Truth: In 1,000 Words or Less by Author Steven Craig

The Lessons We Can Learn from Frankenstein Before I begin this week’s column, now is probably the time to inform my loyal readers that I will be putting an indefinite pause on the weekly publication of TRUTH: In 1000 Words or Less. Don’t worry — I’ll still be far too dogmatic and opinionated to refrain […]

Something Old and Something New If there’s one thing I love about being a teacher, besides the obvious fame and wealth that go hand in hand with the profession, there is the prolonged opportunity for exploration and adventure.  While summers “off” involve a whole lot more planning and curriculum development than outsiders may acknowledge, I […]

Not a Fan of Only Fans This week’s column was inspired by a friend who sent me an article about a young woman in Australia who has turned her OnlyFans account into a lucrative, money-grabbing opportunity.  26 year-old Annie Knight used to make around $60k a year as a marketing agent as she scrimped and […]

E-Bikes: Promoting Health or Encouraging Laziness? Most of my friends probably cannot believe that I have not written on this subject sooner.  They have heard me rave, time after laborious time, about how obnoxious e-bikes are out on the rec paths of Summit County, Colorado where we live.  They have heard me fume about the […]

Louisiana’s Attempt at Sharia Law When I penned a column back at the end of November 2023 entitled “A Crash Course on the Separation of Church and State”, there was no way I thought I’d be back here writing about this all over again a mere six months later.  But here we are.  Thank you, […]

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead I don’t usually take significant life advice from a Bon Jovi concert shirt, but back in the mid 1990’s, when I was travelling across Europe with my girlfriend at the time, I came across someone wearing a shirt promoting the band’s 1992 “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” Tour.  Not having […]

A Felon in the White House? I love irony—usually. In most circumstances, we can sit back as casual observers, as irony provides someone we know with much-needed insight while utilizing a flair for the humorous that makes the recognition strike home with an indelible force. But other times, we are the victims of irony, as […]

I Love a Happy Ending I love a happy ending.  Ok there, pervs, get your mind out of the gutter.  I mean that I love a story that ends with an inspirational outcome.  Perhaps it’s just the eternal optimist in me, but I relish the gratifying glow of a story arc that concludes with positive […]

Birthdays Don’t Suck So Bad After All As I prepare to settle in for yet another birthday, another 365 days spent floating adrift on a giant rock hurtling through the outer reaches of space in an elliptical orbit around a flaming ball of hydrogen and helium, I    marvel at how the time has gone […]

The Future of an AI Workplace I’m soon to be out of a job.  Let’s face it- AI could probably write this column in less time than it takes me to start my computer and mix myself the stiff cocktail it usually takes for me to slog through this drivel.  In fact, if I asked […]

Could Gambling Kill Modern Sports? In the course of my adolescence and early adulthood, I am none too proud to say that I have been asked to leave the premises on more than one occasion.  Once, for example, my college roommate and I were escorted from the venerable Georgetown institution The Tombs after dousing our […]

How Did Republicans Become the Pro-Russia Party? So long, Mike Johnson.  It sure was nice knowing you, or not knowing you, as the case may be.  Turns out you weren’t around long enough to share a cup of coffee with, which I assume you do not drink for religious reasons.  By the time I go […]

I choose Hell If there really is a Heaven and a Hell after we die, I’m pretty damn sure we all know where I am headed.  In fairness, it doesn’t matter if it’s Dante’s Inferno or just a Heaven or Hell-themed cocktail party: Either way, I’m generally veering straight for the lowest floor.  As my […]

Where Do Caitlin Clark, and the WNBA, Go From Here? It is no exaggeration to suggest that Caitlin Clark  has become the most impactful female athlete of this generation.  Leading Iowa to the NCAA Championship Game in both of the last two seasons, Clark has become the all-time leading scorer in college basketball history.  That’s […]

Let Your Kids Get Boo Boo’s We all know that cranky, old men have a tendency to bitterly lament the way things aren’t what they used to be, that we might have a slight tendency towards false perceptions of then versus now that overly romanticise the hallmarks of an earlier era.  Remembering our past with […]

The Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love I became a father for the first time seventeen years ago this January.  No one could have told me then, though they certainly tried to in varying forms of both inspirational hyperbole and threatening menace, that my life would be dramatically transformed from that day forward.  Flash forward all […]

