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A weekend of murder, here and abroad

Columns

Historians considering the state of American depravity will doubtless pause to reflect on the remarkable support in certain quarters for accused killer Luigi Mangione, charged with murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk last year. Mangione was caught on video pumping bullets into Thompson, a father of two, as he entered a hotel. There were times when cold-blooded murder would inspire universal revulsion; however, we do not seem to be living in those times. It isn’t that anyone doubts Mangione committed the murder, but rather that many Americans praise ...

We have been exposed to a recent torrent of bad news

Columns

The past week has brought an unusual amount of bad news; so much that it’s been difficult to focus on any one item before you’re buffeted by the next horrific headline. Here are a few of my personal observations on some of these recent events. n Murder of Rob and Michele Reiner, and President Donald Trump’s response: I still cannot grasp that Rob Reiner and his wife are dead; murdered in such a horrific fashion. Mr. Reiner was a talented comedian and a brilliant director whose films consistently displayed his deft touch with humor and his insights into the best of humanity. ...

Flattening Ideologies Dumbest Assumption In Politics

Columns

One of the most persistent mistakes in modern politics is the insistence on flattening all ideologies -- pretending that all human beings think the same way, want the same things, and are motivated by the same forces. Every time policymakers fall into this trap, the result is not compassion or clarity but some of the worst public policy imaginable. The assumption usually begins with a comforting but false premise: that all people harbor the same yearning for freedom in precisely the same way. That belief animated much of the George W. Bush administration’s foreign policy, when the ...

Tucker Carlson, Chuck Schumer And Free Speech

Columns

Last week, Sen. Charles Schumer, the leader of the Democrats in the United States Senate, introduced a resolution on behalf of himself and 40 other Senate Democrats that, if passed, would record the sense of the Senate as condemning the media superstar Tucker Carlson because of the political, historical and cultural opinions of a guest on Carlson’s podcast. You read that correctly: The U.S. Senate is being asked to condemn Carlson because of what someone else said. Here is the back story. When James Madison was crafting the iconic language of the First Amendment -- “Congress ...

Age Is Nothing But A Number In Fulfilling Dreams

Columns

Let me share an event that was less than 5 minutes, that keeps coming up in my memory. In 1979, I was blessed to be hired to work for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Ohio. I was tasked to be an Internal Auditor for the bank, and part of my responsibilities was to do what I called surprise audits with a team of auditors on banks in the 4th district. As part of my new job we were sent to Atlanta, Georgia to go to the Federal Auditors School for a series of classes. As we took the class, we were living out of a hotel. One day after work, we got on the hotel elevator, and to my ...

Manufacturing Jobs Are Real and a Path to a Brighter Future

Columns

Recently, Lynnda and I attended the Christmas Luncheon at the West Virginia Radio and TV Museum and Hall of Fame at Huntington. One of the presenters mentioned, “One of my claims to fame is, I was there and saw Chuck Yeager (the first man to break the sound barrier) fly his jet under the Southside Bridge in Charleston.” I have heard the story of Chuck Yeager flying his jet under the Southside Bridge over the Kanawha River in Charleston. It always sounded like folklore or a legend to me. Yeager confirmed in an interview, he flew an Airforce P-80 Shooting Star jet under Charleston’s ...