Who are you? Are you simply the sum of your allegiances, fears, desires and experiences? Are you defined exclusively by your class, your race, your clan, and your profession or whom you […]
The appeals and perils of symbolism
Retorts: Rain, rain, don’t go away!
Farmers aren’t the only people who pray for rain. I love precipitation. I favor rain, but I can also find things to praise in hail, sleet and snow, in moderate amounts. Living […]
90 % of knowledge is 50% quotations
I’m a quote kind of guy. I love a good quotation because they can often sum up the essence of a truth in just a few words or sentences, much more so […]
The seductive appeal of “victimhood”
“I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.” […]
No surplus hugs, and let’s shake on it
I have never been much of a tree-hugger, even though I consider myself a sort of environmentalist. The fact is, I’ve never been much of a hugger at all. One’s willingness to […]
Is bigger really better? Let’s think
“Bigger is better!” Well, that woke me up. I was sitting there in the Garden Grove City Council chambers enduring another Much-Longer-Than-They-Need-To-Be discussions and one councilman came out with that bit of […]
Some other college admissions scams
The news that wealthy people paid bribes to college coaches, admissions directors and others to get their otherwise unqualified children into “elite” universities should come as a blinding flash of the obvious. […]
Take me out to the “gentler” game
There was a funny skit on “Saturday Night Live” in which a comedian portraying essayist George Will waxes poetic about the glories of baseball, but can’t even catch one tossed gently to […]
It’s official. Being a ref is a thankless job
“Steeeeeee-rike!” “What? Are you blind? That ball was a foot over her head!” “Which game are you watching?” “You’ve got to be kidding!” The grass is sweetly new-mown and the thonk and […]
Retorts: The negative power of negativity
“More people, on the whole, are humbugged by believing nothing, than by believing too much.” – P.T. Barnum If you want to know why our political world seems to be stuck in […]
