The summer that I was 14, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, beating a much tougher filibuster than still exists. You needed 67 votes in those days to invoke cloture. and President Johnson worked with Senate Republican leader Everette Dirksen and Democrat Hubert Humphrey to shut down the Dixiecrats. It’s sort of ironic that I …
So much of life is about timing, particularly in the case of personal relationships. When my first wife and I separated in January 1980, I had no idea it would be nearly 13 years before I remarried. I actually met someone very special and started dating her less than a month after moving out. We …
Sorry. If you have become a faithful follower of this site, you have no doubt noticed there hasn’t been a new post in more than a week. My lovely wife and I don’t travel much anymore, but for the last week or so, we were back in my old stomping grounds. I wonder why they …
I try to avoid watching television news, especially the news shows that are more about opinion and analysis than facts. Of course I’ve read about George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis, and I’ve seen many of the details of the killing. But yesterday my wife and I were in the car for a couple of hours …
This week is such a great one for sports fans. It’s the end of college basketball, with the Final Four at the end of the week. It’s the NBA and NHL heading into their stretch runs and the NFL heading into its draft. In most years it’s the week leading up to the Masters golf …
Back in the early ’60s, in the early days of the civil rights movement, Atlanta earned a reputation as the City Too Busy to Hate. To the west and south of the city, black people were suffering from deeply ingrained racism. In Atlanta itself, the economy was booming, and many of the most prominent leaders …
When I was young, there wasn’t much I liked about Texas. I had never actually been there, but it seemed like bad thing after bad thing came out of the Lone Star state. You might be surprised to learn the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas wasn’t the first. Eleven months before that, …
THE HEART OF TEXAS WAS MUCH BETTER THAN I REALIZED Read More »
We’re rednecks, we’re rednecks, we don’t know our ass from a hole in the ground … The southern states aren’t the only ones trying to suppress votes and turn their minority into a plurality, but give them credit. They’re so damn good at it. Take the literacy tests of past times. A white laborer could …
I always thought we were reasonably lucky that Osama bin Laden got the 9/11 attacks wrong. “What?” you ask. “He brought down the Twin Towers and damaged the Pentagon. How did he get it wrong?” Seriously? Absolutely. Bin Laden brought down symbols of American business and of our military. He didn’t even do that much …
“STICKS NIX HICK PIX.” Back in the 1930s, Variety did an article about how movies about rural culture weren’t popular with folks who lived in the country. The four-word rhymer might be the most famous headline ever that wasn’t about a serious historical event, at least until the New York Post came along with its …
