A barnstorm tour of Texas on a soggy week in May deposited me at a treasured place: a particular tennis court, opposite a particular racquet-bearing friend. It’s where we had gathered weekly for years, the essence of effort being the sweat and not the score. And so we perspired once more, though more from the…
DetailsArchitects of the anti-abortion restrictions struck down by the Supreme Court this week are about as concerned about women’s health as a Texas football throng is about head injuries between each whistle. They want their team to win. They want to march down the field to their goal of burying the foe in the turf.…
DetailsTexas didn’t need a federal court to know it couldn’t do this. Neither did Indiana, Alabama, or any states seeking to excuse themselves from what America has always done. We welcome refugees in life-or-death straits. “Oh, no, we don’t,” said those states. “Not if they’re Muslim.” Oh, yes, you do, if the…
Details“This is the year of jubilee/Send them angels down/The Lord has come to set us free.” The words of the Negro spiritual are celebratory, but the truth of them is in the title: “My Way’s Cloudy.” A long struggle was ahead. Many who sang it would never know freedom. Emancipation launched a…
DetailsYou’ve got to give it to Southern Baptists. When they do implosions . . . Two, count ’em, two spectacular demolitions visited Baylor University mere days apart. First – boom, boom, boom – the 66-year-old pillars under stoic but still highly functional Floyd Casey Stadium took lethal injection by dynamite. And then.…
DetailsCompassion. Compassion. Compassion. Thumbing through the Bible, I’m looking for something about compassion. Oh, that’s right. It’s everywhere. Start with that Golden Rule thing. No need to cite chapter or verse to know there’s nothing Christian at all about the response attributed to conservative Christians regarding so-called bathroom bills. There’s nothing remotely…
DetailsBefore discussing a sensitive subject, let us recite the Rotary Four-Way Test: “Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?” I’m not a Rotarian. I just like the Rotary Test for conduct. If our actions met that…
DetailsThat was pretty snarky of TV’s Samantha Bee to enlist Michelle Branch to retool her 2000 hit “Goodbye to You” as “Goodbye to Cruz.” However, when Branch sang of Ted Cruz, “I wanna punch you and ignore you at the same time,” let us acknowledge that she spoke not just for effete liberal entertainment types…
Details“The horror. The horror. . .” – closing lines from “Apocalypse Now.” I didn’t think of contrasting the Republican Party’s current situation with Francis Ford Coppola’s movie masterpiece until the New York Times editorialized about Donald Trump’s ascendancy and the Republican Party’s “trek into darkness.” “Apocalypse Now,” based on Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” is…
DetailsEeyore’s Birthday Party has come and gone in Austin again without scads of arrests. This is testament once again to the fact that our nation’s marijuana laws are silly. Not just silly. Sillier than your Aunt Vidalia on the wacky weed. If marijuana laws were serious, the nation’s jails this week would…
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