At the beginning of this long political season — if there ever was a beginning, since campaigns are now nonstop with only the players changing — it appeared this one might, just might, be different.

You have all heard of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. How many have heard of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)?

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the age of 47. By the time of diagnosis, the cancer had usurped his liver, and his doctors thus gave him only months of relatively good health before the disease would begin to take its full effect.

Our recent elections for county commissioners brought to light differences in thinking about providing pensions as an employee benefit for the people who serve us as county employees. That includes the entire Sheriff’s Department, courthouse employees, administrative employees and road crews.

Although my teaching career has covered a scant 18 years, technology has transformed higher education more in that time frame than in the hundreds of years preceding it.

As life stretches on, it is always a blessing to share a history with those who know you well. It is a bond that cannot be fabricated for it is created by the times and stories you mutually share over many years.

It rained last night, and the trees are sparkling as I turn into our friends’ driveway. I take note of the warning sign: “Beware of playing cocker spaniel,” and sure enough, here she comes, bouncing toward the green area in the middle of the turn-around. “Buttercup!” calls her boss, and the little dog turns in mid-bounce.

Sunday, May 4, seemed like a normal day. Pretty good attendance. Great spirit. Two new members. After final comments, I asked our minister of music to lead us in singing our closing song, but, instead, he turned things over to our chairman of deacons.

The generation gap is something I’ve heard about all of my life, but never really believed in. The other day was when I realized that not only does the gap exist, but just how far that gap has widened for me.

The lady was upset, anybody could see that. I was standing behind her at the airport in Bloomington, Ill., as she complained and gesticulated angrily. The airline, Airtran Airways, she loudly exclaimed for all to hear, had lost her luggage and she was irate. The young lady behind the counter tried to say how sorry she was. “There’s no excuse!” the luggage-less lady shouted.

There had better be something to this “divinely anointed” business, because if there isn’t, Barack Obama is setting himself up for the biggest political spill in recorded history — all the ways down the slopes of Olympus to whatever gunk lies below.

Random thoughts on the passing scene:

Government bailouts are like potato chips: You can’t stop with just one.

Anyone who is honest with himself and with others knows that there is not a snowball’s chance in hell to have an honest dialogue about race.

There is a reason the psalmist warned, “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.” (Psalm 146:3)

Let’s face it. The average individual American has little or no clout with Congress and can be safely ignored. But it’s a different story with groups such as Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club and The Nature Conservancy. When they speak, Congress listens.

Allow me to sweep up the crumbs and snippets that seem to collect on my worktable or my hard drive. I try to keep them in tidy stacks, but, sooner or later, they mix in with the only slightly more professional detritus: notes, newspaper clippings, business cards and “_____ for Dummies” books.

Much has been said about the press’ adoring coverage of Obama while they nearly ignore McCain. My friend, Alex Nides, who lives in Tyrone with his wife Fran, told me recently about one way the media ignored McCain, a peek at the bias from an angle you probably won’t hear anywhere else.

University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute Director Ronald Herberman set off a flurry of excitement last week when he released a memo to the center’s 3,000 employees advising caution over cell phone use.

Economic growth in the United States is sluggish, and there are several reasons to be pessimistic about macroeconomic performance in the balance of 2008, if not beyond.

The subject of homecoming queens started in the odd way that some topics enter into a conversation. It really had nothing to do with what we were discussing but then, in a very real way, it did.

On the introduction to the Dr. Phil show, there is a clip of him telling a guest, “This is going to be a changing day in your life.”

I started thinking about changing days recently, when I read this, “... you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God ...” (Romans 8:15b-16)

It seems to me that life is about knowing the right answers, knowing when to speak them and knowing when to keep your big fat mouth shut. I first became aware of this at the tender age of 6. That is when us boys, lined up in front of Dad, were being interrogated as to how Mom’s crystal vase got smashed, the one they got in Europe during their honeymoon.

I hope to be able to wrap up these family stories this week, concluding with their move from Campbell County to Hightower, Ala., just across the Georgia State line near Carroll County.

Question: Before your trip to Iraq, you said that you intend to give the military a “new mission” — all of the combat troops withdrawn within 16 months. Why bother traveling to Iraq and consulting with commanders on the ground, if you’ve already decided on a new mission?

The Reverend John Weber will preach his last sermon as the senior pastor of Christ Our Shepherd Lutheran Church this coming Sunday morning. After 34 years of serving as the only senior pastor the church has known, John is retiring.

History’s humongous wheel turns and turns and turns again. Over time, mud and sludge accumulate on even the sprucest institutions. Take the 500-year-old Anglican family of churches, Christianity’s third-largest, after Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy.

In one of those front-page editorials disguised as “news” stories, the New York Times blames “the lucrative lending practices” of banks and other financial institutions for helping create the current financial crisis of millions of borrowers and of the financial system in general.

“Hard Times at Douglass High,” is an HBO documentary that aired last June. It captured much of the 2004-2005 school year at Baltimore’s predominantly black Frederick Douglass High School. The tragedy is that what is seen in the documentary is typical of most predominantly black urban schools.

In the crowd watching the Peachtree City Fourth of July Parade recently, a young soldier in Army dress greens and a sailor in Navy whites made me wonder how much they know about the war in Iraq.

By MARK LINVILLE

My family moved to Fayetteville from Northfield, Minnesota in 1997.

Now, Northfield has always boasted a diverse population, and has had few problems with hostilities among the different people groups abiding there.

I’d always heard that love – or rather the loss of it – could drive a woman crazy. Push her plum to the edge and sometimes even push her over it until she was in a free fall that landed her slap-dab in the middle of crazy.