General
Protestors and Tents
I had no idea there were pro-Hamas groups on UNC’s campus – so when protests erupted in Chapel Hill I wondered: Students? Or outside agitators? I read articles about the protests at Columbia, UCLA – the New York Times interviewed a dozen protestors: Every one was a student. A second article was different. As protestors…
Read MoreWe Have to Get Rid of Both
Kristi Noem’s attractive. Long brown hair. Glossy lips. A MAGA superstar on Trump’s list of picks for Vice President. Last weekend she went on Face the Nation to sell her new book – sunk herself. In her book, telling a story about meeting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Noem said, “I’m sure he underestimated…
Read MoreProtest Politics
Two things have been true throughout American history: We love to protest, but we hate protesters. And bashing protesters is always good politics. Protesting is deep in our DNA. Protesters settled the country. The American Revolution was the ultimate, violent protest. Ever since, we’ve cycled through protest and repression. When abolitionists protested slavery, Southern slaveowners…
Read MoreStraddling the Fence
It used to be Democratic politicians marched in a phalanx behind Israel. Joe Biden did. For years. Now a new generation of Democrats smile at Hamas. Frown at Israel. And Biden, shifting with the political winds, has taken to straddling the fence. To be safe Israel has little choice but to eliminate Hamas – but…
Read MoreSocial Media Chaos
You’d have to look a long time to find a grander Trumpster than Marjorie Taylor Greene. She’s one of a kind. And so’s he. Both have huge social media ‘Followings’ and like Trump, Greene knows how to set her followers on fire – she just did with three words, Oust Mike Johnson. When she said…
Read MoreA World Lit Only by Fire – Part IV
Luther fled Worms – the emperor condemned him. Made him an outlaw. Luther fled into hiding in the Thuringian Forest – fate reared its head a third time: The emperor had to leave Germany to go to Spain to fight his war with the King of France. Didn’t set foot in Germany again for ten…
Read MoreA World Lit Only by Fire – Part III
A peasant’s son Martin Luther never knew the year he was born. Believing children were wicked his father whipped him, his mother caned him. Luther’s harsh life led him to take refuge in the cloister. The Saxon prince started a college – Luther moved to Wittenburg, taught about St. Paul. Believed, like Paul, truth and…
Read MoreA World Lit Only by Fire – Part II
After Rodrigo Borgia died, soft-spoken but cunning Leo de Medici became pope, after bribing cardinals ended up strapped for cash. A German prince said he wanted to be an Archbishop. Leo told him that would cost him 12,000 gold ducats – 1000 for each of the Apostles. The prince frowned: How about 7000, one thousand…
Read MoreA World Lit Only by Fire – Part I
It was a time, Tom Hanks wrote describing the end of the Middle Ages, when dukes and serfs paid popes to keep from going to hell. The Holy Roman Empire was not holy, not Roman, and not an empire. He’d read A World Lit Only by Fire, William Manchester’s last book, five times. Popes hid…
Read MoreTrust Flies Out the Window
Planned Parenthood’s spending a ton of money – $10 million – to elect pro-abortion candidates in North Carolina. Eyes locked on white suburban women it’s running digital ads, knocking on a million doors to elect Joe Biden, the Democrat candidate for governor, and break the Republican super-majority in the state House and Senate. The first…
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