The Boy Scouts recently announced they may file for bankruptcy. The Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine founded by News Corporation, just printed its last issue. Are these related events? Perhaps in one way they are, that way being beyond the obvious one of financial problems.

Tell the medical industry – as I have defined it – that all government payments are frozen, all contracts canceled and the government will not make one payment to anyone in the medical industry until, it, the medical industry, comes up with a plan that, in aggregate, reduces the cost of the medical industry as a percentage of the GDP in this country to 6 percent.

Ever since I spent a long weekend in southern Highland County a few weeks ago, I have been hearing noises, even way down here in Georgia, from folks wanting me to “tell more” about my experience. I will do so, but in a way unlike what you may expect.

Back when I started my current business in 1992, it was still possible to operate pretty much as an island. Correspondence was by U.S. mail or facsimile; the internet did not exist. Software, if you had a computer, was bought on discs at a computer store.

This manager has never gone with us. He is also a volunteer firefighter. He told me they had a bunch of surplus equipment, and he wondered if the fire department in Panajachel, Guatemala could use it. Without hesitation, I said yes. Lloyd Monroe (the missionary) stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me, “Did you know the Panajachel Fire Department’s gear was stolen a couple of weeks ago?”

This manager has never gone with us. He is also a volunteer firefighter. He told me they had a bunch of surplus equipment, and he wondered if the fire department in Panajachel, Guatemala could use it. Without hesitation, I said yes. Lloyd Monroe (the missionary) stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me, “Did you know the Panajachel Fire Department’s gear was stolen a couple of weeks ago?”

This manager has never gone with us. He is also a volunteer firefighter. He told me they had a bunch of surplus equipment, and he wondered if the fire department in Panajachel, Guatemala could use it. Without hesitation, I said yes. Lloyd Monroe (the missionary) stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me, “Did you know the Panajachel Fire Department’s gear was stolen a couple of weeks ago?”

There is a way to start practicing rich socialism that is inexpensive and can be done almost en masse. I keep several $5 fast food cards in my wallet. When I am in the city and confronted on the street by a beggar asking for money for food, I give them one of these. They are often taken aback, and, yes, I have somewhat imposed my will on a stranger, but I have met their request. I have given them money for food. It is just not quite as fungible as they anticipated.

On Monday evening, Nov. 5, 2018, I had had it “up to here” with political ads and thought I would go to YouTube and retreat into old “Newhart” episodes (the Bob Newhart show that was set in Vermont, not Chicago) and escape the world. (I realize many younger readers have no idea what show I am talking about.) Well, if I thought this was going to be escapism, I was sadly wrong.

I have many good friends in the Democratic Party, friends with whom I can have intelligent conversations and from whom I learn much. The Democratic leadership, however, the ones who pull the levers, they worry me. We seem to be very close to a second civil war if you listen to what they have to say.

Sometime, along about the late 1960s, early 1970s, manufacturing and service companies decided they needed to become socially involved. Suddenly, they started giving money to all sorts of causes and promoting these causes internally and with their customer base.

There are a couple of telling images from the Senate committee hearing on Sept. 27, however. One is a video of Sheila Jackson Lee (U.S. representative for Texas’s 18th Congressional District) passing a well-stuffed No. 10 envelope to one of Ford’s lawyers, right in the committee room, with the witness (Ford) seated at the witness table. Perhaps it was a birthday card. The other is the photo of all the handlers of Ford hovering around her before her testimony begins, with Ford coyly smiling.

I am sure I speak for all of us when I tell you 50 years passes in an amazing, blinding flash. At a snap of the fingers, class of 2019, you will be at 2069. Use your limited time wisely. What might be our final words of advice to the class of 2019? There was a famous old nationally syndicated disc jockey, Casey Kasem, who always closed his show with this wise admonishment: “Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars.”

In less than two months, we will be voting across America. The election will no doubt have national implications, although all the races are local. There is only one national office in the country, and that is the office of president. So, we will vote for members of Congress, some senators and others in local races.

As I write this, it is September 11th. Seventeen years ago today, our enemies used airplanes to disrupt our lives here in the United States. They don’t need to be so crude and obvious in their attacks today – just come in through the internet – plenty of damage and mayhem can be done via this route.