Curtis Dahlgren column
Curtis Dahlgren is semi-retired in the frozen tundra of Michigan's U.P., and is the author of "Massey-Harris 101." His career has had some rough similarities to one of his favorite writers, Ferrar Fenton. In the intro to The Fenton Bible, Fenton said:
"I was in '53 a young student in a course of education for an entirely literary career, but with a wider basis of study than is usual. . . . In commerce my life has been passed. . . . Indeed, I hold my commercial experience to have been my most important field of education, divinely prepared to fit me to be a competent translator of the Bible, for it taught me what men are and upon what motives they act, and by what influences they are controlled. Had I, on the other hand, lived the life of a Collegiate Professor, shut up in the narrow walls of a library, I consider that I should have had my knowledge of mankind so confined to glancing through a 'peep-hole' as to make me totally unfit for [my life's work]."
In 1971-72 Curtis did some writing for the Badger Herald and he is listed as a University of Wisconsin-Madison "alumnus" (loosely speaking, along with a few other drop-outs including John Muir, Charles Lindbergh, Frank Lloyd Wright and Dick Cheney). [He writes humor, too.]
"I was in '53 a young student in a course of education for an entirely literary career, but with a wider basis of study than is usual. . . . In commerce my life has been passed. . . . Indeed, I hold my commercial experience to have been my most important field of education, divinely prepared to fit me to be a competent translator of the Bible, for it taught me what men are and upon what motives they act, and by what influences they are controlled. Had I, on the other hand, lived the life of a Collegiate Professor, shut up in the narrow walls of a library, I consider that I should have had my knowledge of mankind so confined to glancing through a 'peep-hole' as to make me totally unfit for [my life's work]."
In 1971-72 Curtis did some writing for the Badger Herald and he is listed as a University of Wisconsin-Madison "alumnus" (loosely speaking, along with a few other drop-outs including John Muir, Charles Lindbergh, Frank Lloyd Wright and Dick Cheney). [He writes humor, too.]
Subscribe to Curtis's columnCurtis Dahlgren
January 11, 2012
"I shouldn't say I'm a vegetarian because I love sweets." — LaToya Jackson (the "365 Stupidest Things Ever Said" calendar (January 10, 2007)
RESOLVING . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 31, 2011
"What raised us to the present happy state? How did we accomplish the Revolution? . . . The Government has been in the hands of the people . . . Had the people . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 29, 2011
"Great Danes are just, like, so great, aren't they? They're just, like, big dogs! I know! Yeah, yeah. Great Danes are great. OMG, they just so are!" — . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 23, 2011
The President's "tax cut": This is the 'GREAT Society'? Or Grinch City?
"As I see it, everyone's troubles began because of the tax cut the President . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 22, 2011
"It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg if a man says there is no God or 20 gods." — Thomas Jefferson
"The diversity crowd doesn't really . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 15, 2011
"Whether it's the best of times or the worst of times, it's the only time we've got. . . . You can't make anything up anymore. The world itself is a satire. All . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 10, 2011
MURRAY and Art Buchwald were boyhood heroes of mine, and I once wrote an imaginary interview between Abe Lincoln and Andy Rooney (the latter interviewing the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 4, 2011
"Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continued . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 26, 2011
"We were always subject to pressure from the cause people . . from women, or militants, or college groups. If I had it to do all over again, I'd learn to tell . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 19, 2011
"[T]here is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 10, 2011
"Herman Cain has spent his life living and working all over the country . . but never in Chicago. So it's curious that all the sexual harassment allegations . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 5, 2011
"Economics is about 5 percent money and 95 percent psuychology." — C. Dahlgren, www.renewamerica.com/columns/dahlgren/110908
THAT WAS A TYPO, BUT . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 27, 2011
"In the youth of a state arms do flourish; in the middle age of a state, learning; and then both of them for a time; in the declining age of a state, mechanical . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 21, 2011
"How can this man know letters, having never learned? . . . Can anything good come out of Samaria?" — The Bible
There are some sentences that should . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 14, 2011
"Every rod and staff of empire is truly crooked at the top." — Bacon
"THE WORDS OF AMOS, who was among the herdsmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 30, 2011
"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can not fool all the people all of the time." — Abraham . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 20, 2011
"From Lake Superior's southern shore to the Door County peninsula, the vast pinestral forests of the north woods give off an exhilarating scent that spells . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 15, 2011
"Finding good quotations isn't hard, but setting them in a certain order is something else." — Ecclesiastes 12 (paraphrased)
"Man exploits man. Under . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 8, 2011
EVERY HEAD IN THE ESTABLISHMENT TURNED, when the tall dark stranger came in the door. Because it was a Friday night, every stool at the bar was occupied except . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 3, 2011
"Had I . . . lived the life of a Collegiate Professor, shut up in the narrow walls of a library, I consider that I should have had my knowledge of mankind so . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 26, 2011
"Send me men to match my mountains." — inscription on State Capitol complex in Sacramento
THOSE KINDS OF MEN SEEM TO BE MISSING IN AMERICA THESE DAYS, . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 18, 2011
"Many men are like unto sausages: Whatever you stuff them with, that they will bear in them." — Alex Tolstoy (1817-1875)
"There is nothing so ignorant . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 12, 2011
Shoot if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country's flag, she said.
- John Greenleaf Whittier (1863), on a 90-year-old Maryland woman who stared . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 6, 2011
"This is a sit-com of the insane. I don't think God's writing this anymore, becaise God is not cruel, and this is getting beyond insanity." — Rush . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 31, 2011
"I have often thought and written that if the United States were ever to have a Caesar, a true subverter of the state, 1) he would attract to himself all the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 23, 2011
"To my mind the power possessed and exercised by the bureaucrats in Washington represents the most dangerous situation in America . If the wrong man should come . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 16, 2011
"The clueless media, in pursuit of the scare du jour, so us a nasty disservice by focusing on the wrong things. Because of the constant parade of frightening . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 10, 2011
"There are real problems in the world. The media ought to focus on them." — John Stossel ("Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity")
"Cast the net on the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 3, 2011
"The gap between Americans who want to govern themselves and politicians who want to rule over them may be as big today as the gap between the colonies and . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 26, 2011
"Student radicals behaved like feral beasts not only because of the group dynamic of a crowd, but because they had no criticism." — Ann Coulter, re 1960s . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 19, 2011
"Among the antiquated institutions which had to be abolished as obstuctions to real progress were, religion, family life, private property [etc[ . . Religion . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 9, 2011
"If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." — Herb Stein, economist
RADICALS IN MADISON ARE PARTYING LIKE THERE'S S'NO TOMORROW (and the way the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 28, 2011
The splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 18, 2011
"Despite what some in the press may say, we who are proud to call ourselves 'conservative' are not a minority of a minority party; we are part of the great . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 10, 2011
"During Bush's term, gas prices went down 9 percent, adjusted for inflation. Yet, preposterously, he was excoriated for allegedly colluding with 'big oil' to . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 29, 2011
"Pravda nyet izvestia; izvestia neyt pravda" ['News isn't truth; truth isn't news': popular saying in the old USSR]
BRACE YOURSELF. A huge disinformation . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 22, 2011
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." — Voltaire (1694-1778)
THAT IS "SO 18TH CENTURY," EH? So trite. . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 13, 2011
"Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good." — Thomas Sowell
. . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 8, 2011
"Democrats can recover from the disappointments of [the 2010] election and set the stage for success in 2012. But to do so we must learn from Tuesday's results . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 2, 2011
"Then those who feared the Lord spoke often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him [for/of] those . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 30, 2011
". . . O brave new world,
That has such people in it."
— William Shakespeare
"Do you think the laws of God will be suspended in favor of England . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 25, 2011
"This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid follow the truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 18, 2011
"More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of . . .
