“…one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” I’d like to believe that these words are not just empty rhetoric, that they will lead directly to action, and soon. What’s the state of our union when we deliberately exclude, ostracize and discard some members of The American Family?
Having spent nearly forty years of my life teaching in classrooms at the University of Kansas and elsewhere, it puzzles me that, on the one hand, Americans in general seem to believe in the virtues of a good education but, on the other hand, they ultimately also seem to distrust their teachers. Barack Obama was…
In her autobiography Thursday’s Child, Eartha Kitt talks about growing up in the cotton plantations of South Carolina in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and how she was ostracized by blacks and whites alike because her lighter skin color made her neither black nor white. So how did she go on to become a great celebrity…
Today’s headlines reveal that Sarah Palin is joining Fox News as a regular commentator, and that Simon Cowell is leaving “American Idol” at the end of the season. Now that Ellen Degeneres has replaced Paula Abdul on “Idol,” my guess is that Fox is grooming Moose Palin to join Buckaroo Degeneres on “Idol” after Cobra Cowell’s departure. I’d…
Where TITANIC (1997) showed us the great divide between social classes in allegedly egalitarian societies, with its “message” successfully embedded in a breathless love story between the haves and the have-nots, Canadian film-director James Cameron now picks up where Al Gore left off in AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH (2006). Although Cameron’s AVATAR can be viewed and…
At my age, encounters with frisky strangers occur rather rarely, so my New Year’s resolution is to fly as frequently as I can, in order to enjoy free full-body rubdowns and massages in the expert hands of airport security people. Here’s some dialogue out of a new Quentin Tarantino remake of an old Russ Meyer movie: “Lower, please. …
After over half a century of reading and collecting paper place mats from Chinese restaurants all over the world, I’ve decided to collate my collection and share the Wisdom of the East with anyone who believes that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of by western horoscopes. As you probably…