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“THE MORE THINGS CHANGE THE MORE THEY REMAIN THE SAME”
LES GUÊPES, 1849 JEAN BAPTISTE ALPHONSE KARR This essay has spent a longer time than normal in gestation. I had intended to dictate it on Memorial Day, but the news from Iraq was so depressing that I could not bring myself to work on it. Now that the essay has emerged from the womb, let…
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AN OVERABUNDANCE OF CARDIAC CARNALITY
(AS DIAGNOSED BY BROTHER TONY AND PREACHER FITZWATER) I have toyed with calling this essay “An Affair of the Heart” but that title would have been misleading. This is not a love story in any respect. It is a medical matter with ecclesiastical overtones. This combination of factors makes it a matter of major significance.…
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FLAGS AND ANTHEMS
Haggis is a meal consumed by Scots on ceremonial occasions. I use the word “consumed” advisedly because it is impossible to imagine that anyone would actually enjoy eating haggis. To prepare haggis, it is necessary to have a sheep’s stomach into which are poured quantities of oatmeal as well as the sheep’s kidneys, heart, lungs,…
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THE PENTAGON’S EASTER SURPRISE
On Good Friday, 2007, which was April 6, the Pentagon leaked the information that 12,000 National Guardsmen would be activated and called to service starting early next year. They will be sent to Iraq and will serve at least one year there.* There are some significant thoughts about this development. This will be an involuntary…
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A NICKEL’S WORTH OF NOSTALGIA FOR OLD GEEZERS, FOGIES, AND CODGERS
The speech patterns of my parents had Elizabethan overtones. For example, if my mother were to be told that her seventh child had become an Anglican priest or a Baptist Bible-thumping preacher, she would have fainted. Upon regaining consciousness, I am certain that she would have said, “Well, I swan!” The term “swan” is an…
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DOUBLE WIDE UPLIFT BRASSIERES FOR OUR 800 GENERALS
From 1929 until the beginning of 1942, the United States was in the grip of a vicious economic depression. Job opportunities rarely existed. Unemployment figures were at an all time high. The stock market was barely stumbling along. Bankruptcies and home foreclosures were a common place. Those dozen years of the Depression were dismal for…
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ALBERTO’S FORGETTERY
On April 19th, the Attorney General of the United States appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions about the firing of eight prosecutors. In five hours of testimony, the Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, was not very helpful in that he said on more than 70 occasions, “I can’t recall.” Two weeks earlier, his…
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ESTHER REZOAGLI AND THE MERITS OF BEING BORN UNWEALTHY
Rodney Dangerfield was a comedian who during his lifetime claimed that he “got no respect.” Dangerfield was a happy comedian who coined a maxim or two. One of his maxims was, “I’ve been rich, I’ve been poor, and believe me, rich is better.” In this essay, I will contend that there is merit in being…
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“…FLASHED AND GLITTERED LIKE THE MOUTH OF HELL ITSELF”
In the thirty-year period between 1920 and 1950, Henry Mencken was a dominant figure in American letters. He was prominent in American political affairs as well. He was a writer, an editor, a publisher of two intellectual magazines, and he found time to author more than 80 hard-cover books. Few things escaped Mencken’s attention. The…