The world needs more people like Lu
"They say that the world rests on the backs of 36 living saints -- 36 unselfish men and women. Because of them the world continues to exist. They are the secret kings and queens of this world." -- Neil...
View ArticleWhat would Jesus build?
As controversy encroaches on Dugger over a cross on public land, it's worth remembering there's a difference between a symbol or structure and spirituality. Example? I'm Catholic. When I was a kid, I...
View ArticleHoly scapegoated, Batman!
In evil's wake, we look for simple solutions - some Rosetta stone to comprehend the ridiculously incomprehensible notions of a murderer's drive. We look for some catalyst, some imagined means to keep...
View ArticleDon't mistake food for thought
Now for a moment of trivial things -- t-shirts and chicken sandwiches. There's sometimes a subtle message in a plain t-shirt that's not immediately evident. The reasons for wearing one may run deeper...
View ArticleGoodbye, Lu...
"Who lived here?/They must have been a gardener that cared a lot/Who weeded out the tears and grew a good crop/And we are so amazed -- /We're crippled and we're dazed/A gardener like that one, no one...
View ArticleMaybe the next 50 years should be spent improving humanity, not technology
For those old enough to remember -- even if they received the ideas secondhand -- the idea of vast technological advances making life easier isn't new. In the 1950s and 1960s -- perhaps the apogee of...
View ArticleGregg's not just country, but canny
It'll probably never make one of his commercials which just finally began airing -- a striking mix of homespun folksiness and political savvy that could just turn the tide against the better funded...
View ArticleLyrical snippets often frame a moment
"Remember, information is not knowledge; knowledge is not wisdom; wisdom is not truth; truth is not beauty; beauty is not love; love is not music; music is the best." -- Frank Zappa. In my heart of...
View Article'Do ya feel lucky, punk?'
"Like so many kids brought up on a steady diet of Westerns, I always wanted to be the avenging cowboy hero -- that lone voice in the wilderness, fighting corruption and evil wherever I found it, and...
View ArticleWhatever happened to...?
"I'm an accident/I was driving way too fast/Couldn't stop though/So I let the moment last/I'm for rolling/I'm for tossing in my sleep/It's not guilt though/It's not the company I keep/People my...
View ArticlePondering the year of the cat
This week, I've been feeling sadder than usual, missing a tiny gray kitten who, rather unexpectedly, became a constant companion during the long, difficult summer of 2012. Her name's Alex -- a name I...
View ArticleSometimes, the fix is in
"There are certain injustices in this life you've got to do something about. You can't just say that you can't fight it, or it's too much trouble, or that you don't have the time or the effort, or that...
View ArticleTangled up in blue
"Ah, this terrible gibberish. Grim memories and bad flashbacks, looming up through the time/fog of Stanyan Street...no solace for refugees, no point in looking back. The question, as always, is...
View ArticlePeople, not politics, define who we are
The closest I ever came to a fistfight over my political views, oddly enough, was defending a staunch Republican. That might stun some who've read my column over the years, guessing -- more or less...
View ArticleEvery day is Halloween
Horatio:"O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!" Hamlet:"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your...
View ArticleHave yourself a merry little apocalypse
"If this were the last night of the world, what would I do? What would I do that was different? Unless it was champagne with you..." -- Bruce Cockburn I couldn't sleep well a few weeks ago, one of the...
View ArticleObama deserves four more years
"There's been a war in this country between the 50s and the 60s my whole adult life. This election is its Armageddon." -- John Perry Barlow. I voted early -- and proudly -- for Barack Obama last week....
View ArticleThe struggle continues for America
"Who will provide the grand design of what is yours and what is mine? Cause there is no more new frontier, and we have got to make it here..." -- The Eagles."Harvest hath passed, summer hath ended, And...
View ArticleIf at first you don't secede...
"Words mean things," Ronald Reagan once remarked. That's worth recollecting as news of an on-line petition drive at the White House's website seeking to allow several states to secede from the United...
View ArticleJunk food breeds junk thoughts
"At night I stake out my strong box That I keep under lock and key And I take it off to my closet Where nobody else can see I open that door so slowly Take a peek up north and south Then I pull out a...
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