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers." — Lord Tennyson
"PRAY" IS A 4-LETTER WORD TO . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 16, 2011
"This is a Pearl Harbor moment for Wisconsin." — Democrat state senator (re Walker reforms)
The East bowed down before the blast,
In patient, deep . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 13, 2011
"If there is no God, what makes the next Kleenex pop out?" — anonymous
"If God allows such things to happen, He must be cruel." — anonymous
. . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 10, 2011
"I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all means . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 6, 2011
"The cost of electricity will necessarily skyrocket." — B. Oboma (2008)
"I DON'T RECOGNIZE THE U.P.," wrote a pen pal of mine. I laughed and said that . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 1, 2011
"YOU'RE FLIPPING DEAD."- Wisconsin legislator (D, Oshkosh) to fellow legislator (R, Oshkosh) upon Assembly passage of the Budget Repair bill [paraphrased, of . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 23, 2011
"A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious, but it cannot survive treason from within . . . the traitor moves amongst those rustling through the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 15, 2011
"Ronald Reagan would have a hard time getting elected as a Republican today." — Sen. Lindsay Graham
TAKE THE BLM, THE LBM, AND MLB, PLEASE. Major . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 9, 2011
"My father, Walter, who now resides in heaven, always imparted to me, 'Greatness lies in your ability to overcome.'" — Michael Irvin
THIS IS A GOOD . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 6, 2011
"I don't like them fellas that drive in two runs and let in three." — Casey Stengel
I am the Captain of the Pinafore,
And a right good Captain too! . . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 1, 2011
Once more the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And domes the red-plowed hills
With loving blue;
The black birds have their wills . . [etc]
— . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 25, 2011
"Moral considerations make up three quarters of the game: the relative balance of manpower accounts for only for the remaining quarter." — Napoleon I (176 . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 21, 2011
"Our time is now." — President Reagan
[In view of the weather and other distractions, I am reposting a column from last October.]
EVERY HEAD IN THE . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 11, 2011
"In those countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarcely call anything else his own. Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation, . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 5, 2011
"It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth." — John Locke (1632-1664)
"Christianity is . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 24, 2010
"New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed without any other reason but because they are not already common . . . [but]
"All men are liable to . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 21, 2010
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."
- P.J O'Rourke
TIS THE SEASON OF GIVING, SO — I'm going to . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 14, 2010
God is dead, the professors said,
At least the God of Judgment.
But an atheist's laugh is a poor exchange
For a Deity offended [and
Consequences . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 5, 2010
O the games people play now,
Every night and every day now!
— Joe South
MR. PRESIDENT, PLS LISTEN TO YOUR PEOPLE, NOT YOUR "MARXIST PROFESSORS"! As . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 27, 2010
[According to the Rasmussen poll, only 54 percent of today's Americans agree that "Thanksgiving is one of our most important holidays." Groundhog Day probably . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 21, 2010
"It cannot in the opinion of His Majesty's Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 14, 2010
"IF THE VERY OLD WILL REMEMBER, THE VERY YOUNG WILL LISTEN." — Native American saying (Chief Dan George)
I'm very old. I can remember the 1960s, sorry . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 7, 2010
"If the very old will remember, the very young will listen." — Native American saying
MAYBE IT WAS AN OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCE. It was a stormy night and . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 2, 2010
STRANGE HEADLINES AND HAPPENINGS (PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE):
Detroit (ESPN)- "Lions beat Washington on eve of elections."
Washington (AP)- "GOP defies . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 31, 2010
"If the very old will remember, the very young will listen." — Chief Dan George
HALLOWEEN ON SUNDAY AND ELECTION DAY ON TUESDAY? Two out of three ain't . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 26, 2010
CHOOSING THE BEST LIBERAL QUOTATIONS OF ALL TIME ISN'T EASY, but here goes nothing:
"The era of big government is over." — Wm. Jefferson Blythe . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 19, 2010
"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." — Hamilton Fish (American statesman)
"It is unfortunate, . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 12, 2010
"Do not take Freedom for granted. It can be taken in a minute." — Michael Savage (author of best-seller "Trickle Up Poverty")
"I thought there was . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 2, 2010
"Our time is now." — President Reagan
EVERY HEAD IN THE ESTABLISHMENT TURNED, when the tall dark stranger came in the door. Because it was a Friday . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 27, 2010
"These are the times that try men's souls." — T. Paine
[Note: I'm taking the week off with a gathering of friends in Wisconsin Dells. I'm giving the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 17, 2010
"I have found a great hunger in America for a spiritual revival; for a belief that law must be based on a Higher Law; for a return to traditions and values that . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 10, 2010
"The border is as secure as it's ever been." — Janet Reno-Napolitano
"If you can't give me your word of honor, will you give me your promise?" — Sam Goldwyn
. . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 2, 2010
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again." — Thomas Paine, c. 1774
IT'S NO SECRET THAT OUR PRESIDENT WANTS TO "REMAKE" AMERICA (in a less . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 26, 2010
"With the impulsiveness of youth and the recklessness of inexperience, the students went in this direction [revolution] much farther than their elders, and . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 18, 2010
"As fiercely as ever he had arraigned the royal tyrant in the past, Patrick Henry denounced the presidential tyrant of the future, who would take the field at . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 14, 2010
"Send me men to match my mountains." — inscription on State Capitol complex in Sacramento
THOSE KINDS OF MEN SEEM TO BE FLEEING CALIFORNIA THESE DAYS. As a . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 7, 2010
"Many men are like unto sausages: Whatever you stuff them with, that they will bear in them." — Alexi Tolstoy (1817-1875)
"There is nothing so ignorant as . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 31, 2010
"The thing that was done shall be done again; there's nothing new under the sun." — Solomon (977 BC)
"All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 28, 2010
"New estimates from the White House on Friday predict that the budget deficit will reach a record $1.47 trillion this year. The government is borrowing 41 cents . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 25, 2010
"One of the misfortunes of our time is that in getting rid of false shame, we have killed off so much real shame as well." — Louis Kronenberger (1904-80)
A . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 18, 2010
"Man exploits man. Under Communism, it's just the opposite." — Russian saying
THAT HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF IS NOT JUST A CLICHE. For students of history, it's . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 8, 2010
"We are again engaged in a great civil war, a cultural war that's about to hijack your birthright to think and say what resides in your heart . . I serve as a . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 30, 2010
"What's this country coming to?" — Senator Robert Byrd
SOME KIDS BORN IN 1980 ARE ALREADY "GRAND" PARENTS. A school board in Massachusetts evidently thinks . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 19, 2010
"We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and . . . Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 14, 2010
"Reaganism and masculinity go together. In this course we will examine the relationships between popular conceptions of masculinity and [take a breath] . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 5, 2010
"I am not influenced by the expectation of promotion or pecuniary reward. I wish to be useful, and every kind of service necessary for the public good, become . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 29, 2010
"Welcome to the real world." — someone once said
EVER SINCE THE FIRST DAY YOU ENTERED 4-YEAR-OLD KINDERGARTEN, you have been given the impression that you . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 22, 2010
"The real enemy of clear thinking is the script. We think the world is supposed to go by a familiar plot. And when the facts conflict with the script, we edit . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 15, 2010
"To educate a [person] in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society." — Theodore Roosevelt
MORALITY INCLUDES HONESTY IN ECONOMICS AND OTHER . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 6, 2010
"The border is as secure as it's ever been." — Janet Reno-Napolitano
"If you can't give me your word of honor, will you give me your promise?" — Sam Goldwyn
. . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 25, 2010
"Strive to be the greatest man in your country, and you may be disappointed. Strive to be the best and you may succeed: he may well win the race who runs by . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 16, 2010
"We cannot continue to rely only on our military . . we've got to have a civilian security force just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded. We . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 12, 2010
"I can live with the robber barons, but how do you live with these pathological radicals?" — Daniel Patrick Moynihan
"Our traditional two party system has . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 5, 2010
"It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in [the Constitution] a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 27, 2010
"It's not that our liberal friends are ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." — Ronald Reagan
MEMO TO THE PROFESSOR-IN-CHIEF, IF I . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 25, 2010
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 22, 2010
JUST DON'T CELEBRATE TOO HARD JUST YET; America had already told you "no," and now, like yer momma, she's gonna say that "No" means "NOOOO!" The President says . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 17, 2010
"HOWDY," said George, with a smile.
