I looked out my office window, and there it was in a backyard across the street: a magnificent tree house. It has been built around the trunk of a large, leafy tree, and has a front porch.

What’s going on that at least once a week there’s news of young people beating, sexually abusing or killing their fellow youngsters? Have parents lost control of their children because they tried to make life easier for them? Or is something else going on?

The Walt Disney Co. is offering parents who bought Baby Einstein videos for their youngsters a refund because, as it turns out, moms and dads can’t park Junior’s high chair in front of the flat screen and return an hour later to find him piecing together the great American novel from leftover alphabet soup.

I admit to the guilty pleasure of watching from the sidelines the unfolding Catholic-Anglican situation. The Vatican has sent an invitation to conservative Anglicans (Episcopalians) who don’t approve of women’s ordination, gay rights in any form and liberal political or social ideas to come over to Rome. This includes married Episcopalian priests. I have no dog in this particular fight, but I admit I am curious to see what will happen.

About 175 executives at seven U.S. corporations will receive reduced compensation, according to the Wall Street Journal. Immediately, this sparked complaints that the government is dictating executive pay.

Last week’s column, in which I described in vivid detail the theft of one our newspaper racks, my comically heroic efforts to recover it from behind a grocery store and the debilitating back injury I suffered while loading its remains onto a truck, drew much sympathy from readers.

I wondered why Robert F. McDonnell, who is Roman Catholic and had been educated mostly in Catholic schools, chose Regent University, founded by Pat Robertson, for his degrees in public policy and law. It was an interesting choice not only because it was a departure from his religious tradition and past school choices but because it potentially creates problems for him as he tries to position himself as a centrist when running for governor.

I suggested in a previous column that blacks, particularly the older and religious conservative ones, should endorse equal rights for members of the gay and lesbian community. A number of them took offense when gay and lesbian demonstrators used tactics that blacks used during the civil rights movement. Gay and lesbian marchers sang songs and carried placards with wording that blacks used when demonstrating and demanding equal rights back in the 1960s and ’70s.

After someone stole one of our newspaper racks and left its dented carcass behind a grocery store, I compiled a list of the top 10 reasons not to steal a newspaper rack and leave its dented carcass behind a grocery store in an effort to discourage future crimes of this nature.

Every once in awhile I disagree with some who usually think as I do. Last Friday, I found myself disagreeing with President Barack Obama and with words spoken years ago by newly confirmed and seated U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

I’ve got a new plan. And if this were a movie, and you were in the movie and I explained my new plan, you would say, “That’s just crazy enough to work.” Of course, this isn’t a movie and the plan will never work, but that won’t stop me from explaining it to you.

My father claimed that in medical school he was taught, “Half of what we tell you is wrong; we just don’t know which half.”

I have wondered if he acquired that saying in medical school or somewhere else because I have heard it from many sources. If medical schools actually make this assumption, I would applaud their humility and honesty. A lot of doctors probably forget it if indeed they ever heard it in the first place, but at least it is a part of medical lore — which is more than I can say for any branch of the Christian church.

Two megacelebrities recently were dealt a dose of reality. First, world renown director and filmmaker Roman Polanski was arrested on a 32-year-old warrant and then CBS late-night TV host David Letterman announced he was being blackmailed because of past sexual affairs with staff members.

If Obama were white, would they still hate him? Of course they would, the people who oppose his policies.

I’ve written how the election of President Barack Obama caused an uptick in gun ownership and open racism.

It was the first day of autumn — the early evening, actually — when I was called home to investigate a disturbance.

I never saw it coming. We were putting the finishing touches on another edition of the newspaper — yep, we still make ’em — and I could almost feel the warm familial greeting and taste the ice-cold beverage that I was sure awaited me at my aluminum-sided castle.

The student volunteered to be the first one to give her presentation in class. It included telling us a lot about her life. 

She comes from a Latino immigrant family and is the first to go to college. The hopes of a lot of people are riding on her, and she has more than met the challenge.

