Donald B. Hawthorne
Sometimes things you really care about in life don’t work out as planned, even when those things are special, world-class, and deserve only the best. It hurts like hell when something like that happens. And when it does, it is hard to keep perspective. Steve Jobs gave an amazingly insightful speech last June at the…
I grew up in Southern California during the 1960’s and 1970’s, a time of unbelievable sports team performance in the greater Los Angeles area. Here was the lineup: Los Angeles Rams under Coach George Allen and Chuck Knox. The Fearsome Foursome on defense. Dick Enberg was the announcer. They were consistently big regular season winners,…
Mark Tapscott has written a powerful editorial asking Has the GOP Lost Its Soul? …Their differences [between President Reagan and Alaskan GOP Rep. Young] are nowhere more evident than on limiting government and reducing federal spending. Reagan said in his first inaugural speech that “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the…
Nothing is more unjust to the working families and retirees of America than to over-pay for under-performance. In other words, not to get fair value for our hard-earned monies. It is in that context where this blogsite has been appropriately critical of both public sector unions and private sector unions. Follow all the links at…
In celebration of America’s birthday, here are excerpted gems from previous postings about our beloved country – brought together in one posting: President Calvin Coolidge gave a powerful speech in 1926 on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. If you want to rediscover some of the majesty of the principles underlying our Founding,…
In the book entitled Government Failure: A Primer in Public Choice, Arthur Seldon writes: Many economics writers and teachers still present economic systems of exchange between private individuals or firms as “imperfect” and requiring “correction” by government. Most teachers of politics, politicians, and political journalists still present government as well-meaning and able to remove such…
I recently read Michael Barone’s book entitled Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Battle for the Nation’s Future. It is well worth reading. Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to the book: For many years I have thought it one of the peculiar features of our country that we seem to…
I am fortunate to have been blessed with a wonderful Dad. And on this Father’s Day, his special day, I want to pay a special tribute to him. Dad, who turned 80 last month, grew up in the Depression years. It was kids from his high school class year of 1943 who joined the World…
David Gelernter of Yale has written this editorial: …Our schools teach history ideologically. They teach the message, not the truth…They are propaganda machines. Ignorance of history destroys our judgment. Consider Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill), who just compared the Guantanamo Bay detention center to Stalin’s gulag and to the death camps of Hitler and Pol Pot…
In the May edition of Crisis Magazine, editor Brian Saint-Paul, offers this poignant reflection on the life of the late Pope John Paul II: In the end, it was a beautiful death. Surrounded by those who knew and loved him, within earshot of the cheering thousands who came to be near his broken body, John…