As a current columnist for my local newspaper, the “Wyoming Tribune Eagle,” where I enjoy the privilege of being able to pretty much write on any topic I care to rant about, I write a weekly opinion piece (currently published on Sundays), said columns of which I will post here as they are written.
Most of the time I focus on local events from the perspective of how they reflect the principles and ideas so many of us have forgotten about — if, indeed, we ever knew them: Reason, individualism and capitalism. Sometimes I range a little further afield and spew my thoughts on pressing national and international issues as well.
Since ideas drive the world, it really isn’t difficult to engage in such analyses; to the contrary, the part that becomes harder and harder over time is to discuss things that I haven’t already discussed before at one time or another. As someone who has been writing, on and off, for nearly 40 years (I published my first “Letter to the Editor” in the “Orange County Register” back in 1980), I’ve developed a rather substantial body of commentary to which I do the best I can to try to add something fresh to every time I pen a new piece.
Most of the time, I believe, I succeed in that; sometimes, however, I know that I am repeating myself. Please forgive me if something I wrote recently sounds like something I wrote 30 years prior. The principles and ideas truly are eternal!
As for what I’ve written … Well, quite frankly, as I’m growing all the time in awareness and approach, there’s a LOT of stuff I’ve penned that I would write quite a bit differently if I were tackling that piece right now. Especially with a lot of the “Retro Rants,” as some of that stuff is decades old.
Still, I’ve decided to leave such rants alone. That’s what I wrote at the time, and that’s what I believed was the right thing to write at the time. If it’s REALLY bad, I’ve excised it completely. Otherwise, I’ve left my words in exactly the state in which they were written.
Additionally, if anything I’ve published came with links, I’ve included those in the pieces. Not everything I’ve written, after all, is linkable — certainly not my “Orange County Register” or “Saddleback College Lariat” stuff, which was written in a pre-Internet environment, nor my first go-round at the WTE, which did not publish guest columnists on their website at that time (they do now). If there’s an available link, however, I’ve included it.
So, “What You’ll Find Here” are all the columns I’ve written for the WTE on this third period of writing for that publication. Additionally, under the “Retro Rants” menu, I will be including everything I believe worthy of print from my earlier periods of writing: The “Orange County Register,” the “Saddleback College Lariat,” various other free-lance pieces from other newspapers around the country, the “Liberty’s Torch” newspaper my wife Barbie and I published back in 2011 and 2012, and the columns from my first two periods of writing for the WTE.
In cases where what was actually published became different from what I actually wrote — for instance, if an editor removed a word’s italics or something of that nature, or changed the copy in any fashion (it’s happened more than once), I have adhered to the standard that what I originally wrote is what gets published here. This is MY blog, after all, and I am the “Editor.”
Additionally, under the “Other Stuff” menu, I will be including non-commentary-type writings as well, just for fun. I’ve been told by more than a few people that these items, also, have things to say that people might want to read.
I have come to the conclusion, over the last few decades of my life, that our country, the United States of America, stands at many crossroads: Philosophically, politically, socially, educationally and economically. Now, more than ever, we need a rational, consistent, workable approach to our problems to guide us through the many pitfalls we’ve so foolishly created for ourselves. It is my objective that at least some of “What You’ll Find Here” will help you in those endeavors. I’ve got a lot of things on my mind, and you’re about to find out just what some of those things are.
As always however, Dear Reader, whether any of it might actually entertain you or help you along in your own journeys through life, I’ll leave you to judge for yourself.
With Love Always,
Bradley T. Harrington
Cheyenne, Wyoming, the United States of America
February, 2017
Reigniting Liberty's Torch 