As a child, I was fortunate to grow up encircled by three women; not to say my family was absent a devoted father or doting grandfathers, just to acknowledge, given the arrival of Mother’s Day, the significance these three gentle matriarch’s played in sculpting my life. On my mother’s side there was Alma. A petite, yet surprisingly plucky woman of... READ MORE >
British writer and philosopher Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) suggested “We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.” Murdoch’s novels—the only eminent novelist to publish serious works of moral philosophy—illustrate her strong belief that, although human beings think they are free to exercise rational control over their lives and behavior, they... READ MORE >
When I was floundering through my inelegant junior high years, I happened to attend my school’s Halloween dance. Instead of subjecting my gangly frame to the perils of the parquet dance floor, however, I slipped into the auditorium and watched the selected feature movie for the event: “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” Released in February of 1956, the black and... READ MORE >
Part 3 It is crucial to realize that those who have lived through the rise of oppressive governments have seldom realized the perilous situation they were in until it was too late. Consider a riveting and ominous chapter from the book They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45. First published in 1955, They Thought They Were Free is a... READ MORE >
One must ask themselves: “What if?” when it comes to the highly agitated issue of COVID-19 and the new generation of vaccines, given all the conflicting information being disseminated by contending authorities. Why question? Because the principals, deeply embedded in this pandemic, are certainly not beyond reproach. Some might rightly liken the lot to an incestuous cabal, given their history... READ MORE >
Part 1 It was one of Jesus’ closest confidants, the Apostle John (who appears in more biblical accounts than any of the other disciples) who professed, “fear hath torment.” I believe we would all agree fear is one of the most debilitating and dangerous emotions when it invades the once-mundane rituals of daily life. “When we live in constant fear,”... READ MORE >
Part 3 “The modern-day press has forgotten this brilliant, lonely, socially awkward progenitor, who pioneered the concept of the uncensored flow of ideas and developed a new kind of communications in the service of the then-radical proposition that people should control their own lives.” So alleges American journalist John Katz in his 1995 article titled, “The Age of Paine,” Thomas... READ MORE >
Part 2 Thomas Paine’s biographer Craig Nelson suggests, “Today we have almost no idea who he is. People may have known he said ‘these are the times that try men’s souls.’ They may know that he said ‘we have it in our power to begin the world over again.’ They may know that he wrote Common Sense but they don’t... READ MORE >
Part 1 “People will be so frightened that they will faint because of what is happening to the world. It will seem like all hell has broken loose—sun, moon, stars, earth, sea, in an uproar and everyone all over the world in a panic, the wind knocked out of them by the threat of doom, the powers-that-be quaking.” These weighty... READ MORE >
In 1953, B. Carroll Reece, Congressman from Eastern Tennessee, chaired a five-member committee who began an investigation into the American Establishment: the Tax-Exempt Foundations. The Reece Committee Hearings exposed America’s major tax-exempt foundations as moving toward a One-World State. Democrat committee member, Representative Wayne Hays (Ohio), whose career would end in a sexual scandal in 1976, was able to persuade... READ MORE >