The Day That Justice Died I don’t mean to tell you that I told you so, but, man, I freakin’ told you so.  When Republicans literally stole a Supreme Court seat in the wake of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s passing, I told you that it would have vast, wide-ranging implications for decades to come.  I told […]

The 2024 Election May Look Better Than It Seems Just the other day a friend of mine asked me what I thought Trump’s chances were of winning the presidency later this year if he is not criminally convicted of charges prior to the election.  First, I had to remind them that I completely blew the […]

Make the World a Better Place “What is success? To laugh often and much;  to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;  to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate the beauty; to find the best in others;  to leave the world a […]

Unconditional Love is Not Unconditional Praise Several years back now, I had a student who proceeded to give one of the absolute worst video presentations in the long annals of horrendously bad student presentations.  Now, I know you’re thinking that I certainly must be involved in some playful hyperbole here, that there is no way […]

The Red Herring of Immigration Two of the subjects I have always been loathe to write about in TRUTH: In 1000 Words or Less are immigration and feminine hygiene products.  That’s because I know conspicuously little about either one.  And given my dearth of knowledge on these subjects, I find myself lacking in the type […]

This past Sunday, the Kansas City Chiefs and The San Fransisco 49ers both punched their tickets to the premiere sporting event in all of North American sports, and all anyone seemed to care about was the kiss that Pro Bowl Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce shared with Taylor Swift on the field after the game.  […]

You Can Be Right and Wrong at the Same Time A friend of mine in college once told me that, “Two seemingly mutually exclusive ideas can both be true at the same time.”  If that esoteric gibberish seems somewhat mind-numbing, like the weed-induced ramblings of yet another stoner trustafarian wasting his parents’ tuition funds trying […]

The Affliction in American Health Care In the United States, we live under the perpetual delusion that everything here is the best in the world.  We believe we have the best economy, the best education, the best healthcare.  You name it- we think we’re the best.  But in terms of per capita GDP, the United […]

How Gerrymandering Leaves Us With Lauren Boebert Sometimes I am both amazed and appalled that Lauren Boebert and I hail from the same state.  And trust me- it has nothing to do with the fact that this pitiful excuse for a congresswoman, whose name ironically shares a voiced bilabial alliteration with the word “bimbo”, opted […]

New Years Resolutions I’m Sure Not to Keep Ah, New Year’s, 2024.  Nothing like the start of a new year to remind us of all the crappy things we have been doing to our bodies and souls for the past 364 days, only to spend at least a week or so thinking about how we […]

The Real War On Christmas  Every time I hear Tucker Carlson palavering on and on about the supposed “War on Christmas”, I can’t help conjuring a mental image of Jesus and Santa, armed to the teeth, fighting off mobs of liberals with a cigarillo pressed between their lips as they empty a pocketful of shells […]

Even Money Needs Limits When is enough enough?  Is it possible that some people just have too much money?  Living in a laissez faire capitalistic society like the Unites States has trained many of us to think that we can never have enough, that the goal should always be to have more, but perhaps when […]

A Crash Course on the Separation of Church and State  I’ve begun to feel like I should teach a prerequisite course on basic American Civics.  That’s not to suggest that I am some sort of legal scholar who lectures on the subject of Constitutional Law at Harvard University, but when it comes to the fundamental […]

What I’m Thankful for: 2023 Edition  I know it sometimes may not seem it, but I love people.  Sometimes even my family.  Sure, they can drive you absolutely nuts at times, perhaps even make you question the basic nature and direction of humanity itself.  But that’s the whole thing about family: We love them nonetheless.  […]

Democrats Just Missed Another Huge Opportunity Democrats had yet another good night on Tuesday with key legislative and gubernatorial victories that will help push the progressive agenda forward.  In particular, voters in several states, most notably Ohio and Michigan, elected to enshrine women’s reproductive rights into their state’s constitutions.  Given the dark cloud that has […]

Take a Load Off As the NBA is set to embark on the start of its 77th season, it seems like a good time to reflect on where the sport stands today and where it may be headed years into the future.  On the one hand, the National Basketball Association seems to have quite a […]

The Real Reason We Love Halloween I must admit that I’ve never been much of a Halloween kind of guy.  Even as a kid, I was really just in it for the candy.  Then as I moved into high school and trick-or-treating became socially frowned upon both by my peers and the adults who would […]

