By: Erin Dyer
Parks By You is an ever-growing societal coalition continuously working towards the increase of access to and improvement of friendly neighborhood parks and bayous in Houston. The initial objective is to pass a $160 million bond initiative on November 6th with the goal of creating a city where a majority of Houstonians will have the privilege to live within 1.5 miles of a park and green space by creating a system of interconnected trails and green spaces to unite our city’s seven main bayous and neighborhood parks. The passing of this bond will help allow communities to improve their public health and safety, build stronger neighborhoods, and support ongoing efforts to enhance water quality and flood control– all great advancements to our city.
The project will require $205 million to complete, and will be financially funded through a public and private partnership. $150 will come from state, federal, and private sector funds; and $100 million will come from the proposed $160 million bond initiative.
Through community engagement and strategic outreach, Parks By Young Professionals, a group of Houstonian Parks By You enthusiasts, hope to build support for the November bond initiative and these other long-terms transformative goals. The group’s kickoff event in July was considered a success– the event co-chair, Divya Brown, thought “it was wonderful to see the diversity of races and ages supporting the initiative, proving that it will benefit all. It is evident that Houstonians are committed to the movement to make Houston an even better place to live and the passing of the referendum is the first step in the right direction.”
Parks By You considers these to be the great benefits to Houston and its residents:
- Doubling Houston’s trails to nearly 150 miles will put over 50 percent of Houstonians within 1.5 miles of a neighborhood park or green space, increasing access to outdoor exercise.
- Green spaces improve air quality, protect Houston’s unique ecosystems, preserve the natural landscape, and improve water-retention and absorption systems.
- Parks By You enhances Houston’s quality of life, which not only encourages companies to relocate to Houston, but will make our city more appealing to retirees—all with no tax rate increase required for funding, AND with over $70 million in economic benefits felt per year in Houston.
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For more information, visit www.parksbyyou.org, contact the coalition via Twitter @parksbyyou, or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/parksbyyou.
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“This plan will bring parks to every corner of this city. It will improve the health of our citizens, the safety of our children, and compliment ongoing flood control and water quality efforts–this plan is a win-win for Houston.” -State Senator Rodney Ellis
“I’m proud to support Parks By You. As an avid cyclist and a strong promoter of health, wellness, and fitness I applaud efforts that encourage the community to become active and engage in healthy lifestyles. This plan to create parks and green space along our bayous within 1.5 miles of a majority of our citizens will give us the access to recreation we’ve wanted and a chance to exercise and improve our health. These are not just amenities but important tools for transforming wellness in our communities.” -State Representative Carol Alvarado, District 145
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(photo in public domain)
By Jack Daniel Betz
The very busy and very actively touring Jamie Stewart was kind enough to grant me a short interview in the midst of loading in before playing in Washington last Friday. The poor guy sounded like he was directing air traffic but despite all the bustle I got the opportunity to ask him a few questions. Xiu Xiu and legendary no-wave band Swans will be playing
Fitzgerald’s on Saturday night.
Believe it or not, even though I’ve listened to plenty of music I would consider kindred to Xiu Xiu’s sound the most recent album was actually my first introduction besides reading about it online etc. Am I a total idiot for pronouncing it zoo zoo for like two months?
No, I mean that’s kind of how it looks. People pronounce it all sorts of different ways. We say shoo shoo but it is an unusually spelled word and it’s not a word that’s in English. So for an English speaker it’s not entirely clear how to pronounce it. You would be surprised at what kinds of permutations it takes on in Europe.
My favorite song on the album was “Hi”. It kind of reminds of -don’t laugh- but it reminds
me of Word Up! by Cameo because it’s got this call and response thing and there’s something
sort of empathetic in it. Who is that song addressed to because it’s kind of like you’re talking
to someone, like you’re having a conversation?
I mean it could be whoever the listener perceives it being addressed to but for myself it would probably
be an attempt to make some kind of connection with anyone who is having a difficult time in their life.
To try to create some kind of community and the almost universal condition of difficulty or unhappiness
that every person finds themselves in at one time or another.
I’m a total Pitchfork whore, I read everything they write and the minute something comes
out I read it. So when the album came out I read the review and they were pretty positive
but one of the things I read in it was that there was one feminist blogger who said
of [the song] “I Luv Abortion” that, you were appropriating a woman’s words and
experiences as some sort of proof of how cool and dark you are. What do you think of that?
