As a former newspaper reporter and editor, and sometime contributor to news-oriented publications today, I generally don’t throw stones at journalists. I know something about the intense deadline pressures, diminished resources, and other obstacles they face. Still, amid the ever-growing chorus of the anti-Asian, anti-Black, anti-gay, anti-anyone-who’s-different-than-the-suburban-WASP reports purporting to portray American society, I have…
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Bestselling author, ghostwriter, and speaker Cecil Murphey (or as his friends call him, Cec) celebrated his 90th birthday last weekend. That I’m only acknowledging it now isn’t a belated greeting as much as not wanting to spill the beans ahead of time about the flock of well-wishes extended to him by folks around the nation.…
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When Buffalo Bills’ safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field in Cincinnati Jan. 2, the injury proved so shocking it ended the game. Afterwards, I felt amazed at how quickly the value of prayer and prayer itself became an acceptable public practice. The week following the game, our local newspaper carried a syndicated editorial cartoon.…
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Here we are, not quite a month into Old Man Winter and already I’m dreading spring. Not the season, but the “spring forward” that will interrupt our lives the second weekend of March. Can’t they leave time alone? I refer to Daylight Savings Time (DST), that awful practice of moving our clocks ahead one hour…
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While not a New York Jets fan, I was saddened by their late-season collapse that once again doomed their chances of making the upcoming National Football League playoffs. The reason: I had hoped the team’s success would spark the New York media’s attention to a most unusual ministry to Wall Street financiers, led by former…
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While its crowd-sourced funding and modest production budgets have made The Chosen a quiet success until now, its recent “blow out the doors” performance in theaters have given this TV series new visibility. In case you missed it, the first two episodes of season 3 were packaged for theaters and ranked third nationally in box…
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If you are searching for a last-minute Christmas gift, I recommend Jim Watkins’s amusing book, If You’re Not Dead, You’re Not Done: Live with Purpose at Any Age. One thing I have learned about passing traditional retirement age and still working is that life’s challenges continue. Whoever thinks that things get easier as the miles…
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Since it has only a few hundred year-round residents, Harpers Ferry has had a rather outsized impact on U.S. history. It was the site of abolitionist John Brown’s ill-fated attempt in 1859 to free slaves in western Virginia. What we learned on a recent trip there is that Brown’s efforts were not necessarily in vain.…
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Together again. A great theme for Thanksgiving 2022, as we gather to give thanks. It expresses how we have conquered an irrational fear of sickness and each other as we emerge from the pandemic panic that erupted in early 2020. For me, that became clear in mid-October when I took a friend to a spiritual…
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As a nation, we are dangerously close to losing the ability to laugh at ourselves. We have forgotten the purpose of satire. That is sad, for when we can’t find amusement in human foibles, we become serious scolds. Exhibit A is the politically correct trolls on the internet, seeking grievances for which to grind their…
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