With New Year’s Eve fast upon us, I hope you’ll indulge Old Corporal as he takes stock of 2010 in the Madison area, and offers some opinions with which some people obviously will not agree. —— OK, folks, everybody who…
Happy New Year? Well, maybe …
Joey and the Christmas pledge
Joey Romano glanced around at the Christmas decorations in Stanford’s Fine Dining, the priciest restaurant the town of 12,000 offered. Pretty nice, he thought; kind of old-fashioned. Old-fashioned St. Nicholas on the mantle; real Christmas tree with all colors of…
Assange must be silenced!
Julian Assange, the smarty-pants ultra-liberal who has been thumbing his nose at the U.S. on his WikiLeaks website by making public hundreds of thousands of confidential government communications, now is threatening that if he is arrested by anyone or his…
Paying for your own mistakes
A young American woman with more high ideals than sense opted to attend a trendy, “leading” university, and now, having graduated, finds that she owes $200,000 in student loan repayments — $891 per month, which she says she “can’t afford.”…
Whither our Social Security system?
Now that the Republicans have swept into office, we can fix Social Security. Laugh, boy! That’s a joke! The GOP and the Democrats both have been kicking the can of our federal retirement program down the road for so long,…
Dems’ courthouse lease ran out
Zounds! There are actually elected Republicans who will be running offices, instead of just running for offices, in the Jefferson County Courthouse, come Jan. 1! How long has it been since that happened? Let’s see: Auditor’s office, 1976, as near…
Bix was simply ‘the best’
Who was the greatest jazz trumpeter or cornetist of all time? Louis Armstrong? Harry James? Maybe Dizzy Gillespie? Wrong. Try Bix Beiderbecke. Who? Leon Bismarck “Bix” Beiderbecke was a legend in his own time for his all-too-brief career, playing his…
Could KDH become VA?
Two years from now, give or take a few months, the King’s Daughters’ Hospital & Health Services will be moving from its century-plus location in downtown Madison to its new campus in the middle of a field on East S.R.…
Mary Kate and Black Mike: ‘The rest of the story’
(Mary Kate Skeffington, best waitress at Dinty Callahan’s Restaurant in South Boston, circa 1925, receives a large, unexpected cash Christmas present from two mysterious customers. She and the surly restaurant manager who is secretly in love with her, Michael J.…
My dog days
You could probably say that, from ages 11 to 18, Ginger was my best friend. She was certainly more consistently friendly, more consistently accessible, and less judgemental, than any of my other friends. And she never tried to borrow money…
Our politically tone-deaf leader
Memo to President Barack Obama: The American people DO NOT want a Muslim mosque built just 600 feet from Ground Zero in New York City, where almost 3,000 people died because of Muslim fanatics. And, Mr. President, your party’s chances…
Two monsters, two enablers, 10 dead
A paranoid, delusional American black man; a lying, controlling Egyptian immigrant obsessed by his patriarchal family religion and by some of its more bizarre, even murderous, “commandments.” And two very foolish American White women who allowed themselves to become involved…
How about a library ombudsman?
Last Wednesday’s contentious meeting of the Jefferson County Public Library Board did not appear to solve any problems, despite verbal statements made to the board by eight members of the community, including Old Corporal. The seven-member board and the library…
Shhhh! This is a library (board)!
For many years, the Madison-Jefferson County Public Library and its board have operated “under the radar” in this community. Quick — tell me the name of just one member of the current board. You can’t, can you? Neither can I…
Honoring ‘The Duckster’
Here in Madison we’ve named streets, buildings, etc., in honor of people who played a big part in our history. Lanier Drive; John Paul Park; E.O. Muncie School; the Drusilla Medical Building … They’ve been the city’s founder, a banker…
Playing cynically on our fears
“Be afraid — be very, very afraid!” — America’s new national motto? If I were still a drinker — which I’m not — and I went into a liquor store to buy a case of Bud or a pint of…
Bangkok and Maratee, burned into my memory
Bangkok is burning. What a shame. The madness that seems to be increasingly sweeping the world has finally reached a country that, for one brief week 45 years ago, was like a fairyland for me. The Thai government, through the…
Arizona: It’s the Left’s latest excuse
The American Left has been in the position it likes best the last week and a half: “Outraged,” marching in the streets, preening itself about its “moral superiority,” and, oh, yes, setting fires and smashing windows and anything else it…
Arizona takes the first step
Arizona has taken a draconian — but quite possibly constitutional — step to try to control the explosive flow of illegal, mostly Mexican, immigrants across its borders. The new law signed by Gov. Jan Brewer last Friday puts the burden…
Tea Partyers tell Madison: “Don’t let America die!”
The Tea Party Movement, which came to Madison Saturday, has matured enough in its year of existence to have a sense of humor about itself. “Welcome, my fellow political terrorists, Nazis and tired old people!” yelled organizer Joe Boone to…
Madison’s own Tea Party upcoming!
The Tea Party Movement will finally arrive in Madison this coming Saturday, April 17. Local people and some visitors concerned about a number of trends in the U.S. today will hold a Tea Party rally at 3 p.m. on the…
Basketball greatness, 1970s style
Butler came within an eyelash of inspiring another “Hoosiers” movie — of completing a roundball holy trinity with the Milan Indians and the Hickory Huskers. It didn’t quite make it — Duke was just too tough, too big — but…