Until I met Russ Keene I was at the mercy of the most wicked class of men: the bad plumber. The bad plumber explores those parts of the house we call shameful and gives them great honor by charging great fees to fix them. They smoke more than they work and when they are done, the result leaks more than it works. And so in Los Angeles meeting Keene was good. Oddly I met him through his kids: talented, smart,... Read more

Evidently I have lived in very bad times. Since I was a little boy, I have been told THIS ELECTION IS THE MOST IMPORTANT OF YOUR LIFETIME. We always stood one more term of “them” from TOTAL DOOM. Nuts. My hero Teddy Roosevelt told us “we stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord.” We did not stand at Armageddon and TRex was a fine figure of a man, but not Saint Michael. Wilson was a racist and a... Read more

  Tell the truth. My dad told this to me as a boy and he was justified, because as far as I know, my dad has never told a lie. The rest of us are not so blessed. Most of us develop convenient memories or mess up at some point under pressure. The goal is not to be perfect, but to tell the truth best we can. When we see we have not told the truth, or our willful lie is... Read more

There are few sins more satisfying than hating hateful people. The racists on my social media feeds who send ugly images make me mad, a good response, but hatred is close to righteous anger. Hatred can make aging fingers less stiff as the glow of self-righteousness allows me to achieve high school typing class speed as I craft a cutting response. The battle against evil is not bad, but the hatred is. We do not get to hate Hillary or... Read more

Let’s not talk politics. Let’s talk prayer and not prostituting prayer in the service of partisan politics. Whatever the merits of Donald J. Trump as a candidate, he should repudiate a prayer given at this convention. On the first Monday of the convention, not-so-orthodox Pastor Mark Burns gave the worst prayer I have ever heard. Now as a pastor’s kid who went to Bible college, this is a major accomplishment. I have heard heretical prayers, but God loves a heretic.... Read more

How was he doing? “Tolerable,” was the old man’s response. If you are a Christian in government, that is your goal. How is your candidate? Tolerable. Sadly, Americans do not always get to choose between tolerable candidates. Imagine having to choose between a Democratic former Secretary of State with deep moral problems and an erratic Republican with a temperament unfit for office. That was your choice in 1856 and that wasn’t tolerable. Some suggest you should find the lesser of... Read more

Bad arguments make good men do bad things. Even a very good man can outthink himself and justify bad choices. This is particularly tempting when we wish to do something or the choice is what most people in our social group are doing. Kids just say: “Everyone is doing it.” Grownups say: “It is the lesser of two evils.” Grownups are wicked without the honesty of the motivation. Insight: choosing the lesser of two evils is almost always wrong. When... Read more

God save France and the West. If enough people hate France enough to die to kill Frenchmen, then stopping them will be very hard. One reason this will be a long war is the cause of the hatred. We are not just hated for our vices, but for our virtues. You could hate the West for her vices and God knows we have them. Past generations colonized large parts of the world and now we are forcing a decadent morality... Read more

Sometimes one has to say something so obviously good and true that saying it sounds foolish or even condescending. Yet even the best of us ignore the truth, so at times it needs to be said . . . especially when most of us are not the best of us! Reading a great author, somebody like Plato, forces me to see these big, glaring, obvious but sometimes ignored truths. It’s embarrassing to see them, but worse to ignore them when... Read more

Everyone knows until some smart guy comes and confuses them. Sometimes he is just a pompous ass out to score clever points, but other times Socrates is showing us that we are the asses. We think we know something we do not. The faux-Socrates spends his time showing regular folks their ignorance, but the real Socrates spent his time showing up rulers. There is harm in anyone believing he has knowledge when he does not, but there is great harm when... Read more