Whenever I wanted to do what the crowd was doing, I would say to my mother, “But everybody’s doing it,” to which she would reply, “If everybody was jumping into a fire, would you jump in too?” But in this case, I figure my opinion is as good as that of most people, so I might as well put it out there. In fact, it may be a bit better, because I am calling it an opinion; most people consider their opinion to be a fact. So I am going to write about three news stories from 2013 that, in my opinion, have the potential to make profound changes in the way Americans look at the world. 1. Pope Francis – As usual, the new pope’s tenure is severely constrained by his age, therefore the amount of real change he can bring to the church is also limited. His proposal to change the emphasis of the church from personal morality to compassion and service is a good one, but already there is grumbling among the bishops and other hardliners. However, among the rank and file members, as well as n...
My alarm clock goes off every morning at eight, except for the few times when I have a breakfast date. Usually I wake up about an hour before that, or at least I partly wake up. It is important that I remain in a “not quite awake but not quite asleep” state, because I consider that time as the germination period for whatever seeds happen to have blown into my head.