Clifton Pappas, who is unhoused, has been a distributor for The Challenger newspaper for a year. He walks Austin streets wearing a black cowboy hat with a short rim and a backpack. He also carries what all distributors do: printed copies of the paper, as well as an ID badge with his photo and number, […]
Category: Texana
Posted inTexana
Did Whataburger ‘Fall Off’? We Sent a Team of Texas Comedians to Investigate.
EXCLUSIVE It was 6 p.m. in downtown Austin. Traffic was humming, and responsible adults were bustling, which is to say it was absolutely the wrong time to eat Whataburger. Whataburger is 2 a.m. food. Eating it while the sun is still up feels like seeing a teacher at the grocery store: technically allowed, but unsettling. […]
Posted inCulture
How Selena Called Me Home to Texas
I have a secret to admit. I’m not a Texas native. Luckily, I’m not a Californian who moved to the Lone Star State. I’m a Nebraskan who fell in love with the Dallas Fort-Worth area. But my introduction to Texas was not the metroplex. Nor was it Southern Methodist University, where I attended college. It […]
Posted inCulture
Our Independent Newsroom Was Built on a Ferocious, Delusional Sense of Hope. Help Us Keep It Going.
When I moved back to Austin to start The Barbed Wire, I was an investigative reporter by trade, and I’d written a book, but I had never managed a team, never created an editorial calendar, never even been a full-time editor. The joke we tell is that I Dick Cheney’d myself into this position — […]
Posted inCulture
‘Life-Changing Money’: How the Houston Rodeo Is Leveling the Playing Field in Women’s Events
In the span of 2.8 seconds, Josie Goodrich exploded into the arena on her horse and wrapped her lasso around a fleeing calf. The maneuver landed the 24-year-old from Oregon first place in a preliminary round of breakaway roping at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Goodrich’s roping has won her $5,000 thus far, and […]
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Judging by TikTok, I’m Doing Wedding Planning Wrong. And I Love It.
In Mrs. Johnson’s fourth grade math class, my fellow students dreamed of big wedding dresses with extended trains, just like the one Selena Gomez wore last fall. At recess in Sherman, Texas, I heard them talk about big, fancy wedding parties. In my barrettes and ponytails, I rehearsed for a different future. I’d peer out […]
Posted inCulture
Dear Santa, Can You Give Texas a Break? We’ve Tried Nothing and We’re All Out of Ideas
Dear Santa, Howdy from Texas, big man. Hope things are well up at the North Pole, where I assume the ice hasn’t melted, the power grid works, and y’all haven’t deported any elves. I’m writing because I have a few tiny Christmas wishes for next year. Nothing huge. Just small, achievable miracles on par with, […]
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An ‘Over-the-Top’ Megachurch Christmas Show Has Divided Social Media, Again
Over the weekend, thousands gathered to watch approximately 1,200 volunteers in17,000 costumes, a 50-piece orchestra, and 21 animals take the stage at Prestonwood Baptist Church’s Christmas show in Plano, among beaming lights and angels ‘flying’ on harnesses. The holiday show, titled “Gift of Christmas,” has been a tradition of the church for about 40 years, […]
Posted inCulture
Cowboys Are Cool Again, According to Jordan Peele’s New Doc ‘High Horse: The Black Cowboy’
Everybody wants to be a cowboy now. Cowboy core — the Western aesthetic that prioritizes travel experiences in places like Montana, Wyoming, and Utah, where guests can participate in horseback riding, mountain climbing, and birdwatching — was the biggest trend in travel for 2025. Cowboys boots have become commonplace in luxury fashion. “Yellowstone” is one […]
Posted inCulture
My Late Dad’s Memory Was an Open Wound. Then I Built My First Ofrenda.
I built my first ofrenda in 2018. The base is a set of nesting tables rescued from our garage and given a place of honor between our kitchen and living room. An old black, white, and magenta serape that lived in my car’s trunk acts as cover. The colorful blanket smells like my dad José’s […]