'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
"Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business."
Charles Dickens' London home has gone from "Bleak House" to "Great Expectations."
President Obama would have failed Negotiations 101. If there was such a course, the first rule would be "do not insult the people you're dealing with."
"What do you want with me?" asks a quivering Ebenezer Scrooge of the apparition of Jacob Marley, his former business partner. To which Jacob's ghost tersely responds, "Much!"
What do Ebenezer Scrooge, the Grinch and torturers of small animals have in common?
The letter to the editor " 'Superfires' direct result of overregulation" (Monday) makes a strong case for one of the underlying causes of the disastrous fires in New Mexico and Colorado: lack of proper forest management beginning in the late 1960s.
He wrote about life in the modern city, with its lawyers and criminals, bankers and urchins, dreamers and clerks. He created characters still known to millions — Ebenezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim, Pip and Miss Havisham, Fagin and Oliver Twist. And it made him a star, mobbed by fans on both sides of the Atlantic.
He wrote about life in the modern city, with its lawyers and criminals, bankers and urchins, dreamers and clerks. He created characters still known to millions _ Ebenezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim, Pip and Miss Havisham, Fagin and Oliver Twist. And it made him a star, mobbed by fans on both sides of the Atlantic.
Past the glass case containing sketches for his novel "Oliver Twist," beyond the handwritten letter to his publisher about Little Nell, and away from the first published installments of "Hard Times" sits Charles Dickens' pet bird.
President Obama's puny election-year plan to consolidate a handful of government agencies and programs is about three years and $4 trillion too late. With America's jobless rate stuck at a few tenths below 9 percent and his dismal job approval polls in the mid-40s - the equivalent of a failing grade - Mr. Obama is attempting to impersonate a budget cutter. He's fooling no one.
Newt Gingrich wants to pay poor kids to clean toilets. And all of the right people are horrified. The Nation says Mr. Gingrich is running on "a platform that seems to have been written by the unreformed Ebenezer Scrooge." The editors of the Newark Star-Ledger proclaim he wants to "bring back the days of Oliver Twist." The host of "Meet the Press," David Gregory, suggests Mr. Gingrich's take on the inner-city poor is a "grotesque distortion."
The self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff" in America, Phoenix's Joe Arpaio, who cranked up his Christmas music machine for inmates last month, has scheduled a caroling contest for interested pre-trial prisoners - with the winner to receive a "real Christmas dinner for himself and his cell mates."
Whose job is it to help those in need? Some say it's the government's. That's certainly the view of Ebenezer Scrooge. When asked to contribute to the poor, he responds: "Are there no prisons? And the union workhouses? Are they still in operation?" Substitute "welfare checks" and "food stamps," and you find the same attitude prevails today: Let Uncle Sam handle the problem.
Here's the many ways "A Christmas Carol" has been brought to movie and television screens over the years.
Even young Mick Jagger, bless his heart, could see that it's hard getting old.
