Small Town Life and Values: The Latest Target of the Woke Mob

Having grown up in two small Kansas towns, I guess I should be distraught and maybe remorseful. Why? Because when an award-winning Country-Western singer writes a song about life and values in America’s ubiquitous small towns and is immediately attacked and canceled, he must have done something wrong, right? Wrong! Actually, all Jason Aldean did …

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Today’s Journalism: Experience & Honesty Not Required

Good journalism, somebody once said, is a nation talking to itself. That’s “talking to itself,” not yelling, screaming, shrieking, talking over one another, and generally engaging in verbal bullying. Yet that is just about all we see on prime-time television, especially cable television. Prime-time cable TV outlets such as Fox, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, etc., continue …

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The End of Affirmative Action: It’s About Time

During the 13 years that I was a professor, department head, and finally a college dean at the University of Illinois, I was always puzzled by the “unwritten rule” that guided admissions to the university in general and to my college in particular. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has finally ruled 6-3 that race-based …

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Father’s Day: A Lament

Yesterday was Father’s Day, and all over America, the concept of fatherhood was feted. Well, almost everywhere. There was that Angel Soft ad that ran a couple of years ago in which adults wish their single mothers a Happy Father’s Day. It’s bad enough that fathers have become so devalued in our society; why then …

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Tiananmen Square: A Massacre that Foretold China’s Intrinsic Treachery

As Washington passively watches China pursue political and military domination in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and now, apparently in Latin America, it’s clear to me that our leaders and Americans, in general, have short memories about how brutal the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can be. That’s one reason that every year on the …

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Thick Face, Black Heart: China’s Ruthless Warrior Strategy

In 1989 as I was covering the ill-fated occupation of Beijing’s sprawling Tiananmen Square by pro-democracy demonstrators, I bought a book entitled: “Thick Black Theory.” Of all the books I have read about China and the Chinese mind, this book by a Chinese scholar and politician named Li Zhongwu was the most revealing—and that includes …

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Is Ethical Journalism An Oxymoron?

Last week, in case you missed it, was “Ethics in Journalism Week,” sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists. As a journalist and a member of the SPJ myself, I naturally visited the SPJ’s website to see how it was commemorating this occasion. As expected, the site was bursting with platitudes about journalism and journalists. …

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