The Path to Peace Between Israel and Palestine Having grown up as an only child, I have never known the sheer joy of arguing with a sibling day after bliss-inducing day.  But after having witnessed my own two children literally argue over dirt, I feel I have gleaned at least some sagacity into the existential […]

The Real Reason Americans Don’t Feel Safe I walked into the grocery store yesterday and was kindly greeted by a security guard standing at the door.  While I certainly appreciated the cheery but awkward smile, I couldn’t help thinking that there simply weren’t security officers at grocery stores back when I was a kid.  But […]

The Greed that Feeds People often ask me why I hate free market capitalism so much.  Truth be told, I’m actually a big fan of American capitalism.  I’ve never lived in China or the former Soviet Union, but I feel confident that we have a pretty good thing going, all things considered.  But what I […]

We Aren’t As Smart As We Think We Are Life is good once more.  That’s because after seven, long, excitement-free months, football is finally back.  Some people look forward to Fall for the aroma of pumpkin spice lattes, the cozy warmth of a hearty Minestrone soup, and the splendour of falling leaves.  But for me, […]

You Can’t Learn if You’re Not There As we descend upon a new school year, and teachers gear up for yet another 10-month span of trials and tribulations, mostly by way of consuming copious quantities of alcohol in the days leading up to their first day back in the classroom, many will be greeted by […]

You Should Definitely Mess With Texas For those of you who might be unfamiliar, Texas has actually proposed some truly wonderful legislation within the past year.  No, I am not referring to House Bill 2127 which eliminated water breaks for workers throughout the state.  And no, I am definitely not referencing the Texas trigger law […]

Trouble in Paradise As Americans, we are often blithely unaware that other people hate us.  When I backpacked around Europe in the mid 1990’s, my buddy and I seriously considered sewing Canadian flags onto our packs to avoid the stigma associated with most Americans.  Throughout the rest of the world, we are generally considered boorish, […]

Drain the Swamp Do you remember way back in 2016 when Trump would rile up his MAGA base by leading them in a chant of “Lock her up!”, saying that when he became President, he was going to “Drain the swamp”? Yeah, that was cute. He was referring, of course, to Hilary Clinton’s use of […]

DEI is the New Brainwashing A buddy of mine recently had to attend a full-day of DEI training for his job with the town of Frisco.  I’m going to repeat that:  My buddy recently had to attend a full-day of DEI training for his job with the town of Frisco, quite possibly the whitest and […]

Being a Woman is Hard, But So Is Being a Man Usually, I know right from the start when I am working on a two-parter for TRUTH:In 1000 Words or Less.  Either it’s a multi-faceted issue that I am attempting to tackle, or I just plain know that there’s no way that my loquacious ass […]

You Don’t Know What You Got ’Til It’s Gone This past weekend, Dead and Company played its final three shows before a packed house at Oracle Park in San Fransisco, marking an end point to a musical journey that began in the same place nearly sixty years ago.  And so comes to a close a […]

Zen and the Art of Ice Hockey Shenanigans My family is hardly what you would call a bunch of highly-skilled athletes.  In fact, we may be to sports what the Kardashians are to academic debate.  My father, despite having lived on a golf course for nearly two decades now and taking lessons for most of […]

Pulling the Ladder Up Behind You I am old enough to remember what it was like to go to college with black people.  Unfortunately, my own children will know no such thing.  In two cases brought by conservative students applying to Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the Supreme Court last Thursday struck down […]

Why You’ll Be Paying for OceanGate You know, I’ve heard a lot recently from Republicans suggesting that there is a two-tiered system of justice in this country.  Oh, if they only knew the laughable irony their barely coherent ramblings represent given that they are referencing a man who should have already spent decades behind bars […]

A Boycott Based in Hate Politics After a recent volleyball game, my son asked me for some cash so he could grab some overly-processed crap food with his friends.  They were all heading out to Chick-Fil-A, the LGBTQ-hating chicken place that’s closed on Sundays for what one can only assume is the sole reason of […]

America’s Great Divide A good friend of mine and I recently got together for beers. We’re both ex-pat New Englanders living in Colorado for the past two decades, so you know what that means: lots of tawkin’ ‘bout the Sox and debating whether LeBron is better than Larry Legend. He reads this column on the […]

The Symbolic Ramifications of Graduations If you haven’t heard from your teacher friends in awhile, don’t worry, they’ll be coming up for air soon.  Spring is a hectic time in the world of education, made even more taxing by the irrepressible raging of hormones and the pent-up hyperactivity of youth after months of teenage inertia.  […]

