—n
1. a person who attacks established or traditional concepts, principles, laws, etc
2. a. a destroyer of religious images or sacred objects b. an adherent of the heretical movement within the Greek Orthodox Church from 725 to 842 ad, which aimed at the destruction of icons and religious images (World English Dictionary)
We admit it — the name Texas Iconoclast is a little in your face. And by strict definition, it sounds more reactionary than conservative.
That’s not our goal. We are not setting out to attack Texas tradition (to the contrary), nor are we a group of Texans opposed to Orthodox Christian religious symbolism!
Our goal is to take on a different sort of orthodoxy: The center-left perspective that pervades media coverage of Texas politics and culture (as reflected in the output of the state’s major newspaper editorial boards and news staffs, not to mention a good number of online, weekly, and monthly publications).
Context
We think the center-right perspective that reflects Texans’ values is too often missing from the Texas media’s political coverage. We aim to provide some balance.
Independence
In the early days of the blogosphere, there was a period when people thought blogs might provide a thoughtful dialogue between right and left, and maybe a new era of civility.
That turned out great, didn’t it? Many of the best bloggers were swallowed by the media establishment, and many others turned into little more than automatons who copy and paste party/candidate talking points and/or blockquote press releases.
We hope never to be so predictable. Beyond a commitment to offer a lively center-right discussion of Texas politics, media, and culture, may there never BE that other sort of orthodoxy at Texas Iconoclast!
Focus
We’re going to talk about Texas politics, media, and culture. We may occasionally stray off topic, but if this blog starts focusing on the problems and personalities of Washington, DC (or elsewhere), then it will be time to shut it down.
Organization
We’ve set the site up with two distinct sections: The daily links (some with commentary), and the Editors’ Blog (for longer posts, perhaps some multimedia content, and whatever else we come up with).
Contributors
Texas Iconoclast was launched in the Spring of 2011 by Evan (of Perry vs World), Cory Crow (of Harris County Almanac, and Lose an Eye, It’s a Sport before that), and Kevin Whited (of PubliusTX.net, blogHOUSTON, and Chronically Biased).
Submissions/Inquiries
Submissions and/or inquiries can be sent to texasiconoclast – at – gmail dot com (or to our individual email addresses should you care to track those down).