Big Bend, 2025 – The Walk

12/12/25

Being a public broadcasting nerd for decades, The Texas Friday Standarda KUT radio product in Austin, Texas, talked about the dark skies and the McDonald Observatory To Fort Davis!

I made the long trip back to Houston, all the better for having good radio reception. I listened with rage.

I walked there a lot and enjoyed the strangeness and otherworldliness of the place.

I was lucky one day to be educated by very talented teachers from another state; experts in plants, animals, chemistry, ecology. They showed me organisms I had never seen before.

But I had to wonder.

Everyone I saw was white, middle or upper class, educated; mostly healthy, articulate and well equipped. because?

There were no blacks or Hispanics or disabled people the days I was there.

Again, why?

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