Living in the Present…Even in the Past  I know this is a fairly common refrain amongst many in my generation, but man, am I ever glad I came of age in an era that preceded the obscene proliferation of social media.  I have, after all, done some seriously stupid shit over the years.  But fortunately […]

Dance Like No One is Watching, Or You Just Don’t Give a F!$# Is it just me, or does Facebook sending you memory suggestions creep you out a bit?  I always appreciate the opportunity for some wistful nostalgia, but the fact that Facebook uses an algorithm to monitor my life and create some sort of […]

Democrats Have a Biden Problem Is it just me or does Joe Biden seem really old these days?  Oh yeah, that’s right- it’s definitely not just me.  Almost every single poll out there shows that most Americans are thinking pretty much the same thing: that it’s time for ol’ Joe to hang up the boxing […]

Who Makes What and Why As a general principle, I find Parade magazine to be about as vapid and mindless as a Marjorie Taylor Greene dissertation on the subject of Jewish Space Lasers.  Now for those of you who do not know what I am talking about, Parade is a trite weekly publication inserted into […]

Can Self-Interest Save the World? The world is a naturally simple and beautiful place.  Then we come along and screw it all up by thinking far too much about it.  I was reminded of this truism recently when discussing Game Theory with my 13 year-old daughter.  And if anything will remind you that you’re thinking […]

How Citizens United Divided Citizens My daughter has recently been studying U.S. Supreme Court cases in her Civics class and asked me what I thought was the worst decision ever rendered by the nation’s highest court. There certainly have been some doozies. There’s the Plessy vs. Ferguson ruling that defined the notion of “separate but […]

The 34 Reasons We All Have to be Grateful For Last Thursday, I woke up and it was like Christmas morning with 34 beautifully-wrapped presents just waiting to be opened. That’s because Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg doled out Trump indictments like Santa Claus on an egg nog bender with 34 felony counts for falsifying […]

If We Shadows Have Offended “If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumbered here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: If you pardon, we will mend: And, as I am an […]

Live Your Life Instead of Filming It Last week, in writing about the impact of a generation of parents who eschew actually parenting their children, I told the story of our recent experience at the Venardo’s Circus as two children traipsed across the patron boundary rope while their parents blithely ignored them and recorded the […]

Just Say No to Your Kids Have you ever gone to a concert or theater performance and found yourself growing increasingly agitated as some kid seated near you was permitted to prattle on endlessly whilst their parents, clearly habituated to the mindless ramblings, blithely ignored them?  Have you ever just about lost your everlasting mind […]

Let Freedom Ring…..or not For years now as an English teacher, I have struggled to come up with the perfect example to teach my students about irony.  Underwhelmingly, I have often found myself resorting to that insipid Alannis Morisette song, but somehow focusing on “10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife” (please excuse […]

The Supreme Court Just Grabbed Women (and the rest of us) by the Pussy I am angry today. Like seething, foaming-at-the-mouth angry. That’s because, like many of you, I woke up Tuesday morning to the news of the leaked U.S. Supreme Court opinion that is set to undo generations of legal protections for women’s reproduction […]

Tucker Carlson Can Lick My Untanned Balls I will start this week’s TRUTH: In 1000 Words or Less by preemptively apologizing for the blunt vulgarity of this week’s title.  I know it is certainly licentious, but believe it or not, I only incorporate profanity as an aesthetic or rhetorical choice, and in this particular case, […]

The Biology of Sex Yes, folks, it’s March, and you know what that means- March Madness!!  There’s nothing better than filling out your bracket each year with a vague sense of unfounded optimism only to watch the whole thing blow up in your face with each and every closely-contested buzzer-beater like the dynamite-filled birthday cake […]

The Literal Road to Nowhere I’ve said this before, but y’all need to stop moving here.  Like, seriously.  As the fastest growing state for the better part of a decade that doesn’t allow legalized prostitution, our infrastructure was never intended to accommodate this many people.  The I-70 corridor that links metro Denver to the ski […]

It’s Not What You Say But How You Say It Oscar Wilde once wrote, “The artist is the creator of beautiful things.  To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim….They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.  There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book.  Books are […]

How Liberal is Liberal Enough? Unfortunately, I do not have a subscription for HBO.  Oh, I’ve been told countless times just what a mistake I am making by failing to do so, as I am informed of show after show that my friends and colleagues are convinced I would appreciate.  But to be perfectly honest, […]

