Oops. Actually our 25th anniversary issue is coming up later this fall. I just forgot. I've been forgetting a lot lately since I'm getting older and...what was I saying?
H'rumphs
Ed Spivey Jr. 11-01-1995
By now you're probably pretty tired of reading about money and politics, and all the other serious stuff we've packed into this thought-provoking 100-page issue.
Ed Spivey Jr. 9-01-1995
EDITORS' NOTE: The above headline may not necessarily relate to the following article.
Ed Spivey Jr. 5-01-1995
Recently, some spots on my face were diagnosed not as the distinctive markings of a rare intellect-which I had assumed them to be-but as a precancerous skin malady.
Ed Spivey Jr. 3-01-1995
Recently, some spots on my face were diagnosed not as the distinctive markings of a rare intellect-which I had assumed them to be-but as a precancerous skin malady.
Ed Spivey Jr. 12-01-1994
A new day has dawned in our country. Unfortunately, that day is some time in the 1950s.
Ed Spivey Jr. 11-01-1994
It started with the kind of silence that makes a parent sit bolt upright in his bed; an unnatural awakening, a feeling of something wrong.
Ed Spivey Jr. 9-01-1994
People don’t always say what they mean (I meant to say that). And this past summer brought several examples of the daily "little white lies" we tell each other.
Ed Spivey Jr. 8-01-1994
We recently changed over to a different health insurance company here at Sojourners. The new company is less expensive than our previous insurer, and it covers virtually every pre-existing medical condition except stuttering.
("No, I swear I never stuttered before I signed up. I just walked in here, and, well, it s-s-s-s-ort of came over me all at once.")
Our new insurance company seems pretty good. At least the application (at right) was only one page long. The only thing I wondered about is a new procedure—called a "group x-ray"—that the staff has to get once a year. Apparently it saves the insurance company a lot of money, but I don’t see how we’re all going to fit on that table at one time.
But seriously, health care is an important concern of all Americans, particularly sick people who wish they lived in virtually any other industrialized nation except ours. Here in the United States of Complicated Health Forms, if you go to a hospital you pray that your insurance is accepted—otherwise you’re put on the "standby stretcher" (the one with rust on the wheels), or you have to share a bed pan with somebody you don’t know.
With all the conflicting opinions about our nation’s health crisis, it’s nice to hear at least one clear voice of integrity. Not surprisingly, it’s from cigarette executives, the people who have the courage to state that their products have absolutely nothing to do with health. In fact, there is very little evidence linking cigarettes to lung cancer, and as soon as that’s shredded and burned there won’t be any at all.
Ed Spivey Jr. 7-01-1994
Actually, it was more like "The Day the White People Came" when Bill Clinton and his entourage of young Caucasians descended on our inner-city neighborhood.
Ed Spivey Jr. 6-01-1994
This issue of Sojourners marks a significant breakthrough in paper technology.
Ed Spivey Jr. 5-01-1994
Our top story this month has the theological world "all in a tizzy," which in the original Greek means "something much too nuanced for you to understand since you’re just a lay person."
Ed Spivey Jr. 2-01-1994
The enormous challenge of revamping our nation's health care system has congressional leaders promising to work harder than ever. Some are even considering returning to work after lunches.
Ed Spivey Jr. 1-01-1994
Well, that's some magazine so far, eh? Malevolent global corporations, the bleakness of Nicaragua, and the Holocaust. What is this, National Public Radio? I've seen more laughs in a jar of mustard.
Ed Spivey Jr. 6-01-1992
There's that darn curl again. Right in the middle, like I did it on purpose. I'm 42, and after a shower I get this stupid curl that sticks straight up and pulls the hair up from the sides. And that's the hair that I use to cover up my bald spots. Such vile degradations my body suffers. What other hideous surprise awaits me with each new morning? And why did God make hair if the Almighty One is just going to take it all back one clump at a time?
And another thing...oh, hello. Excuse me...I didn't see you pick up the magazine. I wasn't quite ready for you. But since you're here already, I heard this great God joke the other day. And because Sojourners is tight with God, I can tell it. (In any other magazine, of course, it would be a sin.) Anyway, a new arrival to Heaven was standing in line at the cafeteria and this person in a lab coat rushes up and cuts in front of him. Surprised, the new guy turns and remarks to the woman behind him, "I thought that in heaven everybody is treated equally. Who was that guy who just broke in line?" The woman replies, "Him? Oh, that's just God. Every so often he thinks he's a doctor."
And Now The News...
Filmmaker Oliver Stone reacted quickly to new conspiracy theories surrounding the Robert Kennedy assassination by announcing his upcoming movie, RFK.
Experts were not surprised that this workaholic director would take on another controversial project so soon after the release of JFK. But some expressed doubt that he would have time to finish his other current projects, which include:
· UK, a historical costume drama;
· Par-K, a documentary on the troubled American food industry;
· I'm OK, You're OK, an autobiographical reflection;
· Danny K: The Untold Story, and
· ¿Por K? a Spanish-language political thriller.
Ed Spivey Jr. 8-01-1990
I'd Like A Window Seat, No Faxing, Please
Frequent flyers are reacting with suspicion to the announcement that the airlines will soon be providing on-board facsimile service to their passengers. Laptop computers are bad enough, said a friend who inevitably ends up between a pair of eager computer slaves clacking away at their keyboards. But now you won't even be able to go to the bathroom without threading your way through the lines of people waiting to use the fax.
Alarmed by this latest development, we here at the H'rumphs Megatrends Desk predict the following scenario for the future.
NEWS ITEM, DATELINE 2001: The Federal Aviation Administration, in its strictest move since the 1990 ban on smoking aboard airliners, limited in-flight fax transmissions to transcontinental routes. The ruling comes a scant six months after the FAA required all faxing passengers to sit at the rear of the airplane, thus freeing up the bulk of seating for non-faxers.
One airline spokesperson predicted major fallout from the business community, noting that some travelers cannot be expected to fly for even an hour or two without faxing. Asked about the recent Surgeon General's report citing the societal damage of fax abuse, the source noted another study commissioned by the airlines that came to the opposite conclusion. "Our study shows that fax use is a personal choice, of no detriment to the transmitter, nor to anyone in the same room.
