Tax time has come around again but, contrary to reports both published and whispered, the IRS is not after your soul.

This year, as every year, many young folk are faced with filing their income taxes for the very first time. Some will get no help from others in their family. This post is addressed to those individuals, but the rest of us could probably profit from reading it, too.

Click here to read on, my friend.

This is a personal blog. So, with your permission, I’d like to take a moment to get personal with you.

Click here to read on, my friend.

  There is something about the Super Bowl … something other than the hassle of getting through store checkout lines this past week … that grinds me.

In this supposedly Christian nation, every year millions of people go nuts over a violent game played in body armor by absolutely huge men who make their stupendous livings by knocking other men down. There seem to be extra points points awarded for tackling the smallest guy on the field. Well, technically, they go for the smallest guy in a player uniform – brownie points are lost for tackling the guys in the striped shirts.

Some are of the opinion that the game is not violent. But this quote “"It’s an interesting theoretical question, but I don’t think anybody would consider playing NFL football without a helmet,"* would seem to argue otherwise.

Click here to read on, my friend.

And now it is gone. Its purpose was to replace naughty words with asterisks … but, finding no naughty words, it seems to have amused itself by deleting the entire body of some recent comments.

Actually, the mess-up is probably the result of updating the version of Wordpress but continuing to use the older version of the plugin. In either case, comments seem to be working now.

If you posted a comment and the body of it disappeared, please feel free to re-post. I’ve dealt with the plugin, but the body of your comments appear to have evaporated and I can’t recover them. — Bill

Jehovah’s Witnesses were nearly crushed in 1918 when the bulk of their Governing Body was arrested on false charges and sentenced to long terms in prison. Their spiritual Brothers were not yet well equipped to carry on the work without strong leadership and the barely-begun work faltered, stumbled and appeared to have been extinguished.

That was, in a sense, a good thing; as it made patently clear that this work was not going to be the work of man alone, but if it was to succeed at all, it would have to be the subject of heavenly direction. Click here to read on, my friend.

I am working on a new blog of interest solely to Jehovah’s Witnesses and, if you are a JW, I am asking for your help with it.

Click here to read on, my friend.

Every once in a while I stumble upon that most fascinating of web pages … a quotes page. I’m in a generous mood today, so I’m going to share this one with you. The quotes seem selected with just a hint of an edge to them, a tiny scent of an acid wit and come accompanied by linocuts which you can purchase, if you so wish.

The link above is well into the middle of the site … be sure to scroll backwards as well as ahead.

Here’s a teaser:

You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.

- George Bernard Shaw

After this has been up a few days as an ordinary post, I think that I’ll make it permanent page and every Friday pass along the best quote I’ve encountered during the preceding week.

I suppose by now that you are hoping I will leave off the rants for a while … and in a while I intend to do so.

But not yet.

Click here to read on, my friend.

Everyone else, listen up.

I hate GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and their insidious sidekick, chemical farming, with the same passion I reserve for pedophiles, politicians, abortionists and big bankers.

Click here to read on, my friend.

Just this month Forbes called Monsanto heroes.

(hack, cough, cough) Balderdash. I try not to use stronger words, but they would certainly apply.

I should probably post this link on my long-neglected organic gardening blog and, after I post it here, I might just do that.

But this blog gets somewhat more traffic and I think that this video, about the effects of chemical farming in India is instructive. I know that your time is valuable. I’m asking for 30 minutes of it with the promise that I will not waste that 30 minutes. Start by viewing the film for the first 26 minutes.

Click here to read on, my friend.