These are troubling times of war and of economic despair. Yet there is a sense of hope. 50 million people in this country lack health care. Yet there is a sense of hope. We speak of immigration as if we are talking about cattle. Yet there is a sense of hope. Hope transcends troubles. Hope [...]

The Fireside often presents reason in the form of anecdote. We are not alone. Anecdotes are the parables of modern discourse. They are not scientific, not products of statistical analysis. Anecdotes offer insight by personalizing issues. Anecdotes are used to wrench the gut, to appeal to the human emotion, to define issues in terms of [...]

The oil industry is holding all of us hostage. Delta Air Lines is a recent example. The Associated Press reports Delta is offering ‘…voluntary severance payouts to roughly 30,000 employees…’ Delta hopes to cut 2,000 jobs. Why?
Let’s define a scenario that makes our math easier to understand. For the sake of argument, let’s say that [...]

Son,
Take a look at the State of the World. Look at the role of religion in world events. Look at the disparity of faiths represented by the candidates for President of the United States. Who or what is running this show?
The term, Anti- Christ, is mentioned in the Bible very briefly. I think it is [...]

Son,
The Payday loan business is just that, a business.  They are like any other business.  They make money by having a steady stream of customers.  And, like other businesses, they measure their success.  I would sure like to see their statistics.
We write essays for this online magazine.  We measure our success in the same manner [...]

YAHOO.Shortcuts.annotationSet=YAHOO.Shortcuts.annotationSet||{};YAHOO.Shortcuts.annotationSet['lw_1198240480_0']={”text”:”James Spader”,”weight”:0.813967,”type”:["shortcuts:/us/instance/person/actor"],”category”:["PERSON"]};YAHOO.Shortcuts.annotationSet['lw_1198240480_1']={”text”:”William Shatner”,”weight”:0.716624,”type”:["shortcuts:/us/instance/person/actor","shortcuts:/us/instance/person/author"],”category”:["PERSON"]};YAHOO.Shortcuts.annotationSet['lw_1198240480_2']={”text”:”Clydesdale draft horses”,”weight”:2.49024,”type”:["shortcuts:/concept"],”category”:["CONCEPT"]};Son,
I enjoy the TV program Boston Legal. Their stories are right out of the headlines. Last evening one of their ‘legal’ cases surrounded home foreclosure.
Clarence, an employee of Crane, Pool?, and Schmidt, was two months behind on his mortgage payments because his interest had ballooned to 12%.? He had originated the [...]