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Category: Austin

Texas Observer: Long COVID Sufferers Demand to Be HeardAn outdoor photograph of a person wearing a purple mask, with brown hair past their shoulders. They are wearing a white dress with black polka dots, and supporting themselves with a cane. Tattoos are visible on their arms.
Jordan Vonderhaar/Texas Observer
March 25, 2024
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Texas Observer: Long COVID Sufferers Demand to Be Heard

Posted in Austin, Journalism, and The Texas Observer

Most people survive the Coronavirus with their kidneys intact. But not 34-year-old Austin resident Vanessa Ramos. 

An experienced community organizer with nonprofits like the Sierra Club, Ramos was healthy and active before she got infected. Then she caught the COVID-19 virus in December 2021, and symptoms lingered through the new year despite her efforts to focus on healing and recovery. 

“I was trying to prioritize my physical health because I couldn’t lift things; I couldn’t open things,” Ramos recalled. “I didn’t understand why I was getting weaker.”

Read moreTexas Observer: Long COVID Sufferers Demand to Be Heard
Review: The Queen vs. Texas (at SXSW)Drag queen Hermajestie the Hung holds a microphone under bright stage lights, in dramatic drag makeup and a red fishnet outfit.
Courtesy of Emil Lozada
March 14, 2024
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Review: The Queen vs. Texas (at SXSW)

Posted in Austin, Journalism, LGBTQIA, SXSW, and The Texas Observer

When the drag queen known as Hermajestie the Hung  reached her breaking point, she transformed into the Joker, becoming the  scourge of patriarchy, homophobic lawmakers, and anti-transgender  bigots everywhere.

“She’s that queen that’s just had enough,” Hermajestie told the Texas Observer.

Read moreReview: The Queen vs. Texas (at SXSW)
Deceleration: ‘Viva Viva Tortuguita!’ Atlanta Mayor Chased Out of SXSW ConferenceProtesters lock arms at the front of a conference roon, holding a banner reading Andre Dickens GOP Stooge. Stop Cop City
Kit O'Connell
March 12, 2024
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Deceleration: ‘Viva Viva Tortuguita!’ Atlanta Mayor Chased Out of SXSW Conference

Posted in Austin, Journalism, and SXSW

On Monday, a group of protesters at a conference in Texas challenged  the mayor of Atlanta over the city’s ongoing plans to build a massive  training center for police and other law enforcement agencies,  eventually forcing Andre Dickens to leave the event entirely.

The direct action took place at South by Southwest (SXSW),  an annual conference, film, and music festival in Austin, Texas, at a  ballroom of the downtown Hilton hotel (one of several sites where the  conference occurs). The panel discussion was intended to be about conflict between city and state governments. Instead the audience received a very different lesson in civic engagement, as the Austin chapter of the Weelaunee Defense Society, an activist group devoted to the national “Stop Cop City” movement, would soon dramatically change the agenda.

Read moreDeceleration: ‘Viva Viva Tortuguita!’ Atlanta Mayor Chased Out of SXSW Conference
A Tour of Texas BookshopsThe storefront for Bookwoman in Austin, Texas shows an angel with a halo of curly brown hair, reading a book, her wings outstretched and wearing a golden dress with white stars. She's flanked on either side by female symbols which are in flames or silver electricity.
Bookwoman in Austin, Texas is one of just a handful of feminist bookstores left in America. (Kit O'Connell)
November 28, 2022
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A Tour of Texas Bookshops

Posted in Austin, Journalism, and The Texas Observer

Big-city traffic and a resolution on New Year’s Eve of 2020 led Pflugerville resident Kelsey Black to become a bookseller.

An avid reader, she disliked the hour round trip required to get from  her suburb of 65,000 to downtown Austin to browse a bookstore. “OK,”  she told herself, “I think it’s just going to be easier for me to …  start my own bookstore.”

Turned out, it wasn’t easy at all, “but it’s OK because I have now found my calling,” Black said. The Book Burrow began as a pop-up and online business and finally, on August 6, opened  as a brick-and-mortar store. She said the 200-square-foot space has  become a haven for those who don’t feel like they fit in elsewhere,  drawn by the store’s motto: “Embrace your weird.” For her, the phrase  means cultivating love for whatever makes you unique: “Embrace your  gender identity; embrace your sexual identity; embrace your racial  background; embrace your spiritual path.”

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Middle Fingers Up In Austin After End of ‘Roe’Activists sit in the streets of downtown Austin, holding up their middle fingers towards the Texas Capitol, under a bright summer sun.
Austin took the streets to protest the end of Roe v. Wade. (Kit O'Connell)
June 25, 2022
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Middle Fingers Up In Austin After End of ‘Roe’

Posted in Austin, Journalism, and The Texas Observer

More than 1,000 people marched through downtown Austin on Friday, June 25 to express their anger and sadness over the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe V. Wade and the impending, widespread erosion of abortion access as a result.

Organized coalitions like Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights and others called for protesters to gather at the federal courthouse and in the surrounding Republic Square Park on the night after the Supreme Court decision came down. Word spread rapidly via social networks and posters affixed to lampposts throughout the city.

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Austin Chronicle: Low-Income Austin Renters Negotiate For Better DealA photo of the Austin downtown city skyline. Added text: "Public domain image by Jeremy Banks via Unsplash"
As high rents cause displacement, one group of renters negotiates. (Unsplash / Jeremy Banks)
June 10, 2022
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Austin Chronicle: Low-Income Austin Renters Negotiate For Better Deal

Posted in Austin, Austin Chronicle, and Journalism

Low-income residents of a North Austin apartment complex are putting pressure on a developer intent on demolishing their homes, and they’re having some success in getting concessions. The Old Homestead, located on Clayton Lane near the intersection with Cameron Road, is set to be rezoned for vertical mixed use – meaning developers JCI Residential, an affiliate of the Journeyman Group, will be allowed more height and building size in exchange for affordable units. While the new property will have more units than the current 16-unit complex, residents say they’ll struggle to find apartments as affordable – or with a community so closely knit – amid Austin’s surging rental prices.

Read moreAustin Chronicle: Low-Income Austin Renters Negotiate For Better Deal