This Sunday, February 2, brings us Superbowl LIV, pitting the San Francisco 49ers against the Kansas City Chiefs. That same event also features a one-minute advertisement that should bring joy to all of us who love America.

Called “Typical American,” this Budweiser ad provides viewers an exuberant look at the American people, accompanied by a dry sense of wit. For example, when we see a man pushing a stranded motorist through the snow, the voice-over says, “Look at him, touching other people’s things.” Then Ken Nwadike, Jr. founder of the “Free Hugs Project” is shown wearing a T-shirt reading “Free hugs” while confronting police, and then giving an officer an enormous hug. The voice-over comments, “Just look at them, thinking they can save the world.”

​This ad speaks to American pride, to hard workers, to people with generous hearts, and to those with a can-do attitude. According to Budweiser, “the American spirit is alive through the extraordinary actions of ordinary Americans.”

Stillness. Silence. For many people, stillness and silence are as unfamiliar — and terrifying — as zombies or Martians. 

When I used to teach composition classes to homeschoolers in Asheville, we met in a Presbyterian church near the Asheville Mall. Once a year, in good weather, I would have the students carry their folding chairs to the large parking lot behind the church. Here I would place them in a circle facing away from one another, 20 feet or more between students, and have them sit for half an hour. They were forbidden to speak, to read, to write, to use a cell phone. 

The silence in that parking lot was immense. The only sounds were the occasional bird song and the whoosh of traffic on I-240.
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After the half an hour was up, we carried the chairs inside and wrote about the experience.

The article below appeared at Intellectual Takeout, January 24, 2020. 

​While many newspapers have shut down or laid off employees in the last ten years, many small-town newspapers across the country are not only surviving, but in some cases are thriving. That they are doing so is the result of several factors – their focus on local news, their feature stories on festivals, the arts, and local personalities, and the devotion of their editors and employees to their work.

​Meet Scott McLeod

This essay appeared at The Epoch Times: https://www.theepochtimes.com/mercy-pity-peace-the-power-of-forgiveness_3189060.html.
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“… forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us …”

​I remember the exact place and time when the meaning of those words smacked me upside the head. It was February, and I was 41 years old and standing in the kitchen of our bed and breakfast, listening to a recording in which a female comedian, her name long forgotten, says the Lord’s Prayer, only to be interrupted by God again and again for her failure to practice the tenets of the prayer. When she delivered the above line, I realized that with those words we are asking God to judge us as we judge others.

Terrifying, if you are a believer.

Let's see how some writers celebrated the New Year. This one's from The Epoch Times.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/cheers-a-literary-celebration-of-new-years_3168551.html

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