New Orleans       My 15-year-old Australian Shepherd Lucha and I walk every morning before dawn when I’m home.  We have a fixed route Monday through Friday, which we vary on Wednesday, turning left, rather than right, at the dead end at the Mississippi River levee.  Whenever I have been out of town, even for …

New Orleans       Where have all of the heroes gone?  It’s a great social and cultural question, even for someone like me, who believes in the “folk” or people part of the phrase, but not the “hero” thing.  That’s just me and our work, but I understand why people want there to be heroes, just …

Marble Falls       The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi is a powerful and disturbing book about the killing of Emmett Till in Sunflower County in and around Drew, Mississippi on August 28, 1955.  The physical barn is still there, and it is where the killing was done.  The Till story is …