BEGINNERS & SENIORS GUIDE TO COMPUTERS

It used to be that the holiday-season ritual of talking to Santa most always meant a trip to the mall. But parents are now turning increasingly to commercial services that provide phone calls from a Santa who knows not only what is on the child's wish list but also the names of siblings, friends and teachers, favorite vacation spots and what was under the tree last year. It only costs about $10 for each phone call. Why don't we all have Santa call the White House to tell little Georgie that he's on the naughty list? It might sound something like this: "Hello? Is little Georgie Bush there? Oh, hi Georgie. This is Santa. No, this is not Karl Rove doing a phony phone call. I'd like to talk to you about your behavior this past year. You haven't been a very good boy, have you?" "For one thing, you don't play well with others, do you? There's that whole illegal war thing in that desert place. Why did you pick on those innocent people? You ...

A Circuit Court judge has been accused of having pornographic images on his work computer and using improper conduct toward two female lawyers. Brandt Downey, 60, habitually viewed pornography on his court-issued computer and had inappropriate contact and communications with female attorneys, the state Judicial Qualifications Commission said Tuesday. I bet he's naked under that robe. I wonder if any of the ladies walked in on him while he was "pounding his gavel".

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania - "Intelligent design" cannot be mentioned in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district, a federal judge said Tuesday, ruling in one of the biggest courtroom clashes on evolution since the 1925 Scopes trial. Dover Area School Board members violated the Constitution when they ordered that its biology curriculum must include the notion that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III said. Several members repeatedly lied to cover their motives even while professing religious beliefs, he said. Said the judge: "It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy." Text of the school's statement Text of the statement on "intelligent design" that Dover Area High School administrators have been r...

It's 1985. I'm driving home from my new job at 5:00 pm. While surfing down the dial I land on 92.3 FM K-Rock from New York City. Little did I know this was the beginning of a 20 year relationship with a nutty, neurotic and hilarious character named Howard Stern. My sense of humor has always been known to be off the wall and less than appropriate. Now I hear this guy saying everything I think is truly funny for four hours a day. Howard quickly moved to morning drive time and I looked forward to the daily commute and put a radio in my office so I could hear the entire show. Six years later, I came down with a life threatening illness where I was confined to a hospital bed for almost two months. It seriously affected my ability to walk, talk or feed myself. My wonderful wife-to-be asked if I needed anything. Without hesitation, I muttered "walkman". For four hours a day, Howard Stern took me away from my hospital bed and transported me to a wild world of wacky...

The cost of the "war" in Iraq will soon reach $500,000,000,000 (500 billion). George Bush thinks this is money well spent. He deemed it necessary to invade a sovereign nation that is proven to have no weopons of mass destruction, no ties to Osama Bin Laden, and no history of terrorism against us or anyone else. All Iraq does have is what Mr. Bush is really after - oil. But since Mr. Bush can't think.........of anything better to spend the money on, let's see if we can provide him with some ideas. Not too many though, we all know how confused he can get. $500 billion can provide: Salaries for 50,000 Head Start teachers for 232 years. Fund Meals on Wheels for 8,000,000 of our elderly for 35 years. $500 worth of clothes for 2,000,000 homeless people for the next 500 years. $5,000 worth of health care for 10,000,000 people for 10 years. Then there's the reinstatement of all the money George Bush has stolen from programs that deal with the environment, job programs...

The former Sept. 11 Commission accused George Bush of failing to protect the country against another attack. The panel cited poor airplane passenger screening methods, pork-barrel security funding and other problems due to the Bush administration not moving quickly enough to enact the majority of its recommendations of July 2004. Rather than disbanding like most federally appointed commissions when their terms expire, Committee Chairman Thomas Kean and the other nine commissioners continued their work as a private entity called the 9/11 Public Discourse Project. Wrapping up more than three years of investigations and hearings, the former commission issued what members said was their final assessment of the government's counterterror performance as a report card. It gave failing grades in five areas , and issued only one "A" — actually an A-minus — for the Bush administration's efforts to curb terrorist financing. A case in point - Mr. Bush's crack team placed a m...

Richard Pryor (1940-2005) I remember the first time I saw Richard Pryor. It was on the Merv Griffin Show in the 1960s. At the time, Bill Cosby was the funniest comedian around and this new guy was a very funny approximation of Cos. But you couldn't see the same conviction in the material. Flash forward to 1974. I'm in grad school and one of my roomates, Morris, a six foot three soft spoken black man going for his Masters Degree in Labor Relations, brings home this record for us to hear. It was "That Nigger's Crazy" by Richard Pryor. I had never heard anything like that before. We laughed so hard we almost threw up. After it was over, several questions came to me. Is it acceptable for a white man to laugh so hard at black humor? Would it be any funnier if I was black? In my opinion, there are only three comedians that are not only extremely funny but were brave enough to challenge the status quo and bring humor to the level that presently we all take for...

I posted this at the exact date and time John Lennon was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman. Being a child of the 60s, I experienced the life and death of many musical legends - Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Jones, Moon, Bonham - they touched me for a time and then I moved on. So why is it so different when I think of John Lennon? Why can I still listen to Jimi and Janis without a tear at my heart? It is impossible for me to hear a Lennon song or look at a photograph of John or watch "A Hard Day's Night" or "Help" without a chill, a lump, a tear. Anyone who can listen to "Imagine" without some kind of an emotional response must either have a heart of stone or be a republican. (I guess "republican" is redundant in this case). I think of how much more Bob Geldof and Bono could have accomplished with one of the greatest political activists of our time at their side. I know that John would have spoken to today's youth with the same conv...