Spicy & Pricey
Dear Editor,
Talk about getting burned! Over $125 to take mom, dad, grandma, sister, and brother to the Hot Sauce Festival. ¡Demasiado picante! Back in the Nineties we’d bring cans of good food AND make a cash donation to the Central Texas Food Bank. Hot sauce, of all foods especially, is para la gente! Do better Austin.
Benjamin Berger
Publisher Cassidy Frazier responds: I understand the sticker shock of buying tickets for a family of five to the Hot Sauce Festival – $125 is a real number, and it’s fair to ask how we got here from the 1990s. Times have changed a lot since then. Hot sauce may still be para la gente, but the festival itself has real hard costs that, like everything else, haven’t gotten any cheaper. What hasn’t changed is its support for the Central Texas Food Bank: $5 from every ticket sold goes to support their meaningful work.
August in Austin
Dear Editor,
August in Austin
Favorite time of year,
Best color for grass
Crispy brown, with a beer.
A hundred degrees
Is cool in the shade,
Just don’t forget your hoss
Loves ice in Gatorade.
Texas tower orange,
With a ONE down its side,
Y’all, it could happen if
Javelinas learn to fly.
Yup, this August in Austin,
The sound that’s most heard
Is the whine inside Teslas,
“It was better where we were.”
So head along, lil’ dogies,
Don’t let us slow you down.
Mama’s got biscuits to bake
On the stove that the
Salvation Army won’t take.*
*homage to Steven Fromholz, 1945-2014
Alex McNair
Subordinate Court
Dear Editor,
I know I am not the only American that is increasingly frustrated with a federal government checks and balances system that has largely failed. In particular, this week’s Supreme Court decision to allow a clearly unlawful construction project to continue confounds me. These arrogant, albeit high-IQ, citizens whose jobs happen to be justices have willfully or not completely lost the plot.
Our system, which we started learning about in fifth grade, is straightforward. We elect representatives to Congress. They pass laws. The president, also elected, executes those laws. Sometimes, people disagree about what the laws mean, and then the Supreme Court decides.
What we have now is representatives who pass laws, occasionally, and then the president decides whether to follow them or not. The Congress is silent.
The Supreme Court has confirmed that, yes, the president can follow the laws or not but also has assured the president that if he breaks the law, he’ll be immune anyway. And still the Congress is silent.
We’re not idiots. Impeach these justices. Vote out of office all elected officials who refuse to do their jobs.
Cathy Murphree
This article appears in September 4 • 2026.