Opinion Forum

Happy New Year!

December 31st, 2008

Happy New Year to all my old friends and any new friends who happen to drop by! I wish everyone a year of health, happiness, tolerance, charity, and peace. Health, to lead a full life with those you love and all who come in contact with you. Happiness, to enjoy goals fulfilled and the knowledge [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: New Year
Categories: Life | Comments (2) | Home

Big Brother in Oregon

December 30th, 2008

The Albany Democrat Herald, in Oregon, reported on a scheme being cooked up by the state to measure how many miles people drive and tax them on the mileage. The new tax would replace the state gas tax. The plan would require that every car and service station be equipped with GPS devices, all to be monitored by the [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: taxes
Categories: Humor, Life, News, Politics | Comments (9) | Home

The Future of Journalism

December 29th, 2008

Are newspapers about to go the way of the Pony Express, replaced by the faster, wider, longer reach of the Internet? Is blogging the future of journalism? I’ve been thinking about this a lot since retiring from a newspaper career and exploring the Internet in search of new possibilities for publishing my writing. Modern American [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: press
Categories: Media, News | Comments (2) | Home

Israeli Attacks in Gaza

December 28th, 2008

Palestinian terrorists, members of Hamas, fired about 300 rockets into Israel in little more than a week. Israeli citizens in the areas being attacked have been forced to live under constant threat. Israel did what any other country would have done. They defended themselves. Israeli ground attack fighters and attack helicopters struck targets in Gaza associated with [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Israel, terrorism
Categories: Media, Military, Politics | Comments (15) | Home

Best Notable Quotables

December 28th, 2008

The conservative Media Research Center has just released “The Best Notable Quotables of 2008: The 21st Annual Awards for the Year’s Worst Reporting.” Given the political orientation of the Media Research Center, you can rightly expect that their report will highlight liberal bias in the media. But then, where else would you find a report like [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: conservative, Humor, liberal, press
Categories: Humor, Media, News, Politics | Comments (5) | Home

Culture Warriors

December 27th, 2008

A military uniform is akin to a soldier’s skin festooned with tattoos, displaying eye-grabbing patches and campaign ribbons, a feisty advertisement of where this soldier/sailor/airman/marine has been. Imagine what it takes to deliberately tear one’s war uniform apart. “It was liberating,” says Drew Cameron, a former Army artilleryman who served in Iraq in 2003 during [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Iraq, troops
Categories: Arts, Life, Military | Comments (1) | Home

The “Twilight” Series

December 26th, 2008

So, the last couple of days I’ve been reading the fourth book of the “Twilight” series called Breaking Dawn. The last 200 pages of the book were so exciting, but I didn’t want to read it because I didn’t want it to be over. It had a great ending, but I was mad that it was [...]

Articles written by Amber
Tags: literature
Categories: Arts, Life | Comments (6) | Home

Christmas in Hard Times

December 25th, 2008

Christmas this year is not as joyous for some people as it was in the past. More people are out of work, companies are slowing down or shutting down, retirement plans for some have been diminished or destroyed by investment losses, and in general the economic future looks bleak. In some families, children will be disappointed to find that Santa left fewer gifts [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Christmas, families
Categories: Life | Comments (2) | Home

A Moving Experience

December 24th, 2008

After 30 years in the same town, I’m moving on. But it’s not easy uprooting the threads and memories that make a hometown. I first saw Montclair one snowy day in 1978. My wife wanted to show me a sprawling Victorian house for sale in a spectacular town. We decided on the spot to move [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: families, Life
Categories: Life | Comments (2) | Home

Holiday Blues

December 23rd, 2008

December hits me with the blues even before the official first day of winter. My wife died during this season, among other things. The frantic pace of manufacturing holiday cheer leaves me exhausted. It gets dark so early, I’m ready for bed before supper. I decided to beat the holiday blues by visiting my parents. [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: weather
Categories: Life | Comments (3) | Home

