Thanksgiving is one of our oldest national holidays, and is purely American in its origins. Ostensibly, we are honoring the European settlers who managed to carve out a living in a strange and not altogether hospitable new land. They began this holiday themselves, to rejoice at their good fortune for staying alive against the odds. [...]

“Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better.” -King Whitney Jr.-1967
I began writing for [...]

One of the basic tenets of American society is the right to privacy. Or at least, it used to be. With advances in technology though, it seems as if privacy is a passé idea in an information age where every transaction is digitally stored, every report is saved in bits and bytes, every communication traceable. [...]

The curtain has been firmly pulled back now and Americans of every stripe are finally facing the facts of what we’ve all known but ignored for so long, namely that our government is a farce of what it pretends to be. The machinations of the corporate oligarchs and their puppet politicians have been revealed for [...]

The outpouring of assistance from everyday American citizens and small businesses is almost enough to quell the anger that has been directed towards our government in their complete lack of effectiveness in dealing with this disaster. Yet were it not for the generosity of each and every one of us who has been touched by [...]

Feelings of helplessness tonight have turned to frustration and anger as I watch the news channels and see the failings of our corrupted political system. While Congress waits to approve money for aid to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, people are starving on the rooftops of New Orleans. While President Bush strolls back from a [...]

Sometimes, bad things just happen. It’s a fact of life, plain and simple. Houses burn down. Stores get robbed. Cars get wrecked. People get cancer. In each of these scenarios (and any number of misfortunes) there is likely to be emotional, physical, or material damage. There is also a negative financial impact that can run [...]

Financially speaking, bankruptcy occurs when you don’t have enough money coming in to cover your bills. As a legal maneuver, bankruptcy offers an individual, business, or government entity an opportunity to crawl out from under their accumulated debt and either restructure a repayment plan, reduce amounts to be repaid to creditors, or liquidate real assets [...]

We all need a vacation now and then, and my time has arrived. I will not be posting again until the 24th of July. In the meantime, I encourage you to take a look through the archive listing for some thoughts you may have missed or visit some of the links from my Blogroll. I [...]

As the father of a young child, I am often dismayed at what passes for family entertainment these days, at least insofar as the mass media is concerned. Finding television shows that are not laced with violence, gratuitous sexual innuendo, foul language or rude behavior is almost impossible. Listening to the radio in the car [...]