"God only knows that we can do,No more or less than he'll allow.Well God only knows that we mean wellAnd God knows that we just don't know how."Joe HenryThursday was Thanksgiving, a holiday that has always been special to me.I suppose that is because I actually was born on Thanksgiving. When one is born on a holiday, I guess that holiday always holds a unique significance.(On at least one occasion, an old friend of mine who died a few months ago was asked her favorite number. She said her favorite number was 16, the number of her birth date.(She...
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
I've been teaching a news writing class at the community college here in Dallas this fall.It's been an interesting and challenging semester for me. I've been away from the classroom for several years, and I've been away from the newsroom for several years as well, and a lot of things have changed.It is not my intention to recite all those differences here in some kind of "those were the days" rant. I expected things to be different. That's the nature of things. Nothing remains static.Certainly, the relative health of the newspaper business hasn't...
Sunday, November 21, 2010
I've been writing blogs for more than three years now, and I have written about the John F. Kennedy assassination every year on the anniversary of that terrible event.Tomorrow will be its 47th anniversary, and most of the people who were in Kennedy's entourage in Dallas on that day are gone now.When I was growing up, I often wondered if the mystery of who actually pulled the trigger — or who arranged for the assassination to take place — ever would...
Saturday, November 20, 2010
When I was a boy, the Vietnam War ripped apart the fabric of American life.There was a time, early in America's involvement in the conflict, when the majority of Americans supported the U.S. effort. But public opinion gradually turned against the war and the president who oversaw it, eventually forcing Lyndon Johnson to abandon his pursuit of another term.About two weeks before Johnson withdrew from the race, something happened in a tiny hamlet in...
Friday, November 19, 2010
"Oh, the vision thing."George H.W. BushIn the waning days of the 2010 midterm campaign, I found myself thinking a lot about Barack Obama's insistence that there was nothing wrong with the message, it just hadn't been conveyed properly.Well, it seems the voters, in that time–honored way, shot the messenger. But was it fatal? Or was it, in the words of the Black Knight in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," merely a flesh wound?From what I could see,...
Sunday, November 14, 2010
"There go the people. I must follow them for I am their leader."Alexandre Auguste Ledru–Rollin(1807–1874)In the aftermath of what Barack Obama generously called a "shellacking" in the midterm elections, there has been no shortage of advice for Democrats who are understandably staggered by the greatest loss of House seats by one party in one election in decades.In this corner ...E.J. Dionne writes in The New Republic that Democrats need to stick to their guns (so to speak), just like the Republicans did after their rejection in 2008.They should...
Monday, November 8, 2010
Back in January, I observed the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's announcement of his candidacy for president, and I called it "The Birth of Camelot."But that wasn't really accurate.It probably would have been more accurate to say that, in early January of 1960, Camelot was conceived — although experts on Kennedy's life and presidency probably would tell you that the idea of that Kennedy — or any Kennedy — seeking the presidency was conceived many years earlier.But the idea didn't bear fruit until 50 years ago today.Well, perhaps it would be...
Sunday, November 7, 2010
If you're over 20 — and you weren't stranded on a desert island 10 years ago — you must remember what happened on this day in 2000 — or, at least, the series of events that were set in motion on this day.I am speaking about the 2000 presidential election — the closest election, at least in terms of the electoral vote, in more than a century and, ultimately, one of only a handful of presidential elections in American history in which the winner of...
Saturday, November 6, 2010
"There's not much to say about the 1950 campaign except that a man ran for Senate who wanted to get there and didn't care how."Helen Gahagan DouglasA Full Life (1982)Do you think the just–concluded midterm election campaign was vicious, mean–spirited, polarizing?Well, it was. And it was expensive, too.But, from what I have read and heard, you shoulda seen the California Senate race 60 years ago. That was a costly one, too. The amount isn't eye popping...
Friday, November 5, 2010
"The public does not like you to mislead or represent yourself to be something you're not. And the other thing that the public really does like is the self–examination to say, you know, I'm not perfect. I'm just like you. They don't ask their public officials to be perfect. They just ask them to be smart, truthful, honest and show a modicum of good sense."Ann RichardsIt was 20 years ago tomorrow that Ann Richards won a wildly improbable victory in her campaign to be Texas' governor.I didn't grow up in Texas, but I was living here during that election.If...
Thursday, November 4, 2010
"As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we mean by the revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people."John AdamsToday, less than 48 hours after a crimson tide swept over the land, it seems appropriate to recall the events of Nov. 4, 1980.Some called it the Reagan Revolution.But that was an analogy,...
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