The Ragged Edge

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My guest this week is Jason Stanford. His book, which he wrote with authors Chris Tomlinson and Bryan Burrough, is called “Forget the Alamo: the Rise and Fall of an American Myth.” It was published earlier this month by Penguin Press and is an Amazon Bestseller. Jason also publishes a very good weekly newsletter called the Jason Stanford Experiment and I recommend it. Subscribe at jasonstanford.substack.com Jason and I talked about how what we know of as the story of the battle of the Alamo came to be, why its been only fairly recently that those 13 days in Texas history have been subject to academic rigor and the impact Phil Collins has had on the current debate — yes, that Phil Collins.

Our show this week is another on the road edition, this one recorded during a town hall for State Rep. John Bucy on the patio at Whitestone brewery in Cedar Park and hosted by the Hill Country News. I got to moderate the conversation. Every time we do one of these live programs, we learn something new … this time we learned that matter how hard I try, I just don’t have the resources to get a clean recording of an outdoor event amid all the traffic and wind and other extraneous noises … so, our apologies for all that. Like our previous on the road edition, this is an extended episode and includes a whole lot of Texas state government policy wonkiness.

We took our second-ever road trip to the Texas Beer Co. for an in depth conversation with Texas HD52 State Rep. James Talarico. We talked about the good, the bad and the ugly from the 87th meeting of the Texas Legislature, why redistricting is a bi-partisan issue and the importance of civics education in our public schools.

A few weeks ago, I had my cousin on the show to talk about Oran Roberts, the most important Texas you never heard of. As is often the case, especially where conversations with Jon are concerned, we talked about a lot of stuff that didn’t make it into the interview. Well, I saved that part of the interview for a special edition I’m calling “Remnants.” We talked about the civil war, politics today and … well, little known facts about the Louisiana Purchase. Also, Program Notes: Live event 7 p.m. June 10 at @texasbeerco with @jamestalarico Later in June, Jason Stanford sits in to talk about his new book, Forget the Alamo.

Our conversation this week is with Denise Rogers, a Central Texas LGBTQ+ activist, about the horrible legislation working through the Texas Legislature. We also discussed what you can do to support this community — even if all you know is that you dislike the way the way some people are treated — and the importance of representation in popular culture.

For anyone who knows me, it’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of science fiction … as such, I listened to Gemini mission broadcasts on my transistor radio and glued to my television when Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon. Our family toured the Johnson Space Center in Houston whenever we got the chance. We held an early morning watch party for the first space shuttle launch — and watched as many other launches as I could. It seems that, over the last year or so, the tempo of our activities in low earth orbit, the talk about another mission to the moon — like in the next four years — and eventually to Mars, has rekindled my interest. Man, it’s the stuff of science fiction! So, I invited Eric Berger onto the show to talk about it. Eric is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space ventures, to wonky NASA policy, and is the author of the book Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX, Elon Musk’s effort to send humans to Mars. Eric was at the Houston Chronicle for 17 years, where the paper was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2009 for his coverage of Hurricane Ike.

We’re coming up on the anniversary of the of the beginning of the Black Lives Matter protests and rallies which swept our nation last summer after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. So, I called a friend of mine who works at a newspaper in Asheville NC. David Thompson helped to cover seven very intense days of rallies, protests and demonstrations. Asheville is not a big city, about the size of Temple, so the intensity of the rallies — and police pushback — was surprising and landed Asheville on the front pages of the nation’s news papers at the beginning of last summer.

We thought it was time to try something a little different — record the podcast in front of a live audience. Our friends at the Texas Beer Company here in Taylor were game and so was our guest, Jesse Ancira. What you’re about to hear is the entire conversation Jesse and I had about politics, social media and governance. While we talked specifically about Taylor, many of the issues we discussed could apply anywhere.

My cousin, Jon Stone, returns to the program this week for another look at Texas history. Most every body knows the role that Sam Houston played in Texas history. But, few of us know much about the man who ended Houston’s political career. In the interview, we’ll meet the most important Texan you probably never knew, Oran Milo Roberts. Stay with us guys … this week’s program is a deep dive into Texas history.

