The Dearth of Common Sense and the Dead Heart

Just last week, a federal judge in Virginia overturned the ban on corporations making political contributions. This was a natural extension of the ruling last year from the United States Supreme Court in the Citizens United case. The justices in that case declared that the government may not ban political spending by corporations on candidates [...]

What Is Your Life Motto?

I went to court today to do my duty – jury duty.  I didn’t much want to be a juror.  There’s no particular fascination there for me.  My Dad was a lawyer, as is one of my brothers, and I’ve seen enough of the law to have a pretty good sense of what it’s like [...]

The Word, Performance, and Performer of the Decade

On October 15, 2005, on the pilot episode of The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert introduced a segment called “The Word.”  That first night his first word was something he called “truthiness.”  Colbert defined this term, not actually a word at the time, as something that a person knows to be a truth, even without evidence, [...]

Being Spoiled and Loving It

Seafood and Pigs.  Pigs and seafood.  And beer.  That’s always a good way to go. I was recently in Chicago for a night and decided I wanted to pursue an excellent meal, and so I began my planning with a previous experience.  A few years ago, during a conference in Chicago, I went with a [...]