In 1952, a writer named Bernard Malamud came out with a great book about baseball. In 1984, with the Reagan ’80s at flood tide, Barry Levinson made a film of the book and ruined the story. Maybe it was the difference between eras, the difference between Joe McCarthy and Ronald Reagan, the difference between the …
Monday was Bob Newhart’s 92nd birthday, and someone suggested that he would be one of the four faces on a Mount Rushmore of great comedians. I can’t disagree with that, but I think it would be a nearly impossible task to pick four comedians without doing a tremendous injustice to at least half a dozen …
I saw a post on Facebook the other day that literally flabbergasted me. The post — by someone I don’t know all that well — was someone saying that in the last eight or nine years, he has had 97 different relatives, friends and business associates die. He was actually more specific than that. He …
Cal Ripken. Robin Yount. Chipper Jones. Ryan Zimmerman. And no, if I ask you what they all have in common, it’s not that none of them have ever been in Cliff Clavin’s kitchen. If you’re a baseball fan, you might realize that all four of these gentlemen — three of them retired, the fourth nearing …
The community in which I live — officially called an active adult community — doesn’t have all that many young people. When we moved here nearly 11 years ago, we were among the younger residents in Sun City Peachtree. We were 60, and it was a community for adults 55 and older. Now there are …
Nearly everyone with a decent education has heard the story of the person who went up to Benjamin Franklin after the constitutional convention and asked him what kind of government they were giving us. Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” I would love to see what Dr. Franklin would say about 21st …
REPUBLIC OR FASCISM, TEXAS HEADS DOWN WRONG ROAD Read More »
Long after Lyndon Johnson died, his biographers revealed that Johnson had known there was no way the U.S. could win in Vietnam. In fact, he reportedly knew there was nothing at all to be gained there. But during his five years and two months in the White House, he not only maintained our role in …
I have never believed in the death penalty. It’s not a kumbaya thing, or a naive belief in the goodness or humanity and the possibility of rehabilitation. I believe there is evil in the world and I strongly believe there are people who should never walk among us again. But executing people — whether we …
QUESTION OF SIRHAN GOING FREE IS A DIFFICULT CALL Read More »
Sometimes great days come out of nowhere, when we least expect them. I was expecting a delivery from Amazon. We’re listening to an audiobook version of James Michener’s “Centennial” in the evenings, and I was surprised to find I no longer had the actual book. I ordered it from Amazon and it was scheduled to …
… to dance beneath the diamond sky with one arm waving free.”— BOB DYLAN I was walking on a hiking trail in Lost Maples State Natural Area in South Texas some years back when I tweaked my knee and decided to sit down for a while. The atmosphere was incredible, and the sky was so …
