By Tom Emery This weekend, millions of Americans will hit the road, fire up the grill, and swarm to the beaches for the Labor Day weekend. The holiday has evolved dramatically from its origins, which are debated today. What is clear, though, is the designation of Labor Day as a federal holiday in 18...

By Dr. Samson Jesudass From the moment COVID-19 emerged in the United States, we have all been asked to make sacrifices to protect ourselves, our families and our neighbors from this terrible virus. At Ascension Seton – and health systems everywhere – our caregivers have worked long hours on the fro...

By David Wiley A national trend of Americans yelling at others regarding COVID prevention measures landed squarely and publicly at a Hays CISD board meeting last week.   The agenda item was identified as a COVID-19 Update and seemed to create a great deal of interest. Even though the meeting was hel...

By Dick Polman Kudos to grieving widow Julia Letlow, a Louisiana Republican congresswoman, for setting the record straight. Better late than never. Last November – you may dimly recall, if at all – her husband Luke won a House seat but never made it to Washington. In mid-December he announced that h...

By Tom Purcell My Lab puppy, Thurber, makes me laugh out loud every day. The writing life requires you to sit still for long periods of time, but those days are long gone. As I write this column – attempt to write it, that is – my seven-and-a-half-month-old buddy keeps dropping his ball at my feet, ...

By Dick Polman I’m literally old enough to remember when Republicans proudly branded themselves as the cop-loving guardians of “law and order.” Richard Nixon won the presidency with that shtick in 1968, Donald Trump used it in 2016 (“I will restore law and order to our country”), and tried it again ...

Maybe croquet could improve the ratings for the 2021 Summer Olympics? Please allow me to explain. The COVID-delayed 2020 Olympics are on track to be the lowest watched games of the 21st century, according to marketing research firm Zeta Global. The company has found that “More than 60 percent of Ame...

By Dick Polman President Biden’s delivered a very nice speech this week about the MAGA Republican plot to destroy democracy. But there was one big problem. “The 2020 election – it’s not hyperbole to suggest – (was) the most examined and the fullest expression of the will of the people in the history...

You can become an American citizen by being born in the U.S. or you can become one by getting “naturalized.” Becoming naturalized is a heck of a lot harder. It not only means having to meet all the legal and residency requirements Congress has established, it means passing a U.S. civics test that wo...

by Dick Polman I don’t pretend to be an expert on the Catholic Church, but I can sniff out hypocrisy. And whenever you put the Catholic Church in the same pew with hypocrisy… hoo boy, does it ever stink. But before we delve into the latest church farce – the budding effort by conservative Catholic b...