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 […]

Every week, I receive a handful of solicitations in my mailbox from organizations seeking a donation. They send me pre-printed address labels, greeting cards, calendars, and other assorted goodies in an effort to guilt me into sending them some money. And several times a month, I get phone calls from other organizations asking for a […]

Our political correct world has created a new breed of human, one that I call the Perpetual Victim. The Perpetual Victim is easily distinguished from other people by their inability to take responsibility for their own adverse actions or ill-spoken words, instead seeking some other person or entity to pass blame to for their own […]

In the very old days, when people decided to venture away from their usual homelands, the journey to a new land was a long, dangerous, arduous trek. Today we can navigate the globe in a matter of hours. A few hundred years ago, a trip into town from the nearby countryside might take a day […]

Increasingly, we are becoming a world of human anthills. The modernization of our world, both in developed and developing countries, has resulted in the creation of the megalopolis, giant cities with millions of people crammed together in comparatively small spaces. It’s hard to say which part of this equation drives the other. Does the migration […]

When you mention recycling to most people, they instantly conjure images of aluminum cans, soda bottles, and old newspapers. For most of us, that is where recycling begins and ends. In our culture of replaceable products, the idea of reusing something, anything, is almost antithetical. Western culture and the rise of consumerism has instilled in […]