Reaching back into the past for observations on humanity and humor. A number of years ago during my years as an editor and weekly columnist for a newspaper that has since banned my opinions, I wrote a column with the heading: “Direct Routes Aren’t Always the Most Effective Ways to Travel.” You see, the “number of years” from the date of that commentary is approaching 28, and I was, at the time, past the midpoint of a [...] READ MORE
Everyone seems to have an opinion, but we all can’t be right. The only sin we never forgive is a difference of opinion. — Ralph Waldo Emerson I prefer not to respond to comments about my blog on Facebook, favorable or otherwise, because I’ve made my point and others can say what they want. Maybe we’ll all learn something. Getting caught up in a debate with someone who seems to be living in an alternate universe is [...] READ MORE
Cautionary warnings about extremism continue to resonate as years fly by. —One of the advantages of having written hundreds of weekly newspaper columns over a span of 40 years for two different newspapers is an archives of your personal views over time. Some age well and some don’t. Some are serious and some are silly, and few were completed without at least one attempt at humor. The following was written as a newspaper column more than five [...] READ MORE
Wailing in the White House won’t help bring us together. I must confess I resisted following the blow-by-blow coverage of the presidential election, which required much of last week to project a winner. My attitude was just let me know when it is all over but the shouting. Well, the election part is over, anyway. As usual the shouting, better described as wailing, comes from a president who fears becoming something he detests above all things— a [...] READ MORE
If only we could go back to the days when a guy was master of his own man cave. Last week’s blog was supposed to be a take-off of a Dr. Seuss children’s story— “Marvin K. Mooney Won’t You Please Go Now!”— and the talents the president supposedly has that could carry him on to another career and continued fame. Playing off the “please go now” was obviously a satirical device about the upcoming election and, yes, [...] READ MORE
Looking at some legendarily long words that will give you writer’s cramp. I have to confess that the unrelenting, verging on overwhelming, abuses of political power have left me in a temporary state of dumbfoundedness. Now that’s a long word, unrecognized by my spell-checker and even in some dictionaries. But it is legitimate and means being dumbfounded or amazed to the point of being unresponsive, flabbergasted or gobsmacked. My spell-checker doesn’t recognize the last one either, but [...] READ MORE
Keeping up with the virus on Fox News. I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of their responsibility, trustees for the public; that the acceptance of a lesser service than public service is betrayal of this trust… I believe that a journalist should write only what he holds in his heart to be true. — Part of The Journalist’s Creed by Walter Williams (1914) [...] READ MORE
It could come to this. "No ventilator for you! —There is nothing exempt from humor— even death— so forgive some self-deprecating humor in these troubled times.— Old guys used to have it made. We ruled the world. Sure we started some wars along the way and were responsible for the demise of a slew of young men who never got a chance to become old guys like us. Yes, we made our mistakes, but did it really [...] READ MORE
Something for those scared to death of dying? It seems that people are becoming increasingly aware of the value of history and the lessons we should be learning from it. Museums and historical societies are all around, supposedly to sustain our understanding of the past, as well as its impact on our present while providing guidance for the future. Driving across the wide expanse of Virginia over the weekend I saw a big billboard proclaiming Cooter’s Place, [...] READ MORE
Far right and far left? Just far apart. Why do conservative Republicans see themselves as common-sense candidates, depicting those with so-called liberal views as “the radical left?” Why do liberal Democrats see themselves as more sensitive and caring, dismissing those with more conservative agendas as “the radical right?” The truth is that a conservative Republican is no further to the right than a liberal Democrat is to the left. The typical liberal Democrat and conservative Republican in [...] READ MORE
