'Ah, there's nothing like camping!" I exuded, with mock bluster. "The great outdoors! Back to nature! Communing with animals -- ducks, geese, lamb! The heavens overhead!"
The United States Senate passed a resolution Thursday calling upon the nation to officially apologize for slavery and for the century of discrimination that followed. While that is fine, as far as symbolism goes, I'm wondering if there is anyone who would actually care or benefit, any African-American who would feel better, who thinks the nation saying "Whoops, sorry!" in some kind of elaborate ceremony would either soften the sting of history or sweeten daily life today.
How can you sell little bottles of water for three bucks and still go broke? Yes, financial situations are complex. And yes, Six Flags -- the New York-based amusement park company that runs, among its 20 locations, Six Flags Great America in Gurnee -- had a good year last year. But still it's $2.4 billion in debt and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The Blair Early Childhood Center is one of those Chicago schools you've never heard about. Nobody was ever shot there. It has no football team. This marks the first time its name has appeared in this newspaper.
It's easy to laugh off North Korea, with its mouse-that-roared nuclear ambitions and loopy supreme leader, Kim Jong Il, a weird Kewpie doll of a man with fright-wig hair and a zip-up jumpsuit.
"Why don't you wear jeans?" my wife suggested, as I stood puzzling in front of the open closet. "You're a writer, you can wear jeans. You look good in jeans."
Not all the extremists are in caves on the Afghan-Pakistani border. We have our own, right here, and while their fantasies might not be as openly violent, they hold the potential for harm nevertheless.
