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By Carl A. Ten Hoopen Things happened quickly and quietly. Unexpectedly? The answer to that question depends on who you ask. Only their closest friends caught the star quarterback’s drifting attention. His head-cheerleader girlfriend seemed to be flirting with somebody else. Friends noticed a change in her tone of voice when she spoke about him.…
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On Tuesday, 30 September, the U.S. senior military leadership gathered at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, to hear Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump deliver remarks. The meeting struck both civilian and military personnel as rather odd. What was the assembly about exactly? Larry Wilkerson, a retired colonel and former chief of…
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11 November has traditionally been a day of reflection for me. This is the day I pause to remember the end of the First World War, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Three classical music pieces express my sentiments about this day: Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, Edward Elgar’s “Nimrod”…
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The arrival of autumn brings out the bookish aspect of my nature. The responsibilities for coursework found in freshly printed syllabi, the necessity of meeting a professor’s deadlines, revising lectures, and meeting new students have long passed for me. I do, on occasion, miss wandering a campus, the anticipation of entering a lecture hall for…
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Thirty-seven years ago, on 15 October, Kirk Gibson stepped up to home plate in Dodger Stadium in Game 1 of the World Series between the Dodgers and the Oakland Athletics. He was suffering from a swollen, shredded ligament in his right knee and a strained left hamstring. Tommy Lasorda wasn’t going to play him, but…
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I fell in love with her voice. A raspy voice, the type of voice that made me want to pull up a chair at the kitchen table. “Have some cranberry relish,” she might be saying, as she did every Thanksgiving. And if you closed your eyes, you could imagine her passing a bowl. Susan had…
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This week began on Monday with the release of Israeli hostages. Joy marred by loss, sorrow, the memories of those who were killed on 7 October, the Israeli soldiers wounded and killed in Gaza, the hostages returned earlier, and those hostages whose remains have yet to be returned for proper burial. A time of joy…
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“Things are in the saddle and ride mankind.” Emerson This October 16th through the 28th marks the 63rd anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. For thirteen days, the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. On the sixth day of the nuclear standoff, a chilling book titled Fail Safe was published. The authors were…
Charles van Heck's Woodhull Journal 