Let’s explain it to David Brooks.
People who get up every day and go make the country work are tired of getting screwed.
Tagged: Society
Men on the margins.
If I were some powerful super villain whose goal it was to kill off America, to render it impotent and meaningless on the world stage, one of things I would do is marginalize men.
Selling out to good intentions.
In about 1983, when I was a first-time general manager of a radio station in Oklahoma City, I decided to do something nice for the employees.
Our problems are ours to solve.
It was Albert Einstein that said, “When the solution is simple, God is answering.” It was Warren Buffet who said, “The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.” I offer these two quotes on simplicity to make a point. Our country’s founding principles and its founding documents are elegant in their straightforward simplicity. The founders believed that if individual liberty could be allowed to flourish, a...
Making the right call on Polanski should be a no-brainer.
A warning to readers. This post discusses a very serious sexual assault. Discretion is advised. One of these days I’m going to quit being shocked at the hypocrisy of our liberal elites. Maybe. Or maybe not. Because what we are seeing and hearing with respect to the recent arrest of Roman Polanski is truly astonishing. If you’ve missed it, here’s the story. Roman Polanski is a well-known and very successful film producer and director. Chinatown,...
Forget about health care costs. What about college?
If you just had a child graduate high school and are now 11 weeks away from the start of college, turn off the radio. You’re not going to like this. I was recently given a tour of the brand new facilities at a major university. I’m not going to say which one because you die-hard alums that flock your Christmas trees the same color as your alma mater’s football jerseys will bombard me with your...
Graduates: Be selfish and serve mankind.
It’s graduation season and that means commencement addresses. Recently President Obama spoke at the commencements of Arizona State University and the University of Notre Dame. All across the country, distinguished alumni and other major and minor luminaries are speaking to the Class of 2009. A common theme in commencement addresses is that graduates, armed with degrees that frequently cost more than all but the very nicest homes, must leave college and go forth to serve...
A Stronger America: Part 2 – Up with fathers.
This is the second of a five-part series on the things that I would do today in order to be assured of a stronger, freer, more prosperous America 20 years from now. Last week we discussed a radical federal income tax overhaul. This week we’ll revisit a topic we’ve discussed on previous occasions and I beg your forgiveness. But this is important and it can’t be left out of any plan to improve our nation....
In a “New Era of Responsibility”, Dad should come home.
On the White House website (www.whitehouse.gov) you can read, listen to or watch President Obama’s inaugural address. In the slug to the post, it says, “President Obama delivered his Inaugural Address, calling for a new era of responsibility.” (Click here to listen to the excerpt.) I’m a big believer in personal responsibility. Personal responsibility is the ultimate expression of freedom. In the 18th century, when large numbers of ordinary citizens were first given freehold tenure...
Obama’s chance at lasting change.
As we speak this morning (Fri, Jan 16, 2008, 7:53 a.m.), in just 4,987 minutes we will have a new president. And not just any new president. As we have been reminded almost constantly since late in the evening of Nov. 4, we will have the first African-American president. It is a signal moment in American history. On Nov. 6, just after the election, I spoke in this space on one very significant aspect of...
Be careful giving up freedom to quell your fears.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” – C. S. Lewis Here’s a simple civics lesson. Take a piece of paper and draw a horizontal line. Mark the ends of the line and label one end “No Government” and on the other end, label it “Maximum Government.” Above the Minimum Government label write the words, “chaos” and “freedom” and above the Maximum Government label...
He earned it.
The first presidential election of which I have any recollection was the 1960 Kennedy election. I was six going on seven years old. In those days I was living in Amarillo, Texas and my dad and I used to go watch minor league baseball. In Kennedy’s first year in office, the 1961 Amarillo Gold Sox were affiliated with the New York Yankees and played in Potter County Stadium. That 1961 team featured future Yankees pitcher...
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....
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...
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...
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...
A Nation at Risk: Our schools 25 years later.
Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday, April 25, 2008. Let me share with you a quote. “If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.” That line came from a report issued 25 years ago this week by the National Commission on Excellence in Education titled,...
The good that comes from failure.
Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday, April 11, 2008. A few weeks ago, I took my second grade daughter to school. When she got there, she realized that she had left her homework on the table just inside the entryway to our home. Her teacher is a consummate professional who is trying to prepare the kids in her class for the realities of adult life....
Rev. Jeremiah Wright should re-listen to Rev. Martin Luther King.
Author’s note: This piece makes little sense absent the audio clips that are a part of it. To get the entire meaning of this post, either click on the “Listen here” links when they appear in the text, or listen to the spoken broadcast of this post on Newstalk 600 KTBB as it aired on Friday, Apr. 4, 2008. The link to that broadcast is immediately below. Click here to listen to the broadcast of...
Don’t buy the politics of despair.
Listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday Mar. 7, 2008 I covered the Obama rally in Ft. Worth a week ago last night. Among other things, he said this: “You know, everywhere I go I hear stories of struggle and stories of hardship.” He went on to describe people losing their jobs to overseas markets, people unable to pay their mortgages and buy medicine at the same time, old...