Filed under Opinion

Lotsa Ways to Skin a Cat

“There’s lotsa ways to skin a cat!” I have no doubt that members of PETA, the SPCA, as well as amateur animal lovers everywhere are fighting waves of nausea as a result of the graphically unpleasant word pictures evoked by that simple sentence.  However, before writing me off as a narrow minded “hater” of those … Continue reading

Leave the Light on For Me…

In many families it seems that various members have their assigned roles…the funny one, the social one, the leader, the “baby”.  A voracious reader and viewer of documentaries from a very young age, my own assigned role has been that of “trivia buff”, “historian” and “keeper of useless information”.  So, in keeping with that tradition … Continue reading

Make a Wish

“Make a wish!”  How many times have you heard that phrase just before blowing out the birthday candles?  I think my mother baked a cake for me (yellow or chocolate with chocolate icing) for at least the first twenty-two of my birthdays.  Yet, as I look back, I can’t say that I recall any of … Continue reading

Silence is Golden

When I was a kid, the United Negro College Fund had a public service announcement on television that showed a young black man looking straight into the camera, while his head gradually faded and became invisible.  When his head had completely disappeared the voiceover would gravely intone, “The mind is a terrible thing to waste.”  … Continue reading

Define Radical

When I was growing up in the late 1960s and early 1970s “radicalism” was a term tossed around quite often by politicians and the news media.  Often accompanied by footage of angry, long-haired Vietnam protesters or rampaging looters in places like Detroit, Newark, New Jersey, and Watts “radicals” came to represent all that was dysfunctional … Continue reading