Home of Today's Common Sense

Published Brownsville Herald Jan 31, 2011

President Obama recently said he wants to put our economy into overdrive in an effort to appear to be governing from the political middle. The goal sounds good and has worked in the past, but the primary focus should certainly not be by government fiat.
One can just look around the community to see what opportunities for exist for entrepreneurs.
They are the people we need most. Business leaders — not politicians — create the wealth and drive the progress that moves our community forward.
Presidents John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and even George Bush started the recovery of failing economies by lowering taxes and reducing the size of government during each of their administrations. More »

Published Brownsville Herald Jan 17, 2011

We are now solidly in a new decade with problems, issues and just plain garbage left over from the past.
Politicians take care of us like they took care of the native Americans in the past, the southern Reconstruction after the Civil War and the liberated Africans. They take care of us by enforcing more and more control to ultimately enslave us.
It is easy to see the political obsessions for resources, a lesser regard and lack of respect for any group different than we perceive we are, and a further desire for more power and influence that continues to cloud the judgments of our leaders has now brought us to a severely divided electorate.
Do we seek the socialistic “nanny government,” or will we return to the passion for self-determination that we once had? Was that not what the native Americans were trying to tell us so many years ago? Our politicians wanted to dominate and “take care of” our future.
The larger political segment only seeks to be left alone to make their own judgments and accept the costs of those judgments in daily life. We do not want government to put us in a pre-planned community to be taken care of. More »

Published Brownsville Herald Jan 3, 2010

With but few exceptions since I started writing this column, the first commentary of each new year has related to our public officials being seen as doing something — anything — to solve immigration, improve jobs and improve the economy, though mostly fixing immigration and improving the economy were mostly the main issues.
With all those promises, why are the messes worse than in that first column on Jan. 5, 2003, which related to immigrants being an undeniable and indispensable factor in the nation’s economic growth over the past decade.
At the time BISD was discussing the idea of recruiting teachers from the Philippines. There was concern that they would displace local teachers and that they would not communicate well because of their accents, etc.
However, the community received 20 plus excellent teachers, who communicate well and understand bilingual and bicultural needs better than most. Filipinos have been living bilingualism at least since the Spanish American War when the Philippines became a possession of the United States.
In 2004 we began the election year with discussion related to a path to follow for more and better employment and a better economy. Again. More »