Yes, I'm sure it was him. I've been to Mt. Rushmore you know. Several times, in fact. I knew it was him, but I tried to . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 13, 2010
"When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat." — R. Reagan
"Put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite; don't desire the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 7, 2010
" . . . And the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them." — Jeremiah
Tom Fenton was one of the most experienced correspondents in the history . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 2, 2010
"At twenty years of age, the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment." — Ben Franklin (1706-1790)
THE COMING CULTURE WAR WILL BE BETWEEN . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 24, 2010
"What I do say is, that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 22, 2010
"I'm so tired of hearing how smart the Founding Fathers were!" — Fred Kessler (Wisconsin state legislator)
EVERY GENERATION SUPPOSES THAT IT IS MORE . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 15, 2010
"Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored — contrivances such as groping for some . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 10, 2010
"We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-face and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 2, 2010
"Even Napoleon had his Watergate." — Yogi Berra
YOU CAN'T FOOL ALL THE PEOPLE ALL THE TIME. But they certainly CAN HOPE, can't they? Babe Ruth was once asked . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 28, 2010
"Do you suffer from toenail fungus?" — radio commercial
I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START. The last two weeks have been byond parody. We were supposed to be in the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 24, 2010
"For the first time [in my lifetime], I'm proud of Massachusetts." — Rush Limbaugh
Dad:
Kids, listen up; your mother and I have been talking, and guess . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 18, 2010
"I have a dream that America will rise to greatness, again. But before that dream is realized, we've got to recall what freedom means. We've got to understand . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 12, 2010
"All of us in the Senate live in an iron lung — the iron lung of politics — and it is no easy task to emerge from that rarified atmosphere in order to breathe . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 6, 2010
"The Left claims the Right is anti-intellectual.. Thomas Sowell shows there's a good reason for being so — without being anti-intelligence, anti-facts, or anti . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 29, 2009
"Environmental alarms have been screeching for so long that, like car alarms, they are now just irritating background noise." — N.Y. Times (3/12/05) www . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 22, 2009
"Possessing a chosen country . . acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensation proves that It delights in the happiness of . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 17, 2009
"I can't be responsible for every under-capitalized company in America." — Hillary Clinton (on HillaryCare)
"There is a 75 percent chance that the Arctic ice . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 11, 2009
"Never think that you've seen the last of anything." — Eudora Welty, UW '29 ("The Optimist's Daughter"; 1969)
"A nation that is morally dead will soon be . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 10, 2009
Is health care "reform" making you sick to your stomach?
Is the Climategate fraud driving you to drink?
Are the Liberals giving you irritable bowel . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 2, 2009
"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 25, 2009
"Beware the fury of a patient man." — John Dryden (1631-1700)
" . . when men set themselves to cultivate skill in disputation, regarding the matter discussed . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 20, 2009
"SNOB originally meant a 'shoemaker.' Cambridge University students of the late 18th century took it as a slang term for a 'townsman, not a member of the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 16, 2009
"GM reports $1.2 Billion loss; consumer 'sentiment' declines 'unexpectedly'"? — news headline
AS IF THINGS WEREN'T BAD ENOUGH ALREADY, another headline this . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 13, 2009
". . that eternal want of pence, which vexes public men . . "
This is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 10, 2009
"Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish the dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 6, 2009
"It cannot in the opinion of His Majesty's Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 1, 2009
"The diversity crowd doesn't really believe in diversity. In fact, what they're really aiming for is conformity of opinion." — Linda Chavez (06/05/09)
www . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 28, 2009
"THIS know also . . perilous times shall come, for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous . . ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 23, 2009
"Over-specialized elites often can't tell the difference between a wave and a RIP tide." — C.D. http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/dahlgren/090325
"'There . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 18, 2009
"When you come to a fork in the road [to the left, DON'T] take it." — Yogi Berra [paraphrased]
CANDIDATE OBAMA PROMISED THE MOST TRANSPARENT ADMINISTRATION . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 12, 2009
"The left believes in 'experts.' The liberal is bowled over by the title 'Nobel laureate.' The conservative is more likely to wonder why a Nobel laureate in . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 6, 2009
"Hugo Chavez is trying to do for all of Latin America, you know, they've been trying to do it for years . . to eliminate poverty." — Barbara Walters, 3/16/07 . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 26, 2009
"The bulk of the intellectual community almost automatically favors any expansion of government power so long as it is advertised as a way to protect . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 19, 2009
"Just report the news; don't encourage it." — 1960s complaint about the media
"Don't encourage the news, but at least report it, PLEASE!" — 2009 complaint
. . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 9, 2009
"Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them b y enlightening them. . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 5, 2009
"To the Law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them; and they [shall be] hungry, and it shall . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 2, 2009
"If our government is not going to hold our taxpayer-supported academic institutions accountable, then we must." — Chuck Norris ("Black Belt Patriotism")
. . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 24, 2009
"There is nothing so ignorant as the educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in." — Will Rogers
WHEN I WAS ADMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 16, 2009
"There must be something wrong with the universal education [that] has made men the victims of charlatans in every field of human activity." — Dr. Arthur Voobus . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 8, 2009
"Broadcast television characters are almost three times as likely to have sex with a child, an animal or a corpse than with a spouse, a study released Tuesday . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 5, 2009
"Are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Younger parents aren't sure that . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 1, 2009
"When Obama calls it 'end-of-life care,' what he really means is 'end of care' . . . Tony Soprano has taken over the government, and the private sector is an . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 25, 2009
"There is more of the fool in human nature than of the wise . . . It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty . . . There is a superstition in . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 20, 2009
"We know we spend a huge amount of money that last year of life. More and more people are gonna say, I don't want people poking tubes, and, you know, uh, doing . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 14, 2009
"Charles de Gaulle not only memorized the answers he gave at press conferences, but required questioners to memorize the questions he gave them to ask him." — . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 6, 2009
"The state cannot pay its bills, poorly educates its young, and its taxation punishes whatever success that its suffocating regulatory regime does not prevent." . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 1, 2009
"He may live without hope, — what is hope but deceiving?" — Owen Meredith (Earl of Lytton; 1831-1891)
"Genius does what it must, and talent does what it can . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 24, 2009
"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there." — Yogi Berra
I SAW A BUMPER STICKER THAT SAID, "I . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 20, 2009
"I never liked anyone who didn't have a temper. If you don't have any temper, you don't have any passion." — Michael Bloomberg (2002)
TODAY IS JUNE 20TH, THE . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 12, 2009
"One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship." — George Orwell
WE . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 8, 2009
"The diversity crowd doesn't really believe in diversity. In fact, what they're really aiming for is conformity of opinion." — Linda Chavez (06/05/09)
LINDA . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 2, 2009
"Based solely on a far-Left agenda that includes a plan to control worldwide energy production, the climate change hysteria movement has jumped the shark."
— . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 26, 2009
"Global warming may not be such a new thing — or, at least, that's what some UW climatologists suspect. A study by Stephen Vavrus, John Kutzbach, and Gwenaelle . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 19, 2009
"What it looks like is going to happen is that Libby and . . Rove are going to be executed . . . I don't know how I feel about it because I'm basically against . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 10, 2009
"Nothing doth more hurt in a state than when the cunning men pass for wise . . . Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper." — Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
. . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 3, 2009
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." — George Orwell
IT'S THE SECOND DAY OF MAY, AND OUR . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 25, 2009
"I owe these unions . . When they call me, I try to call them right back. I don't mind feeling obligated." — Barack Obama ("Audacity of Hope")
THAT ONE . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 20, 2009
". . you may decide that I've been right about what I've been saying in this column for the last six years. And why I often feel like an alien in a strange land . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 16, 2009
"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy, because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation."
. . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 11, 2009
". . I have seen such selfishness and littleness even in New England, that I sometimes tremble to think that, although we are engaged in the best cause that . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 4, 2009
"It is peculiarly fit for us to recognize the hand of God in this terrible visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults and crimes as a nation and . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 1, 2009
"The people who were first in line to promote the sexual 'revolution' of the 60s and 70s ['stay out of our bedroom'] are the same people who are now acting like . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 25, 2009
"There is no shortage of lawyers in Washington, DC. In fact, there may be more lawyers than people." - Sandra Day O'Connor
THE COUNTY I GREW UP IN HAD MORE . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 20, 2009
"Paradoxically, the people who like say that public servants are "all alike," and "they're all crooks," are the very same people who now want politicians to . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 16, 2009
"For years we have been shushed like children, and told that there are no simple answers." — President Reagan
IT'S TIME FOR CHRISTIANS TO STOP GOING TO THE . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 13, 2009
"We will bury you." — Nikita Khrushchev (September 17, 1959)
"Behold, the people are one, and they have one language, and this they begin to do; and now . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 10, 2009
"The loss of lives that might have otherwise been creatively lived scars the mind of the civilized world." — General Dwight D. Eisenhower (on WW2 "casualties")
. . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 5, 2009
"I would venture to say that the students at [Monica] Goodling's law school at Regent University are far more impressive than those at the Cornell agriculture . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 1, 2009
"A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 24, 2009
"It is now life, and not art, that requires the willing suspension of disbelief." — Lionel Trilling
WE YOOPERS WEREN'T BORN YESTERDAY. We know that there's . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 17, 2009
". . the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 12, 2009
"If any man at this day sincerely believes that proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbids the Federal Government . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 9, 2009
"The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind." — Nigel Calder, International . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 4, 2009
"HOW COLD DO YOU WANT IT?" — Jim Ott (Wisconsin legislator, retired weatherman)
IT'S SO COLD IN SOUTH DAKOTA, Tom Daschle can't afford to pay his income . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 31, 2009
"Chatham heart-sick of his country's shame." — William Cowper (1731-1800)
"Necessity [desperation] is the plea [excuse] for every infringement of human . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 27, 2009
"Reality is just a crutch for people who can't deal with drugs." — Lily Tomlin
"Hollywood is where if you don't have happiness, you send out for it." — Rex . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 24, 2009
"History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 20, 2009
"I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothes the grass, which today is in the field and tomorrow . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 16, 2009
"The spark from heaven falls. Who picks it up? The crowd? Never. The individual? Always . . .
"It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 11, 2009
"For all we have and are,
For all our children's fate,
Stand up and take the war.
The Hun is at the gate! . . .
"It's North you may run to the rime-ringed . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 3, 2009
"Do good, O Lord, unto those who be good, and to those who are upright in their hearts." — King David
"Liberals seen to have hit upon a reverse Christ story . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 22, 2008
'I'm already sick of winter, and we have nine days to go before it officially begins.' — resident of Portland, Maine (12/12/08)
FROM PORTLAND, OREGON TO . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 11, 2008
"Politicians will never have a fear of the Constitution in a nation where the people never have a fear of their Creator." — author unknown
THIS MAY BE MY . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 9, 2008
[This is an excerpt from "Unapologetic elitists and other kleptomaniacs" (with some flavoring added) http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/dahlgren/081124 ]
. . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 5, 2008
"The function of liberal Republicans is to shoot the wounded after battle." — Senator Eugene McCarthy
BARRY GOLDWATER RECOMMENDED SAWING OFF THE EASTERN . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 27, 2008
"A society needs only one generation to abandon . . its culture, for that culture to become an alien, lifeless irrelevance . . [and] the cultural . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 24, 2008
THE OTHER NIGHT, from cares exempt,
I slept — and what do you think I dreamt?
I dreamt that somehow I had come
To dwell in Topsy-Turveydom! -
Where vice is . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 20, 2008
"Do not become a beggar by banqueting on borrowing." — Ecclesiasticas (Apocrypha)
"Magna est veritas et praevalet" ("Great is truth and it prevails.") — . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 15, 2008
For all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
— John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)
"Patriotism is as much a virtue as . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 7, 2008
"I don't care if the cat is black or white — as long as it's a good mouser." — author unknown
PRESIDENT BUSH'S DOG BIT A REPORTER, RIGHT AFTER THE ELECTION. . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 3, 2008
'It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace . . [that] Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 29, 2008
"A gripping story of character and courage: character passed down from generation to generation by sterling examples of family bonds and devotion to duty; . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 25, 2008
"The most important human endeavor is striving for morality in our actions. Morality is what gives beauty and dignity to life. Following our animal instincts is . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 11, 2008
"The only ones who make things change are fanatics." — Cesar Chavez
"If you lie with dogs, you will rise with fleas." — Abraham Lincoln
FIRST, A FEW WORDS . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 8, 2008
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." — Yogi Berra
COMING EVENTS ALWAYS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE. Most Americans know that we are on the brink of . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 4, 2008
"We have beaten the business cycle." — President Clinton (199?)
SARAH PALIN DID A NICE JOB (MAYBE TOO "NICE"?). So much for being McCain's "attack dog." But . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 23, 2008
"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is." — Yogi Berra
IT'S CALLED "UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES." How many times . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 17, 2008
"O Sleep, why dost thou leave me?
Why thy visionary joys remove?" — William Congreve (1670-1729)
"Alas-ka? ALAS-ka?! Where's the reality in Alas-ka?" — . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 12, 2008
OUR "PROGRESSIVE" LIBERALS AND MODERATES KEEP SHOOTING THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT. Their pundits and apologists keep piling on Sarah Palin precipitously, to their . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 10, 2008
"Our opponents keep saying that drilling will not solve all of America's energy problems — as if we didn't already know that." — Sarah Palin
STRANGEST . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 3, 2008
"Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper." — Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
"The trouble with our age is all signpost and no destination." — Louis . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 31, 2008
"Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid." - Ronald Reagan
TO AN AUDIENCE OF 40 MILLIONS, Barack Obama said, "We must pledge once more to march into the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 22, 2008
"Send me men to match my mountains." — inscription of one of the buildings at the State Capitol complex in Sacramento, California
THOSE KINDS OF MEN SEEM TO . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 14, 2008
"It is HE that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are like grasshoppers." — Isaiah
TO HEAR THEM TELL THE STORY, the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 31, 2008
"You wondered whether . . the worst enemies of civilization might not prove to be its petted intellectuals who attack it at its weakest moments — attacked it in . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 19, 2008
"Depression is simply anger without enthusiasm." — author unknown
TO COMPLETELY SUPPRESS ANGER IS TO SUPPRESS GRIEF (and everyone knows that's not a good . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 4, 2008
"Too often, character assassination has replaced debate in principle in Washington DC. Destroy someone's reputation and you don't have to talk about what he . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 25, 2008
TWENTY-SIX YEARS AGO, THE SCOTUS RULED that a non-denominational prayer used in public schools in New York state was "unconstitutional." On such an occasion as . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 17, 2008
[copy of letter to the San Francisco Chronicle]
Dear Editor:
Talk about bullying and "discrimination": Hillbillies who marry cousins have been taunted and . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 12, 2008
"Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid."
- Ronald Reagan (quoted by Monica Crowley on the Laura Ingraham Show)
I KNEW MY PREVIOUS COLUMN WAS A BIT . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 28, 2008
"The prophets prophecy falsely, and my people love to have it so; what will you do in the end thereof? . . . When I had fed them to the full, they committed . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 11, 2008
"A wise son makes a glad father; but a foolish man despises his mother. Folly is a joy to him who is destitute of wisdom." — Solomon (Proverbs 15:20-21)
WHEN . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 29, 2008
"How can people who are so stupid be so dominant?" — Rush Limbaugh
OUR PUBLIC EDUC-RATS ARE GOOD AT ONE THING: PRODUCING ROBOTS. Actually, the "graduates" of . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 31, 2008
[This column is an excerpt from the Prologue to my new book, the title of which is a take-off on Sam Harris' "Letter to a Christian Nation."]
This book is . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 8, 2008
"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can not fool all the people all of the time." — Abraham Lincoln . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 20, 2008
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 8, 2008
"The past is never dead. It's not even past." — William Faulkner
"What is past is prologue." — William Shakespeare
"WE HALF CREATE WHAT WE HALF PERCEIVE," . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 5, 2008
"Anyone who will tear down sports will tear down America. Sports and religion have made America what it is today." — Woody Hayes
GOD SAVE THE UNDERDOG. LONG . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 29, 2008
[This column is actually an excerpt from my new book.]
