Fear rules almost every newsroom in the country.

It's that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions,

Satire is particularly valuable in a country like ours.

Those market researchers... are playing games with you and me and with this entire country. Their so-called samples of opinion are no more accurate or reliable than my grandmother's big toe was when it came to predicting the weather.

The great lesson my mother and father gave me was almost invisible. It was a strong sense of being rooted.

Covering the civil-rights movement was a mind- and eye-opener for me. Houston was a segregated society, as was Texas as a whole - some of it by law, a lot of it by fear and tradition. But there was no violence where I lived, and if there was hate, it was either concealed from me or I just didn't recognize it.