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…
Big families: Hey, folks, we need MORE of them!
‘Equality’? It’s just another liberal lie
“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…
A coming U.S. firestorm? Very possible …
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 it a divine signal to believers?
“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…
Remembering the Rascals — and Pete
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…
Assert your authority, President Trump!
“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”…
‘Hatred’ can be directed many ways
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…
A Christmas NamVet reunion
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…
Trump presidency will be a different one
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…
Election day, don’t make a big mistake
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…
The conspiracy to ‘Dump Trump’
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…
Kaepernick the ass, and a new anthem
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…
The ‘highest office’? Hillary’s not up to it
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…
Journeying toward Orthodoxy …
“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…
Presidential race — then, possibly, revolution?
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…
Black Americans having another ‘pity party’
“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…
BREXIT may signal a coming revolution for America, too
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…
‘The Cute One’? How about ‘The Musical Genius’?
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…
Transgenders and restrooms: Are they kidding?!
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 and Marge: A match made ‘on the ground’
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,…
Jacob Schutte’s life was humdrum — until a Sunday surprise
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…
‘Stop Trump’? Don’t think it’s gonna happen
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…