WHY NOT PRESIDENT FLYNN? Flynn may have lost verbal war, but won respect

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What amazes me is how civilized it all is. The way men can stand on a stage in front of a podium within arms reach of their enemies and shout nasty things to them and about them, things you wouldn't even whisper about someone you hate, because you really don't hate anyone that much. Yet there they are, in front of an audience, in front of reporters, screaming, berating and accusing one another of terrible things. Sometimes they yell so hard that the veins in their necks bulge and…

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Cycle of abuse can't absolve people from free-will decisions

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Most days I can read the news, even the most hideous, horrible news, and rationalize and think things like: "It's not for me to judge," and "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," and know deep within myself that people behave in certain ways because they were abused or deprived or maltreated and are therefore, many times, not totally responsible for their own aberrant behavior. Most days I can do this because I believe that…

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A tale of incest and recovery

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She did it for her children. You listen to her and you know that there is good in people, that the good is innate, a gift from God, because she didn't learn good in her house, she wasn't exposed to it there. There she learned evil and hurt and hate. Her father put her on a pedestal, called her his little princess, bought her party dresses, then he got drunk and sexually abused her…

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Loss of pride in work ethic is our nation's No.1 killer

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These things didn't have to happen: a pesticide spill that killed every living thing in California's Sacramento River; a bus crash that took the lives of Girl Scouts; a train derailment that spilled a corrosive chemical onto a California highway; the mass murdersof Jeffrey L. Dahmer; the entire BCCI mess.

Each one of these tragedies was preventable. Each happened solely because someone or a group of someones was not doing his job.

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Fear must not erode our humanity

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Fear must not erode our humanity

In the town where I grew up in the 1960s, there was a priest, a young, energetic, dedicated man who embraced God and the church with a passion I will never forget. Every mass seemed a high mass when he celebrated it; every prayer, every blessing seemed a promise. Words diminish whatever it was he brought to the altar with him. And yet I have never found in any other church what I found in my youth in this man's presence.

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Bald men should brush aside hair myths

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Bald men should brush aside hair myths

As far as this baldness thing is concerned: Hey, you guys, you're being duped. Whoever told you that bald is unattractive? Whoever said that women lust less after men with shiny tops than those with bushy manes? Why are you so attached to dead cells that grow from holes in your head, that hang limp and lifeless and contribute nothing to your well-being anyway?

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Deadly speed trap claims teen-agers

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Deadly speed trap claims teen-agers

Change the names and the date; the story is always the same. A boy  who is upset is followed to his car by a girl. She tries to calm him down, gets in the front seat and winds up dead. Two teen-agers with fast cars drag to see whose souped-up engine is more powerful and never find out because they die trying. A young, inexperienced driver gets    behind the wheel of a car built for speed, takes a corner too fast and…

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