Minibooks

Texas was built on stories of cactus, cattle, and cowboys that have stretched as big as the state itself to encompass the even more fabulous tales of railroads, oil, and the bravest of settlers. Railroads brought commerce, people, and vitality to early Texas creating such strong growth and welcoming numerous industries that now the state's economy is broad based and globally renowned. Men like Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving pioneered ranching on the prairies and their kind was only tamed when fence posts and barbed wire closed the open range in the 1880s. With more than 26 million residents, the vast majority of which reside in its cities, the Texas of today has the room, the resources, the diversity, and the willpower to continue at the unabated rate of growth of the last century. Texas' international cities gleam with glass and steel. From Austin to Amarillo, a visitor can be understood almost as well (sometimes better) in Spanish as in English. It is the character of the people, so many of them with a Mexican heritage, that gives a savory flavor to all things Tex-Mex.

The human body is an immensely complex and amazing system, but sometimes something goes haywire and causes one or more of its vital elements to misfire, resulting in bizarre and often devastating anatomical anomalies. Such physical abnormalities in times past often meant that the affected individuals would be stigmatized and shunned from the rest of society, primarily out of fear of the unknown. Thankfully, modern science and modern medicine working together have been able to solve many of these physical problems so that the currently afflicted can lead relatively normal lives. The general public has also grown more knowledgeable about the physical disfigurements that plague the human race and has thus become much more accepting of the pain and hardship faced on a daily basis by those so challenged. Extreme physical deformities are not viewed in the same light today as they were 100, or even 50, years ago. The very real people who once would have been the spectacles flaunted at freak shows are today shown understanding. Regardless of the modern times we enjoy, rare cases of physical abnormalities still persist that are so extreme little can be done to ameliorate the deformity.