Andrew Dessler is as dispassionate as an academic should be — except about things he knows to be beyond dispute. In the first sentence, first chapter, of The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change, that passion shows through. “Of all the environmental issues that have emerged in the past few decades, global climate change is…
Addressing the state’s newspaper executives Monday, Rick Perry might have been wearing a coonskin cap and leaning on Ol’ Betsy. Or he could have been Col. Travis drawing a line in the sand. To Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s joust that he’s wrong to turn down half a billion federal dollars in unemployment aid, Perry parried:…
Dress for success? In Texas, wear pads In basketball, they rate guard play by a turnovers-to-assists ratio. In football, they use interceptions-to-touchdowns to rate quarterbacks. I propose we start rating schools on their football-coach-to-guidance-counselor ratio. If we did, we’d start improving our turnovers/assists ratio. Assists: when we actually help a student figure out where he…
A few thousand people will read these words along with you. Hopefully, impressions will linger. I’ve not got my hopes up too high, though. For said expectations, I’m just not in the right creative endeavor. I’ve had people recite to me a line I wrote weeks or even years prior. But never could they hum…
In NBC’s series “Friday Night Lights,” a pampered high schooler goes into a senioritis death spiral. Why? She’s suddenly realized that with her middle-of-the-pack grades, the two Texas-college color schemes of her dreams — burnt orange and maroon — are out of the question. It’s hard to sympathize. Every student in this state with an…
A fable: Good-guy Dave was a steady sort. He wasn’t prone to excess. To that end, he saved his nickels and dimes. One day he counted all of his change: $503. Dave thought of the needs facing his family: a rusted-out water heater, a creaky A/C window unit, worn brake pads in the family’s second-hand…
In The Exorcist, the 1973 film that made Linda Blair a star and caused pea soup consumption to plummet, a man arrived at a house with a black bag and a Bible to drive out evil spirits. But what does one bring to undo an exorcism? Comparable tools, actually. Barack Obama swore on Abe Lincoln’s Bible. This…
If Allen Stanford ever took the notion to seek elected office, you can bet your first-born child he’d have had TV ads identifying himself as a “small businessman.” You can bet that those in Washington who consumed — and returned in kind — his many good graces would say they responded to the needs of…
“Class warfare.” “Largest tax increase in history.” Get used to these words. If President Barack Obama’s tax policies come to fruition, his political foes will wring those phrases for every hint of potential. We know they will, because those are the same words used to assail what Bill Clinton did with taxes. And, we were…