I’ve discovered during my years of writing columns that if you want a heated debate in our part of the Valley, any of four subjects will bring out opinions. The four subjects are race, the Confederate flag, guns and dogs. If I had to rank them in order of feedback, I’d say race and guns are tied for No. 1, followed by the Rebel flag with dogs placing fourth. A particular week’s news can sway whether race or guns stirs the anger pot the most.

A lot of British men are going to brow bars to get threaded. Yeah, that’s what I thought, too, but it doesn’t mean that at all.

According to a recent story from Reuters news service, more of our cousins across the pond are having their eyebrows professionally groomed — some during men-only “guybrow” nights — using a technique called threading.

The generation gap between my students and me continues to grow although I seldom think about it. Sometimes, however, I am given not very subtle reminders.

Thanks, Mr. Wilson, and boos to Mr. West and Ms. Williams. In the words of comic strip character Dennis of “Dennis The Menace,” I say “Thanks, Mr. Wilson.” I’m not referring to Dennis’ neighbor but Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C. The boos are directed toward tennis star Serena Williams and hip hop singer and producer Kanye West.

Note: Inspired by President Barack Obama’s recent speech to the nation’s school children, columnist Scott Hollifield decided to give his own back-to-school address. So far, no schools have accepted his offer and all media outlets have ignored him, but that did not stop him from releasing this transcript of his prepared remarks in an effort to stave off criticism and outrage that has not yet materialized.

My recent encounters with medical care in the United States have not been entirely reassuring. My sister was diagnosed with a brain tumor and cancer in her spinal fluid June 9. She had surgery for the brain tumor June 10. Exactly three weeks later she was moved to Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, the only hospital in the United States devoted exclusively to end-of-life care. Treatment was abandoned.

Officially, we’re 11 days from the fall season and if you’re not a football enthusiast you don’t have much to look forward to. America, and the rest of the world, is waiting for an anticipated outbreak of swine flu, or as it’s officially known, the H1N1 virus. Also on the fall horizon are health care concerns – will we have universal coverage or not – a Virginia employment outlook that’s stagnant and the upcoming state election for governor.

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer will pay fines totaling $3.2 billion for, among other irregularities, plying doctors with golf outings, massages and lavish vacations to encourage them to prescribe medications for uses other than intended, which may explain why I received a Viagra prescription for post-nasal drip.

I jest, of course, about my off-label prescription. My personal physician would never fall sway to drug company bribery, and I would never question the ethics of an individual who has open access to the most sensitive parts of my body.

My father was a primary care physician, and when Medicare was first proposed more than 40 years ago, he was dead-set against it. He was not only against it, he and my mother were what today would be called “activists.” For months the dining room table was littered with materials for the letter-writing campaign. They were clear that they did not want “socialized medicine.”

Last week, the fourth king died from brain cancer and America’s working and poorer classes lost a great champion. Using a deck of cards as a metaphor, Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy, D-Mass., represented the last king; the other three were his brothers, President John F. Kennedy, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and Nobel Prize winner and civil rights champion Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

At least in recent decades Americans have equated financial independence with adulthood. You aren’t really grown until you can support yourself. You are cautioned not to marry or have children, adult tasks, until you can support yourself. Some young people are told point-blank by their parents that after undergraduate school, and for some after high school, they are on their own. People who may give generously to their favorite charities frequently draw the line at continuing to fund adult children. “Oprah” shows are done on what to do about children lingering in the basement after their parents think they should be gone.

Last week’s column contained two glaring mistakes and I regret both. The thing that I most regret is that I profiled a demonstrator.

First, I want to thank everyone who pointed out my error. Online comments and those I received by e-mail didn’t mince words in letting me know the AR-15 rifleman I referred to was African American.

I got cash for my first clunker, but it wasn’t a government rebate.

It was $100 or so from a guy at a gas station who figured he could salvage enough parts to turn a slight profit from a vehicle that had been wrapped around a locust tree.