I mean people can say whatever the fuck they want, I mean I know that is not the case. It’s a song about
someone who I know personally and it was a song about my views on politics. I don’t really care what
that other person thinks and they have the right to interpret it the way they want to. I know it was
about something different. And I think it’s pretty clear to anybody who is familiar with the band
that that is not in any way what we are about. I think that if anybody listened to the song with any
kind of care that they’d know that’s not what it’s about.
Yeah, I agree. I kind of get the feeling that someone emailed them and said you gotta listen to this song.
I have a feeling they probably just read the title or something like that and didn’t really listen to it.
I’m pretty excited to see both you and Swans next Saturday here in Houston. I wasn’t aware until
kind of recently that you and Michael Gira of Swans have some kind of connection. What’s the
relationship?
We have a lot of mutual friends. He was kind enough to sing on a Xiu Xiu song on our sixth record.
I noticed there’s a lot of brass in your music on this record and a couple others I’ve
listened to since then. Have you guys ever thought of doing something cross-overy?
Insofar as crossing over to what?
Something unexpected, I dunno something fun like reggae or something. Because the
musical palette that you guys use seems like it would almost lend itself to doing that
some time.
It’s funny you should say that because when I was in college I actually played bass in a reggae band,
believe it or not. So I already did it, man. I already did some crossover. I already played some fucking
reggae in my life. [laughter]
By: Erin Dyer
Houston Mobile Food Unit (MFU) Collective has announced new mobile food ordinance changes that will be proposed to Mayor Annise Parker and the Houston City Council on September 26. These changes are to be presented in hopes that they will aid food trucks and small businesses, benefit Houston’s reputation for entrepreneurship, and increase tourist flow into Houston as a destination city.
Currently, seating outside of the food trucks is not permitted and no downtown food trucks serve hot food because they are not allowed to use propane in downtown locations. Among the proposed modifications are the elimination of the 60-foot distance requirement between mobile food units, the allowance of limited seating (up to 3 tables and 6 chairs), the ability to park next to existing seating, a lift of the propane ban downtown, and the ability to have one propane permit cover multiple locations. These changes that will reduce food truck limitations will in turn benefit Houstonians and our city’s growing food truck trend.
There are numerous ways you can show your support of the proposed mobile food ordinance changes. You can attend the City Council meeting on September 26 and/or send a letter of approval to Mayor Annise Parker and council members. Participating mobile food vendors will have a public petition available to sign as well.
A special awareness event on September 23 is dedicated to supporters of this movement. From 4-10PM, Houston will host its first mobile food party that will be put on by mobile food vendors, for mobile food vendors, at The Refinery Burgers & Whiskey– 702 West Dallas Street. Your favorite food trucks will be there, as well as a few new food trucks. Join Houston’s Mobile Food Unit Collective as our city shows our civic leaders that we support these ordinance changes.
Send a letter:
City Council
900 Bagby
City Hall Annex
First Floor
Houston, TX 77002
Mayor Annise Parker
City of Houston
P.O. Box 1562 Houston, TX 77251
Or via email: [email protected]
For more information, visit www.mfuhouston.com.
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By: Amanda Hart
Hey Houston! Did you know that we have an amazing observatory nestled conveniently an hour outside of Houston? The Houston Museum of Natural Science picked Brazos Bend State Park as their location for building one hell of an observatory. I went for the first time this past Saturday and was in awe of just how amazing the stars are and how Houston has so much to offer us as a community.
The George Observatory is home to three domed telescopes – 36”, 18” and 14” in size – and are available to the public on a weekly basis. The 36” Gueymard Research Telescope is one of the largest public telescopes in the country. Along with these massive telescopes you can pay $5 and view the night sky from one of the many other personal telescopes also available to the public. I took the $5 route and got to see a globular cluster while I was there.
International Observe the Moon Night is being held on Saturday, September 22nd. People all across the world will be gathering together on this night to view the moon’s craters, ridges and other prominent features up close. George Observatory is the perfect place to take your family for this event.
Also, on Dember 14th of this year you can catch one of the best meteor showers of the year. The Geminid Metero Shower has an average of 100 meteors per hour and can all be viewed from one of the many telescopes available at George Observatory. On this night the observatory will be open till 1 a.m. so be sure to make it out.
Throughout the year one can view a variety of things the night sky has to offer. According to the observatory website everything from, “Saturn’s rings, cloud belts of Jupiter, a partial or total eclipse on the Moon, a bright meteor or fireball that lights up the ground, the Milky Way, or a close pairing of two planets.”
The George Observatory is open Saturdays year round. The current Fall hours are Saturdays from 3 to 10:30 p.m. I would suggest this as the perfect location to get away from the city for a night.
