Columns

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.

Federal and State response weak in Maui!

If you live in Louisiana, we know all about a dysfunctional response to natural disasters. Remember Katrina? Are we witnessing another lackadaisical and dysfunctional response to the wildfire tragedy on the island of Maui in the Hawaiian lands?

Education crisis: School choice is the fix

The Marxist plan for our children is now clear — our K-12 public schools are holding many of our children captive in a broken system that is intentionally “dumbing them down” and confusing them with inappropriate sexual orientation, gender identity, racism, and teaching how to hate your neighbor...

Baldness: is not parting such sweet sorrow?

Nearly 60 years after discovering “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” I still watch the classic sitcom, but some of the punchlines haven’t held up particularly well. Or maybe I’m the one who hasn’t held up so well.

Canal was fraud or blessing, or maybe both

It was a pretty straightforward deal when the legislature passed Act 52 in April 1865 to allow the Louisiana and Texas Canal Company to build a steamboat channel from Vermilion Bay to the Sabine River.

Americans could be like the frog in the pot of hot water

I hate to be cliché, but I’m going to tell you a proverb you’ve probably already heard a hundred or so times. There was a frog, and he saw this pot of boiling water and said to himself, “I’m not going there. I’m not crazy.

Who does Donald Trump sound like?

When the big issues are at stake, it seems like there’s always a Louisiana connection. The Louisiana Purchase, the Battle of New Orleans, the first shot of the Civil War was fired by a Louisiana Brigade. So how does all this relate to Donald Trump? Read on.

A change of mind about homeschooling?

I realize such headgear has fallen out of style in our self-esteem-obsessed culture, but maybe I should belatedly don a dunce cap. You see, one of my first columns (nearly 25 years ago) was a snarky dismissal of the nascent homeschooling movement.