You know a Republican primary is approaching when, like leaves falling in the wind, candidates drop nuanced positions on reproductive rights and lie prostrate before blustery anti-choice absolutists. That’s the case in Texas, where Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison seeks to return home to redecorate the governor’s mansion. Thematically, to that end she…
In case you missed it, Allen Stanford is to be a knight no more. The Texas quick-buck baron is going to have his knighthood stripped by Antigua and Barbuda. Quite a fall for the guy — Sir Allen to you and me. He’d be a saint if a Caribbean nation were…
Ever since it became a boil on the face of news gathering, I’ve been waiting for someone, anyone, to truly and convincingly defend Fox News — Faux News to those of us who defend news gathering as a craft verging on a profession. I keep waiting and waiting. But at every opportunity the apologists…
I remember being at many enjoyable places with my grandfather, M.K. Young. But I knew his favorite place, regardless of locale: the fence line. Wherever he was, he went to the stranger next door. Whatever the circumstance, he struck up a conversation. In the campground. In a son’s neighborhood. At a roadside stop.…
This nation still can’t decide if war is a joint responsibility we all share, or if it’s something we hire out, like catering. Eight years in Afghanistan, six in Iraq, and we still treat warfare as just one of many service industries. The Bush administration ban on photographing coffins returning…
I still prefer to be barbecued. Or broiled — however it is that my remains can be reduced to the kind of dusty nutrient that makes fields and ravines grow greener. If it can’t be the Viking way — by floating pyre — let my bones retire the cremation way. That doesn’t…
A book from my childhood about Medal of Honor winners has a chapter about him: “Too Young to Fight.” The Texas boy lied about his age at 17, his face and physique betraying him to the Marines and Paratroopers who turned him away. Enlisting in the Army at the stroke of 18,…
What to do with a “failing” school: Summon a demolition party with torches? Convene priests and exorcize it of pedagogical demons? Convert it to a prison, the destination to which we assume students are bound due to the building’s failure? Yes, the building’s failure. All of the above fit neatly into…
Scanning the ranks of the noble Tea Party protesters — exiles of conscience, taxed into penury without representation — it’s hard to ignore one impression: For oppressed people, they haven’t missed many meals. Also: Apparently they had their attentions turned to the buffet table throughout the Bush administration. …
When my hands held it again for the first time in decades, I felt the electricity that made it such an exciting gift for an 8-year-old. A radio I could hold in my hand — pop music, sports, news — all at my command in a genuine leather holder. By appearance, that radio — a…