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Subscribe to FPH’s weekly podcast via iTunes or directly through any RSS reader, or download now.
]]>By Meghan Hendley
“Silence is very important. The silence between the notes are as important as the notes themselves.”–Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Jacob Kirkegaard AION, 2026 Courtesy of the artist Photo: Jacob Kirkegaard
Inspired by the celebration of the birthday of John Cage, who made history with a piece of music that contains no notes or tones, the Menil is featuring a series of programs and events this fall, centered around the essence of silence. Take a nod from Cage’s 1952 composition, 4’33”, a piece for solo piano, where the performer expresses the music between the tones and melodies. The origins of the piece come, not in music, but in painting. Cage used Robert Rauschenberg’s White Paintings, whose lights, shadows, and starkness seeped into the notion of silence as a moveable force in aural landscapes.
Silence, the Menil Collection exhibition (ongoing through October, 21, 2026) conceived by Toby Camps (curator of modern and contemporary art at the Menil) and co-organized with the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, explores the many ways that artists– including painters, sculptors, filmmakers, musicians and performance artists– invoke silence to shape space and consciousness. Four free public programs accompany the main exhibition.
At the Montrose museum haven, Silence includes a bevy of artists whose ideas and concepts flourished in the 1950s and 60s, including Giorgio de Chirico, Rene Magritte, Robert Rauschenberg, Ad Reinhardt, Joseph Beuys, and Yves Klein. These artists embraced the notion of silence and how it shapes a vision of space and perception. Displayed in the stark, hallow spaces of the Menil, the pieces intertwine, yet cause static between each other with a sense of reverence and stillness. Some experimental, some elusive, some seeping with undertones– each piece acts as its own narrative in the thought of silence. Rauschenberg’s White Painting (Two Panel), which connects back to Cage’s homage to silence, is also on display.
Additional events in the Silence series:
The Sounds of Silence: Three Evenings of Film
The Sounds of Silence is a three part series that tracks media artists and the various ways they engage sound, and its counterpart– silence. The three-week series explores the artists’ use of sound in film through scores of silence to clamors to samples. Each Monday evening in the three week series features six or more films that relate to a specific treatment of film and sound. These films are organized by Steve Seid, Video Curator for the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum, and the Pacific Film Archive.
A Kind of Hush
Monday September 10, 2026, 7:00 p.m.
Rice Media Center
A Kind of Hush explores silent films and how those with some sound were considered oddities and unusual for their time. Films featured include Meshes of the Afternoon, The Riddle of the Lumen, Zen for Film, Threnody, four words for four hands (apples.mountains.over.frozen.), and Soundtrack.
Sonic Slippage
Monday, September 17, 2026, 7:00 p.m.
Rice Media Center
The second of three films in this series, Sonic Slippage, documents film and tapes that all make use of sound but display the ways in which the picture track is drastically changed by the addition of sound.
Sourcing Sound & Image
Monday, September 24, 2026, 7:00 p.m.
Rice Media Center
Sourcing Sound & Image is a film that combines the source of sound and picture in an intimate and engaging way. During parts of the film, the pulse and date are split, which creates a new expression on the same impulse.
Concert
Music for Silence
October 9, 2026, 7:00 p.m.
Menil Foyer
Originally premiered at Woodstock in 1952, John Cage’s 4’33” will be the center point of this concert featuring an artistic icon of classical music in Houston, pianist Sarah Rothenberg. Known for her intelligent flair and beautiful interpretations, Rothenberg will perform a piece in which she will never touch the piano nor ring out notes from the mammoth instrument. Instead of the listeners engagement with the actual music, Cage calls for those to be affected by the sounds of the environment around them. Every creek of a chair, each sigh, all the fidgets from the audience create a sound scape living in the notion of silence. As a composer, Cage striped himself and the performer from the actual presentation of the piece, for neither can dictate what ambient sounds that will be heard by the audience. Other pieces on the program include Erik Satie and Arnold Schoenberg, both favorites of the late composer.
Dance
Deborah Hay: Richmond Hall
Saturday, October 13, 2026, noon and 3:00 p.m.
1500 Richmond Ave.
The Silence series closes with a site-specific work at the museum’s Dan Flavin permanent exhibition. One of the founding daughters of postmodern dance, Hay reaches back from inspiration during the same time period as many of the artists in the exhibition. Currently residing in Austin, Hay studied with such modern dance juggernauts as Merce Cunningham and Mia Slavenska. Heavily influenced by the work of Cunningham and John Cage, Hay crafted her work based on the dialogue of dance with other art forms lending itself to various levels of engagement and consciousness. This performance brings together the combined forces of the exhibition and event’s arsenal with this final engagement of silence.
