Category Archives: Yahoo! Voices

Andy Kessler: Guilty as charged

Clippings, Get on your feet, Homelessness, National media, National news, Poverty, Thursday posts, Yahoo! Voices,

I participate on a certain online discussion board. My premiere antagonist is a man who got trounced by a playground bully in fifth grade. He never fails to seek to re-enact that battle with me (or any of certain others), hoping for a different outcome this time. He casts his opponent by turns as the bully he wants to be or the chump he fears he was; and interacts with those projections. It has nothing to do with me. He might as well be playing with his G.I. Joe dolls.

Andy Kessler’s 07/08/13 Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Summer Jobs for the Guilty Generation,” is little different. In his quotations of others’ expressions, I hear compassion; he hears guilt. I hear gratitude; he hears guilt. I hear hope; he hears guilt. What’s up with this?

Kessler projects his own guilt feelings onto his son’s generation. That’s easier than owning them, but solves nothing.
Continue reading Andy Kessler: Guilty as charged →

Courage to walk unarmed

Get on your feet, National politics, OUR BEST POSTS, Poverty, Squalor, Yahoo! Voices, , , , , , , ,

A Nation of Cowards

Jeffrey Snyder suggests that carrying a handgun is both a right and a duty of every law-abiding citizen.

This is hard for me to relate to; as, for all practical purposes, no such people exist in my world.

Gun lovers’ slogans include, “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” Forget laws; in my world, only outlaws have guns now.

I have no impulse to join them.
Continue reading Courage to walk unarmed →

Paying my dues, singing the blues?

Career goals, Get on your feet, Homelessness, Motivations, OUR BEST POSTS, Poverty, Yahoo! Voices, ,

(Originally posted 2014-07-09.)

Courage and despair hang in the balance for a homeless radio talk jock wannabe.

“You’ve got to pay your dues
If you want to sing the blues,
And you know, it don’t come easy.”
— Ringo Starr, “It Don’t Come Easy”

Many years ago, when I first conceived the ambition to become a radio talk show host, I quickly selected that song as virtually a theme for my show. Life is difficult. My heart’s desire was to equip people to face life’s difficulties head-on.

My life circumstances were far more comfortable at that time than they have become since. Now I’m asking myself if I’m paying my dues; if I can sing the blues; and whether I myself will face life’s difficulties head-on.
Continue reading Paying my dues, singing the blues? →

* Courage to walk unarmed

Get on your feet, National politics, OUR BEST POSTS, Poverty, Squalor, Yahoo! Voices, , , , , , , ,

A Nation of Cowards

Jeffrey Snyder suggests that carrying a handgun is both a right and a duty of every law-abiding citizen.

This is hard for me to relate to; as, for all practical purposes, no such people exist in my world.

Gun lovers’ slogans include, “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” Forget laws; in my world, only outlaws have guns now.

I have no impulse to join them.
Continue reading * Courage to walk unarmed →

* Andy Kessler: Guilty as charged

Clippings, Get on your feet, Homelessness, National media, National news, OUR BEST POSTS, Poverty, Yahoo! Voices,

I participate on a certain online discussion board. My premiere antagonist is a man who got trounced by a playground bully in fifth grade. He never fails to seek to re-enact that battle with me (or any of certain others), hoping for a different outcome this time. He casts his opponent by turns as the bully he wants to be or the chump he fears he was; and interacts with those projections. It has nothing to do with me. He might as well be playing with his G.I. Joe dolls.

Andy Kessler’s 07/08/13 Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Summer Jobs for the Guilty Generation,” is little different. In his quotations of others’ expressions, I hear compassion; he hears guilt. I hear gratitude; he hears guilt. I hear hope; he hears guilt. What’s up with this?

Kessler projects his own guilt feelings onto his son’s generation. That’s easier than owning them, but solves nothing.
Continue reading * Andy Kessler: Guilty as charged →

* Was there a Jesus? If so, what was he like?

Bible, OUR BEST POSTS, The Way of Peace, Yahoo! Voices, , , , , , , ,

In many cases, you can strip away the fictions surrounding a legendary figure, and discover the historical original.

For example, there probably was a King Arthur.

Troy was a real place, and the Trojan War a real event. Achilles, Odysseus and Agamemnon were probably real people.

What about the Jesus of the Bible?

Circumstantial evidence exists to suggest there probably was such a person. Textual evidences are available to suggest what he may have been like. He may or may not have been as Christianity presents.
Continue reading * Was there a Jesus? If so, what was he like? →

* Conspiracy theorists: America’s lost sheep?

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Man who helped Sandy Hook kids is harassed by conspiracy theorists

Sooner or later, something like this will happen.

If someone were to call “The William Tell Show” proposing that the Sandy Hook shootings were a hoax perpetrated by the Obama administration as a pretext for seizing all Americans’ guns, and that Gene Rosen and the others were all “crisis actors;” I would be strongly tempted to dismiss the caller quickly and perhaps even hold up his or her beliefs to ridicule.

That would be exactly the wrong response.
Continue reading * Conspiracy theorists: America’s lost sheep? →

* Paying my dues, singing the blues?

Career goals, Get on your feet, Homelessness, Motivations, OUR BEST POSTS, Poverty, Yahoo! Voices, ,

Courage and despair hang in the balance for a homeless radio talk jock wannabe.

“You’ve got to pay your dues
If you want to sing the blues,
And you know, it don’t come easy.”
— Ringo Starr, “It Don’t Come Easy”

Many years ago, when I first conceived the ambition to become a radio talk show host, I quickly selected that song as virtually a theme for my show. Life is difficult. My heart’s desire was to equip people to face life’s difficulties head-on.

My life circumstances were far more comfortable at that time than they have become since. Now I’m asking myself if I’m paying my dues; if I can sing the blues; and whether I myself will face life’s difficulties head-on.
Continue reading * Paying my dues, singing the blues? →