CHRISTMAS 'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, HE LIVED ALL ALONE, IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE MADE OF PLASTER AND STONE. I HAD COME DOWN THE CHIMNEY WITH PRESENTS TO GIVE, AND TO SEE JUST WHO IN THIS HOME DID LIVE. I LOOKED ALL ABOUT, A STRANGE SIGHT I DID SEE, NO TINSEL, NO PRESENTS, NOT EVEN A TREE. NO STOCKING BY MANTLE, JUST BOOTS FILLED WITH SAND, ON THE WALL HUNG PICTURES OF FAR DISTANT LANDS. WITH MEDALS AND BADGES, AWARDS OF ALL KINDS, A SOBER THOUGHT CAME THROUGH ...

Actually the subject of Santa is not as slam dunk an either/or issue of existence. There are those who don’t believe in him yet do ! There are those who do believe in but don’t ! Chauvinists believe in him in the image of a sexy woman to effect erection. There is the conditional belief: kids only. Parents believed in Santa when kids, therefore their children must believe in him, too, with the confidence they will grow out of it as they did. There are those who think of him as a giant comm...

At the outset of the Korean War, President Truman labeled his decision “police action” in the hope that “UN” troops police the incursion over the 38 th Parallel on the part of the North and restore peace to South Korea; he, like Bush, was stunningly wrong. To approach internal political and ideological strife as it were a crime wave is unwise. Though the Iraq War was hailed as a no-bars invasion, it was in fact an exaggerated swat team operation freeing hostages from the grasp of a dictator....

Except for the a posteriori contingencies of facts and fantasies, attributed to the works of God, it is ludicrous for one to announce his atheism and even then its posture has no meaning. The so-called atheist himself is subject to the same existential litter that all of us are exposed to. He may rightfully denounce them but he cannot logically renounce the underpinnings of what we experience; for, they did not — contrary to the Bible’s postulate that in the beginning there was nothing — dev...

On the surface merit pay for teachers appears as a no brainer; still, how would it be determined?               It is known that school administrators have favorite staff members because they don’t present burden the office with discipline problems, which does not automatically make them good facilitators of learning.               Based on the number o...

I caution farmers and those with lap tops boarding a plane when under the influence. They could trigger an air marshal if they slur their words or act cavalier: he could mistake “I’m heading for my farm” for “...bomb.” Or a frustrated Laptopper might grimace to a fellow passenger and blurt, “This damn laptop is a bomb.”

With eighty to ninety percent of Americans admitting to believing in God, why on earth is the religious right so uptight that they continue to attack Evolution? Even if evolution were a major unit in biology classes — it isn’t — students couldn’t care less and far from brainwashed and certainly don’t juxtapose it as a challenge to their religion. So why do the fundamentalists keep playing into the ghostly hands of Darwin by giving him undue publicity? Haven’t they learned by now that bad...

According to Newsweek Muslim women have discovered a new approach to liberation: become an equal among al Qaeda jihadists by dedication to their cause. Obviously, I should think, they cannot discard their burquas; they need them to hide the dynamite strapped to them. After all, it’s only right that women, too, be graced with the privilege of martyrdom. I trust Heidi might see to it that seventy studs await them.

There are some 11,000 New Yorkers serving in Iraq, and Clinton sees to it that there is unalterable support for them. What politician would be foolish not to see to troops needs? Of course, her hawkish view extends to ‘08, but soon she has to get off the fence and begin a visionary plan for winding down the war. Urging more health care and armor will not be enough to carry her through.

The brouhaha over disguising positive stories by GIs passed off as written by Iraqi reporters is as usual another example of this administration having trouble with modus operandi. Surely, there is nothing wrong with letting Iraqis know that there is much reconstruction going on and not all door-kicking. The essential problem is with the Pentagon and its subterranean operations with contractors on the sly. The simplest solution is to send in stories and great pictures to the local papers, jus...

December 7th has been displaced by September 11. Oh, well, who now remembers the Alamo?

Awakened by Aristotle’s classification and metaphysics, Augustine conceded the possibility that essence of man or rational being pre-existed, or rather planted by God, in the evolvement of animals just as all material and efficient causation existed passively or potentially in the stars or basic stuff of reality. The domain of human experience is what makes for the concept of God or First Cause in the face of feeling inadequacy in contemplating the mysteries of our world. Just as DNA presuppo...

There’s little doubt that McCain can be a thorn in the side of his party and President, and for that reason becomes the darling of the Democrats. The likes of David Broder and Chris Matthews fall all over him as not only a hero but as a left of center diplomat. Other than respect for his war record, he is nothing of the sort. He is as much a political opportunist as H. Clinton, both of whom are boldly positioning themselves for a run in ‘08, and remarkably support the President’s stay the cou...

That Chavez came forth as champion of the poor in our northeast by drastically cutting home fuel costs engendered a wave, naturally, of criticism, attributing the initiative to Machiavellian motives. However, in the wake of Katrina’s unprecedented costs, Congress and Bush still want tax cuts while turning their puppy eyes toward China to foot the bill of natural disasters. The Wal-Mart lobby saw to it that no similar questions of China’s motives transpired.