For more information, please visit menil.org
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A musician tired of trying to conquer the LA scene moves back to Texas in the crowd pleasing Sironia. Free Press Houston spoke to Wes Cunningham who in addition to starring also composed the film’s score, wrote several songs heard in Sironia, and co-wrote the script with director Brandon Dickerson (and Thomas Ward).
“The story is built around music,” explains Cunningham, “And yes there is a semi-autobiographical element to the story. But most of my songs have always taken an autobiographical slant.” Cunningham, a native Texan, lived the musician’s dream of moving to the West Coast and writing music for films and television; his songs have been featured in Saved! (2004) and shows like Jane By Design and My Name is Earl. Like the character he plays in Sironia Cunningham got fed up with the music business and moved back to Texas with his wife and kids while at the same time trying to view his subsequent career in perspective.
“There’s a novel by Madison Cooper, which was a tell-all on Waco society called Sironia, and that’s where we took the title,” notes Cunningham. (At the time of its publication in the early-50s Cooper’s book was considered one of the longest English novel’s published clocking in at over 1700 pages.) The production shot for three weeks at locations around Waco as well as a week in Los Angeles. Sironia successfully played the festival circuit to acclaim last year also winning the Audience Award at the Austin Film Festival. Sironia also stars Amy Acker, Carrie Preston and Jeremy Sisto.
Cunningham will introduce Sironia on Monday night at the Sundance Cinemas Houston at 7:15 pm as part of an ongoing series presented by the Texas Independent Film Network. Your humble scribe will host a post-screening Q&A with Cunningham, after which he will perform a few songs.
– Michael Bergeron
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By Will Guess
Science in America has taken a backseat in recent years to many other things, but there is one person who is trying to reinvigorate people’s interest and show how important it is to humanity’s survival – Neil deGrasse Tyson. Dr. Tyson has a laundry list of accomplishments from writing over 10 books to serving under President Bush on the Moon, Mars and Beyond Commission to being the current director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. FPH had 30 minutes with a guy who is, at this moment, probably the most prolific and famous scientist in the world. People Magazine’s “Sexiest Astrophysicist Alive”, one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” and a master of Latin ballroom dancing. I mean, the guy has a comet named after him.
FPH – In one of your statements online you said, “When you’re scientifically literate, the world looks very different to you. It’s a particular way of questioning what you see and hear.” Can you expand on that and tell me how it affects your relationships with people?
NDT – First off, thanks for bringing that up. I think it’s a very important concept and idea. Many people think of science as just a topic that they either learned or didn’t in school. Like, oh did you learn about the War of 1812. I think for many people it’s compartmentalized as just something that they either know or don’t know. Without reflecting on the value to how you think for being scientifically literate. Because as you walk around through life, things will happen in front of you. Someone will try to sell you a product that has a claim that’s scientifically testable. Someone will make a statement about the gas mileage of your car or the octane level or the health benefits of one food or another or the fat content or the calorie content. Or they’ll tell you about the chemistry of some corporate plant – the chemicals coming out of a corporate plant or the molecules that are in the air. There are so many things around us that become transparent to you when you’re scientifically literate and they’re otherwise opaque to you if you’re not. So, science literacy is often people think of it is as do you know how your microwave oven works or how does an internal combustion engine work. That’s an aspect of science literacy, but that’s not the primary task from where I view it. The primary consequence of being scientifically literate is knowing how to think about something that you’ve never seen before. So, it can mean how to ask questions. It doesn’t require that you have an answer to something, but it would empower you to know how to ask. Someone says, “I want to sell you these crystals, if you rub them together they’ll heal you.” Well, okay, but what are these crystals made of, where did you get them, how are they grown, what is the evidence that they’ve healed people before, what kind of ailments are they supposed to heal, how long does it take to heal, what do they cost, can you demonstrate it? By the time you ask these questions, the person runs away in tears. Those questions are the consequence of being scientifically literate. If you’re not scientifically literate, someone says, “I have these crystals, they can heal your ailments,” and the person says “Great, I’ll buy them! How many do you have?” That’s not being scientifically literate. And notice, in each case, you don’t have to know about them in advance, but one case carries a level of skepticism, and the other carries a level of gullibility. Science literacy is a kind of vaccine that inoculates you against charlatans who would otherwise exploit your ignorance of the natural world for their own gain.
