David McElroy

Diane Tran seems to be a model of the resilience and determination we’d would love every 17-year-old to have. She’s a honor student at her high school, despite the fact she holds a full-time job and a part-time job in order to support an older brother in college and a younger sister who lives with relatives. After her parents divorced and both moved away, she’s taken on tremendous responsibility.

But that’s not enough for a Texas judge. Despite the fact that she’s an honor student and has circumstances that would be a nightmare for anyone, Judge Lanny Moriarty sent Diane to jail for 24 hours and fined her $100 — for the egregious sin of missing too many days at school.

The judge admitted that his tough treatment of Diane was to send a message to others.

“If you let one [truant student] run loose, what are you gonna do with the rest of ’em? Let them go too?” Moriarty said.

Keep Reading

When are newspapers going to give up and quit printing? For four southern daily newspapers, they’re already halfway there, according to announcements this week.

The four newspapers — all owned by the Newhouse chain — are going to quit printing every day. Instead, they’re just going to print on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. The papers include the New Orleans Times-Picayue, The Birmingham News, The Huntsville (Ala.) Times and the Mobile (Ala.) Press-Register. The companies claim they’re going to have better coverage on the days they still print and they’re going to have improved online coverage as well.

Until I see the new products, I’ll withhold judgment about whether they can make it or not. I’ll just say that I suspect we’re going to start seeing similar “crazy” experiments from papers across the country.

I’m a former newspaper editor and publisher, so you’d think I would feel nostalgia to see things headed this direction, but I don’t. I got out of the business 20 years ago, and I haven’t bought a paper copy in years and years.

Keep Reading

In honor of the publication of an ebook of cat cartoons by my cartoonist friend, Tom Briscoe, all of today’s funnies are related to cats. I also recommend you take a look at Tom’s lighthearted $2.99 Kindle ebook, “99 Reasons to Hate Cats.” Whether you love ’em or hate ’em, you’ll find plenty in there to recognize and chuckle about, especially if you’ve lived closely with felines.

If you’ve ever seen a cat carefully studying a jump for awhile before executing the maneuver, you might wonder what’s going through his mind. Now you know.

Keep Reading