Opinion Forum

Wheelchair, Please

December 14th, 2008

George W. Bush was out jogging one morning when he tripped, fell over a bridge railing, and landed in the creek below. Before the Secret Service guys could get to him, three kids who were fishing pulled him out of the water. He was so grateful he offered the kids whatever they wanted. The first [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Bush, Humor
Categories: Humor, Politics | Comments (1) | Home

Dexter the Serial Killer

December 14th, 2008

If you’ve never seen the Showtime series Dexter, try watching a couple of episodes. Dexter Morgan is a serial killer of a different kind. He operates under a strict personal code which permits him to kill only other killers who have escaped justice. His father, who adopted him after a horrific childhood experience, was a [...]

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

Nobel Prize in Literature

December 13th, 2008

I’m reading My Name is Red, a novel by the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006, with three of his novels cited, including this one. At 500 pages, it’s rather medium-longish, and I’ve worked my way through about a third of it. So far, it’s proving to be [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: literature
Categories: Arts, Politics | Comments (7) | Home

Air Travel

December 12th, 2008

My air travel these days is done on the Internet. While hardly anyone has noticed, I’ve boycotted the airlines since 9/11. I can’t see paying good money to be harassed by people who can’t tell honest citizens from hard-core terrorists. I used to love to fly in airplanes. In Vietnam, I flew in all sorts of Army, Air Force [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: 9/11, airlines, Law, terrorism
Categories: Life | Comments (2) | Home

Historic Photographs

December 12th, 2008

If you enjoy historic photographs going back to before the Civil War, here’s the place to go: the LIFE photo archive hosted by Google. This is a joint effort by LIFE Magazine and Google, drawing from LIFE’s photo archive to make millions of photographs available to the public. Most haven’t been published before, and they’re [...]

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

Paglia: Clintons vs Obama

December 12th, 2008

Camille Paglia writes a jewel of a column once a month at Salon.com, usually long and on various topics. Her column on December 10 is headlined, “What do the Clintons have on Obama?” She says, As for Obama’s appointment of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, what sense does that make except within parochial Democratic politics? Awarding such [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Clinton, Israel, Obama, Paglia, Palin, terrorism
Categories: Arts, Life, Media, Politics | Comments (2) | Home

Intruder in the Building

December 11th, 2008

Today we had a drill in seventh period. As we were doing our English assignment the principal said over the intercom, “Intruder in the building.” We all rushed to the side of the wall where you can’t be seen if someone looks in the window. One person even got under the teacher’s desk. (That didn’t make [...]

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

Soldiers’ Angels

December 11th, 2008

According to Laughing Wolf at BLACKFIVE, The roughly 250,000 volunteers that are Soldiers’ Angels outdid themselves and came up with a warehouse full of “Wrapped in Holiday Spirit” care packages for deployed soldiers and those injured and in hospitals far from home. The problem is, the money for shipping those packages is gone, and some [...]

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

Barack Hussein Obama

December 11th, 2008

A Politico report says that President-elect Obama will take the presidential oath at his inauguration using his full name, Barack Hussein Obama. Wait a minute–according to the culture commandos of the press and Democrats in general, that’s a no-no. At least, it was during the campaign. In fact, it was considered such an insult that John McCain felt obliged [...]

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

Idiot’s Guide to Englesh

December 11th, 2008

Quoted from a 2003 Dave Barry column, “Idiot’s Guide to Englesh”: It is time once again for Ask Mister Language Person, the column that provides you with the grammar, punctuation and vocabulary skills you need to verbally crush your opponents like seedless grapes under a hammer. Today’s language questions…:

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Humor
Categories: Humor | Comments (1) | Home

Around the Blogosphere

December 10th, 2008

Kevin at Preemptive Karma is running a series of excerpts from Barack Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope. Kevin is a smart guy, and he’ll find all the good stuff. I recommend reading his series. A few days ago, Carla at BlueOregon wrote an interesting post titled, “Stuff that gets my grouch on.” Take a look at [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: islamist, Israel, Law, Obama, press, terrorism
Categories: Life, News | Comments (0) | Home

Blagojevich and Change

December 10th, 2008

When Rod Blagojevich took office as Illinois’ first Democratic governor in 26 years, in his inaugural address he characterized Illinois government as a ”system of corruption that has become too commonplace, too accepted and too entrenched.” He went on, “You voted for change. I intend to deliver it.” I’m sure that most of the good citizens of Illinois applauded politely and muttered under [...]

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

Hurricane Ike

December 9th, 2008

This September we heard on the news that Hurricane Ike was coming. So, we packed all our important stuff and left for Mississippi, where my uncle and his family live. We stayed there for about a week. During that week we were always watching the news. Wouldn’t it be funny if we saw our house [...]

Articles written by Amber
Tags: school, weather
Categories: Life | Comments (4) | Home

Christmas

December 9th, 2008

When some people think of Christmas they think about presents, decorating Christmas Trees, and Santa. I love Christmas shopping and asking people what they want for Christmas. I believe in the spirit of Santa. My mom always makes us wait at the top of the stairs, and then she gets her camera and takes a picture of [...]

Articles written by Amber
Tags: friend, school
Categories: Life | Comments (7) | Home

Federal Gas Tax Increase

December 8th, 2008

It’s time for an increase in the federal tax on gasoline retail sales. It should be increased from the present 18.4 percent to around 50 percent. Just writing that sets my teeth on edge, but, nevertheless, it’s time. I don’t usually favor tax increases. I believe government should tax less and do less, in general. “That [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: press, tax
Categories: Life, Politics | Comments (8) | Home

Poopacino, Anyone?

December 8th, 2008

Dave Barry once wrote about the craze for weird kinds of coffee. Here’s the good part: This specialty-coffee craze has gone too far. I say this in light of a letter I got recently from alert reader Bo Bishop. He sent me an invitation he received from a local company to a ”private tasting of [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Humor, press
Categories: Humor | Comments (2) | Home

Vampires

December 7th, 2008

Has anyone read the “Twilight” series by Stephenie Meyer? In the first book, Twilight, there’s a girl named Bella who is going to a new school. She has just moved in with her dad. She meets a guy named Edward who turns out to be a vampire! They start to fall in love. I don’t want to [...]

Articles written by Amber
Tags: friend, literature, vampire
Categories: Arts, Life | Comments (8) | Home

Remembering Pearl Harbor

December 7th, 2008

Today is the 67th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, which was the signature event that launched “The Greatest Generation” into World War II. The day after the attack, President Roosevelt delivered an address to a joint session of Congress and to the nation by radio. This address began with the famous words, “…December 7, 1941, a [...]

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

Islamist Terrorism

December 6th, 2008

The deadly attack by Islamist terrorists in Mumbai highlights the fact that a small group of well-trained, well-armed, and motivated men can overwhelm very large numbers of normal people, killing and wreaking havoc at will. That’s true whether they attack commando-style as in Mubai, with bombs as in London and Madrid, or with airplanes as in New York. There [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: islamist, Israel, terrorism, terrorist
Categories: Life, News, Politics | Comments (3) | Home

The Terrorist Among Us

December 6th, 2008

Bill Ayers wrote a column published on December 5 in The New York Times (where else?). I guess you could read parts of it as an apology of sorts for things he did in the distant past. He also played down his associations with Barack Obama. But what about the more recent past? This photo, from a [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Bill Ayers, Law, Obama, terrorist
Categories: Politics | Comments (1) | Home

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