Texas' and America's farmers are suffering. As the Member of Congress representing the 10th Congressional District of Texas, I have traveled throughout our area and have seen first-hand how the drought has affected our agricultural communities.

I think a lot of programs, policies have been put in place since 9/11, have prevented a 9/11-style attack. On the other hand, I think the threat has become greater, not lesser.

People just didn't write songs that were so directly emotional in those days. They still don't. Part of Hank's [Williams] thing was that he was opening up about relationships between men and women in ways that nobody else did, and I think that's something that made him stand out so much. His songs are just so straightforward about these really deep feelings that are universal, but they're so hard to write about without sounding sappy or over the top. You think of men in that era - they didn't express themselves that way.

Every day we do get closer to a cure. Three out of four children who are diagnosed with cancer will survive the disease, but that is not good enough. The loss of one child to this disease is too much.

We're making it more difficult to obtain the necessary ingredients to produce meth and tightening criminal penalties for those who deal in this dangerous drug.

Texas has been hit especially hard this year by a continuing drought, threatening high winds and increasingly destructive range fires. Simply, these conditions have lead to extremely adverse conditions in the agriculture industry.

Last week, the House of Representatives passed a resolution honoring the victims and heroes of September 11th. As we commemorate the anniversary of 9-11, we must also remember that the threat is still very real today.