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June 8, 2020

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Okay, if you had been my next door neighbor, you could have pointed over to the yard and said, "Look at that grown man gathering sticks." Excuse me; I don't have the kind of a boring life where I just go around gathering sticks all the time. It's for a purpose. We put all those sticks into this kindling box in the garage, and then we happen to like having a fire in our fireplace. And I learned that the basic old Boy Scout law that you've got to have kindling to get a fire going. It's true!

May 20, 2020

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If you're a baseball fan, it seems like winter is going to last forever. Then you hear those wonderful words: "Opening Day!" Snowballs turn to fast balls, and you're happy again. You know, over the last years, one of the great stars in baseball has been Albert Pujols, who for many years made records on St. Louis Cardinals. And he has had some great seasons, acknowledged by many to be one of baseball's all-time greats.

May 19, 2020

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Sadly it seems to be in every summer's headlines - fires raging in the West. Millions of acres destroyed by fires that can range for weeks on end; fires that bring a lot of bad news. But, you know, fires like these aren't all bad news. Now, there's no doubt they cause tremendous damage, but over the long haul, they also can produce a lot of new life. Somehow, nature renews itself with fire - a lot of old and dead stuff is burned away, new vegetation begins to grow, and new life actually begins to spring up.

May 11, 2020

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My wife and I had the chance to visit this Civil War battlefield at Vicksburg, Mississippi. I asked her if she had any firsthand memories of the war that she wanted to share with me, which almost started another battle at Vicksburg. President Lincoln had called Vicksburg the "key" to the Confederacy and he told his generals, "We do not yet have the key in our pocket." Standing on high cliffs overlooking the Mississippi, it was a daunting challenge for the Union Army. For more than a year there were bombardments from the river and the many hills. There were numerous clashes on land. And at the end, it was a siege that actually drove Vicksburg's residents to live in caves. Everywhere we drove, there were markers indicating Union and Confederate regiments that had battled it out for the hills all around the city. Some of the bloodiest fighting took place as Northern forces mounted bold attacks on the Southern strongholds which were atop the highest points. As in so many battles, the fight for the high ground helped determine the outcome of the battle.

May 1, 2020

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People in the real estate business will tell you that three things really matter when it comes to the value of any property: location, location, and location. Apparently, the President's White House team believes that, too. After the re-election of Bill Clinton many years ago, "Newsweek" actually described the efforts of various officials to get the best office spaces at the White House. I guess it happens with every administration. But I liked the title, "The Geography of Power." So what makes an office at the White House a good office? Well, if you had a choice about your office, you'd probably want the one with windows and plenty of space. But that's not what matters most in the White House office scramble. It's how close are you to the Oval Office! You've got to be near the President! Right? The way they put it is this - "proximity is power." Uh-huh, it is.

April 29, 2020

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It would have to be near the top of the list of one of the most memorable commercials of all times. It actually goes back to the 1980s. Anybody who was around then will remember this commercial. See, there are men who sit in ad offices all day long, struggling to come up with that million dollar slogan that will impress the nation. Well, there was one that was on everyone's lips back then; three haunting words: "Where's the beef?"

April 28, 2020

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Hanna lives in coal country so she's been around miners a lot. Being in youth ministry for years I've been around minors a lot too. Oh wait, that's a different kind; it's spelled differently. But Hanna and a friend of mine were talking recently about the mines and the miners and a surprising fact came out. Hanna said the most common cause of death among those coal miners was electrocution. She said they live in a real remote area and the mining operation was pretty old and relatively primitive. So there were sometimes problems with the wiring in the mine, and miners actually getting electrocuted. What compounds the problem is that the nearest doctor is many miles away, which led Hanna to ask the doctor one time if there was anything the local folks could do to help while they're waiting for the doctor to arrive. She was surprised by the doctor's answer. "Well, there is one thing. Hug the injured miner." Well, obviously Hanna wanted to know why. He said, "When people are about to go into shock, there is something about a hug, about human touch - about human tenderness."

April 23, 2020

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The phone rang in my study. I thought my wife was asleep at the other end of the house. Even though I was really preoccupied with what I was writing, I answered the phone so it wouldn't disturb her. A guy named Mike said hello and he started explaining his special offer related to satellite TV. I wasn't interested, and I tried to tell him that. He just kept talking. I was just starting to tell him no a little more forcefully when I heard a little giggle on the phone. My wife was awake; she had picked up the extension. That's when I woke up! I hate to tell you this. I was talking to a recording. Feeling stupid now! Click.

April 2, 2020

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We saw it a few years ago. Boy, in one weekend, it was like a string of corporate meltdowns. And when that happens, Wall Street gets a very bad case of the jitters. I mean, when you suddenly discover that a major company that we thought was doing well was actually in big trouble, it doesn't exactly inspire investor confidence. In some cases, some have some shall we say unusually "creative accounting." And it can, for a while, conceal how bad things are. Of course, the fundamentals of financial viability, they don't ever change. Your outgo and your income, your losses and your gains have to at least balance. That's why you look at your checkbook. And it's management's job to, of course, be sure that they do balance.

April 1, 2020

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It's no secret that we live in a pretty dangerous world. And one of the reasons for that is there's an awful lot of people with an awful lot of missiles. I remember when there was this one superpower other than us that had the power to do a lot of destructive things with missiles. And today there's a proliferation and many countries have nuclear capability. It seems like more are on the way. And out of that came the idea of a new kind of missile, an anti-missile missile. And the idea there is that we can launch a defensive missile to pre-empt and destroy an incoming enemy missile. Well, if we've got to live in that kind of a world, that sounds like a good idea to me.

                

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P.O. Box 400
Harrison, AR 72602-0400

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