Author Archives: floegel

Free At Last?

1/5/2006 – 3:56 pm

The new year opened with a portentous natural gas war between Russia and Ukraine, with Western Europe playing the role of hostage. Next came the West Virginia mine tragedy. Sidebars to that story noted that the price of coal has doubled in recent years, making it profitable for companies to pursue coal seams that are […]

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Anticipation of Things to Come

12/29/2005 – 10:13 am

This is the week when abstract and concrete conceptions of time collide, at least in my mind. Time is a relative, almost liquid thing, but this week I always feel as if I can watch the future become the present and the present become the past. It’s during this week that I’ll remember walking along […]

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Merry Holidays

12/22/2005 – 11:50 am

People have been unhappy with government for many years. Some two thousand years ago “there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that the world should be taxed.” Bet that was welcome news. This year, House Speaker Dennis Hastert boldly stood up for his right to call the evergreen on the lawn a “Christmas,” rather […]

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The Rules

12/15/2005 – 9:46 am

Grade school is where you learn the rules. You’re told there is one set of rules and they apply to everyone equally. Immediately thereafter, you’re shown the rules don’t apply to everyone equally. Few rules applied to some students, whose families are prominent in the community or whose elder siblings were star pupils. Other students […]

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Time to Pay Up

12/8/2005 – 10:59 am

It’s time, beyond time really, for America to confront the issue of slavery reparations. It’s an issue that rarely emerges in the national discussion and when it does, it’s the source of enormous controversy. It should not be controversial; an egregious injury was inflicted on Africans, later African-Americans, on this continent. That injury, which in […]

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The New Abortion

12/1/2005 – 10:04 am

The fear with avian flu is that it will mutate into a form transmissible from human to human through aerosol means (i.e., coughing and sneezing). Epidemiologists believe that with the breadth avian flu has already achieved, this mutation is just a matter of time and probably not much time. Health officials are confident a vaccine […]

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Over the Top

11/24/2005 – 9:39 am

Thanksgiving is a past tense holiday; present tense at best. It’s not about the future, except as a subject for meditation. We can today reflect on what we’ve done with what we’ve been given and how we might use those gifts to shape our future. A worthy exercise for any last Thursday in November, it […]

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