"The press is a little like the blackbirds in the fall — one flies off the telephone wire, the others . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 23, 2008
"I would hold McClellan's horse if that would bring us victories." — Abraham Lincoln
THREE LIFE LESSONS THAT SPORTS CAN TEACH YOU:
1) You can be defeated . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 13, 2008
"Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." — Vince Lombardi
CHALK UP A W FOR THE OLD MAN AND THE KIDS. The youngest team in the NFL with one of the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 3, 2008
[This is the second draft of my Introduction to "Academia, Please Look Up, the case for Traditional Values."]
Father in Heaven, who lovest all,
Oh, help thy . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 22, 2007
[I plan on publishing my second book soon, and this is the rough draft of its Introduction.] -
"I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 18, 2007
"Above this race of [lay]men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 11, 2007
"The results were not what the prophets of liberation had envisioned . . Instead of being freed from the oppressive bonds of the past, [man] found himself alone . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 5, 2007
"There is a superstition in avoiding superstition." — Francis Bacon
"ONLY WHEN RELIGIOUS EXTREMISTS SUCH AS YOU ARE WIPED FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH will . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 30, 2007
"Books will speak plain when counselors blanche."
THERE BE [SOME WHO] CAN PACK THE CARDS AND YET CANNOT PLAY WELL; so there are some that are good in . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 21, 2007
"A society needs only one generation to abandon . . its culture, for that culture to become an alien, lifeless irrelevance . . [and] the cultural . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 14, 2007
"You wondered whether . . the worst enemies of civilization might not prove to be its petted intellectuals who attack it at its weakest moments — attacked it in . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 6, 2007
"Your adversary is your friend. Look to your own family for your first lawsuit." — Harvard law professor
HAVING TROUBLE SLEEPING? THIS COLUMN IS A TRANSITION . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 29, 2007
"So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot." — George Orwell
I CAN NOW SAY THAT I'VE BEEN TO . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 16, 2007
COMMON SENSE IS NOT THEIR BAG. RATIONALITY IS NOT THEIR FORTE. I'm talking about the lefties who dominate "higher" education. They've never had a day's worth of . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 6, 2007
By education most have been misled;
So they believe, because they so were bred.
- John Dryden (1631-1700)
THE ANCIENT GREEKS SPENT THEIR TIME SEEKING . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 21, 2007
"A child of 5 could understand this. Someone go fetch a child of five." — Groucho
P.S. DON'T YOU JUST HATE POST SCRIPTS AT THE END OF OPINION PIECES? That's . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 11, 2007
"If San Francisco values produce the policy and cultural norms for this country, it probably would take a fascist government to overcome the slide, so it's to . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 24, 2007
Nihilism, n.; 1) total rejection of value statements or moral judgments, 2) absolute destructiveness toward the world at large and oneself [nothingness].
IF . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 16, 2007
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." — Saul of Tarsus
THE WORD-FOR-THE-DAY, boys and girls, is nihilism. Webster says, "1. total rejection . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 9, 2007
"Too often, character assassination has replaced debate in principle in Washington DC. Destroy someone's reputation and you don't have to talk about what he . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 3, 2007
"Man without God is a beast, and never more beastly than when he is most intelligent about his beastliness." — Whittaker Chambers
EDWARD GIBBON (1737-94) . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 27, 2007
"Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one." — Earl of . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 18, 2007
"Without God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the conscience . . . America needs God more than God needs America. If we ever forget that we . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 10, 2007
"Where are your checks in this [pre-Bill of Rights] Government? Your strong holds will be in the hands of your [political] enemies: it is on a supposition that . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 3, 2007
THE SOVIET GULAG WAS "A COUNTRY WITHIN A COUNTRY," says Anne Applebaum, "almost a separate civilization." ["GULAG, A HISTORY]
America has its own version of . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 22, 2007
THEY CALL THEMSELVES "PROGRESSIVES." THEY CALL THEMSELVES SECULAR. They don't like to be called "social liberals" or even "economic Liberals. They don't like it . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 17, 2007
"The personality of [Fidel Castro] is overpowering. It was easy to see that his men adored him . . . " — Herbert Matthews, New York Times (1957)
"By the way, . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 9, 2007
"For so is the will of God, that with well-doing you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, not using your freedom as an excuse for maliciousness, but . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 1, 2007
"The much-vaunted Senate 'compromise' on immigration is a compromise alright: a compromise of our laws, a compromise of our sovereignty, and a compromise of the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 25, 2007
"I was burned once in 1986 when I voted for amnesty believing that it would solve our problems. Now, we have a 12 million illegal immigrant problem. I'm not . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 22, 2007
"History repeats itself — first as tragedy and then as farce." — Karl Marx
RUSSIA WAS THE TRAGEDY; CUBA WAS THE FARCE; NOW WE HAVE MEXICAMICA. A riddle:
. . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 19, 2007
"This morning my thoughts go to her who gave me many things in life, but her most important gift was the happiness and solace to be gained in prayer." — Ronald . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 10, 2007
"This country is a blessed nation." — Tony Blair
"The more ingrates we acquire, the less blessed we become." — CD
THE CHOSEN "COLUMN-OF-THE-WEEK" COMES . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 5, 2007
"The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through." . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 27, 2007
"HO HO HO, HO CHI MINH; DARE TO FIGHT AND DARE TO WIN!" — 1960s hippies
EVEN IF AN ACT OF CONGRESS COULD SAVE US, THIS AIN'T IT. I'm talking about the Pelosi . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 19, 2007
"Thank God for the rich people because the poor people don't have any money." — Otto Nathaniel Dahlgren [my grandpa]
THE VIRGINIA SHOOTER'S DEMON DIDN'T CARE . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 13, 2007
"Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 5, 2007
"I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within." . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 30, 2007
"America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 24, 2007
"Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily." — Shakespeare
PRUDE, n; A FINE THING OF A WOMAN [Dictionary of Word Origins, John Ayto]
I like Olde English, . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 17, 2007
"Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people." — Oscar Wilde (1856-1900)
"The function of socialism is to raise . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 10, 2007
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." — Oscar Wilde (1856-1900)
MAN IS A CREATURE WHO LIVES NOT UPON BREAD ALONE, BUT . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 1, 2007
"Socialism only works in heaven, where they don't need it, and in hell where they already have it." — Ronald Reagan
LITTLE JOHNNY, A SECOND GRADER, ACED HIS . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 23, 2007
"How long before they start blaming global warming for the decomposition of Anna Nicole's body?" — Charlie Sykes (www.620wtmj.com) 2/22/07
THAT'S NOT THE . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 17, 2007
"When put like this, the concept of using brain-damaged humans for HIV research makes sense." — Katrina Fox (reporter interviewing Peter Singer)
IF A TREE . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 10, 2007
"The philosophy of the classroom today is the philosophy of government tomorrow."
— attrib. to Abraham Lincoln
"Houston, we have a problem." — Apollo 13
. . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 2, 2007
"opiate, n., anything that soothes or dulls the mind." — Webster
"Socialism is the opiate of the People; it kills brain cells." — (I just made that up)
. . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 27, 2007
"Fear makes the wolf appear larger than he is." — old German proverb
STILL FEARING THE ANTIQUE PRINT AND BROADCAST MEDIA, many politicians boast of being . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 20, 2007
"The sky is falling." — Chicken Little
FROM WINNEMUCCA TO RUNAMOKA DC, 2007 HAS STARTED AUSPICIOUSLY. As Art Buchwald might have said, what is that funny . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 12, 2007
"Apparently there are limits to 'oral history.' For example, most people would prefer to be descendants of a former president, rather than, say, descendants of . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 6, 2007
TRY TO IMAGINE THE INAUGURATION OF A MAN ACCEPTABLE TO HOLLYWOOD — sort of a cross between Rocky Balboa and a "Rock star" — using the outline of Jefferson's . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 4, 2007
"possessing a chosen country . . . acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence . . . " — Thomas Jefferson on America (first inaugural address)
Friends . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 28, 2006
"It is a great mistake to learn from history. There is nothing to learn from history." — Shimon Peres (May 23, 1996)
"The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 21, 2006
"Are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Younger parents aren't sure that . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 16, 2006
"It will take an Act of God to save us." — Michael Savage
I'VE BEEN FIGHTING THE COLD-FROM-HELL THIS WEEK, so in an effort to conserve energy, I'm turning my . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 8, 2006
"A consensus is when we agree to say in public what none of us would say in private." — Abba Eben
IF WE GIVE AWAY THE FARM IN JERUSALEM, FORGET ABOUT IT!
. . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 30, 2006
"As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them." — Isaiah
NO OFFENSE TO SAN FRAN NAN, BUT HAVE YOU BEEN SLEEPING WELL LATELY? I . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 22, 2006
"Americans will always do the right thing . . after they've exhausted all the alternatives." — unknown (from UP magazine)
THE WORD-FOR-THE-DAY, BOYS AND . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 14, 2006
"A hallmark of modern liberal theology is that the search for truth is more important than the truth itself. 'Searching for truth' is an existential delight, . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 9, 2006
"Once the public coffers of the federal government are opened to the public, there will be no shutting them again." — President Grover Cleveland
IT TOOK ME . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 5, 2006
"Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because America was too strong." — President Ronald Reagan
IN THE INSPIRED WORDS OF THE APOSTLE PETER: "For . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 2, 2006
"The Founding Fathers believed that faith in God was key to our becoming a great nation." — President Reagan
IN OBSERVATION OF THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF THE . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 27, 2006
"What do I know?" — Michel de Montaigne
"Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will." — Ben Stein
I WOULD LOVE TO BE A FLY-ON-THE . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 21, 2006
THE COLUMN OF THE WEEK WAS BY TONY BLANKLEY ("Conservatives Will Regret Putting Dems in Power"). www.realclearpolitics.com With "Halloween" approaching, the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 2, 2006
"The ultimate determinant in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas — a trial of spiritual resolve. . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 23, 2006
"The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Eternal and against His anointed . . . " — Psalm 2
DON'T TRY THIS . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 17, 2006
"If we're going to win the pennant, we're going to have to start thinking we're not as good as we think we are." — Casey Stengel
THE GOOD NEWS IS, THERE IS . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 8, 2006
"Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one." — Earl of . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 4, 2006
"I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it." — Garrison Keillor
LAST WEEK'S COLUMN BY YOURS TRULY WAS A BIT DARK — in the attempt to . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 30, 2006
I KNOW WHERE BABIES COME FROM, but from whence do columns arise? Some weeks it's a great mystery. I woke up a bit groggy this morning, and while pouring my . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 27, 2006
"O Lord, grant us a faith that keeps us, not a faith we have to keep." — author unknown
THE "PASTOR" who wrote that prayer must have gone to the Karl Marx . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 20, 2006
"Secularism n.; ethical doctrine which advocates a moral code independent of all religious considerations or practices." — Webster
OUR SEXAGENARIAN HIPPIES . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 9, 2006
"These are the times that try men's souls." —T. Paine
"KING GEORGE III of England eventually went mad. You'd probably go mad too if your mighty army had been . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 4, 2006
"When parents send their children off to college, mom and dad [a no-no term in California textbooks] hope they'll return more cultivated, knowledgeable, and . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 28, 2006
"The Lord shall laugh, for He shall see that His DAY is coming." — Psalms 37:13
IT STARTED OUT INNOCENTLY ENOUGH. I began to 'think' at cocktail parties now . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 23, 2006
"Those who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either one being made." — Reader's Digest
IT WAS JUST ANOTHER HO-HUM WEEK. Tiger Woods won the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 18, 2006
Unborn baby: "Mommy, Mommy — what does abortion have to do with the 'Right to Privacy'?"
Mommy: "Shut up and leave me and your father ALONE!"
Baby (a few . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 7, 2006
"Oh isn't it strange? Oh isn't it -----?" — old song running through my head
THIS MORNING'S HEADLINES ARE A MIXED BAG. Reuters is optimistic: "Bin Laden . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 30, 2006
"The ultimate determinant in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas — a trial of spiritual resolve. . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 25, 2006
"The left believes in 'experts.' The liberal is bowled over by the title 'Nobel laureate.' The conservative is more likely to wonder why a Nobel laureate in . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 18, 2006
"Man without God is a beast, and never more beastly than when he is most intelligent about his beastliness." — Whittaker Chambers
EDWARD GIBBON (1737-94) . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 7, 2006
"We are aged children, or sprightly oldsters. Our Founders are close by, and they cast long shadows." — Richard Brookhiser ("What Would the Founders Do?")
IF . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 2, 2006
"Honey, I've never taken up with a congressman in my life. I'm such a snob, I've never gone below the Senate." — Barbara Howar
WYOMING WAS THE FIRST STATE TO . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 28, 2006
"To innovate is not to reform." — Edmund Burke
"EVER SINCE THE FIRST DAY YOU ENTERED 4-YEAR-OLD KINDERGARTEN, you have been given the impression that you are . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 19, 2006
"Given their track record, we have no reason to trust the administration or the political elites of either party when it comes to border security. Their first . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 13, 2006
"If the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court . . the people . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 7, 2006
"I have a dream." — Martin Luther King, Jr.
[Two years ago today, I posted the epilogue for my book. The message is more on target than ever. The following is . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 28, 2006
Jeremiad, n. A tale of woe, grief or despair; a lament over wickedness or degeneracy; often used sarcastically. — Funk & Wagnalls, 1938
IT IS NOT A CLOSELY . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 21, 2006
"The superior man knows what is right. The inferior man knows what sells. Now if we could only figure out how to do both." — old Chinese proverb (paraphrased)
. . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 13, 2006
"By night an atheist half believes a God."
"A fool at forty is a fool indeed."
"A God all mercy, is a God unjust." — Edward Young (1683-1765)
ILLEGAL . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 6, 2006
"Successful candidates [for professorships] must take all the right prerequisites, such as 'post-colonial literature' . . . " — CD [3/24/06]
"WHAT IN THE . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 31, 2006
"Sleeping Pill Competition May Spur Ad War" — AP headline
YOU KNOW IT'S BEEN A ROUGH MONTH WHEN the chemical companies launch a blitzkrieg on insomnia. One . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 24, 2006
"FIRE leaders say universities often can't defend in public the policies they adopt in the shadowed, ivory halls of academia." — Dave Eberhart (Newsmax magazine . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 16, 2006
"Remember March, the ides of March remember." — Shakespeare (1564-1616)
MARCH IS NAMED AFTER THE GOD OF WAR, MARS. Many wars have begun in March, and even . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 10, 2006
"Colleges keep complaining that students are coming to them unprepared. Instead of raising admissions standards, however, they keep accepting mediocre students . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 3, 2006
"Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one." — Earl of . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 24, 2006
"Sometimes a man must rise above principle." — Senator Everett Dierksen
DIERKSEN WAS BEING FACETIOUS, I THINK, but was President Bush being serious when he . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 18, 2006
"To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad . . . " —James
"They have provoked me to anger with their vanities, and I will . . provoke them to anger . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 10, 2006
"Reaganism and masculinity go together. In this course we will examine the relationships between popular conceptions of masculinity and [take a breath] . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 5, 2006
Dear Father, Lord of sea and land,
We know that Thou art wise;
Oh, make the nations understand
That only by Thy guiding hand
Can splendid peace arise.
