A Tribute to Tim Mackie

     The news program I watched was the Sunday Night 10 o'clock News on Channel Five.  I estimated commercials to take 8-12 minutes of this half hour program.  In the remaining 18-22 minutes approximately 2 minutes and 30 seconds could be considered creative and even these had negative overtones.  These stories included a two minute piece on children's safety tips in winter sports; and 30 seconds covering the Golden Globe Awards; the Queen's first time out in public since her accident and Prince Charles' people-meeting trip which has received no press coverage.      The rest of the show was filled with destructive stories ranging from the aftermath of the California earthquake to John Bobbit being sued by a woman who claims he fathered her child.   Some of the other stories included a woman who claimed she was kidnapped by the F.B.I. And threatened to keep quiet about her son's murder, of which she is a suspect; the Presiden...

THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER-Essay By George Orwell History      The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell was written in 1930 as propaganda fro the Socialist Party in England.   The book was written in two parts.   The first described urban oppression and the class conflicts in England.   In the second part George Orwell describes what he believes to be the problems with socialism.      In order to write the first part of his book, George Orwell went to live with the unemployed and working class of Northern England.   To begin with he stayed at a boarding house and described the place and the people there.      He describes the boarding house as being dirty, having a vile smell and horrible food, but also having a feeling of stagnant meaningless decay.   It was a regular house before it had become a boarding house and was run by a couple named Brookers.   The Brookers had received the or...

     Everyone has a story; not everyone has a story of hate.  Hate, that monstrous ugliness we all have the capacity to feel.  Hate is also the strongest word I know to describe one man.  Although I am not proud of my feelings I have my reasons for them.  When reading this story, you need to keep a couple of things in mind.  The first is a belief in GOD or at least an open mindedness about there being a GOD.  The second is the idea of personal honor, and that you get black marks fro GOD if you violate that honor.      It all began and ended the same day in a matter of hours, in the early evening around seven or so, on a Wednesday in October.   I was in the Marine Corps then and assigned to duty with the Provost Marshal's office on Camp Kinser Okinawa, Japan.   On this particular day, my squad had just gotten off from a horrible thirteen hour shift of duty.   Being a Wednesday, we still had to field d...

                                                                     Comparing                                                        King Oedipus , by Sophocles                                                                  ...

     For over forty years television has been a major part of American culture.  Throughout its history it has been plagued by people who want to control it and what the American public can watch on it.  It has come under attach several times in its history for the content of its programs.  In recent years this attack has been aimed at the violence depicted in television programs.  This attack has made it all the way up to Congress,where there are currently six bills on regulating television violence under consideration.      Three main bills being looked at in the Congress, they are the telecom bill, Sen. Fritz Holling's bill, and Byron Drogan's T.V. Violence report card act.   The telecom bill holds the acclaimed V chip (or violence chip) in it.   The V chip is a computer chip that reads encoded signals sent by broadcasters.   The signals are messages that tell the V chip the violence ratings of television p...

      “I give all this background information because I do not think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development.  His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in—at least this is true in tumultuous, revolutionary age like our own—but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape.”      I can't say that I truly have any early memories about writing.   That is to say, about putting words to paper or the process itself.   I am certain that I hated being forced to do it, which I'm certain I was.   I have since reasoned out that I hate it—and hated it because I am dyslexic.   I am not going to go into great detail about my dyslexia here, as the first piece in my portfolio, What the Monkey Said, is a semi-autobiographical piece expressing my thoughts on dyslexia.   It is enough to say that as a ...

     At twenty three, I was first introduced to Mark Twain. I was working in a Marine Corps mail room at the time.  It was a small mail room, both in size and operation, located in the general's building on MCB Camp Foster Okinawa, Japan.  There were only three of us who worked there on revolving shifts.  It was good duty, when you could get it, because you got a lot of time off and nobody bothered you when you were working.      We were allowed to read when the mail was slow, as long as we kept an eye on the window.   You had to make sure the people collecting mail didn't wait to long to be serviced.   One major always collected the mail for his office.   He was a tall man, around six feet, I would say in his forties, with a long face, and just enough gray to mark his age.   Outside of this he was indistinguishable from any other Marine, lean and straight as a board.   He came to the mail room everyday...