Fidelity - Back around 1969, psychologist Rollo May wrote in his now classic book “ Love and Will” that “ people are doing it more but enjoying it less. ” He was commenting on the sexual revolution of the ’ 60 ’s which claimed to liberate love from its shackles of repression. It seems to me that one of the great gifts for human joy and meaning has been devalued during the ensuing decades. For our health and happiness, I’d like to encourage us to reclaim the relationship between sexual intimacy and fidelity. In popular culture, sex has been devalued as though it were nothing more than an appetite to be fed or an entertainment to be enjoyed. The qualifying rationalism of the sexual revolution was “ as long as nobody gets hurt. ” Of course, people did get hurt.

Gambling-lite - If passed, that would end the shame of thousands of wellmeaning Arkansas citizens who get involved in sponsoring or otherwise participating in games of chance for good causes. Most frequently, those games are bingo, in which you buy a card to play in hopes of winning a prize, and a raffle, in which you buy a ticket that gives you a chance to win a prize in a drawing.

Campaigning 101 - WHAT DOES it say about the two candidates for governor that the most memorable moments of Campaign Aught-Six have been contributed by (a ) Michael Dale Huckabee, and (b ) William Jefferson Clinton ? These colorful figures have a way of putting everybody else in the shade. After all, how can a Mike Beebe or even a punctuation-enhanced Asa !—nice enough gents that both are—compete with the Boys from Hope, who know how to do it when it comes to campaigning ?

All Wet? - WET COUNTY, dry county. Dry county, wet county. We’ve heard the debate for years around the kitchen table, the corner grocery, and at the office. If a county goes wet, one side argues, all is lost! Demon Rum will be loosed and debauchery of all kinds will follow. Let a liquor store open down the street, and soon enough you’ll be inundated with women of the night, thugs of every description, and even places that sell disco pants. Why, allow a liquor store nearby, and you can expect LOCUSTS! the next day. Or is that a pool hall? Anyway, it’s a bad, bad, bad idea.

What the heck, it’s just a poll - The fun starts when you ask who is going to hell. Among born-again Christians, 55 percent said there was “not a chance” they were going to hell, yet 60 percent listed “wrong beliefs” when asked why others might be going to hell.On the other hand, only 21 percent of Catholics and 20 percent of Jews said “not a chance” that they would go to hell, and only 1 percent of Jews listed “wrong beliefs” as a reason others might feel the heat.

My favorite part of the poll was this question: “How do you know the people you think might go to hell?”

Acquaintances were named by 54 percent, friends by 13 percent (”Hey, Buddy, I know you’re living a life of sin and are doomed to eternal damnation, but in the meantime, what say we go have a beer?”) and co-workers by only 9 percent (they obviously don’t work at a newspaper).

The other 24 percent? That was family.