— John . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 29, 2006
"Western civilization would not be the first to reshape others in its own image, only to discover that it had lost the identity, confidence, and will to survive . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 23, 2006
"The world doesn't owe you a living. It was here first." — Mark Twain
IDEALLY, BOTH JUSTICE AND EQUALITY SHOULD BE BLIND — regardless of the 64 colors in the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 17, 2006
"Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of a battle." — author unknown
"Your adversary is your friend. Look to your own family . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 12, 2006
"Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement." — President Reagan
I LIKED JUDGE "ALIOTO'S" OPENING STATEMENT, BUT PERSONALLY I wish he . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 7, 2006
"Tears are often the telescopes through which men see far into heaven." — Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887)
"Read the best books first, or you may not have a . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 3, 2006
By the waters of Babylon, there we wept and there sat down;
They required of us there the Eternal's songs, but how could we sing, by the waters of Babylon? — . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 29, 2005
"The ultimate determinant in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas — a trial of spiritual resolve. . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 25, 2005
"I've never let schooling interfere with my education." — Mark Twain
ANIMALS DON'T HAVE INTELLECTUALS, SO THEY SELDOM EAT THEIR YOUNG (and they never . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 15, 2005
"No man who worships education has got the best out of education . . . Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete." — G.K. . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 8, 2005
"Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." — Daniel
TO HEAR THEM TELL THE STORY, the intellectuals rode into town on a white charger and . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 27, 2005
"Never trust anyone over the age of 90." — new slogan of the 60-year-old hippies
"Life isn't 'dog eat dog'; it's 'dog eat dog food.'" — the owner of Marmaduke, . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 19, 2005
"Behold 'tis the mild idealists who plan our Social Revolutions
And the brutal realists who turn them into executions;
And the first ones on their lists are the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 10, 2005
"What's the Matter With Kansas?" — book title
IF YOU THINK THAT RAP MUSIC IS "AWESOME," but you've never heard the corn grow, sorry about that.
If you think . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 4, 2005
"We have all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million [keyboards] would eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 28, 2005
The Court [has said], it is your constitutional right . . . When I say the decision was made in a sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided Court, by a bare . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 14, 2005
"The idea was to create an impression that a mass movement was afoot — that everywhere Congress looked, . . . everywhere, people were talking about . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 8, 2005
"Indeed, all of what we observe in the mirror of recent history about political leadership recalls day-flies warming themselves in the autumnal sunshine without . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 29, 2005
"This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down." — my computer, a few minutes ago
I GOT UP AT 3 A.M. TO WRITE THIS COLUMN, because it's . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 21, 2005
"The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: 'that God governs in the affairs of men.'" --Benjamin Franklin
"May we think of freedom, . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 12, 2005
"God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this planting." — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ("The Courtship of Miles Standish")
IT'S A MONDAY MORNING. A . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 3, 2005
NEW ORLEANS IS GONE, BUT AT LEAST WE GOT THOSE 10 COMMANDMENTS OUT OF EVERY COURTHOUSE IN THE LAND. Now we can focus on getting "Under God" out of the Pledge of . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 27, 2005
"I don't know what sort of president he'd make. He talks and talks and talks. He'd make a helluva wife." — Groucho Marx, on Hubert Humphrey
SENATORS NEVER SEEM . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 19, 2005
"If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind; but our primary consideration would be to take . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 13, 2005
"Cowardice asks the question — is it safe? Vanity asks the question — is it popular? . . But Conscience asks the question — is it right? There comes a time when . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 6, 2005
"They are without excuse." — Saul of Tarsus
SIXTY YEARS AGO TODAY, WWII unofficially came to an end. My dad obtained one of the last "Massey-Harris 101 Jr.'s" . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 31, 2005
"I believe that God in shedding His grace on this country has always in this divine scheme of things kept an eye on our land and guided it as a promised land." . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 25, 2005
"We meant to change a nation, and instead, we changed a world." — Ronald Reagan (farewell to the nation)
IF CHANGING A NATION CAN CHANGE A WORLD, CANNOT . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 16, 2005
"The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 9, 2005
"Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse." — Timothy
"There is a homely old adage which runs: 'Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.' If . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 3, 2005
"Some trust in chariots, and some in [war]horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God." — a Psalm of David
WE MUST HAVE FALLEN THROUGH A BUNNY . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 15, 2005
"Behold 'tis the mild idealists who plan our Social Revolutions
And the brutal realists who turn them into executions;
And the first ones on their lists are the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 3, 2005
"Only God can save us." — Michael Savage (6/4/05), www.620wtmj.com
JOHN BOLTON FOR PRESIDENT.
I have a shag rug under my living room computer desk. It's not a . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 27, 2005
"Welcome to the real world." — someone once said
EVER SINCE THE FIRST DAY YOU ENTERED 4-YEAR-OLD KINDERGARTEN, you have been given the impression that you are . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 18, 2005
"There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous." — Napoleon I (1812, after the retreat from Moscow)
"The sublime and the ridiculous are often so . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 11, 2005
"We half create what we half perceive." — William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM ENDS WITH A QUESTION MARK — FOR A REASON. In a paradoxical way, . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 2, 2005
"To innovate is not to reform." — Edmund Burke
"I INHERITED A GREAT COUNTRY; you worry whether we'll leave it that way." So said Rush Limbaugh while Terri . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 27, 2005
"People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors." — Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
BURKE IS ONE OF THOSE "ANCESTORS" WE NEED . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 14, 2005
"Accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a lady, but a newspaper can always print a retraction." — Adlai Stevenson
"WHAT IS THIS WORLD BECOMING TO?" my . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 7, 2005
"When he started talking about innate differences in aptitude between men and women, I just couldn't breathe." — Nancy Hopkins (MIT biology professor)
"We live . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 2, 2005
"If someone is one step ahead of everyone else, he's a leader. If someone is two steps ahead of everyone else, he's a 'crackpot.'" — Michael Savage
NO MORE . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
Curtis Dahlgren
March 21, 2005
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace,
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face . . .
— William Cowper
THE OTHER DAY I . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 9, 2005
"Sometimes you don't know if you're Caesar about to cross the Rubicon or Captain Queeg cutting your own tow line." — Justice Anthony Kennedy (1992)
THE HIGH . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 5, 2005
Oh, laugh or mourn with me the rueful jest,
A cassock'd huntsman and a fiddling priest . . .
Himself a wand'rer from the narrow way,
[Their] silly sheep, what . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 28, 2005
"A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies." —Oscar Wilde
"MIGHT AS WELL CAST A LITTLE LIGHT ON THE SUBJECT," my dad used to say, when he turned . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 23, 2005
FAR BE IT FROM ME TO GUESS HIS REASONS, but one of the leaders of the Rolling Stone generation has decided to "move"! Hunter Thompson.
In the Wizard of Id (2/1 . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 19, 2005
"Come now, and let us reason together . . . " — President L.B. Johnson's favorite scripture
I WAS GOING TO TITLE THIS "RAMBLING THOUGHTS," but points to . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 12, 2005
"The trouble with your President is, that he is so afraid of doing something wrong." — citizen to Lincoln's aides, upon being turned down for a favor
THE LAST . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 10, 2005
IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT President Clinton knew that he was going to be reelected the moment he heard that the Federal Building in Oklahoma City had been blown up . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 6, 2005
DID YOU KNOW THAT ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS KILLED BY AN INDIAN? Did you know that the Lincoln family came over on the Mayflower? Did you know that Lincoln's mother . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 1, 2005
"A commander must learn to live with frustration, interference, irritation, disappointment, and criticism, as long as he can be sure they do not contribute to . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 28, 2005
"Posterity — you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it." — John Quincy Adams
ONCE . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 23, 2005
"The past is never dead. It's not even past." — William Faulkner (1951)
"America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 17, 2005
"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant. It's just that they know so much that isn't so." — Ronald Reagan
THE UNIVERSITY OF . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 12, 2005
"God forgives; man sometimes forgives; nature never forgives." — author unknown
"I remember when our whole island was shaken with an earthquake some years ago, . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 1, 2005
"If there is no God, what makes the next Kleenex pop out?" — anonymous
"If God allows such things to happen, He must be cruel." — anonymous
"non sequitur, n; . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 24, 2004
I'll stand beside the keeper of the inn,
Challenging those who charge him with the sin
That let the Child be born within his stable.
He did the best, I say, . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 23, 2004
"To instruct in a doctrine or ideology, especially a partisan or sectarian dogma; to imbue with religious or political dogmas." — Webster's definition of . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 19, 2004
"They mean whatever I want them to mean." — the Queen of Hearts (on words)
"But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 13, 2004
"Man without God is a beast, and never more beastly than when he is most intelligent about his beastliness." — Whittaker Chambers
I'M BEING A BIT RETROSPECTIVE . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 4, 2004
"Politics is a choice of comrades . . . My personal odyssey has given me much less respect for intellectuals. I respect street smarts." — David Horowitz
"Yet . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 25, 2004
"The Boy Genius, as W. calls him . . . is happy to crush the liberal elites inspired by Kennedy's New Frontier under the steamroller of 19th-century family . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 22, 2004
MARK TWAIN WOULD PROBABLY SAY, "Although the domestic news sounded bad last week, it was NOT exaggerated!"
