Monthly Archive: September 2009

Have you hugged James Madison lately?

Exactly 220 years ago today, the first Congress of the United States approved twelve articles of amendment to the Constitution and sent them to the states for ratification. Ten of those proposed articles were eventually ratified and enshrined as the Bill of Rights. Prior to the birth of the United States, nearly every citizen on earth was to one degree or another under the rule of a czar or a king or a potentate of...

Get out of the way and let me struggle.

I was in a waiting room last week and there sat a Texas Monthly magazine with a picture of a horrible looking lizard creature on the cover and a headline that read, “The Struggle to Survive.” Upon seeing this lizard and being told that he’s struggling to survive, I thought to myself, “To hell with him. I’m struggling to survive.” Every single living thing struggles to survive. The key difference is that humans have figured...

The high cost of “free.”

As a good friend of mine, a volunteer football coach and altogether good guy said Wednesday afternoon, “Paul, when you married Lee you out-punted your coverage.” For those of you who aren’t football fans, suffice to say, that was the highest compliment he could pay my wife. And he’s right. I married a wonderful woman. For all of my guy friends who complain about how much their wives spend, my problem with my wife is...