http://www.picayuneitem.com en-us Copyright CNHI All Rights Reserved. 5 Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:19:00 +0000 http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_278102047.html http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_278102047.html When I was a kid, there was a bully in our neighborhood. He never picked on kids his own size and certainly not on anyone larger. Rather, he punched, pushed and kicked kids smaller and weaker than himself, especially those who refused to respond to his threats. Stirred by his adversaries’ impotent responses, the bully felt free to slug anyone he fancied. Most kids tried to avoid him, thinking their demonstration of... Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:17:00 +0000 http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_278101836.html http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_278101836.html Rep. Tom Price, the Georgia Republican who heads the House GOP Study Committee, came to President Obama’s Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress itching to make a point. Price, who also happens to be an orthopedic surgeon, has often heard the president accuse Republicans of criticizing Democratic healthcare proposals while having no plans of their own. He expected Obama to do the same Wednesday night. Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:14:00 +0000 http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_278101706.html http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_278101706.html Betsy and I gathered up both grandsons last Saturday and hied ourselves off to a Birthday Party: the 95th Birthday for a Lady who just about raised me. Roxie came to take care of me several years after I was an infant — Zeola and Mandy were in charge of me for those years — and was probably more responsible for my upbringing than any Lady except Momma, or my grandmothers Mema and Ma’am. Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:05:00 +0000 http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_273120649.html http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_273120649.html Many people, including some conservatives, have been very impressed with how brainy the president and his advisers are. But that is not quite as reassuring as it might seem. Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:04:00 +0000 http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_273120521.html http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_273120521.html There are many reasons to fire Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, and all of them are contained within his 66-page “assessment” of the war in Afghanistan. Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:03:00 +0000 http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_273120415.html http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_273120415.html If you are an enemy of America seeking her destruction, you would add to your pursuit of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons the undermining of this nation from within. You would do this largely through deception, putting on a peaceful face while subtly plotting ways to bring America down. Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:59:00 +0000 http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_273115916.html http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_273115916.html How many times during the past eight years did you hear that former President Bush was a dangerous right-wing extremist? Probably too many to count. Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:59:00 +0000 http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_273120054.html http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_273120054.html “I can’t tell you how many foreign leaders who are heads of center-right governments say to me, I don’t understand why people would call you socialist. In my country, you’d be considered a conservative.” — President Barack Obama, Sept. 20, 2009 Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:56:00 +0000 http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_267115758.html http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_267115758.html Gov. Haley Barbour’s recent call for more emphasis on “technical training” in school would be laudable if it weren’t so apparent that he and others that support such an effort have little real understanding of the education needed for many jobs requiring technical skills. Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:53:00 +0000 http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_267115504.html http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_267115504.html When the old City Council bought the Arizona Chemical property following Hurricane Katrina at a fire sale price, it had been for sale for a couple of years with no takers. Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:47:00 +0000 http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_267114758.html http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_267114758.html When Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, some suggested that race played a factor in his success. People “wanted” to elect a black man president because of our history of slavery and the denial of civil rights for so many years to African-Americans. It is never “racism” to vote for someone because he is black. It is only racism to oppose the policies of a black Democrat. Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:46:00 +0000 http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_267114659.html http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_267114659.html ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is a scandal. This story has become breaking news lately thanks to some recent guerilla journalism. But the problems of ACORN represent a broader, and even more scandalous idea: the conventional acceptance of the left’s self-righteous claims to having a monopoly on all politics, policy and lifestyles that are good. Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:43:00 +0000 http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_267114542.html http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_267114542.html The new Field and Stream landed in my mailbox on Monday, and that’s normally a happy time, for I spend several hours perusing it after I get home in the evening on the days it arrives. Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:21:00 +0000 http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_264122207.html http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_264122207.html AMMAN, Jordan — “We live in a quiet house in a noisy neighborhood.” Our tour guide’s assessment aptly sums up the difference between his native Jordan and other countries in the Middle East, a difference created almost 15 years ago when Jordan signed the historic peace treaty with Israel. If Jordan’s neighbor to the north, Syria, ever hopes to benefit from a reduced-noise level, it will have to make peace as well, and the Obama administration needs to play a key role in that effort. Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:19:00 +0000 http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_264122057.html http://www.picayuneitem.com/columns/local_story_264122057.html It helps to read history. We know, or should, that American life shows us nothing like the social and political conniptions that Germany experienced in the 1920s, France in the 1790s and the United States in the 1850s.