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It’s time to be scared straight.

Let’s pick a middle class home in Tyler at random and eavesdrop on the conversation taking place inside between husband and wife. HIM: “Honey, we need to rein it in. We talk about it every year before the holiday season begins and we promise that we’re going to keep a lid on things at Christmas but then we each go out and see just one more thing and we reach for the plastic and boom....

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At least Howard Beale knew who to be mad at.

“I’m mad as hell, and I”m not going to take it anymore.” Peter Finch as Howard Beale “Network” 1976 If you’re not mad as hell, you’re not paying attention. And even those of you who are mad as hell, too many of you are mad at the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Let me illustrate. Wednesday afternoon I went to school to pick up my daughter. I was waiting on the school lawn with...

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Who will be critical of the critic?

It has been a tumultuous two weeks. Let’s review. As a result of poor lending practices in the home mortgage market and particularly egregious practices at mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, non-performing loans have served to dry up lending capital. This lack of capital is putting the squeeze on individuals and businesses that need ready, affordable access to credit in order to buy cars, houses, inventory and to cover payrolls. In order to...

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Frankenstein was the monster’s creator, not the monster.

The beautiful thing about living in a free society is that you get exactly what you want. You want a government that hands out benefits by the truckload? There are politicians that will make that happen for you in return for simply marking a ballot. Do you want to drive a huge vehicle that requires a lot of fuel? No problem. Just buy the car. Want to avoid the muss and fuss of producing the...

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Events of a turbulent week hold up a mirror.

Wow! What a week. Since last we spoke, the earth has wobbled on its axis. First, there’s Hurricane Ike. Here at KTBB we prepared for the worst right here in Tyler but in fact, we suffered very little. Not so in Houston, Galveston and along the Texas Gulf Coast. Those areas got hammered. Galveston was the wealthiest city in the United States in 1900 when a devastating hurricane killed as many as 8,000. The city...

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Give the man credit. He’s earned it.

Yesterday (Thu., Sep 11, 2008) marked the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 in which three important U.S. buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged and nearly 3,000 innocent people lost their lives. It’s actually to our credit as a nation that we were able to mark yesterday with as little note as we did. The fact is, the memory of the attacks of 9/11 has faded dramatically in the past seven...

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Call them back and make them do their jobs.

Did you call the president like I told you? I know some of you did because you called the station and asked again for the number. Get a pen and paper because I’m going to give the number out again. If you missed last week, I urged everyone to call the White House and urge the president to exercise his constitutional authority to call the Congress back to Washington from the August recess and put...

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Give ’em Hell, W! Call ’em back and let ’em sweat.

It’s August and if you think it’s hot and miserable here, you should go to Washington, D.C. If you’ve ever been in our nation’s capital in August you know. If you haven’t, take it from me it’s about the most miserable place in the country this time of year. Geographers can give you all of the reasons for Washington’s summer discomfort. I don’t really care about the particulars. Suffice to say that the heat and...

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Those working-at-the-car-wash blues.

At midnight Wednesday, base labor in America became worth 70 cents per hour more than it had been just one minute before. Just like that, an employee making $5.85 an hour began making $6.55 an hour, the new federal minimum wage. That’s an increase of twelve percent. Wow! Isn’t that great? If you have employees earning the minimum wage, they’re worth more today than they were when you went to work on Wednesday. A twelve...

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Congress: Lead (not likely) or get out of the way.

All the recent opinion polls say the same thing. The majority of Americans want action on high energy prices and they want action today. Right now. Citing just one poll, the Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll taken June 17 and 18, 76% of respondents favor more drilling for oil in the United States, 77 percent favor increased offshore drilling, 51 percent favor building more nuclear power plants and for the first time a majority – 53...

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Moses would have drilled.

I won’t often quote scripture in this space. But I’m going to this time because the scripture I’m about to quote is illuminating in today’s situation. I’m quoting Deuteronomy, the eighth chapter beginning with the seventh verse. Moses is speaking to the Israelites: For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs that flow out of valleys and hills; a land of...

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Call us the “Do Nothing Generation.”

Something I said on June 11 has been working on me since I first wrote it. In the story I did on the 1,400 mile Big Inch pipeline that was built from Longview, Texas to Linden, N.J. during World War II in only 54 weeks I said, “We Baby Boomers are the children of people who got things done. And we have been living off of those accomplishments ever since (without really having to put...