March 18, 2011
Tragedy has struck the land that my generation regarded as the arch-enemy.The nation that gave us Pearl Harbor, the Bataan Death March and the “rape of China” has been stricken by a force more powerful than the two nuclear bombs that provided...
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May 14, 2010
Those hifalutin' folks up north are forever discovering what we redneck Southerners have known all along: that mama'n'em and Pappy knew how to fix food and drinks right. Some time ago I wrote about a seminar they held in Brooklyn on how to kill rabbits fo...
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May 7, 2010
"We have met the enemy, and he is us," said Pogo, Walt Kelly's immortal possum philosopher of the Okefenokee Swamp. Those words, first inked in 1971, echo across the decades. Environmental disasters repeatedly drain Mother Earth of resources and...
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April 30, 2010
Today, I'm back to being myself after spending two and a half months as a numbers cruncher.
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April 23, 2010
If people weren't in such a hurry, that volcanic eruption wouldn't be such a big deal, except maybe on the island of Iceland.
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April 9, 2010
Like many dedicated Southerners, I spend a lot of time contemplating the mass tragedy that occurs daily on Dixie highways. I'm referring to the turning of thousands -- maybe millions -- of innocent possums into road kill. The natural reaction: All that me...
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April 2, 2010
With one master stroke of tyranny, the Congress of these United States has foisted on the nation a plan that will provide health insurance for 32 million Americans who have gone without it. This cynical act will remove from countless households the right...
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March 26, 2010
It has come to my recent attention that scientists have developed a machine that allows them to peer into the brain and pinpoint complex memories. I could use one of those things, because I can’t remember what I was going to write about today.
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March 19, 2010
"I hope someone gets after you in response to this bloody column," wrote a lady from upstate New York, whose correspondence is generally friendly. "Your sadistic streak was dripping like ... oh, go ahead; I'll give you the pleasure of some...
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March 5, 2010
The thing I've noticed about the current recession is that it's creating a whole new class of criminals.
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February 26, 2010
I've been having morbid thoughts lately about Oscar the Death Cat, especially since Fuji took up at my house and started rubbing up against me as if we were old friends.
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February 19, 2010
I don't know about you, but I'm getting good and tired of all those smug Yankees making fun of us in the South because we stop what we're doing and take cover at the first falling snowflake.
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February 12, 2010
Last weekend, I committed the ultimate act of bravado: I drove my '09 Toyota more than 300 miles over a dark, frigid, sloppy Interstate highway, utterly defying Transportation Secretary Ray Hood's suggestion that I quit driving it until Toyota had figured...
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February 5, 2010
I've been rethinking my relationship with Fuji since absorbing the wisdom of Andre Bauer, the lieutenant governor and gubernatorial wannabe here in the Sandlapper State.
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January 29, 2010
“And there shall be ... earthquakes in divers places.” Matthew 24:7 To the unfortunate residents of Haiti, the earthquake that struck the impoverished country Jan. 12 was apocalyptic in proportion.
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January 22, 2010
Barack Obama is a nice-looking, light-skinned African American who doesn't talk like a man who grew up in the 'hood. On top of that, he's articulate. There, I've uttered blasphemy, even as the nation pays its tributes to Martin Luther King Jr. and celebra...
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January 15, 2010
The University of Alabama is once more the possessor of the national college football championship, and in the Heart of Dixie the return of that trophy to Tuscaloosa is comparable to the return of the Ark of the Covenant to the territory of Israel after i...
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January 8, 2010
As the year 2010 settles in, I’m dusting off my futuristic binoculars to tell you what lies ahead in the last year of the first decade of the 21st century. In the past, these foregleams have proved to be 99.44 percent baloney.
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January 1, 2010
It's that time of year again when, following ancient custom, I bare my breast to the slings and arrows and the praise of readers who responded to my offerings for the past year.
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December 18, 2009
Tiger Woods is a magnificent golfer. Can't we still enjoy watching him swing a club without dragging his personal conduct onto the course?
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December 11, 2009
Maurice Bell is dead. He carried to his grave the terrifying memories of four days and five nights in the shark-infested waters of the Pacific after two Japanese torpedoes struck his ship, the USS Indianapolis. But not before sharing those memories with t...
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December 4, 2009
Mort Persky, en eminent Southern journalist whose path crossed mine in Augusta, Ga., during the springtime of our careers, now lives in retirement in New York City. He occasionally shares with me his insight into what's happening in Gotham City and its en...
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November 27, 2009
One of the solemn missions of this column is to give readers heads-ups on the potholes that may lie ahead on the road of life. Potholes such as gender parties.
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November 20, 2009
I wouldn't have known about the Textile Heritage Center in Cooleemee had I not moseyed up to Spencer last spring for the Rail Days observance at the North Carolina Transportation Museum.
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November 13, 2009
I was disappointed when the Charlotte-based National Football League team chose the shopworn nickname, "Panthers." I thought the name "Charlotte Shuttles" would have been more alliterative and more redolent of local history. Call...
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