It’s pretty well known that you and Seth McFarlane are working on a sequel to the Cosmos. The original Cosmos had this sort of iconic, droning, expansive song. I was wondering if you two have thought about how you’re going to do the music for the new series.
We have thought about it but we haven’t landed anywhere yet. Seth is one of the executive producers. Among others that are key players in this, are two of the original three creative principles from the original Cosmos which includes Anne Druyan and Steven Soder. I’m working with them as well and serving as executive editor and of course as the on-screen host and narrator. We might borrow some of that music again just for the continuity from one series to the next, but we’re open to new music and so that’s not yet resolved.
What was your relationship with Carl Sagan like?
Actually, there’s a clean, quick in and out YouTube clip of me retelling this for the Public Television of Arizona. But, I first met him in high school and I was already interested in the universe and I applied to Cornell where he was on the faculty and they saw that my application had all this universe dripping from it and they forwarded it to him, unknown to him. He would then send a letter to me saying “I learned that you might be interested in Cornell and you like the universe. If you can find the occasion to come up and visit, I’d be happy to show you around.” That’s exactly what he did. I couldn’t believe it. He’d already been on The Tonight Show and had famous books. He had not yet done “Cosmos” but he was already well known and there he was spending time with me, and who am I? Just some 17-year-old kid from the city. So, I’d say his greatest influence on me was that day because I swore to myself if I was ever as remotely famous as Carl Sagan, that I would give students the time and attention that he gave me to the exclusion of any other priorities that might be competing for my attention in a day.
You’re one of the few scientists to attain this level of fame that’s on the same level like that of a movie star or a rock star. What does that feel like and how does it affect the way you do your job?
It means I have to dress a little better and comb my hair a little extra. I can’t be as sloppy as I might naturally want to be because people recognize you in the street. So there’s that. I was a little disappointed when people initially people would recognize me and they would say “Oh, aren’t you the guy, Dr. Tyson, right? Tell me more about the black hole that I saw you talk about on TV.” So, initially maybe the first 10-20 a day that recognized me, they would just want me to continue their dining on the universe. I’m just their servant, they’re hungry and they want more. So, I said okay – that works – my role as an educator in this capacity is working. But when it hit 20, 30, 50 a day and it’s probably 70 a day now – most of the rest of that are people who just want to take a picture. In the old days, it was an autograph, now it’s a picture. Initially, I was concerned about that because I asked myself “Am I becoming the object of people’s interests?” Then I’m failing as an educator. If they’re no longer hungry for the universe and they’re just hungry for a picture of me, I must be failing in some fundamental way. Then a friend of mine, Bill Nye, who I’ve become latter day friends with – He highlighted for me that there’s a point where people just simply might not have otherwise cared about the universe at all. And now that I’m there, I’ve enabled them to care about the universe, but they’re so enchanted by the fact that I’m the one doing it, it’s the picture with me that they seek, but that I should still celebrate the fact that – I don’t play in a rock band, I’m not any of these things that normally trigger fan reactions – I’m a scientist. I was told that I should celebrate the fact that be it science or the scientist – if it’s getting the same fan reaction that a rock star does, then there’s still hope for the universe.
What do you think about sites like Reddit where there are these huge pushes to double the NASA budget?
I think any grassroots – that’s such an overused phrase and I wish we had a fresh one to use – effort to improve NASA, which carries with it our dreams of a future that is brought to us by science and technology. I think any effort to accomplish this is the right effort and to do it in venues like Reddit, Twitter, or YouTube – you’re affecting the electorate and that’s where I think the energy should be invested. Those people who want to convince their members of Congress what they should do, well, 88% of Congress stands for re-election every 2 years so then you have to do it again for whoever replaces that person. And plus that’s a little subtrifugal, because these are representatives of a community of people. So why not just convince the community and then the politicians have to follow in behind that because at the end of the day, they, as does the President of the United States, they work for us. We don’t work for them.
Do you ever get frustrated with the lack of interest in science in America?
No, as an educator and as a scientist, I have some obligation to remind people of what it is to be excited about the universe. So, my disappointment is not if you don’t know science, my disappointment is if you think you know science but you don’t or you somehow fear science because you think it’s bad. There’s some failure going on in the educational system that needs to be rectified. If you think science is your enemy, if you think science is the root of all evil, then you’ve been brainwashed by somebody at some point and that’s gotta stop, otherwise America will just slide back into the cave.
Do you think that’s a problem because of religion?
