At his invitation I re-read Jim Gries' letter twice with my reading glasses to make sure I didn't miss a punctuation mark which may have slanted my interpretation of his context. I still found it arrogant and insulting and pointedly left leaning. Picture this, Jim, me standing here with my right hand raised and my left hand on the Bible and my swearing that I haven't listened to Rush Limbaugh, Kieth Oberman or Chris Matthews once in the last six or seven years and I never even heard of "Local Bob" whoever he is. I confess I have watched the Sean Hannity TV show two or three times in the last five years, and you are right ... he is a screechingly repetitious bloviator, but amazingly, listening to him did not cause my gray matter to turn into a gelatinous blob and come oozing out of my cranial orifaces! Maybe they all are bloviators. Who cares. It's their constitutional right to be, just as it's yours to disparage them for it, and mine to flip it back at you. I don't care for the opinions of any of them; but I guess because you include Chris Mathews that makes your attitude fair and balanced. Neither do I really care much about who is on your list so much as I do that you have a list in the first place. ...more

November 6, 2009

Re: Tom Cannariato's comment on my recent letter to the editor. ...more

October 31, 2009

The summer of 1952 was a defining year of my life. Up until that summer, I was a typical young Nebraska farm boy, full of energy, loved baseball, loved my mother's fried chicken and gravy, loved her home made (everything was) rhubarb cobbler and had no worries about keeping up with the Joneses; the Joneses didn't have anything either. ...more

October 21, 2009

Alice Coolbaugh of Port Richey says Republicans ar spewing "hateful and erroneous" venom about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. ...more

June 3, 2009

Your editorial pages and the accompanying letters to the editor are starting to resemble cable TV, with its opinionated talking heads and manufactured outrage. It is as if half the people expect President Obama to be a miracle worker, and the other half-think he's no better than the last group. ...more

March 27, 2009

Back when the world was less urgent, about all you had to do to know if you could sleep easily at night was to turn on Walter Cronkite. ...more

March 15, 2009

David Byrne opened his concert Friday night at the Tampa Theatre with a low-key explanation of the performance: "It's a set menu. No substitutions. I'll be your waiter. My name's Dave." ...more

December 13, 2008

Considering the head-spinning properties of previous Brian Eno-David Byrne collaborations - three of the first four (and best) Talking Heads records and 1981's analog-sampling trailblazer "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" - this new pairing comes off a little, well, conservative. ...more

December 12, 2008

Millions of Americans live in houses that are worth less than they borrowed to buy them. ...more

November 8, 2008

Chance To Catch Up I recall the era of the cost of living adjustment (COLA), which was very beneficial to the average American worker and their families in maintaining a normal living standard with any increases in food, fuel and other necessities. Then our corporatism decided to change it to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which doesn't include the rise in costs of food and fuel. Seems we are not being considered today for our hard work. ...more

November 3, 2008