Don’t Look Down…at Science I’ve been thinking about doomsday quite a bit lately.  I know that sounds dark, and well, to be perfectly blunt, it is.  But maybe the destruction of our planet isn’t supposed to be light and fun.  Or as Jennifer Lawrence’s character, Kate Dibiasky puts it in Don’t Look Up, “Maybe the […]

So what did y’all do for Christmas this year?  While many of you were nestled up with family in cozy homes keeping you warm from the snow falling all around you, my girlfriend and I, kidless for the first time in forever, headed for the flashy lights and glitzy pizzaz of legendary Las Vegas, Nevada.  […]

More New Years Resolutions I’m Sure Not to Keep Well, that New Year’s Eve certainly was different, now wasn’t it?  Staying at home curled up on the couch avoiding large gatherings of alcohol-infused morons, prodding yourself  to stay awake to watch the ball drop, only to find yourself passed out beneath your Nanna’s crocheted quilt […]

The Top 10 Christmas Movies of All-Time By this point, we are all quite familiar with the age-old debate that has wracked human society for generations now:  Does Die Hard constitute a Christmas movie?  And for all of you out there who still somehow want to answer this in the affirmative, go screw yourselves.  Clearly, […]

You Can’t Fix Stupid (But You Can Elect it to Congress) I have tried to refrain from touching on any of the plethora of preposterously stupid things that have come out the engorged pie holes of either Marjorie “I Validate Blonde Stereotypes” Taylor Greene or Lauren “I Make $ Peddling Islamaphobia” Boebert, tried not to […]

What I’m Thankful for: 2021 Edition I’ll be the first person to acknowledge that if you go digging into the closet of historical backstory on many of the holidays and traditions that we find so heart-warming and endearing, there is some seriously messed up stuff in there.  Let’s start with Christmas for example.  For all […]

The Skateboard is Mightier than the Sword A few weeks back, I personified the pent-up rage of angry white men in the humorous characterization of a rabid raccoon feverishly protecting a steaming pile of trash.  Well, welcome to the real world where Kirk Rittenhouse, the 17-year old psychopath who shot and killed two harmless, unarmed […]

The Double-sided Sexism of Denying Family Leave I have to hand it to Joe Lonsdale.  You see, before my girlfriend brought my attention to this slimy, narcissistic dope-on-a-rope, I didn’t know it was even technically possible to blatantly insult and demean both genders within the exact same statement.  I don’t mean a generalized slur against […]

Layla and Other Assorted Racism As a music aficionado, I can often recall with utter clarity the moment when I heard a particular album for the first time.  There was the idyllic camping trip where I stayed up all night with my high school friends listening to the Allman Brothers Eat a Peach or sitting […]

The Never-Ending Quest for the Latest and Greatest A friend of mine recently asked me if I had already gotten the new iPhone 13.  When I replied that I was unaware that there were now more incarntations of the iPhone than there were Friday the 13th movies, they quickly surmised that I had not.  I […]

Make Your Kids Do Something…and Then Don’t Give a Damn In last week’s TRUTH: In 1000 Words or Less, I discussed embracing the things we suck at. For me, one of those things includes ball sports. You’ll note that does not, by sheer technicality, include hockey, which is played with a flat-shaped disc called a […]

The Erosion of the National Civic Discourse I am going to start this week with an acknowledgment that should be patently obvious, but apparently has become suddenly unavoidable: TRUTH: In 1000 Words or Less is an opinion column. It represents my personal perspective- nothing more, nothing less. Well, good, now that we have this mandatory […]

Everything’s Definitely Not Better in Texas They like to say that everything is bigger in Texas.  Well, there must be some truth in that postulation because if Gov. Greg Abbott and the men in the Texas state legislature think they have the right to tell women what to do with their bodies, they have balls […]

Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is If you really want to know what a particular society values, take a look at their federal budget.  Oh, we can say we value this and value that, but in the end, it comes down to one of my mom’s favorite sayings, “Put your money where your mouth […]

Shame on Us for Not Shaming My students rarely believe me when I tell them this, but I was once a fat kid.  When I was in 8th grade, I actually weighed more than I do now.  And though my parents tried to reassure me with the euphemistic understanding that I was really just “pleasantly […]

