IOWA, NEW HAMPSHIRE AND THE END OF THE WORLD

Look, I’m not suggesting that the just concluded Iowa caucuses and the upcoming New Hampshire primary are strategic pieces in some sort of apocalyptic end game. But I would invite you to ponder the power of the press and/or paid political ads

A NORTH KOREAN CHRISTMAS

The world in the West awakened on Monday to the news that while we slept the 69 year old recluse and quixotic leader of North Korea had succumbed to a heart attack. Kim Jong II was dead. The North Korean press dutifully reported that the “dear leader” died of “overwork” and “great mental and physical

APOCALYPTIC PEANUTS

A few weeks ago Charles Schultz’s syndicated Peanuts cartoon went apocalyptic.

THE CARTOON TRUTH

Don’t you love the Mike Water’s “Joyful ‘toon” cartoon Greg Offenback came across this week? Talk about one sophisticated sheep! Look at him (or is it, her).

BLACK FRIDAY BLIND

I realize that the times call for a bit of creativity now and then—but this creative? In a Black Friday mad dash for an Xbox video game console on sale, a woman at a Los Angeles Wal-Mart last week neutralized her competition (twenty other shoppers) racing for that same electronic …

MAYFLOWER REFLECTIONS

Nathaniel Philbrick, in Mayflower, his acclaimed history of the Pilgrims, recounts how William Bradford, the intrepid leader of that courageous band of Puritans, years later described “that first morning in America.” Recalling with wonder their landing on the salty, windswept shores of Cape Cod Bay on November 15, 1620, Bradford …

“WE COULDN’T GO IN”

The sirens wailed by as I was out jogging early Tuesday morning. From their sounds, it appeared that not only our Oronoko-Berrien Springs volunteer fire department was responding, but units from nearby towns as well. Only later did I learn of the deadly fire that engulfed an apartment building not …

EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM

Remember that rhyme about Europe? “Austria was Hungary, very very Hungary, ate a bit of Turkey, dipped in Greece. Long-legged Italy, kicked poor Sicily, into the Mediterranean Sea.” (http://wiki.answers.com) Just an old memory device for school children?

A PREDICTION

Let me be quick to paraphrase the words of Amos, “I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet” (see Amos 7:14).