I stumbled across this conversation with Richard Oppel a couple days ago and was struck by how well it holds up. Since the original podcast was one of our very first, it didn’t reach a very big audience but Rich and I covered some important issues … so I went back to the original files and re-edited it … Richard was the editor of the Austin American Statesman and, before that, led the Charlotte Observer to three Pulitzers. We talked about how the future of print journalism is in a transition to digital, the role social media plays in that transformation and why you can trust what you read in most of the country’s newspapers.

My guest this week is Joe Jaworski. He’s an attorney out of Galveston, that city’s former mayor, who tossed his hat in the ring last fall to run as a Democrat for Texas Attorney General. Joe and I talked about his Grandfather, Leon Jaworski, about the lessons he learned from his brief stint as the Mayor of Galveston and why he thinks the time is right for Texas to soften the laws around recreational marijuana use.

My conversation with my guest this week was so interesting i had a hard time finding places to cut. So, this time, I let the conversation run. Wayne Mueller and I talked about how Central Texas BBQ became world famous, how difficult is can be to teach his work ethic, what keeps him up at night these days and why you should wait until you’re a grumpy old man before you read the Yelp reviews. Buckle up for an in depth look at the world of legendary BBQ!

My guest this week is a very dear friend of mine. Lisa Drummond is a nurse practitioner at Lone Star Circle of Care. We talked about the transformations the Covid-19 pandemic has wrought on the way health care is delivered, the new community-based clinic that’s coming to Taylor real soon and … once that happens, how she’ll be able to prescribe carrots?

My guest this week is State Representative John Bucy. He’s a second-term member of the Texas House from West Williamson County and serves on the House Elections Committee. It’s not surprising that our conversation focused on proposed legislation that attacks ballot access, but we also talked about his other important issues like medicaid expansion, public education and …. will we learn our lesson from the winter storm?

My guest this week is Wayne Carpenter. Wayne’s a friend of mine from my home town of Belton. Right now, he’s the mayor of that community and has served on the city council for about 20 years. He is also a retired educator, school administrator and government teacher. We talked about why our government seems to be broken, possible fixes and why Gus from Lonesome Dove gives some of the best advice.

March second is Texas Independence day. So, to mark the 185th anniversary, I invited Jon Stone to sit in and talk me through the forces at play that influenced the founding of the state. We talked about the power of myth and busted a few, then tied it all up with a discussion of the role chewing gum played. Jon’s my cousin and one of the biggest Texas history buffs I know. We talked about Texas for a long time. Here’s the interview, edited for brevity and clarity.

I wanted this episode to to help give our listeners some context into why a winter storm could knock cold our essential utilities — heat and water — So, after he wrote and posted a terrific Tweet this week, I invited Representative James Talarico to sit in for a bit. We talked about how inexpensive it is to prevent the sort of energy failures Texas saw as compared to how expensive it will be to recover from this natural disaster and who has the ultimate responsibility — spoiler alert, it’s not really ERCOT, tho that group isn’t without culpability and will be thrown under the bus in the coming weeks. You can see the Tweet here: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1362165264020688902.html It's a bit technical but you can see the autopsy of the 2011 storm here: https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/08-16-11-report.pdf

MY GUEST THIS WEEK IS TIA STONE. SHE’S THE PRESIDENT AND CEO OF THE GREATER TAYLOR CHAMBER OF COMMERCE … SHE’S ALSO MY WIFE SO THIS INTERVIEW GOT INTERESTING AT TIMES. WE TALKED ABOUT WHY IT’S IMPORTANT FOR BUSINESSES TO BELONG TO THEIR CHAMBER, THE EVOLUTION OF TAYLOR’S CHAMBER INTO A MORE PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATION FOCUSED ON COMMUNITY IMPACT AND …. WHAT’S FOR DINNER.

Scott Braddock is a veteran journalist with more than two decades experience reporting on Texas politics. He sat in this week to talk about how much bandwidth the state legislature might have in this pandemic-influenced environment, the internal dynamics of the Texas Republican Party and how elected officials work hard to choose their voters, rather than the other way around. It’s a thorough lesson on the Texas Legislature.