Many decades ago, the world became infatuated with Bruce Lee. His training was revolutionary, his methods were undeniable and his philosophy was simple. “Be like the nature of water…” he once stated in an interview. “You can punch it but never hurt it… you put it in a glass, and it becomes the glass…” Simple and refreshing, water remains life-giving and transparent.
Col. Billy Mitchell departed San Antonio on Sept. 21, 1925, never to return in uniform to the flight training center. The outspoken advocate of air power realized the odds were against him but relished the opportunity to butt heads with the brass.
As commander of American fliers in the First World War, Mitchell became the chief champion of airborne tactics. To prove his controversial point that the winged weapon had rendered the battleship obsolete, he sank three captured German vessels in a 1921 demonstration.
I have probably made this claim previously, but most friends know that my respect for redundancy has never been more than trivial. So, here I go again, certain that there finally are but two groups of people--those who have egos and admit it and those who likewise have ‘em and don’t admit it.
I’m in the former group--giddy as a five-year-old with a store-bought birthday cake--buoyed by warm memories of a 60-hour whirlwind of accolades marking my 87th birthday.
A great poet once said, “Such is the state of man, thus enter we, into this world with woe and end with misery.” No truer words were ever spoken, but forgive me, I am optimistic… even when everything is uphill.
Thankfully, I have been blessed to experience poverty and wealth, acceptance and rejection, love and contempt. All things are substandard to the knowledge of the truth. Dare I decide to dictate disparate descriptions of truth? Definitely not.
The “Tough ’Ombres” of the Ninetieth Infantry Division saw action for the first time on the bloody battlefields of France on Sep. 12, 1918.
The Great War (no one imagined there could be a second) has all but faded from the national memory. Ask most Americans what they know about World War I, and they may mumble something about trench warfare, the Lusitania and the Treaty of Versailles.
Stephen Cox is not an imposing figure. Still, he has the countenance and features to be a Clark Kent look-alike, even if considerably smaller in stature.
You remember Clark, right? He’s the guy who morphed quickly from his role as a reporter for a large metropolitan newspaper into Superman, the movie and comic book figure who flew around Gotham City beating the daylights out of the bad guys.
When it’s time to take a hard look at our public officials and decide which ones to re-elect – or reject – we need information.
A major source of that information is the government itself. Access to public records and meetings is essential for us to know the facts and speak out about how government is run, during election season or any time.
Among the tools at our disposal are the Texas Public Information Act, the Texas Open Meetings Act and the federal Freedom of Information Act along with transparency provisions in other Texas laws and the state constitution.
A Houston judge learned on Sep. 8, 1939 that his daughter not only had survived the U-boat sinking of the British passenger ship Athenia but also had been hailed as a heroine by the American ambassador.
In her last letter before leaving Europe, Helen Hannay asked her parents not to worry. “There may be a delay, but we will get out all right. We aren’t in the least afraid.” The teenaged traveler closed on a prophetic note: “I am certainly glad to have had this lovely trip and to have seen all the beautiful things before they are blown up.”
“One man among a thousand have I found…” Solomon’s words during a time of reflection and painful recollection of wasted time. These words are still written on the whiteboard above my desk. I meditate on this phrase regularly, finding solace in the idea that human history has had seasons, ups and downs, ebbs and flows. Sometimes coursing toward progress and development. Other times, it seems bent on destruction and chaos.
It was the slowest of hot, muggy days in the thicket. Mercury in the thermometer bulged and lodged in three-digit territory. Someone said he saw a dog chasing a rabbit, and both creatures were walking.
The general store cash register had broken the silence twice before two geezers wandered in, and they weren’t there to buy anything. Their quest was to find a domino game.
Realizing that commencing with just two players meant that the odds of winning were 50/50, they resorted to one of their oldest pastimes…
