MauryTHINKS

Ron grew up in Tennessee and began writing a column for his hometown paper in 2002. He attended The University of Memphis and the Institute for Political and Economic Systems at Georgetown University. He is a regular guest on CNN and has been quoted in numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal. His columns reflect a rare combination of Southern libertarian views and humor. They have been described as "Lewis Grizzard meets P.J. O'Rourke." His columns are carried by 30 newspapers with a total weekly circulation of approximately 1 million readers. He can be reached at: revron10@aol.com

I have long said that we men really are not much. Women are unquestionably the superior gender. We certainly would not be at war now in Iraq if women were in charge.
My son, who is embarking on that stage of his life where he is thinking about a wife, recently asked me a few questions [...]

With gas over $4 a gallon and politicians trying to blame each other for not having done anything, let me apply some reason and fresh focus to what is going on here.
It has gotten so bad that Al Gore had to turn down the heater on his private residence pool, which he never uses, from [...]

The courts in California, which are more like the courts of Caligula, recently ruled that gays can marry, thus launching the state’s first wave of gay marriages that did not involve Liza Minnelli. While this is great news for California’s leather chaps business, it is a big slap in the face for the voters who [...]

Sometimes things must be allowed to go woefully wrong before they can go right, as is the case with many of our public schools today.
As with every important endeavor that we embark upon, it is our philosophy that is paramount. The idea of government-run schools began with the notion of educating the masses just enough [...]

Eighteen months ago, with Hillary leading Obama by a wide margin and probably already having commissioned the initial design etching of her inaugural pantsuit, I wrote a column titled: “Hillary will be sunk by a vast left-wing conspiracy.”
In it I said “Barack Obama is the anointed big media Democratic presidential nominee. From the way journalists [...]

“Barack Obama says he is now looking for a new church … preferably one where the religious order has taken a vow of silence.”
— Jay Leno
Hillary is right to stay in this race. Barack Obama’s revealing remarks, which give us insight into his disdain for Southern white voters, have given Hillary a strong argument that [...]

“If they (Tennessee Republicans) think that they are going to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful, because I find unacceptable the notion that you start attacking my wife.”
— Barack Obama

I love my native Tennessee. We did not vote for Al Gore when he ran for president, sealing his loss. A [...]

“A man has to believe in something. I believe I’ll have another drink.”
— W.C. Fields
Our Washington government is starting to remind me of my drunk uncle. Perhaps we all have one; he is the guy who shows up late at family reunions, in a remorseful “going to make it up to us all” way, given [...]

“A strong imagination begetteth opportunity.”
— Michel De Montaigne
One of my favorite and most enduring journalists of all time is Barbara Walters. When the traditional door of news anchor was shut to her, she broke many barriers in her career and created a new genre of TV. Through her gumption and imagination, she reshaped TV journalism [...]

It could not be a better time for the Democrats to elect a president. We are in throes of an expensive and unnecessary war. The GOP spends, well, like Democrats; and also refuses to cut Federal spending. Oil prices are high and home prices are down. George W. Bush is so unpopular now that I [...]

It became increasingly hard to view Barack Obama as the “unifier” that he professes to be when he did not quickly disassociate himself from the maniacal Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
In an ego trip to the National Press Club, a friendly venue for a Democrat since it is the fraternity house of the Left, Wright continued to [...]

Here in the City of Brotherly love, there are clearly a lot of brothers but not much love between squabbling candidates Hillary “get your gun” Clinton and the media heartthrob Barack Obama.
It is now all about Guns, God and Whiskey, which incidentally, was also my high school prom theme.
Doing what politicians do best, they divert [...]

“A friend, as it were, is a second self.”
— Cicero
After attending the championship game of the NCAA Final Four and being devastated by the result, I hosted some old friends in Florida this week.
We planned to watch the Masters and celebrate the 25th year of our friendship, which began in the training program at Goldman [...]

It is the time of the year when a young college man’s thoughts turn to romance; and if that does not pan out, he takes a lead from Eliot Spitzer and turns to the Yellow Pages.
We are in the throes of an annual bacchanalian rite in the United States: Spring break, wherein our teenaged kids [...]

“If you have 10,000 regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.”
— Winston Churchill
It seems that with the resurgence of the Democratic majority in Congress and the years of drift by the complacent Republicans, symbolic gestures and showy Congressional hearings are on the rise.
Recently, Congress paraded baseball players before a committee to testify on possible [...]

“The big, the new scandal breaking here in New York, Eliot Spitzer apparently involved in some kind of prostitution activities — you know what that means: hookers. And right now, Spitzer is huddling with his advisers to develop a drinking problem.”
— David Letterman
NEW YORK — It’s when things like this happen that I love writing [...]

Only Democrats, in their constant quest for fairness and equality (and most importantly their notion of equal outcomes for both the lazy and the industrious), could have
possibly complicated a simple procedure like an election.
First, since the Democratic establishment wants to control everything in a manner it sees fit, the Democratic National Committee punished Florida and [...]

“Because it is a long, horrifying process to run for the nomination, candidates often like to have fun on the campaign trail. And a couple of days ago Hillary Clinton while she was flying on her private campaign jet, pretended to be a flight attendant. But that’s not all. She was so convincing that Bill [...]

As I do each year-end, let me review what we learned in 2007.
1. We learned that the CIA sometimes tortures using waterboarding. With the drought in Georgia, the governor there has asked that it stop. And, for a state that waterboards suspects for routine traffic violations, we could save a lot of water. Yet we [...]

As I do each year-end, let me review what we learned in 2007.
1. We learned that the CIA sometimes tortures using waterboarding. With the drought in Georgia, the governor there has asked that it stop. And, for a state that waterboards suspects for routine traffic violations, we could save a lot of water. Yet we [...]