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August 23, 2014

A Different Perspective on the Robin Williams Suicide

Robin WilliamsAfter the recent suicide of the famous American actor and comedian Robin Williams, various reasons were given to explain why he killed himself. Some of the reasons included the fact that he had recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, suffered from severe depression, and was having money problems. For whatever reason, at the age of 63, Williams ended his life after determining that he was better off dead than alive.

August 16, 2014

Sacrificing Comfort for Growth

Comfort ZoneMy mom was 19 years old when she married my dad.  She was 20 when she had the first of her 17 children.  Georgette and I were both 23 when we were married.  We had the first of our seven children the following year.

August 9, 2014

A Final Response

Criticism - AvoidThis is my fifth and final response to an email that I received from Tony, who questioned an article I had written about Amazon.com and its founder, Jeff Bezos.  Tony provided the following reasons why I (and other Catholics) should refuse to buy products from Amazon:

August 2, 2014

Creative Destruction

Creative DestructionOne of the things I wanted to cover in my series of articles concerning Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com is the process of creative destruction.  Have you ever heard of “creative destruction”?  It’s a term that was originally used by an Austrian economist, Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950).  Schumpeter described creative destruction as an essential process that takes place in a free-market economy, wiping out entire industries after new technologies are discovered and put into place.

July 26, 2014

Aggressive Behavior, Anger, and Trust

AngerOne evening during the summer of 2005, I called one of my clients and asked him if he would come over to my house to fix a problem with my plumbing.  His name was Jim, and at that time he was in his mid-50s.  We had done business with each other since the early 1990s.  I was originally introduced to Jim by another client who owned several rental properties and had hired Jim to work on his properties.

July 19, 2014

Modern-Day Advice from a 13th-Century Saint

Thomas AquinasLast week, I wrote about how an adorer (“Tony”) had criticized me because of an article that I had written about Amazon.com and its founder, Jeff Bezos.  Tony provided several reasons why I (and other Catholics) should refuse to do business with Amazon, one of which is that “Amazon distributes pornography.”  Here’s how I responded to the comment about the pornography issue:

July 12, 2014

Criticism From An Adorer

Amazon-frustration-freeWhen I started my law practice in 1983, there was an office supply store named Kellstedts that was located about four blocks from my office in downtown, Peoria.  All of the offices that were located downtown bought their office supplies from Kellstedts.

July 9, 2014

A Lesson From Amazon.com

If you use the Internet to shop for items, there’s a good chance you’ve purchased products from Amazon.com. With 96 fulfillment centers located throughout the United States, Amazon is a financial threat to a number of local and national businesses. Products that are ordered from Amazon are routinely delivered to customers’ doorsteps within one to three days.

July 6, 2014

A Good Day for a Rebellion

NYT AdOn Thursday (July 3, 2014), three days after the Supreme Court ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, the atheist organization, Freedom from Religion Foundation, ran a full-page, anti-Catholic advertisement in The New York Times. The headline of the ad screamed, “Dogma Should Not Trump Our Civil Liberties.” The sub-headline declared: “All-Male, All-Roman Catholic Majority on Supreme Court Puts Religious Wrongs Over Women’s Rights.”

June 28, 2014

The Secret to a Happy Marriage

Marriage - HappinessLast week at the end of my weekly Adoration Letter article, I asked a question: “So what can Catholic couples do to stay happily married while the world around them is falling apart?”  Before I answer the question, we need to take a look at the Catholic Church’s definition of marriage.

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