Gay Marriage

December 22nd, 2008

Against gay marriage, are you? Why? Is it because of your religious beliefs? Because you think marriage is supposed to be the union of a man and a woman for the primary purpose of having children? Because you think same-sex marriage will fundamentally alter our society for the worse? Because you personally object to legally recognizing a lifestyle that [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: conservative, Law, liberal
Categories: Life, Politics | Comments (8) | Home

The Joys of Winter

December 21st, 2008

MaxedOutMama has posted three videos of slow-motion multiple car crashes on icy streets. No one gets hurt, so its pretty funny. Take a look. For anyone who’s been there, watching these videos gives you that weak feeling you had as your car slid out of control on the ice and snow. And in one video, you see [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Humor, weather
Categories: Humor, Life | Comments (0) | Home

The Senator From New York

December 20th, 2008

New York Governor David A. Paterson has a difficult decision to make. He has to decide who will replace Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Senate when she moves over to the Executive Branch to become Secretary of State. The person he selects will serve as a Senator for almost two years, when a special election [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Kennedy
Categories: News, Politics | Comments (0) | Home

Heroic Terrorist

December 20th, 2008

Ami Pedazhur, a professor at the University of Texas in Austin, wrote an interesting article on terrorism and its methods over the years in The New York Times on December 20. He relates that in 1979, Samir Kuntar led a group of terrorists to the beach of Nahariya and shot a police officer and a civilian, [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: islamist, Israel, press, terrorism
Categories: Media, News, Politics | Comments (1) | Home

Does Dark Matter Matter?

December 19th, 2008

Physicists are strange people. They may look normal, but there are very strange things going on in their heads. Take, for instance, their “discovery” of dark matter and/or dark energy. But first, a digression. I was in a small group that received a detailed briefing and tour at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. It’s based near Geneva and [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Humor, Science
Categories: Humor, Life, News | Comments (4) | Home

“Change” Means Change

December 18th, 2008

As reported in Politico, gay activist leaders are very upset with President-elect Obama because he invited Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. Warren is pastor of the Saddleback Church in California, one of the largest churches in the U.S. He’s a high-visibility Christian leader–so much so, in fact, that he hosted a forum at [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: conservative, liberal, Obama
Categories: News, Politics | Comments (0) | Home

The Blue Danube

December 17th, 2008

I lived within sight of the Danube River for a long time, mostly in Budapest and Belgrade. This powerful, historic river slices through the heart of Europe, from its source in Germany, through Austria, between Slovakia and Hungary, then straight south through Hungary, between Serbia and Croatia, through Serbia, between Serbia and Romania, and east [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: History, Life
Categories: History, Life | Comments (0) | Home

The Great Shoe Crisis

December 16th, 2008

Not since Imelda Marcos’ closet was thrown open have shoes been such a hot item in the news. Some young brain-dead Iraqi journalist (actually, a stringer) throws his shoes at President Bush and calls him a dog–two prime insults in the Arab world. Fine. It’s offensive, as it was intended to be, and all Americans ought [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Bush, Iraq, press, terrorism
Categories: Life, Media, News, Politics | Comments (1) | Home

Michael J. Totten

December 15th, 2008

Michael J. Totten is an independent journalist from Portland, Oregon. He specializes on the Middle East, and his work has been published in numerous prestigious newspapers and magazines. He also publishes articles on his blog. He published an article today, On the Hunt in Baghdad, reporting on an Army unit he accompanied on an operation. Their mission was [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: army, Military, press
Categories: Military | Comments (0) | Home

My Uncle Donny

December 15th, 2008

My uncle Donny is serving a mission, teaching others about the gospel. I’ve always been so close to him. We’re best friends. I started looking for a pen pal for him on a Christian website. I found a girl named Jennifer, and she and my mom have become best friends. My uncle and Jenn have [...]

Articles written by Amber
Tags: friend
Categories: Life | Comments (3) | Home

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