Columns

The root cause of education crisis

A recent op-ed by The Advocate newspaper questioned whether “School Choice” and the “political plea to let the state money follow the child” was just “Campaign Rhetoric” that fails to address the root problem of poverty—as Louisiana’s child povert

‘Pleasure seekers’ were caught in great storm

After the hurricane on Sept. 8, 1900, that destroyed Galveston, the headline in the Abbeville Meridional read, “We Missed the Storm.” It’s true that south Louisiana felt nothing like the Texas coast, but we were not entirely missed.

How are you in the best friend department?

“So, Dan – what are you doing tonight?”
After 40-plus years, I can still hear one of my best friends from college asking that dreaded question.

Some music highlights our divisions

I am really confused about what’s going on in this country today. At one time, the conventional wisdom was that the Democrats were for the blue-collar workingman, and the Republicans were for upper crust elites.

What to like about the GOP’s primary debate

As usual, there was too much cross-talk and chaos on stage.
And there was way too much partisan cheering and hooting by the audience.
But the first Republican presidential primary debate on Fox News was an entertaining spectacle.

Is your house too large?

When I was five years old and my father worked for a subdivision developer, the Tyree family was giddily comparing floorplans for constructing a new house on a wooded lot next to our crowded domicile.

Leather Britches came up short on a draw

Some say the man known as Leather Britches Smith was the meanest man ever to set foot in Louisiana, a man you’d better not cross.

A lifeline is color blind

Sometimes when I write about my father’s civil rights work in Mississippi, I get emails telling me that I should be proud of his fight against racism at a time when it was neither easy nor accepted, particularly in a young white man.