I think it’s dogma. Dogma is a problem wherever it has revealed itself in the history of culture. Here’s what I believe – Dogma is “an evidence does not matter” belief. That’s dogma. You can have political dogma, religious dogma, and even scientific dogma. Scientific dogma is rarer because we have mechanisms in place to weed out such thinking and the people weeded out are other scientists. There’s a reward system if you weed out that kind of thinking. Whereas, I don’t see that happening in other systems be they political, religious or economic. So you can have other kinds of dogma. Wherever there is dogma, a system stagnates. So, there can be religious dogma and in some sectors of our culture there is. But there’s also other kinds of dogma. There’s the Luddite dogma – all technology is bad. Meanwhile, the person is alive because of some vaccine that was developed through the efforts of technology. So that’s a kind of an ignorance where people are critical of science without ever actually understanding the ways that it has made their lives better.
Does your perception of yourself in the public eye motivate you to be better?
Well, no – I just think if you can do anything you might as well do it as well as you can do it. Imagine if more people felt that way about everything they did. So, I think not enough people seek to improve whatever it is they’re doing and I try to. So, if I’m called to be on a talk show, I’ll do research on the host, what their rhythms are and what kind of jokes they tell so I can be ready for it.
What, if any, are your thoughts on hallucinogenic drugs?
Well, that’s out of the blue. I am stupefied by how easy it is to completely alter your capacity to think rationally. Another way to say that is, I’m stupefied by how susceptible the brain function is to the influence of simple chemicals. And that can be alcohol, hallucinogenic drugs, the active ingredient in marijuana – it can be any of these. Cocaine, heroin, even caffeine – they are all a chemical that influences your conduct as a human being. They do it in very simple ways – so that tells me something about the human brain – that it’s not a robust organ. It’s waiting to fail. It’s going to find any excuse to fail. So, if you’re not in the business of thinking deep thoughts about the physical world – because our brain only barely works in the physical world – think about it. Think about books that we call optical illusions. Who doesn’t love a good optical illusion? I do just as much as the next person. What those books really should be called are brain failures. “Oh, I don’t know, is it a lion in the pattern, which lion is longer? I don’t know!” They’re brain failures – every last one of them. Simple brain failures. So, here we have to trick the brain that doesn’t even require much of an effort. The brain’s association with reality is a tenuous one and if reality doesn’t matter much to you and you’re into recreational drugs then OK. When I think of reality, I think my brain has got to be as sharp as it possibly can be just to take in the reality that is the object of my interest. I don’t know anybody who made major discoveries while they were on LSD. They might have reflections on those times afterward.
What about Francis Crick who said he discovered the double helix structure of DNA on LSD?
Ok, let’s suppose that were even true. How often do people who are drunk or otherwise influenced by chemicals make great discoveries? I think if everyone went on LSD at the same time, that would be the end of culture or civilization as we know it. So at some point, reality has got to matter because it’s reality that we are doing the investigating on.
In 1991, Texas began construction on a Supercollider particle accelerator like the Large Hadron Collider currently operating in Switzerland. Due to budget problems, the project was cancelled in 1993. I was wondering what your thoughts on the failed project were.
It’s an absence of vision by Congress. It was the beginning of the end of our leadership in expensive frontier science projects in America that’s been ceded to Europe and Asia. I don’t think the case was made. Somebody has got to make the case and it can’t be just “I like discovering new particles.” The intersection of science with funders of science needs a better argument than that and that’s an argument that I know I make. The question is whether it’s made effectively. In my recent book Space Chronicles, I talk about things that fund major projects – drivers that are behind them.
Was there a moment you realized people needed to hear what you were talking about?
Well, no. There’s a moment where – I don’t force this on people. All of the YouTube videos I’m on and 85% of any time I’m on TV, it’s because the universe flinched and I got a phone call and they want me to show up and talk about it. Period. I offer people perspectives so that they understand the consequences of action or inaction based on how they apply their science literacy or not. That’s what I do. Then, I go home. I don’t lead marches, I’m not running for office, I don’t have websites that try to promote this, I don’t start letter writing campaigns – I’m just putting it out there.
For you personally, what would be the most exciting thing that the Mars rover discovers?
I want an alien to crawl out and go joy riding on Curiosity. I want Curiosity to find life. That would be an extreme version of life and it’s not looking for life, but it does have cameras. The search for life – it would be fun if we found it – it would transform biology.
In your opinion, what is the single most significant discovery in science since you’ve been in the field?
I would say dark energy – the one that just got the Nobel Prize.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
When I hear good advice, I amalgamate it into tapestry and so it’s not sitting out alone, away. Let me think. It’s a quote from Horace Mann that I want to use as my epitaph. It’s “Be ashamed to die until you have scored some victory for humanity.” That’s my credo I would say and I take it as advice, even though I never met the guy, but I live by that.