The late Jim Murray would have said, probably: "THE . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 18, 2004
"All love scenes started on the set are continued in the dressing room." — Alfred Hitchcock [and some are started in the locker room of the Eagles]
THE DAY . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 15, 2004
"What's WRONG with you people?" — Wisconsin State Journal cartoon (an anonymous voice in Madison, shouting toward 16 "red" states across the Mississippi)
FROM . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 8, 2004
"Congratulations. Tomas de Torquemada, the Spanish Inquisition's inquisitor-general, would be proud. We live in a country where the winning coalition is made up . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 30, 2004
"There isn't much 'difference' between BAZAAR and BIZARRE, but it pays to know what it is." — CD
MANY PEOPLE SAY, "THEY'RE ALL ALIKE (politicians), so "it . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 26, 2004
"Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul." — Marilyn Monroe
ABBIE HOFFMAN IS THE ONE WHO SAID . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 25, 2004
"With campaign promises dropping like autumn leaves, I can't refrain any longer." — Ronald Reagan, 1993 Op Ed on Clinton in the New York Times
HISTORY REPEATS . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 18, 2004
"It seems to me a mistake to generalize people. They've been generalized so much — 'the middle class,' 'the kids' — that a very odd thing has happened: they . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 14, 2004
"I can get a better grasp of what is going on in the world from one good Washington dinner party than from all the background information NBC piles on my desk." . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 27, 2004
"The day when the network commentators and even the gentlemen of the New York Times enjoyed a form of diplomatic immunity . . . is over." — Spiro T. Agnew . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 20, 2004
"For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told that there are no simple answers." — Ronald Reagan
AN ANALOGY IS WORTH 100,000 WORDS. . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 11, 2004
"Imagine." —the Beatles
TO CELEBRATE ONE YEAR OF WRITING COLUMNS, I'm writing the shortest one in the world today:
Imagine Michael Moore in the Lincoln . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 27, 2004
"I can live with the robber barons, but how do you live with these pathological radicals?" — Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
"Revolution is the festival of the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 18, 2004
"What is past is prologue." — Shakespeare (engraved on the National Archives building)
IF OUR NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER WERE CAUGHT RED-HANDED stuffing her bra . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
August 11, 2004
"And most of all, let us remember that being an American means remembering another loyalty, a loyalty as, the hymn puts it, 'to another country I have heard of, . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 26, 2004
"NOW, THEREFORE, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 23, 2004
I AM WRITING THIS COLUMN "INADVERTENTLY." Pardon me in advance, but if anyone were to be "offended" by this, I will just call it an "honest mistake" or . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
July 7, 2004
"After the Nazi Holocaust, it was charged that those who knew what was happening (great men among them) failed to halt the slaughter . . . Nothing in . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 26, 2004
"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first steps into a . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
June 2, 2004
"Above this race of [lay]men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 22, 2004
"It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks on the contrary to keep them in . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 7, 2004
"I have a dream." — Martin Luther King, Jr.
OUR FOUNDING FATHERS HAD A DREAM, TOO. But how much "life" is left in their dream? The acronym for "I have a dream" . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 5, 2004
"I have somewhat to say unto thee." —Jesus
SOMETIMES THE "CHOIR" NEEDS SOME PREACHIN', TOO. One thing I'm sure the Almighty could say to most of us is: "What . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
May 1, 2004
"Regular people helped to build this country too, you know." —Curtis (the comic strip, 4/30/04)
GIVEN THE LUXURY of being able to conclude this book whenever I . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
April 13, 2004
"Happy birthday, Thomas Jefferson." —CD
FROM THE DARK AGES to the "Enlightenment" and "Romanticism" to Existentialism and beyond, this old world keeps . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 30, 2004
"Let there be light." —God
I CAN'T WAIT for the general Resurrection. I have 100,000 questions for Charles Darwin. Did the means of sexual reproduction . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
March 19, 2004
"Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever; for wisdom and might are His; He changes the times and the seasons: He removes kings and sets up kings." —Daniel
. . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 29, 2004
"The time is right . . Eat leaden death, Imperialistic reactionary business administration majors." —"SDS," Vol. 1, no. 2 (Students for a Democratic Society, 19 . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 21, 2004
"An elective despotism is not the government we fought for." —Thomas Jefferson
"What is truth?" —Pontius Pilate
"What is IS?" —President Clinton
"Whatever!" . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 11, 2004
". . . appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions . . . " —John Hancock, et al
IT'S A "MYSTERY" TO HER, says Senator . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
February 3, 2004
"Right or wrong, God judge me not man. For be my motive good or bad, of one thing I am sure . . . lasting condemnation." —John Wilkes Booth (letter to President . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 28, 2004
"History is more or less bunk." — Henry Ford
Let's play "What's My Line?" Contestant #1 says, "My name is Tom Jefferson and I was a Deist." Contestant #2 says . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 20, 2004
"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you." —Pericles, 430 B.C.
JUST ASK THE "CITIZENS" OF . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 16, 2004
"Man is a creature who lives, not upon bread alone, but principally by catchwords." — Robert Louis Stevenson
SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS are probably offended by . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 10, 2004
"If I say, I will speak thus and such, behold, I should 'offend' the generation of thy children." — King David
YOU GET THE PICTURE: so-called "political . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
January 2, 2004
"Never look back." —Satchel Paige
"Unless there's a runner on second base." —Curtis Dahlgren
When the clock struck 12 on new year's eve, where was your mind . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 26, 2003
"Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot."
— Alexis de Tocqueville
IN "THE END OF HISTORY," an OpEd, Lynn Cheney said, "Imagine an outline for . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 11, 2003
Unborn baby: "Mommy, Mommy — what does abortion have to do with the 'Right to Privacy'?"
Mommy: "Shut up and leave me and your father ALONE!"
Baby (a few . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
December 3, 2003
We live in the age of "safe sin" in which anything and everything is tolerated except "intolerance" and anger. I once had the pleasure of attending an "anger . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 20, 2003
"From the heart come evil thanks."
— Old English translation of Matthew 15:19
Nothing throws new light on a subject like discovering the ancient origins of a . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 14, 2003
I tried to e-mail my last column to the Los Angeles Times and their computer sent it back as pornographic. By the way, in the column before that, I said that . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
November 4, 2003
"May we, like the Great Burden Bearer, tactfully enter into and share the needs of others. . . . May we remember that kind words can never die."— A.E. . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 27, 2003
"These are farmers, the Common Clay of the Old West — you know, MORONS!"— Mel Brooks in BLAZING SADDLES
In 1963, a couple dropped off their kids at church and . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 20, 2003
When people say, “It’s not about [such and such],” often that’s the very thing it’s ALL ABOUT. Believers in Darwinism often say that evolution isn’t about . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 9, 2003
Two analogies that describe today’s teenagers:
(A) Scientists have discovered a tiny creature that lives in the lips of a North Atlantic lobster; it is unique . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
October 3, 2003
"Anger is better than laughter." — Ecclesiastes 7:3
IF VINCE LOMBARDI were coaching in this day and age, he would probably be ordered to attend "anger . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 28, 2003
"We are not sure that words always save, but we know, and are sure, that silence kills." —Doctors Without Borders
According to a poll published May 11, 1999 . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 21, 2003
There are some sentences that should never be completed:
"America has been good to us, but . . . "
"Thanks for the history lesson, but . . . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 15, 2003
Jeremiad, n. A tale of woe, grief or despair; a lament over wickedness or degeneracy; often used sarcastically. — Funk & Wagnalls, 1938
It is not a closely . . .
Curtis Dahlgren
September 9, 2003
Never mind, for the moment, why my opinions are so "opinionated," or whether I have my own 'skeletons.' "The world is full of fools," someone once said, "and he . . .
