Myths about famous people have made it ’round the world ever since there was enough communication for myths TO travel. “Mohammed was a pedophile; and so was Joseph Smith.” “Everything great in American music was originated by brilliantly talented black…
“Bang bang! You’re dead!” If you heard or said those words, occasionally or often, when you were growing up, I’d practically guarantee you’re an American. Why? Because guns — the “bang bang” producer — are in our national DNA. And…
” ‘Hatred’? Didn’t he just write one about that a couple of months ago?” I can just hear my readers asking themselves that now. And the answer is, “Yes, I did.” But I felt the need to follow it up,…
What has happened to our once-great country, fellow Americans? Where did we go wrong? How did we get so far off the track that our land now seems to be run by millions of malcontents who never tire of protesting,…
Nobody ever accused Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds of being a fabulously athletic baseball player. He was of only average height, stocky in build, a good enough runner but nothing like those (mostly black) players who go from first…
Everybody should have at least one sister or brother. There. That’s the opinion of a man who grew up as an only child, so I’ve got the scars to prove the truth of what I just said. After all, the…
“We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal …” Thus spake Thomas Jefferson, probably the most brilliant of our Founding Fathers, in his preamble to the Declaration of Independence. Of course, in the next…
Wanted: Someone who can run this country efficiently, democratically, who can inspire great loyalty from his or her supporters, while also receiving grudging respect from the other side, and who, in the final result, can bring us together in the…
“The Holy Fire” is believed by Orthodox Christians to be an annual miracle performed by God on the eve of Easter, the celebration of Jesus Christ’s resurrection — and is totally unknown to most Western Christians. And it’s condemned as…
Do you remember the Little Rascals? If you grew up in the 1950s, as I did, you probably do. They were some of the favorite TV entertainment for us Baby Boomers of the Eisenhower years. The Hal Roach Studio had…
“John Marshall has given his decision. Now let him enforce it.” — That was President Andrew Jackson speaking, when the U.S. Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John Marshall, ruled that he could not put the so-called “Trail of Tears”…
At noon Friday, Jan. 20, Donald J. Trump took the oath as the 45th president of the United States. Hundreds of thousands of Trump supporters were in Washington, D.C., for the festivities — inaugural parade, new president’s speech, the inaugural…
You Numbah One! You Numbah Ten! Choi Oi! White Mice … Victor Charlie … You buy me Saigon tea? … The “NamVet” words he’d heard every day while he was serving in the Vietnam War, 50 years before, ran randomly…
Well, our raucous presidential election, the most divisive since Hector was a pup, is over. Donald Trump has won, and will be the 45th president of the United States. Beyond that, I’ve had some random thoughts about all this. All…
OK, folks: It’s the bottom of the ninth; score tied; home team’s best slugger facing the visitors’ star pitcher. The fat lady’s putting on her girdle, getting ready to sing. It’s Christmas Eve, with visions of sugar plums dancing in…
So Donald Trump 11 years ago made a few unsavory remarks about women to a guy named Bush who he thought was the only one who could hear him. And — SOMEHOW — there just happened to be an “open…
This column is about a childish, spoiled football player who doesn’t know how wonderful he’s got it; and about the song that has inspired his nonsensical raving and disrespect of a national symbol. Colin Kaepernick, did you feel that you…
Hackin’ Hillary (cough, cough!) did a nose dive into her limousine during the 9/11 memorial services in New York City Sunday. “Over-heated,” her minions told the press. Yeah, those 75-degree, 39 percent humidity days are murder, aren’t they? Then, after…
“Orthodox? Is that Jewish?” That’s the reply I’ve gotten, several times, from friends I’ve told that I’d like to convert to the Eastern Orthodox Church. And the question was usually accompanied by a puzzled frown that told me the friend…
Many, many years from now, when our grandchildren have grandchildren of their own and people my age have been pushing up daisies for a long time, Americans will still be talking about this insane, unlike any before or since, presidential…
“You White people don’t understand what it’s like to be black in America!” Two years after Ferguson, a longer time after Trayvon Martin, the shooting deaths of two black men in Louisiana and Minnesota, followed by the massacre of five…
Maybe 100 years from now they’ll be talking about June 23 as the British people’s “Fourth of July.” Because in a referendum on that date, the people of the UK voted that their answer to “EU” is “pee-u,” and they…
Paul McCartney: The Life, by Philip Norman — Little, Brown and Company. 2016 “The Cute One”? That’s how Philip Norman saw the Beatles’ Paul McCartney for many years. John Lennon was the brilliant, witty, edgy musical genius who was “three…
The Mulatto Messiah, drunk with power over the numerous presidential edicts he’s issued which the spineless Republican-led Congress has done absolutely nothing about, has now jumped with both feet into the current brouhaha about transgendered people — whatever THAT means…
Jacob Schutte, a lonely bachelor farmer in the early 1900s, goes each Sunday to a different church to partake of the “dinner on the ground” offered to any with the 25 cents it costs to eat. On this particular Sunday,…
This short story is based on my memories of an uncle of mine; on a reminiscence by my dad about his growing-up years, just at the time this story takes place; and on my memories of my own life. But…
OK, national GOP leaders: Everyone got their pistol loaded and ready? Good! Now, everybody aim their weapons down toward the floor. One, two, three, FIRE! BOOM! That exercise is called, “Shooting yourself in the foot.” And that’s just what the…
Benjamin Franklin, one of our most well-beloved Founding Fathers, never served as president of the United States. He was born too early (1706) so that by the time the first president (George Washington) was elected, Franklin was a frail 83…
The title of the movie was almost poetic: “Song of the South.” The actors were charming and believable — especially James Baskett as Uncle Remus, who became one of the best-known characters in American literature, partly via the 1946 Disney…
In just about two months — April 23, to be exact — the world will observe a double anniversary of the greatest literary man to ever live on this earth. William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England, on April 23,…
If you follow social media, or keep up with politics, as I do, you’re probably angry, frustrated, depressed, and wishing something — ANYTHING — would happen to break this cycle we seem to be stuck in. We’ve had our happy,…
This old year, 2015, has been a real doozy, hasn’t it? Most of us will feel a relief when it ends at midnight tonight. Well, at least, I will. But I suspect many, many would agree with me. The Islamic…
This Christmas story will, I hope, show that sometimes, during the magic of the Yuletide season, people at odds with one another due to religious doctrine or other factors, can learn to “love thy neighbor,” as the Bible directs. ——…