If aliens abducted you and you could get take one book, one album, and one movie, what would you choose?
If it was to keep myself entertained, the book would probably be The Complete Works of Shakespeare for a non-science book. I would take Beethoven: The String Quartets. What movie can I see a thousand times over? The Matrix.
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In the past five years over 60,000 people have been murdered, over 5,000 have been “disappeared,” and over 160,000 have been forced to leave their homes in the joint Mexico-US “war on drugs.” The number of deaths alone surpasses 20 September 11ths–but why should we in the US care? Those people should not have gotten involved in the drug trade in the first place, right?
This is the kind of false impression that participants in the Caravan For Peace With Justice and Dignity hope to dispel. Led by poet Javier Sicilia, the group of about 130 people representing over 200 organizations from both sides of the US/Mexico border will travel more than 6,000 miles with stops in over 20 US cities before arriving in DC on September 10. Their aim, as Sicilia states in his profile as one of Time Magazine’s “Persons of the Year, 2026” is to:
make visible the face of our national pain. The drug-war statistics were hiding those faces; the powers that be were trying to tell us that all those who were dying were just criminals, just cockroaches. We had to change that mind-set and put names to the victims for a change.
[Note: I want to emphasize, again, that a majority of the people murdered in the so called "drug war" are not involved in the drug trade--at least not by choice. Yes, some are drafted and coerced into participating in the drug trade against their will, but many others are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sicilia's son was murdered because a gangster thought his friends were going to report a camera theft to the police. Margarita Lopez's daughter was kidnapped, raped, and tortured before being beheaded because somebody thought she could be ransomed. Olga Reyes lost six family members (and 20 others have had to flee their homes) because she comes from a family of outspoken activists who have objected to unsafe nuclear waste disposal sites and other environmental problems near their home in Michoacan. Lourdes Campos's son was killed for being a labor organizer. These people are not criminals; they did not choose to become involved in shady dealings and wound up dead, as the politicians who avoid addressing the problem would have you think.]
The caravan spent last Sunday and Monday (August 26 and 27) in Houston. The first stop was St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, where family members of victims and survivors of the “drug war” from both Mexico and the US shared their stories. I saw a former police officer and current member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) break down in tears expressing regret for the role he played in enforcing drug laws he no longer agrees with. (We have only 5% of the world’s population in the US, but we claim nearly 25% of the world’s prison population–most of which is made up of non-violent drug offenders and two-thirds of which are people of color, according to The Sentencing Project.)
From there, the Caravan went to the Rothko Chapel where Javier Sicilia, who stopped writing poetry after his son’s murder in March 2026, told his story and recited three poems (in Spanish, which were beyond my grasp of the language). His speech was followed by a Q&A session with the audience.
“It is the work of a poet to give back meaning to words,” Sicilia said in response to a question regarding artists’ social responsibility. “We talk and talk, but we’re not saying anything. We are using the degraded language of politicians and businessmen. Art allows us recuperate the meaning of things.”
He compared our current moment to the time of the fall of the Roman Empire.
“Our institutions are outdated,” he said. “They are relics of the 17th century. This is why we are taking our message straight to the people–like Zapatistas, like participants in the ‘Arab Spring,’ like the Occupy Movement. We are interested in dialog with people, not with institutions. The state, the church, the economic institutions–they no longer have the power to change things.”
The next morning, Sicilia joined Baker Institute fellow William Martin, Ph.D. and visiting scholar Tony Payan, Ph.D. for a panel discussion at Rice University [click link for video of the discussion]. The panel explored connections and consequences of this failed policy on both sides of the US/Mexico border: most of the drugs are consumed on the US side, for example, but the “drug war” has done little to curtail demand for drugs; most of the weapons used in Mexican drug crimes come from the US–the corrupt Mexican military and police (which are often indistinguishable from narco-traffickers) are directly armed by US “foreign aid,” and the drug gangs get their weapons from unscrupulous gun dealers on our side of the border; meanwhile, racialized drug laws and their selective enforcement which allows addicts such as Charlie Sheen and Paris Hilton to walk freely while ruining the lives of poor kids from communities of color provides a huge boon to our private prison industry.
The speakers advocated for a more sensible US drug policy. Payan advocated for drug decriminalization in concert with community development and education for a long-term vision in reducing drug abuse. He compared the current drug war to the more sensible efforts to reduce cigarette smoking–in the 1960s, 60% of the US population smoked cigarettes, but a 40-year, multi-generational campaign has reduced that percentage to where only 18% of the population smokes today.
