Why the Mask Mandate Offends so Many

We sell you your insurance. We unclog your drains. We sit next to you at church. We keep quiet on the company zoom call. We are white. We are black. Our collars are blue, and our collars are white. We are the great silent majority, and we have had enough. In the immortal words of …

All enemies foreign and domestic.

This week in Seattle, Washington a group of armed domestic terrorists who proclaim to be operating under the auspices of ANTIFA and the Black Lives Matter movement seized control of a six block radius of the downtown area. After a prolonged conflict, the police ceded control of the area to the liberal activist group. The …

The Religion of Retreat

We are roughly two months into Coronamania, and it seems already a new local legend has been born. We've all seen him at this point. He's your coworker, your neighbor, maybe he's even your cousin. He's the middle aged man driving in his car alone with a mask on. All joking aside, I've seen dozens …

The Currier School Fire

Last night most of West Knoxville smelled of smoke as the wind carried ash from Rocky Hill to Hardin Valley. A large wooden structure behind Bruster's Ice Cream caught fire in the Rocky Hill area, prompting onlookers and news coverage from all over town. Most had the same question. What is that building and why …

Shadrach, Meshach and de Blasio

    One of the most famous tales in all of Christendom is that of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. In the Old Testament story, the three Jewish men were sentenced to death for defying Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II's orders to bow down and worship a pagan statue. The men were tossed into a flaming furnace. …

An untenable course: the world’s response to coronavirus.

  Social media are ablaze this weekend with the criticisms and speculations of Monday morning quarterbacks. Now that the situation is seemingly under control in East Tennessee, and some of the panic has subsided, the critiques begin. The last thing I would ever do is criticize someone who had the timeless misfortune of finding him …

It’s Halftime America

    For forty years the chief tension in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was nuclear proliferation. Decades of Americans and Soviets alike grew up under the lingering cloud of nuclear war. When it is all said and done, possibly the human and certainly the economic costs of the …

Panic! at the Costco

It is a curious feeling to know that you are living through something that will no doubt be read about in a textbook by future generations. Prior to this week, the only other times I had experienced something like that were when the housing market collapsed, when the first black president was elected and when …

A Time For Choosing

In the news this week a civil war for the soul of the Democrat Party broke out. The headlining fighters were potential presidential nominee Sen. Bernie Sanders and longtime Clinton Consigliere James Carville. Carville, the bombastic Ragin' Cajun', scolded Sanders over his radical policy positions, and proposed the party take a good look in the …

Friends after six

"Hello Tip, is it after six o'clock?" the unmistakable voice of president Ronald Reagan sounded through the phone when democrat House Speaker Thomas J. "Tip" O'Neil answered. The joke was a recurring one throughout the course of their warm friendship and sometimes tumultuous professional relationship. Upon Reagan's arrival in Washington, the Speaker informed him that …