Opinions, Commentaries and Editorials by Wayne Engle
Marzi Pan Cakery & Deli at 2034 Lanier Drive will be doing a trial run starting at sunrise tomorrow (Monday, April 5) with free doughnuts for anyone coming in. Rob Youngblood, co-owner of the new bake shop/diner along with his…
“A dream is a wish your heart makes …” — From Walt Disney’s Cinderella (Photos by Stephanie Hellmann, Nice Shots) Since he was a 12-year-old boy washing dishes in Madison’s Dieken’s Bakery, Rob Youngblood has had such a dream, in…
They’re very different, one from the other, Evan Bayh and Jim Bunning. Both senators, but one a Hoosier Democrat, the other a Kentucky Republican. One a sure-footed Capricorn, who has navigated the waters of Indiana and Senate politics for the…
Thomas Jefferson once said something like, “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Wonder what the author of the Declaration of Independence and our third president would…
Imagine a very large, extended family — brothers, sisters, cousins, children and grandchildren. Some have done well in life; some haven’t been as successful. But most of them at least muddle through life, more or less on their own. Then…
(Note to readers: This short story, which I wrote in 1996, contains some mildly erotic passages. If such writing is likely to offend you, perhaps you might want to read some of my other writing on this website, instead. Don’t…
Scott Brown’s stunning upset of Martha Coakley in Tuesday’s Massachusetts special senatorial election has everyone buzzing. Ted Kennedy’s seat (as some thought of it) going to a Republican, for the first time in 58 years?! In ultra-liberal, sky-blue Massachusetts?! It’s…
Poor Harry Reid! Now he knows how Trent Lott felt. And George Allen. And Don Imus. And Earl Butz. And a bunch of other white politicians or celebrities who were incautious enough to say something that the mainstream media and…
The infamous “shoe bomber” has now been joined in U.S. history by the “crotch bomber.” How many more lucky, narrow escapes can we expect before these lunatic Muslims blow up an American airliner with hundreds of people aboard? Yes, I…
No calls or radio traffic on Christmas Eve. For radio dispatcher Brenda Fontanot, sitting alone at the console in the Elias County Sheriff’s Department, that was just fine. Hey, she thought, no calls, no traffic, means no domestic trouble, nobody…
And so Tiger Woods, allegedly the greatest golfer who ever lived (that’s debatable, but it’s what the press tells us, and would the press lie to us?) withdraws from the professional links and his public life to try to recover…
The multi-victim murder cases have been piling up like building blocks recently. Four family members killed by a relative in Florida; 13 people shot dead by a nutcase Muslim Army officer in Texas; four police officers gunned down in a…
The Madison Historic District Board of Review did it again Monday night. “Listen to us, ignorant local yokel: You knew you should have sought our sanctified approval before you took those historic wooden windows out of your house and replaced…
Now, eight years after Khalid Sheikh Mohammed masterminded the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York City and the loss of almost 3,000 lives, he and four of his thuggish accomplices are to face trial — almost within a…
Once again we have seen a sudden, deliberately caused tragedy, this time at Fort Hood, Texas. It was of a much smaller scale than 9/11, obviously; 13 dead at Fort Hood, almost 3,000 at the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and…
Remember how when you used to watch old B-western movies on TV as a kid (that is, if you’re about Old Corporal’s age), and sometimes there would be plot elements that didn’t quite make sense — or a feeling that…
His friends sent Clarence “The Great Pignie” Stephenson to his heavenly reward today with fond remembrances, many laughs, and a plethora of “Pignie stories.” One of the most unusual Madisonians of our lifetime, who lived his life in his own…
Barack Obama’s being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize reminds me in a way of the boxing matches TV used to show, which often featured play-by-play from Howard Cosell — the well-known “Humble Howard,” who of course wasn’t. The fighters would…
Old Corporal is in his poetic mode again tonight, so hang onto your hats! Here we go: “Grass” Grass is green and clean and keen, But when I had to mow it, in My salad days, that brought An angry,…
Corinne Maier thinks life can be so nice, so fulfilling, for people if they’d just stop having children. Say what?! Yes, Ms. Maier is doing a round of TV appearances to promote her book, “No Kids — 40 Good Reasons…
President Obama made his long-awaited, much-vaunted “make or break speech” on the health-care plan last night. He proved one thing: As a national leader, he’s a great orator. Nice suit, too, Mr. Prez. In his speech the president tried to…
How would you all like to read an original poem by Old Corporal? Well, I don’t care — you’re going to read it anyway! Seriously, poetry isn’t usually my cup of tea. I’m reminded of a letter that the poet…
The Madison-Milton bridge has been an immovable object in our community for 80 years now. Few living residents of Jefferson or Trimble counties can remember when it wasn’t there. But does that mean that, in the building of a new…
Pete Rose, one of baseball’s all-time greatest players, has been locked in what he calls “a prison without bars” for 20 years now, because major league baseball was once so scared by a World Series sell-out scheme that it went…
The Mulatto Messiah is known for his oh-so smooth and articulate style of delivery. But on Wednesday, he took a topic he didn’t even need to comment on, and managed to blow it up into a big controversy, just when…
Gov. Mark Sanford, you and your fellow unzipped politicians are giving us men a bad name. Make that, “a worse name.” We already had a bad name with most women when it comes to sex. They love to trade knowing…
Mention “Song of the South” and many younger Americans will assume you’re talking about that Southern rock song by the group Alabama. But those of us who are a little longer in the tooth know better. “Song of the South”…
Now we know what caused the disastrous courthouse fire — human error. The investigators, insurance companies and courts no doubt will be fighting it out on that line, if it takes all summer (and fall … and winter …) but…
We were the “Victory Babies” — the people born in 1945, the year the Allies defeated Germany and Japan, the watershed year into a new world of the Cold War, the nuclear arms race, rock ‘n’ roll, Vietnam … But…
It’s just always been there, our courthouse. Like a huge, brick and stone sentinel, it watched over generations of Jefferson Countians from its lot on East Main Street. It was unchanging, or seemed to us to be, like few things…
“Torture doesn’t work!” That was the mantra chanted over and over again during last year’s presidential election by those supporting Barack Obama, and vilifying George W. Bush for allegedly approving treatment of captured terrorists that would put Attila the Hun…
No Corporal’s Corner for the coming week — I’m “goin’ fishin’”, so to speak. Been getting some of those “Wayne’s on the outside looking in” blues again, with doubts about whether anyone’s actually reading this weekly rant. So I’m going…
Tea Party I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. — Winston Churchill If someone had invited you…