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Courageous Iraqis Prepare to Vote

January 30, 2005

It is most ironic that a historic political event in Iraq – the first free election – is, or should be, a fundamentally apolitical occurrence in the United States and other democratic countries.  Today – January 30, 2005 – everyone who believes in liberty is in the same cheering section.  For at least a day…

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Letter to Division I Personages

December 6, 2004

This story is in the collection “Basketball and Football”

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Fear Not, California – Bakersfield Shall Save You

November 8, 2004

Have you been to Bakersfield?  Ask that of most people in California and they’ll say, “No, but I’ve been through it.”  They just kept on rolling over parched Central Valley earth en route to Los Angeles or the Bay Area.  Why didn’t they stop?  Perhaps they were startled or saddened by the eternal glare from…

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Letter to President Bush: You Rose from the Canvas

October 10, 2004

Dear President Bush, It’s astonishing what preceded your comeback.  First, you got your ears boxed the week before by a debating opponent who reduced you to a series of inane and lethargic utterances.  Then you received another public report emphasizing your error in asserting that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.  At the same time…

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Take Note, Security Moms: Kerry Manhandles Bush in First Debate

October 2, 2004

Many folks from all points on the political spectrum had begun conceding the election to our robust and resolute warrior-president.  They had to.  The polls were revealing the most horrifying perception of John Kerry.  Married middle class white women, whose support he’d been counting on, had decided he couldn’t protect them as well as George…

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Stereotypes Trounced at the Olympics and Elsewhere

August 26, 2004

If someone asked you if you occasionally think about others in stereotypical ways, you’d probably be insulted and deny ever having had even a moment of biased perception.  And you’d be full of prune juice.  We all, in boundless imperfection, are periodically burdened by our unfair assessments. However, if you still insist that your thinking…

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Cool Cat Bush Improves Position

August 7, 2004

The polls say ninety percent of the people are already firm about who they’re going to vote for.  And many of them made choices based not so much on the economy or the war in Iraq but on the far more mundane, and critical, determination of who’s the cutest and who’s the coolest.  When the…

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Saddam Back on Stage as Insurgency Grows

July 11, 2004

The man’s a bona fide survivor, isn’t he? Hundreds of thousands of his victims inside and outside Iraq are dead. His sons are dead. Thousands of people mired in the mess he left have recently died. But Saddam Hussein lives on. He’s harder to kill than a cockroach in the deepest crevice, more difficult to…

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Gaddafi’s Daughter Joins Saddam’s Exciting Legal Team

July 9, 2004

Google and Yahoo are search engines of astonishing reach and daily utility but I’m a little disappointed in them tonight: they were only able to provide one picture of Aisha Gaddafi, daughter of Muammar and newest member of the rapidly growing Saddam legal team that now numbers twenty-one professional and hundreds of volunteer lawyers.  If…

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What Are the Iraqis and Saudis Going to Do?

June 21, 2004

We can long debate what the United States should do about the recent beheading of two of its citizens in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Most will agree the murderers should be captured and punished. But how can that be done? Will a police-style manhunt, orchestrated by the military, be enough? Or, as many in the…

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Pistons Pound Lakers into New Era

June 20, 2004

Don’t dare claim you knew the Detroit Pistons were going to kick the stuffing out of the Los Angeles Lakers, not unless you’ve got it in writing and notarized by at least three solemn souls.  You couldn’t have known a seven to one underdog was going to pound Hollywood’s favorite team, and pride of NBA…

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Ronald Reagan, 1911-2004

June 6, 2004

Yesterday, for the first time, I missed the collection of about 300 old movies on Beta tapes I’d seen so often and given away three years earlier. I would like to have grabbed Santa Fe Trail and watched the dashing Ronald Reagan, then in his late twenties, play the supporting role of General George Custer. …

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