Over the years, I have ingested a great deal of advice about how best to present myself at a job interview. Engage in early chit-chat. Highlight strengths and describe how one of these strengths might morph into a weakness. Research the organization, and show that I’ve done the research. Insert my total blindness into the conversation. Look in the direction of the interviewer. Sit up straight with my head held high and keep my legs and arms uncrossed so that…..
“Abortion is murder, the taking of an unborn baby’s life,” pro-life advocates have declared since the Roe v. Wade ruling. “But we will never charge a woman who has had an abortion with murder.”
But between the Roe decision and 2014, at least 750 women have been charged with murder or other felonies for having miscarriages or attempting self-abortions, according to Duke University’s Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law and the Guttmacher Institute (1).
Recently, pro-life activists have cheered…..
“Go kill some more Vietnamese babies!”
“What?” I asked, startled.
I was slouching in the back seat of a car on a 1969 late-summer Cape Cod day.
“Some soldier is hitch-hiking,” the adult who had jarred me out of my backseat self-absorption spluttered. “But there’s no way in hell I’ll give him a ride.”
And off she went on another tirade against the United State’s involvement in Vietnam’s civil war.
Once again, I allowed this anti-Vietnam war tirade to wash…..
Most current United States citizens believe that slavery is a moral stain on our country; indeed, some call it our original sin.
But prior to the Civil War, most conservative Christian leaders believed that God approved, or at least tolerated, slavery. They asserted that Africans were happier as slaves than as free people. They cited a passage in Genesis (1) describing how a curse descended on one of Noah’s sons because he disrespected his father while drunk. They cited passages…..
Organizing surprises was a significant, though rare, part of our family. When I was in sixth grade, Mom told my sister and me that she was taking us out of school for a week to visit Grandma in Florida. On my twelfth birthday, she surprised me with a hi-hat, an important part of a drum kit, by asking me to see how a new pair of shoes fit my feet. My sister and I surprised Mom on her fortieth birthday…..
A Swamp News anchor animal: Thanks to our intrepid Swamp News reporter, Mary Mole, for smuggling out a recording of a recent meeting at the headquarters of Vixen News.
Bill o’Rabbit: You all saw how President Hillary Hailstone has said that the Robert Raccoon report gives her “Total exoneration! Complete vindication!” What say you?
(A flurry of grunts, growls, howls, and shrieks).
Piranha Pirro: Order in the swamp!
Sean Squirrel: C’mon, this is Hillary! Whitewater! E-mails! Benghazi!
Bill o’Rabbit: Supporter…..
The more radical environmentalists foresee a grim future in twelve years if we don’t take immediate action. Icebergs melting. Seas rising. Violently unpredictable weather. Droughts, floods, plagues, fires, wars, and famines. Fracking-induced earthquakes and poisoned water. Desperate people trying to move to safer spaces.
The more radical fundamentalist Christians also foresee grim times in the not-so-distant future, based on their understanding of Revelations, the last book of the New Testament. Among other things, this book predicts hail and fire mingled…..
First Four (Dayton, OH)
16 Farleigh Dickinson Knights 16 Prairie View A&M Panthers
Humans always better than animals. Knights win.
11 Belmont Bruins 11 Temple Owls
Belmont in red state. Winners!
16 North Dakota State Thunder 16 NC Central Eagles
Eagles win! USA! USA! USA! USA!
11 Arizona State Sun Devils 11 St. John’s Red Storm
Devils always bad, even when they bask in the sun. Red Storm wins.
*****
East Region (Washington, DC)
First Round
1 Duke Blue Devils…..
First Four (Dayton, OH)
16 16 Farleigh Dickinson Knights 16 Prairie View A&M Panthers
Panthers. Animals over white men every time.
11 Belmont Bruins 11 Temple Owls
Owls win while dispensing wisdom from on high.
16 North Dakota State Thunder 16 NC Central Eagles
Thunder roll. They win. Eagles squawk.
11 Arizona State Sun Devils 11 St. John’s Red Storm
Devils don’t really exist, and the sun’s rays are scorching too many of us. Only 12 years before the beginning…..
“Tonight we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country,” President Trump brayed during his most recent State of the Union address.
Rah, rah, sis boom bah!
But what is socialism?
For that matter, what is capitalism and communism?
A quick Google search yielded the following definitions:
Socialism: “A theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the…..