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SHOOTING ONESELF IN ONE’S OWN FEETS
A scholar casually reading the title to this essay may conclude that it is not in accordance with the King’s English or at least the King James version of the English language. But if you will bear with me, I will try to explain to the doubters why I contend that we are shooting ourselves…
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A FEW THOUGHTS ABOUT RICHNESS AND POORNESS
Jacob Cohen was a well-known personality who once offered the thought that “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor; and believe me, rich is better.” I hope that there is no disagreement from my readers as to the wisdom of Mr. Cohen’s remarks. The fact is that the honorable Mr. Cohen was known as a…
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ABJECT HATRED AND/OR THE GASEOUS ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
My parents had eight children, five of whom grew to maturity. Only one of them was troubled by vindictiveness to a degree of unpleasant hatred. If a major league hitter knocked out four balls out of five, it would be considered a phenomenon. Now consider this: I was in the American Army for a few…
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THE WEINER AFFAIR AND AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM
This essay is being written after Anthony Weiner resigned from Congress. In his disgrace, former Congressman Weiner has earned a bit of admiration on my part. For the past day or two, it has been obvious that former Congressman Weiner had no choice but to resign from Congress. Resigning from his Congressional seat is one…
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THE PHILANDERER’S CUP RACE
A few weeks back when Herman Cain was still in the race for the Presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain sat down for what was laughingly called a debate among themselves. Actually it was not a debate at all but a mutual admiration society. Given the facts of the matter about their past philandering,…
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RANDOM THOUGHTS: BOTH BAD AND GOOD
In these days of the winter, I find that my mind produces some random thoughts. They don’t go together. Rather they are individual thoughts that strike me from time to time. As the title of this essay suggests, there are some bad thoughts, and quite separately, there are good thoughts. One of the least praiseworthy…
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ANSWERING THE CALL
If my sources of news are correct, there will be a large meeting in Houston called by the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry. I gather that he has made arrangements to set aside a Saturday in August when he will conduct a national day of prayer. The most important element of the national day of…
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SEXUAL MATTERS
For a good number of years, I have been pursuing the art of a wordsmith. But all of that has now gone by the wayside as we have seen the Republican primaries take place. Much to my dismay, the aspirants to Barack Obama’s job have brought up a collection of terms of which I am…
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THE MOTHER TONGUE REVISITED
Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court Justice, is a man who has his head in the sand. He insists that the law is what was written in 1776 – 1789 without any improvements to the law or the language. You may recall that Scalia is the person who gave us George W. Bush when the hanging…
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A FIVE-STAR QUINELLA
For a number of years, I have kept two dictating machines on a table near my desk. On the left side, there is a machine that I use to dictate what I hope is the final product for Mrs. Baker, the transcriber. On the right side, there is a machine that keeps notes for titles…