This is the fourth in a series. If you haven’t, please read part 1, part 2, and part 3.  Because so many school systems have driven great English literature out of students’ hands and minds, it’s possible that some kids never read Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.  If you’ve never read this classic, please do [...]

Scrooge’s nephew left the office and let in two men in the process. They came to ask for a donation for London’s poor. “At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor [...]

We know how the story ends. “What’s to-day!” cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him. “EH?” returned the boy, with all his might of wonder. “What’s to-day, my fine fellow?” said Scrooge. “To-day!” replied the boy. “Why, CHRISTMAS DAY.” “It’s Christmas Day!” said [...]

In the course of our lives, we sometimes lose our way. We wander off the good path. Or we fail to blaze the trail we should. THE Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached. When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed [...]

I live in a very hilly area. Yet I’m still alive. Explain that. Maybe that’s why I’m a lower-case “r” republican and not an upper-case one. Republicans seem to feel every hill is worth dying on.  What else could explain the House’s rejection of a silly payroll tax cut extension followed by a doubly-damaging capitulation? [...]

When I was a kid, I loved Christmas on Sundays. What I hated were the years before and after the Sunday Christmas.  My problem was I didn’t want to go to Mass two days in a row. To give some background, I grew up in a Catholic home.  Very Catholic.  My dad went to Epiphany. [...]

Have you ever studied human networks? I’m not talking about online social networks alone, but any kind of human network. They’re amazing. Networks tend to determine who we date, who we marry, and where we work. Our lives are more influenced by networks than we can imagine. A network community can be defined as a [...]

The middle of the road is fine until you have to get somewhere. I voted for Bob Dole in 1996. Yet his nomination drove me away from political activism for years. I got out of the Navy in the fall of 1994. I watched the GOP reclaim the House with my nephew, Scott.  I expected [...]

A college student asked me a question:  Why join the Tea Party? He was wondering why anyone would want to associate with people who behaved reprehensibly at two earlier Republican debates. Here’s how I replied: Johnny, Sorry that I’m just getting to this.  I get a lot of email, and sometimes I miss things. I [...]

Here is an Article from the Wall Street Journal that Explains where former SEIU President, Andy Stern, has gone:
Siga Technologies Inc. (SIGA) said it named former labor leader Andy Stern to the drug-development company’s board.
Stern in April retired as president of the powerful Service Employees International Union, citing personal reasons. …