Paul's Thing

Click for story Certain words and phrases indicate a person’s inability or unwillingness to engage in honest conversion.  I call them eye-rollers.  When you hear them, you know you’ve hit a brick wall: whether it’s stupidity or willful close-mindedness, the person who utters them is not listening.  Roll your eyes and find someone else to [...]

What’s in Paul’s grab bag? Unconnected thoughts and short observations which don’t rate separate blog posts, but when aggregated together might amount to something: Some of My Best Friends Are Negroes NASCAR Fans You may have seen my earlier NASCAR post.  I swear, they must put something in those $10 beers.  Here’s an ESPN reporter [...]

What’s in Paul’s grab bag? Unconnected thoughts and short observations which don’t rate separate blog posts, but when aggregated together might amount to something: A Society of Snitches? One of the more worrisome things about Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, which takes effect two weeks from now, is the provision that “allows a person to bring an action [...]

This story made the rounds earlier in the week: after the 9/11 terror attacks the Bush administration directed the State Department to prepare magazines about American life and culture for distribution in Arab countries.  During a meeting to review a draft photo-essay for the magazine, a high-level State Department political appointee rejected a photo of [...]

What’s in Paul’s grab bag?  Unconnected thoughts and observations which don’t rate separate blog posts, but when aggregated together might amount to something: Recently Overheard: “I knew the car companies were going under 20 years ago, when the union guys started making six figures and buying summer homes.” — attorney friend at a house party [...]

In my previous post, I accused my conservative Republican friends of selfishness.  Some of my conservative Republican friends read this blog.  I doubt I’ve endeared myself to them. So I should probably clarify my own relationship with selfishness.  All humans are selfish, covetous, and jealous.  I’m human.  I worked hard for what I have and [...]

Some of my friends are successful businessmen.  They are, as a matter of course, conservative and Republican.  Socially, at least, I tend toward conservatism myself, and I respect anyone who works hard and succeeds.  Though I may disagree with my friends, I listen to what they have to say.    They’re smart people, but too often, [...]

In a post about Arizona’s new immigration law the other day, I naïvely posted this: I estimate that the Border Patrol catches around a hundred illegal border-crossers a day in Arizona alone.  Anywhere you go in southern Arizona, you see Border Patrol checkpoints and the big white ex-Greyhound buses they use to haul the day’s [...]