Unca Darrell

OCTOBER 4, 2019 / The left's war against America is not merely . . .

. . . political; it's civilizational.

UNCA D RARELY posts these days. More to come soonish, I hope, on the reason. Meanwhile, there is no better use of your reading time than this essay: Joel Kotkin, "Elites Against Western Civilization," City Journal, October 3, 2019, set out in full below.

February 4, 2019 / The historic clash in Venezuela emanates . . .

. . . not from foreign intervention but from the courage and resilience of the Venezuelan people. After suffering for years under an authoritarian regime, living in a man-made humanitarian disaster, and sacrificing their lives to rescue their democracy, they are on the cusp of breaking free from the chains of dictatorship. It is time for . . .

MARCH 20, 2018 / How much does Slick Hillary love America?

WHEN ONE POLITICIAN says something nasty about another politician, a classic way to push the stiletto a bit deeper goes like this:

Reporter: Senator A, why did you say in a closed meeting that Senator B has the intelligence of a box of dry Ramen noodles? 

NOVEMBER 7, 2017 / Unca D gives up on . . .

. . . The Houston Chronicle. 

 

November 7, 2017

The Houston Chronicle
4747 Southwest Freeway
Houston, Texas 77027

Account Number: *******

To The Houston Chronicle:

Please cancel my subscription and refund the balance of my account.

As a graduate of Columbia Graduate School of Journalism (M.S. 1971, Pulitzer Fellow) and a former reporter for The Houston Post, I act with considerable sorrow. I love newspapers. Receiving each morning a plastic bag filled with news, commentary, and other useful and interesting information—well, this has always seemed important, entertaining, even right. Unfolding the newsprint. Breathing in the musty ink. Losing myself in the flow of words and ideas. These pleasurable habits have sustained me for some considerable number of decades.

I am, however, also and foremost a Christian. As such . . .  

OCTOBER 27, 2017 / At the Houston Chronicle . . .

. . . dog bites man is a front-page story; man bites dog goes on page A11.

The confirmation this week that Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid an opposition-research firm for a "dossier" on Donald Trump is bombshell news. 

So writes Kimberley A. Strassel (Potomac Watch: "The Coming Russia Bombshells," October 27, 2017, The Wall Street Journal). 

This bombshell exploded last Tuesday. The Washington Post broke the story. The Chronicle subscribes, and has long subscribed, to the Post's feed. Back in the day, this meant that Woodward's and Bernstein's Watergate bombshells were regularly on the local newspaper's front page.

But that was then.

AUGUST 10, 2017 / A YouTube video that never gets old:

. . . Michael Berry on Unca Darrell on Houston Chronicle on global warming 

A tip of the fedora to Mr. Robert Ecks, who made the video.

Here is Unca D's original blog of September 3, 2008. 

And here is the follow-on blog of September 3, 2013, that inspired Mr. Berry's commentary.

AUGUST 3, 2017 / Fact-check this

FROM A TELEVISION review by David Wiegand in today's Houston Chronicle about a new Amazon series on detectives from Romania ("Cold War spoof 'Comrade Detective' goes poof"):

There are some brief moments making fun of American capitalist values and extolling the thin virtues of life as a Soviet Socialist Republic . . . .

A problem that apparently escaped the notice of the writer, his editors in San Francisco, and the editors in Houston is that . . .

JULY 19, 2017 / David Brooks, meet . . .

. . . Charles Murray.

OVER THE PAST generation, members of the college-educated class have become amazingly good at making sure their children retain their privileged status. They have also become devastatingly good at making sure the children of other classes have limited chance to join their ranks.

FEBRUARY 27 / Eric Hoffer on . . .

. . . baby boomers and alienated intellectuals.

"SCRATCH AN INTELLECTUAL, and you find a would-be aristocrat who loathes the sight, the sound and the smell of common folk."

Eric Hoffer, as . . . 

NOVEMBER 27 / Here are some words and ideas that belong, some or all . . .

. . . in any honest "Castro is dead" editorial:

Communist. This one stands alone. An editorial that cannot call him a communist is, on its face . . .