @asher_elbein @pamelacolloff & more
thedailybeast.com/the-shameful-e
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The is not like a Walmart that can just be shut down—esp. by a board president who resigned weeks ago and a divided board that has no journalists on it. It’s an idea in the minds of our readers, of the people who work here now and have worked here before. 1/x
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if the board doesn't take them up on this, i don't know how you can view that decision as anything other than an ego-driven tantrum
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Texas Observer editorial staff have offered a counter proposal: Have the board members who voted for closure resign while top editors will work voluntarily and be given the chance to try to raise funds. They've also asked for a staffer to be added to the board as a voting member.
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the rest of us who cover texas will have to work harder than ever if the observer folds. it’s been an incredible asset to the state, and to the mission of holding power accountable in a place where that is not something many are inclined to do.
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i don’t know all of the details behind this decision beyond media world gossip but i do know that voting to pull the plug after decades without crowdfunding or publicly seeking new funding sources is incredibly short-sighted, and i hope it’s not too late to do those things
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the texas observer has been an incredibly important part of covering texas since before i was born. it also means a lot to me personally; it was the first place i was published in print and the first place to give me 1000 words to report a story
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someone please make a documentary about this apartment complex where like sixty percent of the residents all have at least one full-sized skeleton on their balcony
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And in an increasingly IP-dominated marketplace these are appealing pitches from a business point of view. Forget video games and comic runs, imagine if the supermarket and your shoes are part of the advertising campaign
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I often think about saying that you can leave The Founder and see proof of how much the villain of that movie won all throughout your drive home
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nobody needs a heroic journey about the exec who came up with or marketed Product X (tho Flamin’ Hot is a hoot), but yeah, people are interested in stories that explain how these things that are so powerful in our lives came to be. world is weird! stories help us make sense of it
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i think audiences are hungry for narratives that help make sense of the way late capitalism has made our world very weird over the past ~15 years, and how its antecedents in the post-cold war years shaped that, which makes a lot of sense
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there’s also been a lot of this on tv especially—wecrashed, super pumped, the dropout—that all has a slightly different flavor, but is still ultimately about making sense of the corporate forces that shape our lives. the less any of them feel like hagiography, the better they are
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it’s also not entirely new as a genre- the social network and steve jobs were both nominated for oscars- but it’s shifted from the products that have obviously transformed our lives to the ones that did so much more subtly (or not at all, in some cases)
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I find the existence of this genre fascinating in terms of what it says about how we are trying to make sense of the world we’ve found ourselves living in and the people and things that shaped it
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i watched a bunch of these at sxsw and they mostly fall into three categories: A) you-won’t-believe-this romp (Tetris) B) surprisingly dark character study (Blackberry), C) extremely specific character study (Flamin’ Hot)
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Something extremely depressing about all these movies feature corporate "heroes" who brought a consumer product to market.
Why do I care about the guy who acquired the rights to Tetris or convinced Jordan to put his name on sneakers?
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Austin jailer breaks elderly deaf woman’s arm after misunderstanding at airport.
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i don’t know why but this all-time great moment in punk rock history popped into my head earlier and i had to revisit it, and it is still perfect
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i've asked google's ai chatbot like six questions so far and it's already tried to convince me that it's capable of experiencing joy
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does it sound normal or weird to you if someone adds a plural/possessive ‘s’ at the end of a store name thst doesn’t have one (i.e., “I’m going to Aldi’s, need anything?”) and where did you grow up
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this is a parent testifying about school library books, not school shootings, fyi (good thread!)
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"I thought school was a safe place to send my daughter."
lol this is texas, lady
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i guess i’m concerned that if we make this about lonesome dove, when someone steps in and says “oh no, lonesome dove is safe” that’ll feel like a victory for free speech in a state where librarians face arrest for shelving books that show teenagers that they’re not alone
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now texas librarians are dealing with harassment from police who are using their own judgment to decide if a book is obscene or not
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librarians in Texas have been fired for refusing to remove books, and not just in schools
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i wrote about the various kinds of books that have banned non-hypothetically banned in Texas schools last fall. there have been more than 800 so far
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by all means let’s talk about how vile it is to claim that banning Lonesome Dove from libraries would be a “win,” but preferably as a way in to talking about the books that are actually being removed from shelves in this state, Lonesome Dove isn’t going anywhere anytime soon
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Lonesome Dove is the most beloved Texas novel ever written, but this sentiment is no less disgusting if the book in question is All Boys Aren’t Blue or Stamped From the Beginning or Eleanor & Park or Then Again, Maybe I Won’t or Gender Queer (all banned in some Texas schools)
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Rep @JaredLPatterson says he's never read Lonesome Dove but says that if it includes things like sex with a prostitute, which it does, then it would be a "win" for Texas to have Lonesome Dove removed from libraries in Texas #TxLege
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