Dwight Eisenhower puts all of his political capital on the line to advance an audacious notion: a national highway system. He is rebuffed when states refuse to play along. They complain that even if the federal government pays 90 percent, these will be their highways to maintain, with costs associated. They want no part of…
Damn the evidence. Full speed ahead. Damn the costs. Full speed ahead. Nothing — not legitimate questions about efficacy, not staggering costs amid general budget bloodletting — will stay the maddening march toward more standardized testing for America’s school children. In Texas, school districts brace for $9.8 billion in budget cuts which…
Observe now the touting of Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels for president. Many who can’t find the Muscatatuck River on a map will wonder. Mitch who? But Daniels is no nobody. As a poly-sci entity, he is much known. He was George W. Bush’s first budget director in Washington. As president,…
You’ve got to respect Marva Beck’s religion, in a quaint, Lake Wobegon way. The newly elected Republican has come to Austin with this belief to express: Texas government, “too big.” Understand where she’s coming from. To one from Centerville, almost anything of a Texas-size dimension would be a humongous. But…
Almost 30 years ago I came to appreciate an adage about friends that guides me still: Distance can’t sever that which “want-to” holds intact. Back then, a childhood pal had followed his muse to Japan, making it his home. The end of our friendship? Hardly. Just as we had done when…
History calls on Rob Dyrdek. A nation awaits word. Run for president, Rob. Run as a Republican. You have what it takes. Mainly, and most importantly, you have a reality television show. Make that two. That makes you doubly qualified. One could not help but think of…
A. Baseball. Hot dogs. Motherhood. Birth control pills. Q. Name four things that are as American as apple pie. Anyone who would exclude any of the items above is living deep, deep in another century. Someone, please, ask the Republican Party in which century it intends for us to…
Now, isn’t that special? Rep. Michelle Bachmann held a Capitol Hill soiree the other day. And who showed up to speak but Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. We can only imagine what Justice Scalia had to say to members of the House Tea Party Caucus at the “constitutional education class"…
Shades of 1965: white fright on a Southern roadside. I wonder how many Texans drive by the billboard along Interstate 35 and remember another billboard long ago targeting Martin Luther King Jr. The one that stands these days just south of Waco bears a menacing black-and-white photo of Barack Obama, and the…
It’s not the dollar-driven cottage industry that denying evidence about global warming has become, but stay tuned. With budget savings in view, the full-court press is on in state legislatures to deny that smaller class sizes help students do better. Tight state budgets are forcing the “science,” the rationalizing of larger…