“We’re not using all the tools we have at our disposal,” he said, “We’re using only law enforcement, which is like going to the gym and exercising only one arm.”
Dr. Martin built on Sicilia’s statement that prohibition benefits only gangsters and warlords in his country by drawing a parallel to the USA’s failed experiment with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s.
“The most dangerous and destructive drug is alcohol,” he said, “but you don’t see Anheuser-Busch and Jack Daniels shooting at each other on street corners.”
From there we went to Talento Bilingue de Houston, where a press conference included speeches by the local head of the NAACP, a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and survivors/victims who shared personal testimony–they included Lourdes Campo, whose son Guillermo was killed on June 19, 2026; Olga Reyes, who has lost six members of her family and 20 additional family members have had to flee their homes; Sacario Hernandez, who was jailed for five years and 51 days on false weapons charges; Araceli Magdalena Rodriguez, whose son Luis Angel was murdered; and Margarita Lopez Perez, whose 19-year-old daughter was kidnapped, tortured, raped, and beheaded. Other survivors, such as Maria Trujillo Herrera, held up signs bearing the names and faces of their lost loved ones.
Then Javier Sicilia sawed a legally-bought (too-easily bought at a local gun show) AK-47 into three pieces as part of a three-part ritual/direct action. A .357 Magnum pistol, which had been purchased by a caravan member with a foreign accent without anybody even checking her ID at the same gun show in less that five minutes was also destroyed. [Click here for undercover videos of those gun purchases.]
Click here to view the embedded video.
Survivors of the gun violence then ritualistically pounded the guns’ fragments with sledgehammers:
The most moving part of the ceremony was perhaps the burial of the gun fragments in cement. Remember, most of these survivors never recovered the bodies of their loved-ones–they have “disappeared”–so this is the closest facsimile of a burial for their deceased that these people will probably ever get.
From TBH, the Caravan was supposed to go to a Carter’s Country gun dealership, because two of their four locations are on the list of top-twelve arms dealers who sold weapons that wound up being used in violent crimes in Mexico. These statistics were compiled by The Washington Post over a year-long investigation, despite the fact that the US Congress passed a law in 2026 that prohibits the ATF from tracking a gun’s point of origination. As a result, a mere 1% of unscrupulous US gun dealers are selling 57% of the weapons seized at Mexican crime scenes–and many of these parasites have set up shop right at the border.
Unfortunately, as Hurricane Isaac had set its sites on the Caravan’s next stop–New Orleans–organizers felt the need to hurry along. Survivors did not get their chance to confront the notorious arms dealer Bill Carter with photographs of their slain family members.
REAL QUICK–Another highlight from the Caravan was their stop in Arizona’s Maricopa County for a chance to dialog with their infamous sheriff, Joe Arpaio. Below is a photograph by journalist and caravan participant, Roberto Lovato of Berkeley, California, showing a demonstration outside of Arpaio’s inhumane “tent-city” jail with a tank parked out front. Read Lovato’s account of Sicilia’s meeting with Arpaio on the Latino Rebels blog, “‘America’s Toughest Sheriff’ has the softest hands of any lawman in the West.”
According to participants, Arpaio began the meeting by objecting to the presence of an interpreter in the room.
“You’re in America,” he spat at the revered, humble poet Sicilia, the aggrieved father of a slain 24-year-old, “Speak English.”
Yours truly once went undercover as “Uncle Scam” with a contingent of Minute Men when Arpaio visited Houston back in 2026. Check out this hilarious video and read more about it on our old site.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Finally, can you imagine a US social movement led by a poet? I know such a thing is relatively common in other countries, but it is unheard of in the US. Why are we so anti-intellectual? (I would argue that even our “political” poets who are working in the “poetry slam” tradition and even our “activist scenes” are anti-intellectual.)
My friend, Houston-based poet/translator/interpreter John Pluecker, whose project Antena donated equipment and interpretation services to the caravan, had the pleasure of interpreting the conversation between Tom Hayden and Javier Sicilia which was just published at The Nation magazine. I encourage you to check it out–it’s much deeper than the statistics and polling data we’re usually fed by our Fourth Estate.
You can support the caravan by petitioning President Obama by texting “PEACE” to 225568.
For more information on the Caravan and its goals, here is a bevy of links:
[Credit for all photos in the article goes to Liana Lopez, except for the photo of Arpaio's tank, which goes to Roberto Lovato.]
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