There was a moment in the Ann Richards campaign against George W. Bush when I knew in advance she had lost. The late governor was speaking to a Girls’ State assembly, which is a little legislature created annually for high school students to meet for a day and learn about Read more…
Anyone who has watched, even from a remove, the rulings of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, is not surprised by the decision to uphold the new restrictive Texas abortion laws. It is, however, slightly baffling that three of the justices were women, and that the Read more…
“People ask me what I do in the winter when there is no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” – Rogers Hornsby When I got the news that Ernie Harwell had died, I was, appropriately, at a baseball game. I Read more…
You never know who’s watching your tweet stream. Or maybe you should assume someone is that might have a question or two. During a trip last week to the Rio Grande Valley, a political activist informed me that U.S. Senator Ted Cruz had made only one visit to the region Read more…
Far out on the west side of Hidalgo County, the land is dark and rich and flattened into an alluvial plain by ancient floods in the Rio Grande Valley basin. There is no end to growing season this close to the Mexican border and the fields are only barren between Read more…
We lived in a small house, 850 square feet, six kids, Daddy and Ma. The neighborhood was all southerners that had moved north to work in the factories. Daddy told me late in his life that he had left the sharecropping of cotton in Mississippi to move to the unknowns Read more…
While Ted Cruz was happily meeting with home schoolers in Iowa, the residents of the Rio Grande Valley in his home state were getting ready to sign up for health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Cruz, a Republican, has been to Iowa four times in the eight months Read more…
(McAllen, Texas) – We flew down on a cold January day. A dome of Canadian air that seemed to collapse from the arctic top of the world had reached all the way to the sub-tropical region of the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Nothing kills in the tropics as Read more…
Guest post by Ken Vest Democrats today remind me of the scene in the Godfather when Johnny Fontane whines about being denied a movie role he covets. The only problem is there is no Godfather to help the gutless wonders Democrats have become in this political season. The NYT reports they Read more…
Those of us who write, either for income or pleasure, are constantly asked about where we get our motivation and determination. Writing, of course, is a discipline that requires an output of product on a regular basis to achieve a final vision. William Styron was quoted more than a few Read more…
The accident that changed Greg Abbott’s life was so improbable as to be almost statistically immeasurable. A healthy 27 year-old, he was jogging through the Houston community of River Oaks in 1984 when a large limb broke from a tree and fell on his back. Abbott, who spent months in Read more…
(Coming Monday: Greg Abbott and the Politics of Anger) There were a large number of people wondering what had gone wrong with John Mack, and I was still coming to terms with why I was in his office. Mack was a cum laude graduate of Harvard’s medical school, a psychiatrist, Read more…
You can’t, or at least you should not, debate science. By definition, science is factual information that has stood theoretical tests with data that stands up to consistent scrutiny. The idea that evolution is a theory, and ought to be taught, as Texas conservatives insist, along side creationism, is patent Read more…
There are indications the world is close to finding the wreckage of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 that disappeared after losing contact. The Chinese government has just released satellite images, which were taken Sunday, and may show wreckage of the plane in the South China Sea somewhere between Malaysia and Read more…
This is the first of an occasional series of speeches on important issues and topics we’d love to see given by anyone running for governor or any other statewide office in Texas. Most of you have probably heard the term GTT. We learned in school when we were young that Read more…