I just really like Houston despite its craziness. There is a sense of energy and a kind of excitement, 'We're going places and God knows what'll happen next.' It's very interesting. It's very exciting.

Gail Collins

Categorized in : Interesting Energy Houston

The IRS targeting certain groups for harassment because of their politics would be unfair. If we found out the NSA was keeping special tabs on everyone who worshiped at a mosque or took a Bible trip through the Middle East, you'd have an uprising.

nsa uprising special

Unfortunately, he was about as deep as a melted ice cube. by Gail Collins

Unfortunately, he was about as deep as a melted ice cube.

cubes ice funny

Texas has no income tax, which is a big draw for corporate executives who do business there. But it's hardly tax-free. The property taxes are high for a Southern state. The sales taxes are high. One study found that the bottom 20 percent of the Texas population pays 12 percent of its income in state and local taxes.

population texas southern

Take Hispanic voters. They favor Democrats because they like the party's programs, from health care reform to government spending on education. It's not because the Republicans don't have a big enough Office of Hispanic Outreach.

party government office

Until Eleanor Roosevelt, there was only one or two First Ladies in all of American history who made an impact, who people could even have recognized or identified. And it's really only been since Jackie Kennedy that there's been this idea that the family life of the president is such a central thing.

impact two ideas

What naturally you want to do if you were a prominent person in the public light and you are disgraced, you want to make a comeback, and normally that begins with somebody saying, “I want to do something to help people. I want to do something to help the lepers in the Third World. I want to do something to help abandoned wives in India.”

wife light people

[Ella Baker]'s second defining characteristic was her dislike of top-down leadership... 'She felt leaders were not appointed but the rose up. Someone will rise. Someone will emerge'. It was an attitude Baker shared with some of the older women in the movement.

top-down rose attitude

If Christmas is for families, what do you do when there are families scattered all over the country? I am pretty sure God wants to make sure I touch all the bases, even if I spend his actual birthday with Delta Airlines.

airline want country

The G.O.P. is desperately seeking someone who can save the party from the fate of nominating Mitt Romney. But every time a non-Mitt throws his hat in the ring, the hat explodes.

hats fate party

This is America, and we don't restrict our battles over people's... by Gail Collins

This is America, and we don't restrict our battles over people's sex lives to 11 months a year

sex america years

We always need to remember that behind almost every great moment in history, there are heroic people doing really boring and frustrating things for a prolonged period of time.

heroic people needs

DePaulo says that 'singlism' -- a term she coined and for which we are prepared to forgive her -- is not just aimed at unmarried women.

prepared forgiving term

The history of American women is all about leaving home - crossing oceans and continents, or getting jobs and living on their own.

ocean home jobs

There's always been that theory that if a candidate can't run a decent campaign, he probably can't run a decent presidency. That might be true, although sadly I must admit that running a brilliant campaign does not translate into running a brilliant White House.

white house running

You know, I really miss sex scandals. They're generally colorful. They almost never mean anything over the long run. And while they're going on, the people who actually keep the government running are let alone to go about their business. Good old sex scandals.

running mean sex

You know, I have a lot of books on my iPad, but when I try to read them, I find myself wandering off to play games. Those are books I'm interested in. I can't imagine what would have happened to me in college if my biology class had been on the same computer as "Words With Friends" and "Doom."

college games book

Women in America will have to find an answer for the pressures of work and family, but if you really care about women's issues you have to think about women in the world, especially Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

issues america thinking

When the women's movement started in the 1960s, there was a vision of a future where women didn't wear makeup or worry about how their hair looked, and everybody wore sensible, comfortable clothes. It ran into an absolute brick wall.

makeup wall hair

When the women's movement began, it was a middle-class phenomenon. Certainly, black women had other stuff to think about in the '60s besides a women's movement. Working-class women were slow to get into it.

black class thinking

When the simple word processors came in, writing became crisper, less dense - just because of the way we could instantly edit on the screen. Now the ability to mash up words and pictures and links and songs and tweets is what matters. I can't imagine what writing will be like in 2154.

simple writing song