All right, I have to admit it. The Kansas Jayhawk football team is for real. They are not 10-0 because of good breaks or bad opponents. They are 10-0 because they are a very hardnosed group of football players. It would have been pretty easy to lay down under the pressure that Oklahoma State put on them yesterday. Instead, the … Continue reading
Archeology is a tantalizing science, with anthropology close behind. It seems that every new find of human remains pushes the origins of relatively civilized human being farther back in time. Within the last few days, the remains of a seafood dinner and small stone tools in a cave on the coast of South Africa give evidence of a fairly complex … Continue reading
You have to wonder about the practical nature of human beings. We keep building our homes and town in places where nature has proven to be a superior adversary. I don’t know how many times I have heard flood or storm victims vow to rebuild their homes in the same places, right in the place where storm surges or raging … Continue reading
Headlines can be so amusing. These are not headlines intended for humor. Far From it! These are all taken from the CNN main list of the day’s news. Some are not really news at all, some are poorly worded (to say the least), and some are just plain stupid. I keep a text file on my desktop so that I can document … Continue reading
The past often haunts both people and countries. Turkey’s past is haunting them now, that sad past with Armenia, in which Turkey did not act ethically. If they were trying to come to grips with their own past, it might be a good thing. That is often a healthy exercise. However, in this case, they are being prodded by the … Continue reading
The latest round in the race for corporate greed honors goes to the retailers that have already started putting up Christmas decorations. It is still two weeks before Halloween and six weeks before Thanksgiving, not to mention ten weeks before Christmas. As if it is not already bad enough that the greedy politicians have so perverted “campaign season” to mean … Continue reading
We have seen several more incidents of high school violence over the last few days, each of which seems sadder than the last. The reasons for these acts are much deeper than the excuses we get in the news media: “He’s a Goth.” “He’s an atheist.” “He’s a loner.” The incidents themselves run the gamut for nooses being hung to … Continue reading
Following up on yesterday’s column about the number of people in American jails, it often seems that in the middle and upper-class rush to incarcerate people of the poor of our country, they seem to be doing too good a job. I am personally getting a little tired of reading almost every day about someone getting out of prison after … Continue reading
This is from the September 7, 2007 broadcast of HBO’s outstanding series Real Time, starring Bill Maher. As he often does, Bill makes a lot of sense in this excerpt. Bill would make one heck of a curmudgeon, from whatever state he wishes. And finally, New Rule: If you want to bring Jesus to the unbelievers, you can’t be surprised … Continue reading
Unusual hearing follows traffic stop From the Lawrence Journal-World, September 1, 2007 Laura West claims the Kansas Highway Patrol trooper who stopped her “vessel” on the night of June 11 west of Lawrence had no right to arrest her. She’s never had a driver’s license and doesn’t need one, West said as she represented herself Friday in Douglas County District … Continue reading