Mick McCormack's blog

QWERTY, McCain and History

By W. Michael McCormack

Some things are just downright fascinating. Take, for instance, the QWERTY computer keyboard that I am using right now. We call it that because these are the first letters across the top of the key-board as we read from left to right. In 1873, inventor Christopher Sholes produced the first practical machine that actually wrote faster than clerks could pen words in longhand. While working on the “box” he would eventually call the typewriter, his favorite test phrase was the campaign slogan of Republican presidential hopeful Ulysses S. Grant: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party.” Why? Because the word order allowed for quick use of all the fingers in learning the main keys that he had “scattered around” the keyboard in order to prevent the mechanical keys from jamming. Secretaries, who were all men at the time, found it hard to learn to type very fast but it was certainly faster than writing longhand with the pens of the day.

Obama not Smarter than an 8th Grader

By W. Michael McCormack

Senator Barak Obama recently expressed his opinion about the beginning of life to Reverend Rick Warren at the Saddleback mega-church in California in a televised interview. To quote, he said that to answer when human life begins was “above my pay grade”. Now, we all know that this is a euphemism for, “I don’t want to answer what I really think because it might get me in trouble with my pro-abortion base of supporters.” We also know that this is politics in our generation. There are precious few statesmen and too many politicians. I have two observations in regard to this.

The Marriage "Gene" By W. Michael McCormack

For the first two-hundred years of America's history, marriage was seen as the union of one man and one woman. During the last thirty years or so, that idea of marriage has come under attack by those who would redefine or abolish it.

In recent years, the homosexual "community" has mounted a full scale assault on traditional marriage. Never mind that societies throughout human history have considered it foundational. Thousands of years ago, the Greek philosopher Cicero wrote, "The first bond of society is marriage."

There is a movement today that seeks to have "In God We Trust" taken off of our American currency. Those heading the move say that putting God on our money violates the separation of church and state championed by Thomas Jefferson. This movement says that the founders of our country were not really Christians or godly men. They often use Thomas Jefferson as an example. However, there was not a single member of the Continental Congress that did not acknowledge Jesus Christ as God and God as their protector. The Congress even funded the printing of 20,000 copies of the Bible after King George began an embargo against Bibles being imported into the American Colonies. George Washington wrote a letter of gratitude to the printer for the effort.