As a piece of fiction, The News Virginian’s May 20 editorial, “Goodlatte, peers rain farm folly,” doesn’t rise to the high standards of the “Wizard of Oz” on which it relies for its template.

Some days I think I am living entirely off the contributions of previous generations.

At first I blamed the tall weeds and grass along Virginia’s highways and roads on the continuous rain and cool temperatures this spring.

Warren Buffett has been the most successful investor in recent history.

Most minorities, as a rule, rarely have a choice in their ethnicity. Occasionally, one might be able to pass as a member of another race and as a result he or she is able to take advantages of opportunities available to them. But if you’re white, you can be a minority by choice.

On our 20th anniversary, my lovely, red-headed wife and I sat down and took an honest assessment of our relationship, how far we had come in our two decades together and what the future holds for a couple of crazy kids that everyone said would never make it.

I keep picturing Hillary Clinton as Scarlett O’Hara in that iconic scene in “Gone with the Wind.”

You know we’re in trouble when the state’s leading conservative newspaper, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, agrees with Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s proposal to raise taxes to pay for Virginia’s transportation needs.

I am grateful the 6th District Republican Committee confirmed my election as Augusta Republican Chairman at its convention last week.

In most elections where there is competition, whether it is a club, church or even a national political contest, the losing contestant will congratulate the winner and offer his support. This did not happen in the Augusta County Republican Committee chairman election.

What will it take to get Hillary Clinton to quit?

The reasoning goes like this: Barack Obama joined a church whose minister, for a while, was Jeremiah Wright. Therefore Barack Obama agrees with Wright’s political and theological points of view. Huh?

The story about rising food prices, entitled “Food Crisis,” on the May 2 front page of The News Virginian was ironic, considering the headline on Page A5 in the same edition. It read: “Bush urges $770M in food aid.”

A year ago last March, the Republican National Committee had fun sending someone in a “pander bear” suit to crash a Hillary Clinton fundraiser at a Washington hotel.

Americans will eat absolutely anything. In the last two weeks, the truth of this statement has been demonstrated to me.

Former president Clinton knows it. His wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., knows it. Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle, knows it. And most blacks know it. In America, race still matters.

Stephen Hawking has always been among my favorite astrophysicists.

Sometimes my heart breaks even before my coffee maker has had time to drip down my first morning cup.

It wouldn’t be a presidential campaign without charges that Democrats will raise your taxes.

I had a decision to make: Should I slip into the bright red boxer briefs, dig through the dirty clothes or go commando?

When my grandfather came home from work, he would sit in his upholstered rocking chair, read the paper and listen to “Douglas Edwards and the News” on his Crosley radio.

Every so often my opinions create a little controversy, so I’m used to different or opposing views.

My daughter refuses to pin her socks together before putting them in the laundry.

The cover story in a recent issue of U.S. News & World Report is “How to Save Your Job: Surviving the Recession.“ I find articles like this very depressing.

Legendary R&B singer Sam Cooke in 1965 had a hit record called “A Change Is Gonna Come.“ The song was about people living in hard times and the suffering that they endured. The song was also about hope; hope that given time their suffering would, if not cease, at least lessen.

This is a tale of two basketball coaches, one black and one white, one a woman and the other a man. Both are extraordinarily gifted. Both found themselves in settings culturally different from the worlds in which they were born and bred.

Education was bred in the bone on both sides of my family. ... No one ever questioned the value of an education, but I have come to realize that true education, as opposed to vocational training, can be an isolating experience.

Few things create more anxiety in people than trying to come to terms with if and how sex, as well as religion and money, are to be dealt with in the public schools.

Two recent Saturdays of mine have been devoted to funerals. A lot of people profess to hate funerals, but I come from people who regarded one’s presence at funerals as a command performance.

My father (a doctor but not a surgeon) loves that old joke that there is no such thing as unnecessary surgery. Either the patient needs it or the doctor needs it. The joke has acquired more relevance in my life of late.