Unca Darrell

MAY 17 / Super-size the smelling salts

THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE editorial board will get the vapors when it reads this about the newspaper's least-favorite Houstonian: "Michael Berry Show Expanding Out of Houston," Wednesday's feature in "Talkers" magazine. Alternate headline: "Self-Syndication is Berry, Berry Good."

"Talkers" is the trade publication that covers the radio talk-show bidness.

Here's the teaser:

MAY 2 / A new book about Texas by someone who . . .

. . . gets Texas.

Erica Greider supplies a fresh view of the nation's second most populous sate in "Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right: What America Can Learn From the Strange Genius of Texas." An editor at Texas Monthly, the author explains the state's much-heralded record of economic growth and does her best to strip away some of . . .

BUMPED / APRIL 5 / Unca D is going on sabbatical for . . .

. . . a family project. I may post occasionally over the next couple of months, but you're excused from checking back until early or mid-June. Meanwhile, a couple of parting shots:

APRIL 3 / We're No. 14! We're No. 14!

TEXAS PRIDES itself on being a freedom-loving state, and at 14th in rank its citizens have something to be proud of. However, its policies are sometimes not as consistent with individual liberty as . . .

MARCH 9 / On Robert Sherrill and busybodies

FOLLOWING ITS usual Saturday pattern of honoring some obscure lefty icon or idea, the Houston Chronicle today tipped the old fedora to . . .

MARCH 3 / One thing the Chronicle is (finally) getting right

REGULAR READERS of Unca D -- both of you -- know the Houston Chronicle has proudly and ostentatiously declined for many years to embrace, or express even minimal respect toward, the civic holidays that help define and strengthen and our American and Texan culture and polity.

Fourth of July? What's that? A bunch of beer-swilling, dog-roasting, flag-waving plebes . . .

FEBRUARY 28 / Progressives preach . . .

. . . more spending, more taxing, and more regulation. So does the uber-progressive Houston Chronicle.

In the last eight days, the paper -- in the voice of its editors, cartoonist, and public-affairs columnists -- has urged more spending at least six times, more regulation at least five times, and more taxes at least once. 

The paper frosted this three-layed cake with filigrees of criticism and mockery for those who would spend less, tax less, and regulate less: conservatives generally, the Tea Party in particular.

Details below.

FEBRUARY 19 / Some folks laugh at this and others . . .

. . . understand it, respect it, and love it.

FEBRUARY 11 / Numbers

$568,000,000

FEBRUARY 8 / The slush fund problem

ON THE "City & State" front, the Chronicle today headlines this banner story: "2 legislators: Audit Perry's pet funds."

Here's a better idea: