Let’s pick a middle class home in Tyler at random and eavesdrop on the conversation taking place inside between husband and wife. HIM: “Honey, we need to rein it in. We talk about it every year before the holiday season begins and we promise that we’re going to keep a lid on things at Christmas but then we each go out and see just one more thing and we reach for the plastic and boom....
The beautiful thing about living in a free society is that you get exactly what you want. You want a government that hands out benefits by the truckload? There are politicians that will make that happen for you in return for simply marking a ballot. Do you want to drive a huge vehicle that requires a lot of fuel? No problem. Just buy the car. Want to avoid the muss and fuss of producing the...
Wow! What a week. Since last we spoke, the earth has wobbled on its axis. First, there’s Hurricane Ike. Here at KTBB we prepared for the worst right here in Tyler but in fact, we suffered very little. Not so in Houston, Galveston and along the Texas Gulf Coast. Those areas got hammered. Galveston was the wealthiest city in the United States in 1900 when a devastating hurricane killed as many as 8,000. The city...
Something I said on June 11 has been working on me since I first wrote it. In the story I did on the 1,400 mile Big Inch pipeline that was built from Longview, Texas to Linden, N.J. during World War II in only 54 weeks I said, “We Baby Boomers are the children of people who got things done. And we have been living off of those accomplishments ever since (without really having to put...
Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday, April 25, 2008. Let me share with you a quote. “If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.” That line came from a report issued 25 years ago this week by the National Commission on Excellence in Education titled,...
Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday, April 11, 2008. A few weeks ago, I took my second grade daughter to school. When she got there, she realized that she had left her homework on the table just inside the entryway to our home. Her teacher is a consummate professional who is trying to prepare the kids in her class for the realities of adult life....
Author’s note: This piece makes little sense absent the audio clips that are a part of it. To get the entire meaning of this post, either click on the “Listen here” links when they appear in the text, or listen to the spoken broadcast of this post on Newstalk 600 KTBB as it aired on Friday, Apr. 4, 2008. The link to that broadcast is immediately below. Click here to listen to the broadcast of...
Listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday Mar. 7, 2008 I covered the Obama rally in Ft. Worth a week ago last night. Among other things, he said this: “You know, everywhere I go I hear stories of struggle and stories of hardship.” He went on to describe people losing their jobs to overseas markets, people unable to pay their mortgages and buy medicine at the same time, old...
Happy New Year and welcome to 2008. It is hard for me to believe that it has been 40 years since those of my generation endured the misery of the year 1968 that helped define a whole cohort of politicians and journalists. The journalists that were young in 1968 are now nearing the ends of their careers. For the politicians hoping to either be elected president or play a pivotal role in electing a president,...
It’s a bit less than a year to the 2008 presidential election. Anything can happen. As proof of that statement, anybody you asked on January 1, 2007 would have said that the Iraq war will be the dominant issue in November 2008. Ask that question today. Maybe not so much. At least for now, the success of the change of strategy in Iraq leading to the so-called “surge”has taken Iraq off the front page. I...
Click here to listen to the “You Tell Me” segment broadcast on Newstalk 600 KTBB Friday, Nov. 2, 2007 I have the good fortune to live in an affluent neighborhood. I also have the misfortune to live in an affluent neighborhood. I say misfortune because of the impact that affluence can have on some kids. I’ve already had one daughter go through middle and high school. I have another that will be in middle school...
Click here to listen to the “You Tell Me” broadcast segment on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday Oct. 19, 2007 The school board in Portland, Maine has just made the decision to offer birth control pills to school girls in its district as young as 11 years old. And, guess what. Mom and dad don’t have to know. How toweringly arrogant. How is it possible that parents of young girls don’t have the right to...