Michael Tennant's picture
Joined: 2009-08-30
Columns on STR: 30
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United States

Short bio:

Michael Tennant is a software developer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.


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Columns by Michael Tennant

Destroying Life in Order to Save It
Michael Tennant 2005-11-10 17:00
Exclusive to STR To: Jerry Bowyer, talk-show host, WORD-FM, Pittsburgh From: Mike Tennant, Christian Dear Mr. Bowyer:
Destroying Life in Order to Save It
Michael Tennant 2005-05-31 16:00
President George W. Bush, threatening finally to use his veto pen after nearly four-and-a-half years in office, said of a bill likely to pass both houses of Congress and wind up on his desk in the near future, 'I made [it] very clear to the Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayers' money, to promote science which destroys life in order to save life, I'm against that.'
End It; Don't Mend It
Michael Tennant 2005-05-16 16:00
'Mend it, but don't end it,' was the slogan the Clinton administration applied to the issue of federally mandated discrimination, a.k.a. affirmative action. Liberals applauded, recognizing it as a typical piece of Clintonian blather, right up there with 'The era of big government is over,' meant to assuage the less liberal parts of the electorate without actually altering the program in any...
Michael Tennant 2005-05-03 16:00
Can a person be a Christian and also an anarchist? A friend of mine who has been reading my STR columns posed this to me recently. While answering his query, I realized that many of my readers might be wondering the same thing, so it seemed as good a time as any to lay out the biblical case for anarchy. Before we get into the Good Book, however, let us define exactly what anarchy is and what...
Pouring Gasoline on the Fire of High Fuel Prices
Michael Tennant 2005-03-16 17:00
As I type, the average price for a gallon of gasoline here in western Pennsylvania is about $2.03, lower than the national average but a record for our area nonetheless.
Care for Some Blood with Your Omelet?
Michael Tennant 2005-03-02 17:00
Suppose you knew that a man in a nearby neighborhood routinely beat his family and had murdered several of his neighbors with impunity. Seeing that the authorities were doing nothing about it, you took it upon yourself to organize a posse. You gave the men in your posse orders to capture or kill the evil man, doing their best to avoid hurting innocent bystanders. The men followed your orders...
The First Amendment: Too Much of a Good Thing?
Michael Tennant 2005-02-01 17:00
Interviews with the Empire
Michael Tennant 2005-01-20 17:00
President George W. Bush, secure in the thought that he has four more years in the White House and will never have to face voters again, this week has graciously allowed various journalists to interview him at length. The journalists, knowing that continued access to the president depends on their not straying too far from the unwritten boundaries of Beltway opinion, have asked him roughly the...
One, Two, Many Somalias
Michael Tennant 2004-11-21 17:00
The war in Iraq is clearly a disaster. A year and a half after President Bush's infamous 'Mission Accomplished' speech aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, the situation has become far worse than it was that May Day when the president 'landed' a Navy jet on the ship's runway. Attacks on U.S. troops continue to occur regularly, and it is painfully obvious that the troops control only the ground...
Kerry the Conservative?
Michael Tennant 2004-10-24 16:00
'[He] is confident that the war on terrorism can be won, in the same way the war on organized crime can be won. 'There will not be a treaty signed aboard the battleship Missouri , but we can break its back so that it is only a horrible nuisance and not a paralyzing influence on our societies.'' What well-known public figure said this? John Kerry? John Edwards? Bill or Hillary Clinton? Ted...
One Flu Over the Cuckoo"s Nest
Michael Tennant 2004-10-19 16:00
'Physicians,' writes J.R. Kent, M.D., to the editor of the Los Angeles Times, 'will have the sad task of filling out the death certificates of those who die of influenza as a consequence of this vaccine shortage. Causes of death? Primary cause: the market system. Secondary cause: influenza. That's what I'll be signing.' Dr. Kent needs to see a competent psychiatrist if his brain is so...
It"s My Party, and They"ll Lie (and Kill) If They Want To
Michael Tennant 2004-10-10 16:00
On August 21, 1992 , agents of the United States government laid siege to the Ruby Ridge, Idaho home of Randy Weaver. By evening of the following day, Weaver had been severely wounded by a shot in the back. His 13-year-old son, Sammy, and his wife, Vicki, had been shot to death, and his friend Kevin Harris had also been severely wounded when the bullet that killed Vicki Weaver passed through...
A Shakedown by Any Other Name
Michael Tennant 2004-09-12 16:00
Gary Gibson, of Raleigh , North Carolina , is a criminal, according to the Raleigh Police Department. Why? Did he rob, rape, or murder someone? Did he, perhaps, burn someone's house down or abduct a child? No, Gary Gibson is a criminal because he refuses to hire an off-duty police officer to patrol his nightclub's parking lot, contrary to a city ordinance that 'requires any business with a...
