Beacon2Light

Richard Nixon always fascinated me as both a successful and tragic figure. His accomplishments were well known such as bringing troops home from Vietnam, the opening of relations with China and turning Egypt from a Soviet ally to a friend of the United States. Yet, his failed 1960 campaign seemed to have dogged him and led perhaps to his “enemies’ list” paranoia and ultimately Watergate. In The Greatest Comeback, Pat Buchanan writes about how Richard Nixon, a defeated and deflated candidate that the press wouldn’t have to kick around anymore became President of the United States. The reader gets an insider’s look into the tug of war between left and right for Nixon’s soul. Buchanan states quite clearly his conviction as to where Nixon was. One of the benefits of reading this book for me was some enlightenment on a time in U.S. history that I have spent too little time studying. That is in spite of the fact that I know that the 60’s were a transformative decade that still...

I'm not a baseball fan. In fact, sports are just not my thing; never have been. However, one thing is my thing and that is the story of a hero. That's something on which I can spend hours. This hero story is about a baseball player but not just about him. It is about a couple of heroes. Their names are Tim and Christine Burke. Too often, heroes are found on the "field of dreams" or in stadiums, playing or singing to sold-out crowds. Yet these heroes were made at home with a decision to change lives less advantaged than their own. Upon hearing of their inability to have children, the Burkes took a decidedly different route than most to correct that. While others sought other avenues to deal with the inability to conceive, Tim and Christine chose to adopt children with disabilities.  "To the world, our children were considered undesirable," Christine said. "But somebody has to take the children like that. And we felt our hearts could handle it....