Everybody’s a Tourist Somewhere Sometimes living in a resort town just plain sucks. The people who vacation here, especially those that hail from the “Great State of Texas” (or so they would boorishly tell you) are often rude, belligerent, ignorant, and downright oblivious. They do such stupid things sometimes that I often find myself shaking […]

Stopped in Her Tracks Have you ever wondered who the people are that make up the International Olympics Committee (IOC)?  When I learned earlier this week of the suspension of American sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson for violating the organization’s drug policy, I began to wonder just what qualifications people had to have to be granted consideration […]

The Joys of Being Naked I must admit that, much to the consternation of many of my friends, I enjoy being naked. I’m not talking about streaking wildly across campus like Will Ferrell in Old School, though that does have a delightfully adventurous ring to it, even as the words pass across my 50-year old […]

Paid to Play In this ever-contentious world of modern ideological and political warfare, it is nearly impossible to get nine people to agree on just about anything. I mean, shit, if you grab nine people out of a random crowd at Disneyworld and ask all of them if they like ice cream, you know there’s […]

Determining Right from Wrong in a Godless World It was Voltaire who once wrote “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.”  Often misunderstood and misrepresented as an ironic quip intended to undercut the existence of God by posing His existence in the hypothetical subjunctive mood (Suck it, grammar nerds!), it […]

I am not a big dude. Clocking in at a modest 5’8” tall and a hardly robust 160 lbs., I know that there are many folks out there, including many women, that weigh considerably more than I do. And I am ok with that. After all, when it comes to a night out on the […]

50 Shades of Grey Hair I’m just going to come right out and say it: I am turning 50 later this week.  While some of you out there may have been noting the ever-encroaching gray in my hair and found yourself surprised that I had not actually passed that milestone quite some time ago, I, […]

Are You Working Virtually or Virtually Working? Our society is set to undergo a seismic transformation.  I’m talking the kind of fundamental alteration of day-to-day reality that social scientists point to centuries later and say “Yup, that’s when the world changed.”  The advent of the printing press.  The dawn of the Industrial Age.  The first […]

They Are Not the Problem I am horrible at fixing things.  I don’t mean that as a metaphor.  I mean that I am genuinely terrible at any sort of home improvement or repair.  My friends can vouch for me on this one.  This past Father’s Day, my ex-wife abetted my children in the purchase of […]

A Royal Pain in the Ass Am I the only person left on this great, big planet that simply doesn’t give a damn about the British Royal family?  Just why is it that I am supposed to care about a bunch of self-absorbed, incestual, narcissists anyway?  When the artist formerly known as Prince Harry and […]

Is Big Tech Silencing Free Speech? In the course of my illustrative teaching career spanning nearly a quarter century, I have taught just about every subject at some point or another. Yes, I’ve taught Physics, Algebra, Western Civilization, Chemistry, History, and of course, English. But of all the classes I have taught over the years, […]

I May Be Going to Hell in a Bucket, but at least I’m Enjoying the Ride I generally consider myself to be a highly optimistic individual.  I know, I know- if you read these musings each week and know me in no other context, you might find that supposition highly suspect given my penchant for […]

Love Thy Brother 2020 sure has been a hell of a year, hasn’t it?  Back when my mom was still alive, it was times like these when things were looking bleak, that she would try to cheer me up by saying, “There’s always somebody who has it worse.”  Funny, but that really didn’t cheer me […]

The Lebron/MJ Debate Is Over For years now, my friend Chris and I have had a running debate over who is the greatest basketball player of all time. Now, Chris is one of my favorite people on this Earth and he is one of the brightest computer minds I know (in fact, he designed my […]

It Might Not Be Fake News, But It Sure Is Stupid I’m just old enough to remember the days of Walter Cronkite serving as the anchorman of the CBS Evening News. His nightly sign off wasn’t sexy and stylish, but it was effective. After each program, he would simply say, “And that’s the way it […]

You Wanna Bet??? Good morning, Las Vegas.  How are you feeling today, you know, after that gut punch you got earlier this week from the US Supreme Court?  It can’t be easy knowing that you now have to share the gambling spotlight with New Jersey and every other state that would like to legalize sports […]

Pretending to Be Offended Would somebody please tell me when we all became so damn sensitive about absolutely everything?  Just when did we forget to laugh at life’s little absurdities every once in a while and recognize that satire encourages a healthy dialogue on the stereotypes it relies upon?  The recent Simpsons controversy surrounding their […]

