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Columns

  • SOUDER: Living in a ‘no spin zone’

    The popular cable news and commentary program The O’Reilly Factor begins the same way every time it is aired. As the host looks into the camera, he points at the viewer and says, “Caution! You are about to enter the ‘no spin zone’!”

    Whether you are a fan of O’Reilly or not, you have to at least be sympathetic to his stated goal, which is to get to the real facts by cutting through all the political rhetoric, canned responses and misinformation that nearly all campaign speeches and most news programs have become.

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  • We need some mercy to stop this onslaught

    Would someone please enact a “mercy rule” for this presidential election game?

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  • Let’s recycle bikes for our kids

    One of the travesties of what has become of the modern Olympic Games that was not caused by programmers at NBC is the inclusion of BMX bicycle racing as a full-fledged medal sport.

    You know BMX, that’s when oversized children and underaged adults catapult themselves over hill and dale while riding bicycles too small for your 11-year-old.

    At the risk of sounding my age, why is this an Olympic sport? How does it rank with running, jumping, swimming, diving and moving balls around with hands, feet, heads and sticks? Which god on Mount Olympus thought of this?

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  • SOUDER: The intolerance of the tolerant: When Christianity became un-American

    No doubt you are aware of the recent brouhaha caused by the feverish reaction in the pro-gay rights community to comments made by Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy. In case you missed it, allow me to recap it for you.

    In an interview with Baptist Press and in response to question about his company’s support of families, Cathy made this seemingly harmless statement:

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  • Kindergarten is the first day of the rest of your life

    Dear Savannah:

    Wow, big day today. Little emotional around the house. Lots of lumps in throats, nervous smiles and anxious rushing around.

    You probably think the first day of kindergarten is all about you, but, well, it’s not. It’s all about everything.

    Because just like when your older brothers and sisters took this first small step on a seemingly endless walk along the path to education, it is overwhelming for those of us who love you and want that walk to be nothing but a dance through a rose garden.

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  • This is a 200th birthday for the soul

    In 1812, on a couple of acres of northwestern Shelby County, members of Dover Baptist Church first assembled and discussed heavenly guidance in the prairies of what was then the nation’s western environs. Kentucky was only 20 years a state, and the congregation surely must have prayed for divine intervention in its growth and the safety of its settlers.

    This Sunday, that 200th birthday will be celebrated at Dover, and a lot of folks I know will be there – most notably, I predict, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. They are always there.

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  • Is there any way to make sense of all that killing?

    A guy buys weapons that Marines typically use. He stockpiles more ammo than the National Guard Armory. He applies his advanced intellect to build a lethal mousetrap in the apartment building where he lives.

    Then he dons armor and opens fire with as semi-automatic assault rifle, killing a dozen people and almost 58 more who are sitting calmly and happily watching the latest episode of Batman at a big-screen movie complex.

    That would seem more like a movie plot within a plot, wouldn’t it?

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  • Shelby will have its day in new basketball hall-of-fame

    Here’s what I heard a man saying on talk radio this morning. He was talking about the new high school basketball hall of fame that is being constructed in Elizabethtown. He was moaning – my word – about how Fairdale High School had no one in the first induction class.

    He spoke about how the school dominated boys basketball during the late 1980s and ‘90s – which it did – and then he said,  “We had two or three guys who went on to play Division I. We should have someone in there.”

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  • SOUDER: Going up or going down?

    No doubt you have had the experience of standing outside an elevator and had someone ask you, “Going up?” or conversely, “Going down?” The point of the question, obviously, is to give you an opportunity to get on that particular elevator if it is going the direction in which you wish to go.

    It is always important to know which way an elevator is going (and which way you want to go on it), but an even more important question to consider is this: As a society, are we going up or going down?

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  • How did Andy Griffith have such an impact on so many of us?

    In the eight awful days since God summoned angel Andy Griffith to the top of Mount Pilot and told him his baritone was needed among the heavenly hosts, I have read perhaps 10,000 words, watched about six hours of episodes, introduced a neophyte to What It Was Was Football and immersed in countless Internet comments about how this sole and soulful if sadly unacclaimed actor possibly could have risen to be an icon for two generations.

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