Ronald E. Yates's Blog, page 35
May 16, 2022
Guidelines for Good Writing
When I taught journalism at the University of Illinois, I created a Journalist’s Handbook that I required my students to purchase. I collected and revised the information contained in the Journalist’s Handbook for almost four decades. Some of it dates back to my time as a journalism student at the ...
May 15, 2022
The Disastrous Eclipse of American Power
When I think of America’s failed financial policies, its weak political leadership in the White House and Congress, and its feeble foreign policy I am reminded of a thought-provoking Thai phrase I once heard. “Maa du kruang bin tok.” Translated it means “A dog watching an airplane crash.” The phrase ...
May 12, 2022
America: Our Unimaginable & Decadent Nation
Victor Davis Hanson is one of the most cogent observers of the American milieu so I am always happy to reprint his commentaries on my blog. He speaks with precision and clarity. But most of all the glaring unembellished truth is always evident in his arguments and observations. Hanson’s commentary ...
May 11, 2022
A Pint-sized Race-baiter at the Podium of the White House Press Briefing Room
I never covered the White House during my 27-year career with the Chicago Tribune, but I knew plenty of people who did. “It’s like covering the cops,” one of my colleagues who did cover the White House once told me. “You don’t expect to get any real news out of ...
May 9, 2022
Where free speech should be promoted, free speech is under attack
I have often posted on this topic. Here is commentary from Rachel L. Brand, former Associate Attorney General of the United States. She makes excellent points about the erosion of Free Speech and the First Amendment at universities—places where diverse opinions SHOULD be available to all students but are not. ...
May 8, 2022
“Hate Speech” and Literature
Let me say right off: I do not believe in the idea of hate speech. One person’s “hate speech” is another person’s “free speech.” In that regard, the American Civil Liberties Union and I are in 100 per cent agreement. More on the ACLU later. In a previous post, I ...
May 7, 2022
The Remarkable Life of a Reluctant Hero
All authors are emotionally engaged with their protagonists. I am no exception. I want readers to love my characters as much as I do. That means creating a flawed, three-dimensional protagonist who still has “things to work out.” The Finding Billy Battles series follows Billy from his roots in Kansas, through ...
May 3, 2022
The Inhumanity of Critical Race Theory
I have written and posted often about Critical Race Theory—the internecine effort by socialists and communists to indoctrinate and infect the minds of American children with disproven and discredited Marxist dogma designed to weaken our democracy and obliterate our nation. CRT focuses on race, relativism, gender-bending, and identity politics at ...
May 2, 2022
Remembering the Final 24 Hours in the Fall of Saigon
Forty-seven years ago today, I was on a U.S. Navy ship headed for the Philippines. A couple of days before, I was evacuated from a place called Saigon as it fell to Communist North Vietnamese troops. April 29, 1975, is a day I will never forget, not only because I ...
May 1, 2022
A Chat with an Irate Border Patrol Agent
I stopped into one of my local watering holes the other day and after tossing back a couple of locally brewed Hefeweizen beers began chatting with a Texas border patrol agent. He was in Southern California for some R & R after weeks in Texas chasing down migrants attempting to ...
