Voices

WASHINGTON -- On a recent morning in Austin, the resilient Erma Wilson, 45, dressed in her certified nursing assistant's gear, was heading for her job, which she likes. It is not, however, the job she has aspired to for 36 years, since at age 9 she decided she wanted to become a registered nurse. That dream died because of her felony conviction in Midland, Texas, where she grew up and had an astonishing encounter with the criminal justice system.

The idea, the city said cheerily, was to "foster diversity," "create an environment in the City where everyone feels included," and promote harmony "among Boston's many communities." What could possibly go wrong? In today's prickly America, enough to require the Supreme Court to referee the dispute.

To accomplish great things, one must be willing to perform great work over a great span of time. Rice University in Houston, which has come to exemplify such glory, has in its century of life become one of the most respected universities in the nation. The college started from nothing, except for the dream and generous donation of its founder. It was the job of its first president, Edgar Lovett, to make that dream a reality. With years of hard work and determination, Lovett built the institution and set the direction for greatness for its students and the college itself.

WASHINGTON -- Mike Pompeo, who has been a soldier, businessman, congressman, CIA director and secretary of state, says he thinks that ever since he was a 17-year-old assistant manager of a Baskin-Robbins store in Orange County, Calif., he has improved the cultures almost everywhere he worked. Almost.

WASHINGTON - The explosive leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion suggesting the imminent reversal of Roe v. Wade has proved quite the Rorschach test for a country long divided over this most fundamental of moral issues.

WASHINGTON -- Perhaps the only person who triggers progressives as much as Elon Musk these days is Ron DeSantis. Every week, it seems, Florida's Republican governor takes some new action that enrages the left and delights the right. His poll numbers are rising, which is bad news for Democrats -- because DeSantis is showing the way forward for Trumpism without Donald Trump.

2022 is an election year, a chance for Texas voters to tell the people who represent them what the state needs and what it doesn’t need, to bear down on the biggest problems we face together and to ignore the distractions that keep us from that important work.