No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is vicious. ~ Henry Brooks Adams
Last month a professor at East Tennessee State University read a column I wrote on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and thought enough of it to invite me to speak to her journalism class. She asked me to speak on what I think makes a good op-ed. Of my own writing, the column that caught … Continue reading Is Your Opinion Worth Our Time?
H.L. Mencken hated the South. My first meaningful encounters with Mencken's work came while we were in Dayton. Mencken approached his coverage of the Scopes Trial — and Dayton and its people — with the same quick-witted ferocity he was famous for. In reading over his attacks of the South in Ralph C. Wood's Flannery O'Connor and … Continue reading Do We Remember: ‘We Have Had Our Fall’
It's been too long since I've written, but such is the case after the type of move we've had. As I write this, I'm sitting in wife's parents' living room before anyone else is awake. We're down in their home in Macon, Georgia, to celebrate Christmas with Julie's parents, siblings, their spouses, and their kids. … Continue reading Settling In Tennessee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkK5eHkY46o I suspect I'll be largely unsuccessful in this, but I wanted to write about what Tennessee means to me. My sister, Ashley, told me about the band above (Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors) a few months ago. She pointed me to this song, "Tennessee," and it captures almost perfectly my own sentiments about Tennessee. One … Continue reading ‘Tennessee’
Michael Reneau 