Wayne Allensworth

Latest by Wayne Allensworth in Chronicles

• Cultural Revolutions

  May 2003

  Avoiding a Crisis

  Russia may have avoided a full-scale political crisis, at least temporarily, thanks to the Bush administration’s decision in mid-March not to pursue a U.N. Security Council vote on its latest resolution on Iraq.

  Read More

• Cultural Revolutions

  April 2003

  A Surprising Threat of Veto

  Vladimir Putin, during his February trip to Germany and France, surprised Kremlin watchers east and west by threatening to veto any U.S.- or U.K.-sponsored resolution on military action against Iraq.

  Read More

• Correspondence

  April 2003

  A Place Called Home

  Kazan was preparing for her 1,000-year anniversary last August when Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived to address the World Tatar Congress in what once had been the center of a Tatar khanate.

  Read More

• Correspondence

  March 2003

  Memorial Day

  We used to go there on every Memorial Day—a small national cemetery off the road a piece in the woods. It was usually warm; the woods, deep, green, and moist. We would walk down a dirt path to the stone wall encircling the graves, sometimes passing others who had just visited there before us.

  Read More

• Cultural Revolutions

  March 2003

  Paying the Price

  Iraqi Christians are paying the price of the Bush administration’s desire to remove Saddam Hussein.

  Read More

• Cultural Revolutions

  February 2003

  Cancelling a Contract

  Saddam Hussein, a Kremlin source told the Russian Information Agency (RIA-Novosti), “isn’t so nice that you would want to defend him just for his own sake.”

  Read More

• View

  February 2003

  Giving Up Saddam

  From October 23 to October 26, 2002, all of Russia—and much of the world—was focused on the Dubrovka theater complex in Moscow.

  Read More

• Cultural Revolutions

  December 2002

  Hard Bargaining

  A U.N. resolution concerning weapons inspections in Iraq made October a month for hard bargaining among Washington, Paris, and Moscow. Washington and London both desired a resolution that would allow the automatic application of force should Iraq obstruct any proposed arms inspections.

  Read More

• Correspondence

  November 2002

  Living With the Questions

  It was hot out there, the sun glaring down on us in our suits and ties. The air was sort of smoky, the way it usually is down here near the Gulf Coast. A parade of suits and uniforms marched behind the fire truck.

  Read More

• Correspondence

  October 2002

  Little Goodbyes

  The sun is breaking through, the dark green grass shimmering as it is swept back and forth by the wind like the mane of a wild mustang running along a plain. Down here, near Madisonville along I-45 South, the rains had come hard and heavy.

  Read More

• Correspondence

  September 2002

  You Can’t Get There From Here

  The sun is shining on a typical warm day. I roll my sleeves up, let the window down, and watch the train go by. The battered Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, and Santa Fe boxcars roll past, clackity-clacking and swaying just a little on their way to “Cow Town.”

  Read More

• Correspondence

  August 2002

  Remembering Tender Mercies

  In the years just before America’s entry into World War II, thousands of people, shaken and scattered by the Great Depression, made their way to Houston, where the shipyards were booming.

  Read More

• Correspondence

  June 2002

  All the Time in the World

  The hawk, golden wings rustling in a stiff, cold breeze, floats above the prairie, eyeing its prey. A tiny movement in the sea of grass probably stirred the majestic beast from the powerline that served as a makeshift perch: The hawk takes to the air with a speed that defies my poor eyesight’s ability to follow it through the sky.

  Read More

• Correspondence

  May 2002

  The Next Sound You Hear

  We’ve crammed the Suburban with about as many people as it can carry, driving the fence line on a section of land not far from Meridian, Texas, on a cool Sunday afternoon during deer season.

  Read More

• Correspondence

  April 2002

  Christmas, Texas

  I am fumbling in the console, looking for my Jim Reeves Christmas CD, when I notice the wall of rolling, gray clouds approaching from the east.

  Read More

• Correspondence

  March 2002

  The Trees of Autumn

  It is a warm night for November, even in Texas. Thanksgiving is a few days away, and the warm weather, interrupted by a cool snap, has returned, reimposing itself like an unwelcome guest on an autumn background of falling leaves and brown, seemingly endless prairie stretching north to distant Canada.

  Read More

• Correspondence

  February 2002

  Mighty Seer, in Days of Old

  It’s near the end of October, and the air is crisp and cool. The wind blows hard here on the prairie, the thermometer failing to reflect the chill you feel on your skin and in your bones.

  Read More

• Cultural Revolutions

  February 2002

  Chief Target

  Hispanic voters remain the chief target of GOP strategists, at least in Texas. In the wake of Republican Orlando Sanchez’s December 1 runoff loss to Houston’s incumbent black mayor, Lee Brown, news media and Republican apparatchiki were busy gushing about the growing electoral weight of “Hispanic” voters and touting the GOP’s vaunted “Hispanic strategy.”

  Read More

• Correspondence

  January 2002

  The Season of Rain and Death

  A blood-red sun is setting on the horizon, distant but familiar, dull but glowing, like the bloodshot eye of a wounded Titan.

  Read More

• Correspondence

  December 2001

  Been There, Done That

  It is a beautiful April evening in Hico, Texas. My wife and I are having dinner with my in-laws, and I am eyeballing a statue of Billy the Kid across the street from Lilly's Restaurant.

  Read More