A Remarkable Record of (Big Government) Achievement
Michael Tennant 2004-09-06 16:00
One year ago, the First Baptist Church of Whatchacula, Pennsyltucky, hired a Mr. Bill Z. Bubb as its pastor. Some of the board members at the time had expressed some concern that Bubb was not quite theologically orthodox, but he had won them over during his interview and subsequent sermons by speaking as a true believer. Now it was time for the board to consider whether or not to retain Bubb...
Iraq Is America
Michael Tennant 2004-07-29 16:00
Regular readers of The Family Circus comic strip will be familiar with the character known as Not Me. Not Me is not, as one might expect, an actual human character but rather a ghostly figure who turns up whenever one of the children is being accused of, say, drawing on the walls or slamming the door. When asked, 'Who drew this picture on the wall?' the child says, 'Not me,' and sure enough,...
When the Personal Becomes Political
Michael Tennant 2004-06-20 16:00
The slogan of the feminist movement in the 1970s, adopted to some degree by others on the left, was 'the personal is the political.' In other words, those things that had previously been considered private affairs, off limits to government and the political process, were now to be considered fair game for politics. No longer was government to confine itself to keeping the peace and defending...
Now You See It, Now You Don"t
Michael Tennant 2004-05-26 16:00
A picture is worth a thousand words. Never is this old adage proved truer than in the throes of war. From Matthew Brady's photographs of the War Between the States to William Randolph Hearst's (possibly apocryphal) 'You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war,' to the famous photo of the Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima'the most reproduced photograph in history'to the television...
Know Your Rights
Michael Tennant 2004-05-12 16:00
'Know your rights.' What American hasn't heard that imperative, repeated ad nauseam by government agencies and ambulance-chasing lawyers, both professing to protect individual citizens from evil businessmen? On the other hand, what American knows what his rights really are? According to the federal and state governments, Americans have the right to food, clothing, health care, education,...
Washington on the Tigris
Michael Tennant 2004-03-14 17:00
World War I, at the time known as 'the war to end all wars,' was one of the most horrific events in world history. America 's entry into the war was driven by Woodrow Wilson's progressive idealism, whereby an Allied victory would 'make the world safe for democracy.' After the war, the failure of the League of Nations and other subsequent events combined to take the shine off the great victory...
What Would Abe or George Do?
Michael Tennant 2004-02-15 17:00
In recent years, evangelical Christians have been fond of the abbreviation WWJD?, which stands for 'What Would Jesus Do?' That is, in the situation in which one finds oneself, how can one act in accordance with the life and teachings of Christ? In that same spirit, let us consider the administration of George W. Bush. A local, standard-issue conservative talk radio host'who, naturally, thinks...
Flat Earth Foreign Policy
Michael Tennant 2004-02-01 17:00
The flyer sent out to those interested in joining the International Flat Earth Society declares: 'One thing we know for sure about this world . . . the known inhabited world is Flat, Level, a Plain World [sic].' Forget Columbus . Forget Magellan. Forget all those photographs from space; the space missions were no doubt fakes anyway. Forget the fact that nobody has ever fallen off the end of...
Where"s the Outrage?
Michael Tennant 2004-01-11 17:00
During the eight seemingly interminable years of the Clinton administration, Bill Clinton perfected a method of damage control for those ever-so-frequent times when he was caught, or about to be caught, in yet another lie. There were three basic components to this method, each used when appropriate to the problem at hand: 1. Release the damaging information, often only in part, before...
Mob Rule
Michael Tennant 2003-12-09 17:00
The door to the little drugstore opened, and the bell jingled. Hans Schmidt, recent immigrant and proud owner of the new store, looked up from the medicine bottle he was filling to see two tough-looking men darkening his doorway. 'How may I help you gentlemen?' asked Mr. Schmidt. For a moment the two men, both wearing pinstriped suits and felt fedoras, just stood and glanced about the store...
Freedom's Defenders or Politicians' Pawns?
Michael Tennant 2003-11-13 17:00
Having just suffered through the semiannual worship of the various wars of the realm in the guise of veneration of veterans, it seemed as good a time as any to set a few things straight.
The Greatest Crime of All
Michael Tennant 2003-10-20 16:00
You have to feel a little sorry for the poor saps at the Transportation Security Administration. A 20-year-old college student sneaks, with apparent ease, illegal items'box cutters, bleach, matches, and 'modeling clay resembling plastic explosives''onto two Southwest Airlines jets in mid-September. It takes airline personnel over a month to discover the items.