Category Archives: Uncategorized

On Flags and Patriotism (or, Who Says Flags Don’t Talk?)

Posted on June 14, 2018 by

[In June, 1980, less than a year after starting to work for The Houston Post, I was sent out to do a Flag Day story for the next day. I wasn’t given any guidance and I didn’t ask for any. … Continue reading →

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Voodoo politics

Posted on June 1, 2018 by

I WAS GOING through some old files today when I came across a page from a reporter’s notebook. It didn’t look like much and I was about to throw it out when I realized what it was: Part of my notes … Continue reading →

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The column that changed history?

Posted on May 10, 2018 by

AFTER MANY YEARS of lobbying for the job, I finally convinced the Houston Post to agree to make me a columnist for the paper in the summer of 1990. I had been working as a Washington correspondent for The Post when … Continue reading →

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My Barbara Bush Memory

Posted on April 18, 2018 by

IN 1992, I was asked to write an editorial to be published in The Houston Post the Sunday before the Republican National Convention was to open in the Astrodome. My assignment was to welcome President George Bush to his hometown but … Continue reading →

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1968, a year of hope, discovery, fear and loathing

Posted on April 12, 2018 by

A WHILE AGO I saw a Facebook post in which people were asked about their memories of 50 years ago, of the year 1968. I was tempted to write something but I quickly realized that much, way too much, happened on … Continue reading →

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‘BANG’ Offers a Dark Look at the Human Cost of Mexico’s Drug War

Posted on March 17, 2018 by

Daniel Peña is not sparing in his assessment of Texas, where farmworkers are poisoned by fertilizer and pesticide, and Mexico, where guessing who will be next to die in the drug wars has become a lottery game. Book review by … Continue reading →

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Leaders and speeches: HHH, LBJ and the COWH

Posted on January 8, 2018 by

I HAD GREAT plans for this afternoon to do productive things. Instead, I’ve spent most of the afternoon listening to/watching old political speeches on YouTube. I started with Hubert Humphrey’s civil rights speech to the 1948 Democratic Convention and ended … Continue reading →

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