“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is a sad, ironic parable that often overshadows the deaths of those who live a certain lifestyle.

We all, through docility or vibrancy, live life by the terms we choose to and (if we do it right) we will usually see those choices be the guidepost for how we exit this world.

This could easily be narrowed to a question of probability — of course a racing enthusiast dying in a car wreck isn’t as surprising as their death would be, say, at the hands of a half-masticated apple.

In today’s online culture, blogging, be it video, audio, or good old print, is one of the foremost means of spreading news and opinion.

The blog has given rise to the citizen journalist, the person who writes about current events from a first-person view, including his or her opinion and feelings in the story.

Sounds great, no? Get online. Write about the antics of Aunt Myrtle’s cats, and instant reporter, right?

Customer service is a job that many of us have probably found ourselves doing at one time or another.

When I came back to Oklahoma last August after my summer vacation I decided I needed a job. Lots of people visit Oklahoma, meaning lots of people stay over night in the area. There are tons of hotels so I thought getting a front desk job at a hotel would be pretty easy.

[As I sort through the dimly lit closet that contains all of the necessary instruments for my visceral social commentary, I have found my beloved soapbox and, with a zeal not seen since I re-discovered my forgotten 8-bit NES, I’m kicking the light coat of dust off and delivering another assessment of the things that truly boggle my mind.]

My drives to work are, for the most part, wholly uneventful.

On June 6, Congressman Anthony Weiner made a public admission to sending lewd photos in texts, having affairs, and then lying to the media to cover up his behavior.

In true American political fashion, everyone and their dog has stepped out to condemn him and call for his resignation — but not because of the affairs.

Weiner is being asked to resign because of the images and text messages.

It’s ironic that teen pregnancy is considered a problem in modern culture.

Think about your great grandmother, how old was she when she married and had her first kid?

My great grandma was 15 when she married and 17 when she had her first child. This practice was commonplace during the early twentieth century. In fact, early female childbirth was the accepted custom for every culture and time period, ever.

So the world is ending. Cool. Every living being gets old. Every living being changes. Every living being eventually dies.

I don’t mean to be a downer. I’m just being honest. Planet Earth has been living for a very long time. So depending on how you look at it, it also has been dying for a very long time.

People believe that because global warming is speeding up and many natural disasters have been occurring that the end is near.

We don’t come by our sports heroes easily — at least I didn’t anyway.

As a presumably well-adjusted American youngster I was pulled into the all-encompassing fervor surrounding the icons of the time and nearly felt it compulsory to join in the adulation of figures such as Michael Jordan, Cal Ripken Jr., Emmitt Smith and Wayne Gretzky.

To not shower praise upon these particular individuals often opened me up to receiving admonishments akin to those one would receive on suspicion of destroying their neighbor’s crops with cries of “heretic” and “witch” likely to follow shortly after.

The advent of smartphones is long past, and as a society, we’re settling into the concept of walking around with a miniature computer on our person at all times.

Or so this writer thought, at any rate.

California resident Patrick Hendricks, alleging that multimedia corporation AT&T is overbilling for data charges associated with smartphones, filed a class action lawsuit this month.

It is mind boggling that in a country where it is legal to protest during a fallen soldier’s funeral with hateful picket signs saying such things as “Thank God for dead soldiers,” it is becoming illegal in many cities and states to wear your pants at a certain angle.

The state of Florida is the latest state to bounce around the idea of passing an anti-sagging law. This law would prohibit people from wearing their pants below their waist.