Tagged: Health Care

If history is a guide, by now, more than 14 months into a steep recession, a very sharp recovery should be underway.

This month marks 20 years since I lost my dad. He was the best friend I ever had. We liked each other’s company, we knew the punch lines to each other’s jokes and we both preferred thick, chewy European beers. In light of what’s going on today, 20 years later, one of the things that stands out for me when I remember my dad was how amazingly self-sufficient he was. My father never made more...

I was in a waiting room last week and there sat a Texas Monthly magazine with a picture of a horrible looking lizard creature on the cover and a headline that read, “The Struggle to Survive.” Upon seeing this lizard and being told that he’s struggling to survive, I thought to myself, “To hell with him. I’m struggling to survive.” Every single living thing struggles to survive. The key difference is that humans have figured...

As a good friend of mine, a volunteer football coach and altogether good guy said Wednesday afternoon, “Paul, when you married Lee you out-punted your coverage.” For those of you who aren’t football fans, suffice to say, that was the highest compliment he could pay my wife. And he’s right. I married a wonderful woman. For all of my guy friends who complain about how much their wives spend, my problem with my wife is...

Sometimes these pieces just write themselves. My experience of last Friday is an example. In the movie “Baby Boom”, a seriously overwrought Diane Keaton pours out her heart to a man she believes to be a doctor, disclosing among other things her deepest fears, her precarious financial situation and her lack of recent sexual release, only to find out that the “doctor” she’s talking to is a veterinarian. You quickly appreciate from Ms. Keaton’s experience...

Not far from my house is Mustang Doughnuts, home of the best glazed doughnuts I have ever had. And if you leave the house when I do, when the little hand is still on the five, the doughnuts are fresh and warm and without question one of the most amazing indulgences of the flesh available without a prescription. I have no business eating doughnuts. There’s no defending them. They are trans-fat-laden cholesterol bombs that raise...

With the summer being so hot if you’re not happy with your electric bill, I have an idea that will dramatically lower your cost. When you get your July bill, just don’t pay it. Or, just pay what you feel comfortable paying. That way, you can tell your spouse that you have significantly lowered your home cooling cost for July. You’ll be a hero. For a little while. Of course, you won’t be such a...

President Obama has stated that his number one domestic agenda priority is a radical overhaul of our health care system. The various proposals being discussed are projected to cost well in excess of $1 trillion over the next ten years. It should be obvious that we can’t afford such “reform.” But the debate over costs misses what I think is a very important point. If you listen to KTBB at all, you hear segments we...

Listen to the introduction of this topic on Newstalk 600 KTBB Friday morning, October 12. You Tell Me segment, Friday October 12 I recently visited two Tyler post offices. The goal seemed simple. Get a Priority Mail Flat Rate Envelope, affix the appropriate postage and drop the envelope in the collection box. Yes, it was Columbus Day and the post office was closed. But who cares? I didn’t need the services of a postal clerk....