Ernest Werlin

Ernest "Doc" Werlin

About Ernest Werlin

Since putting pen to paper to share my thoughts on economic and social issues, I have hoped to replicate the intellectual honesty and dispassionate demeanor of my father, Dr. Joseph Werlin, Chairman of the University of Houston Sociology Department. Our conversations and his musings and writings have been influential throughout my life. My mother, Rosella, equally influential, was a noted journalist who highlighted the remarkable accomplishments of everyday people. It is my desire that this archive of my writings, PowerPoints, and speeches will stimulate your learning and curiosity.

Mies van Der Rohe (1886 – 1969)

By |2021-10-11T17:51:15+00:00January 1st, 2006|Categories: Biographies|

Creator of Architecture for a Technological Society (1886-1969) “Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space” Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a man without any academic architectural training, was one of the great [...]

Theodore Roosevelt: Bully Father (1858-1919)

By |2021-10-11T16:54:29+00:00January 1st, 2006|Categories: Biographies|

I have just read a delightful book about the fabulous relationship between Theodore Roosevelt and his six children. President Roosevelt truly delighted in life and in his children. We might have had greater presidents (not [...]

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)

By |2021-10-11T16:50:50+00:00January 1st, 2006|Categories: Biographies|Tags: |

Vincent Van Gogh, postimpressionist painter, works are perhaps better known than those of any other painter. His brief, turbulent, and tragic, life is thought to epitomize the mad genius legend. During his lifetime, Van Gogh’s [...]

Visiting Gettysburg

By |2022-01-20T17:27:37+00:00January 1st, 2006|Categories: History|Tags: , |

Because so many of my friends have enjoyed visiting Gettysburg over the past few years, I wanted to encourage others to visit this historic battle site. I believe a one and half day is long [...]

Taps: The most Recognized Bugle Call

By |2022-01-20T17:19:26+00:00January 1st, 2006|Categories: History|

Of all the military bugle calls, none is more easily recognized or more apt to render emotion that the call Taps.  The melody is both eloquent and haunting and the history of its origin is [...]

Quips and Quotes: Children

By |2022-01-20T17:19:13+00:00January 1st, 2006|Categories: Sociology|

There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire someone to do it, or forbid your kids to do it. Life’s golden age is when the children are too old to need [...]

Money-Fun Quotes

By |2022-01-20T17:27:48+00:00January 1st, 2006|Categories: Economics|

Money-Fun Quotes   “Money is good for bribing yourself through the inconveniences of life.” Gottfried Reinhardt   “A billion here, a billion there—pretty soon it adds up to real money.” Senator Everett Dirksen   “I [...]

Etymologies & Word Origins Part II

By |2021-10-03T14:16:03+00:00January 1st, 2006|Categories: Other|

Booze It derives from the Middle Dutch verb busen; meaning to driving heavily, and first appeared in English as a verb spelled bouses. From Spenser’s 1590 The Fairy Queen “And in his hand did bear, [...]

Etymologies & Word Origins

By |2021-10-03T14:14:17+00:00January 1st, 2006|Categories: Other|

Bigwig This term for an important person dates to c. 1731. It is a reference to the powered wigs that men wore in the 18th century. Rich and important men would have larger, more expensive [...]

Brain Cramps

By |2022-01-20T17:27:59+00:00January 1st, 2006|Categories: History|

Question: If you could live life forever, would you and why? Answer: “ I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would [...]

Best Things Anybody Ever Said

By |2022-01-20T17:28:15+00:00January 1st, 2006|Categories: History|

If I had been present at creation, I would have given some useful hints. Alfonso the Wise (1221-1284)   The gods play games with men as balls Titus Plautus (254-184? BC)   Religion change; beer [...]

The Cuban Missile Crisis in Retrospect

By |2021-10-07T12:56:54+00:00January 1st, 2006|Categories: History|

When John Kennedy in 1961 succeeded General Eisenhower, he assumed office as a cold warrior. JFK had barely defeated Richard Nixon. One of his most successful thrusts against Nixon was the “so-called” missile gap. JFK [...]

Joseph S. Werlin

By |2021-08-23T20:02:38+00:00March 2nd, 2004|Categories: Werlin Family|

1900–1964 The Joseph S. Werlin Scholar in Latin American/Hispanic Research Endowment in Sociology honors Professor Joseph Werlin (1900-1964), a founding faculty member of the Department of Sociology at the University of Houston from [...]

Problems of the Middle Class

By |2021-10-01T22:33:18+00:00January 1st, 2004|Categories: Sociology|

Mort Zuckerman, the owner and Editor-in- Chief of U.S. News wrote an editorial in his magazine about the increasing problems confronting the American middle class. Mr. Zuckerman’s concerns raise similar themes by Lou Dobbs, War [...]

Jim Crow Laws

By |2021-09-28T23:05:13+00:00January 1st, 2003|Categories: Sociology|

Having been raised in a segregated city, Houston, I have as an adult been fascinated about the widespread employment of segregation both in the North and South subsequent to the Civil War. That is, until [...]

The Mississippi Burning Trial (U.S. vs. Price et al.)

By |2021-10-07T20:58:00+00:00January 1st, 2003|Categories: History|

It was an old- fashioned lynching, carried out with the help of county officials that came to symbolize hardcore resistance to integration. Dead were three civil rights workers, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney. [...]

Go to Top