Can’t Have it Both Ways

By Louis Avallone – To “have one’s cake and eat it too” is a popular figure of speech, intended to illustrate, of course, the futility of consuming a thing, while attempting to still preserve it. Or, to express it another way, “you can’t have it both ways”. Of course, that still doesn’t keep some folks […]

Debate Not Hate

By Louis Avallone – As this election season draws to a close, there are some who might say that America today is more polarized than at any time in its history. And this goes behind the mere partisan disagreements, or bickering, regarding taxes, healthcare, immigration, education, or even more fundamentally, the role of government itself. […]

Debate of Ideas

By Louis Avallone – Poll after poll, before the first Presidential debate on October 3, was all concluding the same: Obama would win the debates. In fact, just 2 days before the first debate, an ABC News/Washington Post national poll indicated that 55% of likely voters agreed that Obama would win that first debate, with […]

Distracted Voting

By Louis Avallone – It is estimated that 400,000 people annually are injured in motor vehicle accidents involving a distracted driver. In fact, distracted driving is estimated to kill over 3,000 people each year. And according to the federal government, distracted driving is “any activity that could divert a person’s attention away from the primary […]

Tell Me Lies

By Louis Avallone – Will Rogers once said, “If you ever injected truth into politics, you have no politics.” Unfortunately, he may be right. Of course, lies also have a devastating effect on others. Some psychologists explain that most folks lie because they believe they won’t be accepted by others – if they tell the […]

American Spirit

By Louis Avallone – HITTING THE ROAD The road. Most people just want to get the show on the road. That’s usually where the rubber meets the road. Of course, it has often been said that, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”. And the American poet Robert Frost […]

Forward?

By Louis Avallone – The President’s slogan for his 2012 campaign is “FORWARD.” Well, I’m sure he and his handlers hope that this message might invoke thoughts of progress towards a brighter tomorrow, especially for a country where so many still see America, in the spirited words of Ronald Reagan, as that “shining city upon […]

Obamacare

By Louis Avallone – It would be easy to write about the Supreme Court’s historic, unprecedented decision to extend federal power last month by sanctioning “Obamacare,” or socialized medicine, for 300 million Americans, or the Court’s determination that funding this law represents a “tax” on American citizens, and not a “penalty.” We could talk about […]

Flawed

By Louis Avallone – Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” Oscar Wilde surmised that, “Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.” And Murphy’s Law cautions, “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained […]

Principles and Politics

By Louis Avallone – My 7th grade teacher at St. Joseph’s School, Ms. Belanger, taught us an easy way to remember how to spell “principle” and I’ve never forgotten it. Actually, she taught me how to spell “principle” by distinguishing it from “principal,” with who’s spelling of “principle” is often confused (because both words sound […]