Mark Knows It All

I generally watch Fox News. Fox has gotten a bad rap of being the “Bush” television network, and/or conservative to a fault. By definition to some, that makes it evil. It isn’t. It portrays divergent points of view, including the conservative point of view which through my personal observation gets the fuzzy end of the lollipop on the broadcast networks. It certainly is the antithesis of Dan Rather. The same can be said for Fox and Friends, the Fox morning show, versus the Today Show. That being said, on the weekends, I tend to watch either CNN or the MSNBC for different perspectives of the news, plus the fact I don’t really care for the Fox weekend teams which tend to be smarmy. Today is Memorial Day. When I woke up, I turned on CNN at 7:30 to see if the world blew up last night. The first story I saw had to do with the American atrocities that allegedly occurred in Iraq sometime ago. It was portrayed something akin to the Holocaust. The next story concerned itself with the war protes...

Everybody has to have a guy. Seinfeld did an entire episode based on knowing a “guy” that could get or fix anything. Having a guy makes life livable. It brings it down to a human scale and builds a community of people around you that you can count on when in a jam. My family has several “guys”, and we use them regularly. Here are some of them. There is Ronald and Robert, our car guys. They help keep my son’s 1993 Cadillac operational at a reasonable price. We see them often, and they tell me time to get rid of that bomb as often as I see them. They are two brothers who started a mechanics business behind their Lube Stop franchise. They have a big ole dog named Avalanche, who sleeps in the middle of everything. If you are lucky, or not depending on your point of view, your car will be getting a brake job while Avalanche is getting a haircut, especially if he has rolled over on this back showing his altogether!!!!!! There is Tom, our tile guy. Tom’s regular job is being a cop. It is goo...

Whether by design or default, and while you were looking the other way, George Bush has given the United States the biggest change in our national thinking since Franklin Roosevelt. During the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt increased the role of the Federal Government, and it came to be looked upon as the ultimate problem solver for the national ills. That idea continued over the next 60 years as the Federal spending and bureaucracy continued to grow. Yes, it even grew through the years of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, both ostensibly conservative Republicans who talked a good game, but paid more lip service than action in limiting the size of the Federal Government. George W. Bush, on the other hand, doesn't say much. But his actions, or inactions, speak plenty. For many years, I viewed his behavior as a total lack of leadership. But then a series of events began to happen which individually don't mean much, but taken together, show a major shift in power from the Fed...

One of my pet peeves is the marginalization of the white male in modern America. The extent of the disdain for the white American male finally hit home with me in a community organization to which I belonged. It was a leadership type of organization whose raison d’etre was to provide leadership training among young adults in our community and provide pathways for community growth. At my own expense, I put together a breakfast for what few influential people I know, and we proceeded to outline some alternatives. I presented our work to the director of my organization, who was a single, black working woman. Rather than the work, what she most interested in was the makeup of the group that I had invited. Her words were “They look mighty male and mighty white”. Not only did this effort die on the vine, but a contingent group of 20 extremely community minded individuals looking to help this community was crushed out of existence because they were “business oriented” rather than politically ...