October is Texas Wine Month and the celebration kicks off today with the first annual Go Texan Restaurant Day sponsored by the Texas Department of Agriculture. All across the state, restaurants participating in TDA's Go Texan restaurant program will be "bringing Texas to the table" by showcasing local produce, Texas artisan foods, and Texas wines in meals all day long. A portion of the proceeds of these meals will be donated to support Texas food banks. For a listing of restaurants in this area that belong to the Go Texan program, go to www.GoTexan.org. Show your support for local sustainable agriculture by eating out in a participating restaurant on Wednesday, October 1st! [video-1] [video-2]

Last night, during The Rachel Maddow Show, in a clip called "Grand Old Panic?" the good doc concludes an interview with Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas), and the House Republican accidentally calls Rachel "Sir." Here's how Dr. Rach handles it (It happens in the last second of this embedded video after the jump):

Happy New Year to my queer Jewish friends. It's Rosh Hashanah today, one of the Jewy High Holy days. So party it up, Jewbers, because its only 10 days until the buzzkill of Yom Kippur hits. Click on the gallery to see some queer Jewy art!

Faced with whopping debt and a frightening budget forecast, what kind of law enforcement priorities do California lawmakers have on their minds? As it turns out, nothing new (unless you consider locking people up for a longer period of time a "new" strategy), but plenty that is just scary, scary, scary. And, as it turns out, the biggest financial backer of state lawmakers' biggest "anti-crime" initiative is now facing a possibility of 340 years in prison. How's that for irony?

You'll be able to read more about Larry Joe Doherty, the Democratic challenger to Austin (District 10) Congressman Michael McCaul in this week's upcoming issue, but in the meantime, here's a tidbit for you: As today's campaign finance reporting deadline draws near (we'll try to round up some totals as they're posted), Doherty is reporting that he has topped $1 million in donations. That total includes the $100,000 that the legal malpractice lawyer loaned to his campaign, and it says a lot about the seriousness of what McCaul, a Republican, faces. His previous Democratic opponent, Ted Ankrum, had a total budget of only $65,000 in 2006, and in his first run, his only Democratic opposition in 2004 was a write-in candidate. Clearly, things have changed in this district that was personally re-drawn by Tom DeLay in 2003 to be a safe seat for Republicans.

Looks like SXSW fave Crawford has found a home. B-Side Entertainment has acquired Austin filmmaker David Modigliani's doc and will premiere the film on Hulu.com, the ad-supported, frankly indispensable streaming site. (Hulu means never having to say, "Shit! I forgot to program the DVR!" We kid, of course. As if we could afford DVR.) Crawford, which marks the first feature film to premiere on Hulu.com, hits the internets on October 7, to be followed by "streaming, downloads and DVD on demand via B-Side's proprietary website, Amazon VOD and CreateSpace, as well as iTunes and ultimately broader platforms."

Nobody's safe these days from the great battering ram of the imploding economy, and that, sadly, includes our public libraries. The Austin Public Library will put into effect this week a rotating schedule of one-day-a-week closures for each of its 20 branches. (Downtown's Faulk Central Library will keep its regular hours.) A press release sent out late last week announcing the measure stated that "funds from the one day closures will be reallocated in the areas of custodial, security, maintenance and the materials budget for the library system." The release also reassured that the branches' days' off would be staggered so that no neighborhood would be without service. Schedule of closures at geographically paired libraries after the jump. For more on APL, check out their website here.

Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir and Tax Assessor-Collector (and Voter Registrar) Nelda Wells Spears issued a plea today for Hurricane Ike evacuees to make sure they are registered to vote by the Oct. 6 deadline, if they want to vote in the Nov. 4 election. The duo emphasized three things:
• Anyone who thinks they are registered should double-check
• Anyone who is not registered should do so by Oct. 6
• Displaced Texans can register for their permanent address regardless of where they are at the moment, or they can register as a Travis County resident and vote here. They also emphasized that it's best to check on this now, rather than frantically dealing with it on Oct. 6 or on Election Day. Press release from Travis County follows:

"In 2008, get a new president is like, 'Here's the new manager of a bowling alley.' It's still a bowling alley." I stood and listened as Erykah Badu spoke truth to power Saturday afternoon, sun burning my back, and watched the resulting mass exodus away from the AT&T stage as she talked about changing the whole game, the election, reclaiming our voice, Obama. Yeah, I know it's a festival and I shouldn't be so surprised at that reaction, but this being one of the most important election years in my lifetime, I'm glad Badu seized the moment and said something real. She wasn't preaching. She wasn't pointing fingers. Still, so many people just immediately closed off their minds. "She's not playing music anymore ... uh ... uh ... let's get a beer." If, say, John Fogerty had said the same thing onstage, no doubt there would have been a different reaction. Also: Props to Bavu Blakes jumping onstage in an Obama mask, Manu Chao's big middle finger to Dubya, and the voter registration tables set up by the entrances. Register to vote if you haven't already, the deadline is Oct. 6.