Bob Eckhardt News Today

The “magic dust” of adding funny drawings to words has been an important part of the Observer.

Betty Jean Baker passed away at the age of 95 on December 15, 2023 at Patriot Place in Berlin, WI, after a long battle with dementia.

A rancher turned hero finds himself elected to the Statehouse in the novel “Mr. Texas.”

He wasn’t diplomatic and he wasn’t subtle, but Curtis Graves forged a political path for black Texans—and altered history forever.

Getting it all wrong

Twelve ran, Mike Andrews won. A saga of ambition, money, power, courage, and the nature of urban politics in Texas.

Jim Collins is running for the Senate on the claim that it’s better to be right (wing) than to pass bills. If he wins, it will change Texas politics.

Jan Reid is a former senior editor at Texas Monthly and has contributed to Esquire, GQ, Slate, Men’s Journal, Men’s Health, and the New York Times. An early article about Texas music spawned his first book, The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock. Among his ten books are a well-reviewed novel, Deerinwater, for which he won a Dobie-Paisano Fellowship; a collection of his magazine pieces, Close Calls,</em< that was a finalist for a Texas Institute of Letters book of the year award; R...

Of course, Jordan came to the House in 1973 with certain advantages. Her reputation as the first black woman elected to Congress from the South preceded her. And while there were dozens of look-alike white male fresh­men, no one was likely to confuse Bar­bara Jordan with anyone else. Still, it was another black woman—Yvonne Braithwaite Burke of Los Angeles—who was singled out as the real star; Burke had been temporary chairman of the 1972 Democratic Convention and her picture, not Jordan�...