We called it light bread. Others called it white bread. Regardless of what it was called, in my hometown of Ashdown, Arkansas and most of the rest of the South it was the foundation of the Southern food pyramid. And it was found aplenty at our home on Beech Street....
Pandemic messes with Texas, prompts new message
Even during a pandemic, it’s best to not mess with Texas. Texas Department of Transportation officials noticed more personal protective equipment -- face masks, wipes and gloves -- on the side of roads and highways, so they called in the big guns for a new round of...
School year brings an Apple for students, too
Students across Texas returned to campuses last week as schools and universities scrambled to put into place new lesson plans that best accommodate a pandemic. For many school districts, this meant greatly expanding the technological resources of their students to...
Texas tries nation’s first virtual criminal trial
A Texan’s speeding ticket put her in the legal history books last week. To combat the backlog in criminal cases created by the pandemic, a Travis County justice of the peace conducted the nation’s first virtual criminal trial. The case was livestreamed on YouTube, and...
This is a time of testing for all of us
A few weeks ago, The New York Times ran an article noting that with the U.S. preoccupied by the coronavirus pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests, and massive unemployment, “its competitors are moving to fill the vacuum, and quickly.” Russia, China, North Korea, Iran....
The State needs rural Texas – and it needs to start planning
Iconic ranches, farms and small towns sustain about 3 million Texans — a population larger than the City of Houston’s. The sense of community, plentiful open space and great quality of life — all found in places like West Texas and the Panhandle — have sustained...
Emergency Service Districts are essential for Texans’ safety
Most people know that when there is a fire or medical emergency—or a global pandemic—first responders help keep us safe. What may be surprising for many Texans is that many of these first responders are there because of a local emergency services district, or ESD. As...
Trade enforcement creates American jobs
Roughly one in four American workers has filed for unemployment since the pandemic began. To stem the historic tide of unemployment, policymakers quickly put together a series of legislative packages to help companies keep their workers on payroll. An often-overlooked...
How can we police our communities better?
The killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis was a brutal, senseless and avoidable tragedy, and one our country has witnessed countless times before. In many ways, his death was the match that ignited nationwide conversations about the racial injustices that...