After reading Dr. Thomas Sowell's latest book, "Intellectuals and Race," one cannot emerge with much respect for the reasoning powers of intellectuals, particularly academics, on matters of race. There's so much faulty logic and downright dishonesty.
Sigh… It's a word to describe a sound we make. But, the meaning can only be discerned by listening closely to the sound.
Let's say your side or candidate won or lost last Tuesday. Aren't you just a little bit embarrassed by what it took to win or lose this election?
The claims that President Obama is "anti-business" during the recent elections surprised me.
I write better than I talk, which is a good thing, considering how I make a living. I started writing "books" before I could write, embellishing "The Little Engine That Could" with my own version, rendered in preschooler runes on the end pages of my Little Golden Book copy. In high school I started stringing for the local newspaper, The Thomasville Times-Enterprise in Thomasville, Ga., and discovered that someone would actually pay me to write. ...
There was much happening in the news this week. Here are some of our observations:
A friend recently shared with me a musing of T. S. Eliot in which he wrote, "...and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
We have a unique system of government. It began when we declared our independence from England on July 4, 1776. As a people, we had become increasingly unhappy with leaders in England making decisions that affected our lives and our livelihoods. Eventually, we were forced to a decision point: to fold under the tyranny of England or fight for liberty. As Patrick Henry so eloquently stated, "Give me liberty, or give me death."
I heard last week that Rep. Jim Marshall (D., Ga.) is no fan of a GPS system. The Vietnam vet is still partial to an old-fashioned map for navigating his way up, down and across his meandering Eighth Congressional District. One aide told me that a staffer recently tried planting one on the windshield of the congressman's car as they set out for a day of campaigning and Marshall swiftly snatched it off and tossed it into the backseat with a warning not to bring it out again.
A bankruptcy court judge I knew would tell people: "Pay yourself at the first of every month. That is your pay for living. Put that money in the bank. Then when you want to buy something, you can pay cash, and get at least three or four times as much as if you were buying on credit."
For years, I have spent time in classrooms observing teachers teach. I've done so to be familiar with the main work of our profession, classroom instruction. More often than not, I've found teachers working hard at direct "teacher talk" or "lecture" to students. Unfortunately, I've not always seen the kids working equally hard.
In my house, the contest for state school superintendent is as important as the governor's race. I have a son, son-in-law and now a grandson who are public schoolteachers and they, and all teachers, deserve a draw-a-line-in-the-sand advocate.
After all these years in the newspaper business and being in areas where natural disasters, murders and community political misbehaving's have taken place, it still catches me off guard and amazes me what type of story will really get readers' attention and that will get legs and be transported around the country.
If your only exposure to a newsroom has been through movies or television, the business of crafting a newspaper must seem exotic, fun, and hectic, an occupation pursued by people with perfect teeth and unmoving hair who look an awful lot like Robert Downey Jr. or Rachel McAdams. Reality, of course, is different.
Well, I've done it, and I never thought I would. I've held onto a beloved pair of shoes long enough that they're back in style. They didn't get much wear when I bought them some years ago, so I was loathe to toss them. But, hey, now I can step out in them and look a little bit fashionable without spending any money. It's really not my way, however, to keep around shoes or clothes ...
In a weird election year, you might think the weirdest place of all is Delaware, where the Republican nominee for the Senate has aired TV commercials to reassure voters, "I am not a witch."
Last month, at a CNBC-sponsored town hall meeting in Washington, President Barack Obama was forcefully questioned by Velma Hart, one of his supporters from the 2008 campaign. An African-American and the chief financial officer of AMVETS, a veterans' group, she made clear her disappointment with his performance as president.