A couple of years ago I managed to score a couple of tickets to see the Irish comedian Graham Norton at the Coronet Theater in Hollywood. If you’ve never seen Graham Norton, you owe it to yourself to try and watch one of his shows. He had a chat show on BBC 4. BBC 4 is the commercial channel in the United Kingdom. That’s the channel that shows all the reality TV shows and the imports from America. It used to be aired here on BBC America, but now you can catch it on the LOGO channel. The LOGO channel is the channel that is aimed primarily for those with alternative lifestyles....

Isn’t it interesting how many famous people die unknown and poor, even people who were once famous? Of course, I suppose the world is full of non-famous, poor people, but still, you’d think that once you were rich and famous, you’d stay that way. The poor part I can understand. I mean, everyone makes bad money decisions and money is kind of hard to get and keep. Do you ever look at your W-2 in January and wonder what the hell you did with all that money and why don’t you have it anymore? I look at think, and mine shit, I waste a lot of money. Sometimes I’ll...

Okay, I didn’t write this up on April 1st for reasons that are about to become obvious. As you all know, I have long been a subscriber to FATE magazine because it is such an entertaining little periodical. If you want to know why FATE is so special, please read my blog on the scrumptious piece of periodic literature, written a couple of years ago. For those of you who haven’t the inclination to find that blog, I will repeat here that FATE is a magazine dedicated to the paranormal. If it’s weird, it’s in FATE. You can always trust FATE for articles on ghosts, UFOs, Demons, Trolls,...

When I was a kid, I used to like puzzle books.  You know the kind.  There would be the puzzle that showed six clowns that looked very much the same and then ask which one was different.  Or there would be the picture in which you were supposed to find various things.  Later on, I would come to love books of brain teasers, seemingly impossible puzzles to reason out, some of which required hours to suss out. I remember one puzzle in particular, regarding some pennies, that drove me nuts.  You have twelve pennies, one of which is counterfeit.  The fake coin is either heavier or lighter than...

For the past few years, my wife, Becky, and I have been very interested in ghosts. Well, Becky is really the one most interested for reasons unknown to me. But I find the subject interesting and so I go along for the ride. So each week, we watch the obligatory episodes of Ghosthunters on the Sci Fi channel. That would be our favorite show. Next in line is Most Haunted on the Travel Channel. There is also a show on the Biography Channel called Ghostly Encounters. And for something very scary, there is the Discovery Channel’s Hauntings. A and E has Paranormal University, but that...

I’ll tell you a little secret about teaching.  And I’ve been teaching a long time now, over 25 years, so I should know something about it.  I never meant to be a teacher.  It was never in my plans.  I wanted to be a rock star, or an actor.  I saw myself standing on the stage taking my bows to thunderous applause.  I told my high school guidance counselor so. I remember well being called to my counselor’s office back when I was a senior in high school.  I thought I was in trouble.  I couldn’t imagine being in trouble with Mr. Milling.  Mr. Milling looked rather like a tall, thin...

Anybody who has taken economics 101 knows that in the business world you have to have a product to sell. That product can be a service, as well. That product is produced by the worker, who generally receives some sort of benefit out of producing the product in the form of wages or commissions. The product is purchased by the consumer. Theoretically, the more the consumer buys, the more the worker produces, the more money the person providing the capital makes on his or her investment, the more happy everybody is. Worker –> Product –> Consumer = $$$ When we look at...

The American spirit was born of a revolution. We are strongly individual. It is how our nation was born. Rugged individuals took their lives in their hands and at great risk, traveled westward to build a new country. And with them, they brought their rugged, common sense approach to the problems they faced. From the very beginning, it would seem, we hated government, not just big government, but any government. The colonists left England because they either didn’t want to be told what church they could attend, or they wanted opportunities that were only available to the wealthiest...

Natalie was, maybe, one of the cutest second grade girls I have ever seen. And you know, she was awfully smart, too. Once, when I was teaching a lesson of how schools used to be a hundred years earlier, and was explaining how the teacher used to use a switch on the children who misbehaved, she raised her hand and asked, “And they didn’t sue?” It was hard to explain that people just didn’t litigate as much back in the 19th century as they do now. It was also hard to explain that once it was considered perfectly okay to beat the crap out of your kids. For Christmas...

Relative to the blog I just wrote about taxes, I thought you might be interested in where your tax dollar goes. 42.2 cents out of every federal income tax dollar went toward Military expenses. Current Military and war spending used 28.7 cents, interest on Military debt was 10 cents, and Veterans’ benefits were 3.5 cents out of every federal income tax dollar. 22.1 cents out of every federal income tax dollar went toward Health programs. Health ($458 billion) is the federal funds portion of all health spending by the federal government, including the federal funds spending on Medicare. 10.2...