I have no problem with people using money and property to get what they need; food, clothing, shelter, education, transportation. To some limited degree, I can even appreciate the value of entertainment. What I don’t appreciate, however, is a thirst we have come to know as conspicuous consumption. And I particularly dislike being pressured into…

In spite of the fact that at least a couple of close friends treated my opinions unforgivingly after I criticized Facebook, I am not inclined to remain silent on the on the subject. Facebook, and before it Myspace, and before it AOL, and before it the BBS network, are all just extensions of the shallowest…

Don’t go bringin’ no agua to no Mexican brown dope dealers. They ain’t your concern.

From Facebook: Howard XXX: lol. what happens when the right whines too much. (Picture of Barack Obama’s birth certificate) Alyssa XXX: Certificate of live birth is different than a birth certificate. Richard R. Barron: ?>>”Certificate of live birth is different than a birth certificate.”<< I don’t understand statements like that. My birth certificate says, “Standard…

Bad news for those of you who enjoy giving your loved ones Valentine’s Day gifts: we have seen the last Valentine’s Day. How could this be? Prophecy. According to the Nikon World calendar, the world will end December 31, 2011. “It’s been long known that this will be the end of it all,” said Lars…

While explaining to my coworkers today that a quarter pound of unicorn rump was on sale for just $5.95 at the local grocery, I decided that I would share these interesting facts about unicorns. Unicorn meat is among the leanest, healthiest meat available today. After eating unicorn meat, many people report farting stars, particularly if…

Much of the time the tragedies that occur in our world remain abstractions. Once in a while, though, these events come close to home. A relative is diagnosed with cancer. A friend’s house burns to the ground. A coworker is arrested for a felony. Suddenly these occurrences aren’t news items, but flesh and blood before…

I am verging on hiding the news feeds of all my Facebook friends who continue to put hashtags (the pound sign) in their posts. I could rant about it, or I could just copy and paste this excellent, and completely correct, analysis from Maddox: And just an aside: hashtags are pointless, hashtag jokes are stupid…

1. Myth: religion is not a real problem. Fact: religion is a real and serious condition. It is no different than diabetes or heart disease in its ability to impact someone’s life. It can have both emotional and physical symptoms and make life very difficult for those who have it. The medical community has acknowledged…

“Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister.” -Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, January 2011

Alternate title: Dogs Preserve Dreams. I got up at 4:30 this morning to feed the dogs. I got back in bed and laid awake for 15 minutes memorizing the following dream: We were in my Grandmother Barron’s back bedroom, the one where Nicole and I used to stay when we were kids, when we noticed…

We have all seen and heard the use of insults as arguments. Instead of actually debating an issue, one of the debaters will retreat to name calling, badgering, and belittling, and often claiming your point of view is just ridiculous without attempting to say why. We hear it a lot on talk radio. The technique…

Update, February 2012: When I first posted this entry, I received some compelling comments, some hostile comments, and two comments which actually threatened me. I didn’t approve the hostile or threatening comments, but I now see that as a mistake, since hostile comments in fact adjudicate my thinking by illustrating how genuinely terrifying this kind…

Like a lot of ordinary, healthy boys, when I was growing up, my friends and I played a lot of war. By “war,” I mean we would choose up sides and pretend, almost exclusively, that it was World War 2. The process started by “calling” our ranks, which works the same way that “calling” shotgun…

As the former guardian of a teenage boy, and as an adult family man, I presently look at the world from a maturing perspective. From my point of view, characteristics such as responsibility and honesty trump characteristics like impetuousness, laziness, and rebellion. Every teenager, from my own self those decades ago, to the one who was…

Someone at my office today casually announced that “blogging is passé.” Of course, I beg to differ, in some cases. The truth is that overall, blogging was dead before it started, since it was shallow, annoying, incomplete and uncreative in the first place. So yes, bad blogging is passé. If we are to believe in…

Here are a few bullet points from a notepad in my car… Radio ad: “Tell congress to do its job and pass the new wiretapping bill to keep us all safe.” After hearing this ad in favor of continuing to allow warrantless electronic eavesdropping on American citizens, and thinking how much it sounded like the…

Some issues. Discuss. * Dependence on Oil I recognized this problem in 1973 when I was 10. I couldn’t solve it then, and I can’t solve it now, because the American people are too greedy, short-sighted and ultimately stupid to elect leaders who will stand up to global oil and say we’ve had enough, while…

Recently Abby and I were doing chores and piddling, and Abby had the TV on to her favorite network, HGTV. Occasionally I sat down to tell her something or bring her a drink, and listened for a few minutes to the program. Three things came to mind immediately: The “G” in HGTV stood for garden…