If you pay any attention to the news, you’re probably sick and tired of hearing the phrase, “fake news.” It seems as though every time you turn around, someone is accusing someone else of reporting fake news. Wikipedia.com defines “fake news” as “false news stories, often of a sensational nature, created to be widely shared or distributed for the purpose of generating revenue, or promoting or discrediting a public figure, political movement, company, etc.”
During the 1980s, I purchased several sets of cassette tapes of talks that had been given by the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. At the time, I had a small battery-operated cassette tape player that I used to listen to tapes while I was shaving and getting ready for work, while I was driving, and while I was getting ready for bed.
After former Vice President Joe Biden announced that he was running for president, he said, “We are living through a battle for the soul of this nation.” During a subsequent interview with Good Morning America, in an attempt to mimic Trump, Biden said that his campaign slogan is, “Make America Moral Again.” He then said that his goal is to “make America return to the essence of who we are, the dignity of the country, the dignity of people, and treating our people with dignity.”
My wife and I were married in June 1980, which was a month after I finished my first year in law school. One of the weekly television shows that we watched together during the first year of our marriage was the prime-time soap opera, Dallas. We’ve come a long way since then. Today, there’s no way we would waste our time on that type of show.
During the mid-1980s, I had a good friend — I’ll call him “James” — who I periodically had conversations with about life, politics, family, and religion. I was five years younger than James, and he was a lot smarter than I was. He breezed through elementary school, high school, and college, without any problems. He was quick to grasp new concepts and was a great problem solver.
Since the beginning of time, all successful civilizations have been governed by behavioral standards that everyone understood, embraced, and passed on to future generations. These behavioral standards were so well-known that they were taken for granted. Anyone who questioned the standards was considered a misdirected fool who lacked maturity, experience, and wisdom.
Her name is Meredith Golden. She’s 43 years old and lives in New York with her husband and two sons. She has a master’s degree in social work from New York University. According to a recent article in The New York Times, Golden is a professional dating app ghostwriter. The article provided the following summary of what services Golden offers to her clients:
After I published last week’s article about the 60th anniversary of the Barbie doll, my mom called me on my cell phone. I wasn’t available when she called, so she left a message. In the message, she said that she had read my article and that in addition to her concern about her daughters’ self-images being affected by the Barbie doll, she was also concerned that with the introduction of a teenage, sexualized version of a doll, there would never be a return to the days when young girls were encouraged to play with baby dolls.