Dancing on Bill Cosby’s Grave This past Thursday, a Pennsylvania jury found Bill Cosby guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home in a Philadelphia suburb in 2004.  But please excuse me if I am not standing up pumping my fist into the air and […]

Putin Flexing His Muscles Well, hi there boys and girls!  Last week, we scared ourselves silly fretting about the looming danger of privacy invasions sparked by Facebook’s all-encompassing data collection on millions of its users.  I don’t know about all of you, but I’ve been barely able to sleep all week, what with all those […]

Does Facebook Know You Better Than Your Own Mother? Do you use the internet?  Yeah, me too.  Which is precisely why the recent revelations regarding data trolling and Russian hacking have me just about set to soil my knickers.  This is some scary stuff, folks: worthy, I’d say, of yet another two part series in […]

Fed Up With All Those Hidden Fees If you know me well, you know I hate to fly.  I don’t mind the craziness of the airport, or having to stay seated for several hours at a time with little legroom, or even the loud children who always seem to have a propensity for banging the […]

Borne Back Ceaselessly Into the Past Like most people, I don’t check my mailbox much anymore.  I mean, what’s the point?  The only people who still use the U.S. Post Office to contact me are catalog shillers and ex-girlfriends, neither of whom I really have much interest in hearing from.  But I also don’t necessarily […]

Quincy Jones Is One Bad Mammajamma I love characters.  Having come in contact with so many different personalities over the course of my years in education, I have a distinct predilection for people who are truly unique, the type of people that wear their personas right on their coat sleeves and don’t give a rat’s […]

Might Elon Musk Save Us All? My son is only eleven, but he already knows what car he wants when he turns sixteen: a Tesla convertible.  Yeah right, kid- good luck with that one.  Still, I have to sit back and appreciate his reasoning.  You see, Elon Musk is something of a hero to him.  […]

When is Enough Enough? I like listening to other people, even when they are horribly, inconceivably misguided.  I pride myself on truly hearing both sides of a debate, though I may be resolute in my position.  I know that’s somewhat hard to believe coming from someone who writes an opinion column on a weekly basis, […]

Is This Really a Sport? Well, not everything that comes around every four years is painful and repulsive.  Unlike our presidential elections, which take place on a four year cycle but seem to be never-ending trials of endurance and suffering only to produce a “winner” that really seems more like the lesser of two evils, […]

Discrediting the Institutions You would think that we would be used to this by now.  You would think that by this point we would would have learned that every time you think the Trump administration has hit rock bottom, they pull some ridiculous nonsense you could not have even imagined and thus set the bar […]

But I Want It Now I am not a patient man.  I was reminded of this fact recently when I started to teach my daughter how to play guitar.  As I heard the distorted twangs that echoed from her instrument as she haphazardly attempted to strum a G chord, I was harkened back to my […]

Me Too, Me Too!!! You ever sit down at the computer and know you are about to write something that is really going to piss some people off?  But you write it anyway.  Why?  Because sometimes it just needs to be said.  Yeah, that’s how I’m feeling right about now. It’s not that I’m trying […]

Not Reading is Killing Our Democracy As an English teacher for fifteen plus years, I am uniquely qualified to attest to just how little American students read.  It’s pathetic.  Throughout my tenure in education, I was presciently aware of how few students had actually read the given homework assignments for my class; I didn’t even […]

Price Gouging Your Eyes Out I am going to start this week’s TRUTH: In 1000 Words or Less with a traveler’s advisory for all frequent drivers of the I-70 mountain corridor outside of Denver, Colorado: Don’t stop for gas at the Conoco station located just off the exit for Copper Mountain.  You’ll know which one […]

What the World Could Live Without Part II, More New Year’s Resolutions from a Hopelessly Deranged Mind When I started writing TRUTH: In 1000 Words or Less a couple of years back, I wrote a column of New Year’s resolutions that posited a list of things the world would be better off without.  You know, […]

The End of the Internet As We Know It So you like the internet, do you?  Well, you’re about to like it a whole lot less.  Despite a disturbingly apathetic and uniformed public, the internet as you know it is set to change dramatically, and it’s all because of three stooges who form the majority […]

They Paved Paradise If you live in Colorado, you have more than likely hiked to the top of Devil’s Head Lookout, and if you haven’t, you probably should.  The iconic trek up to the last remaining fire tower in service in the state of Colorado not only provides remarkable views stretching for over 100 miles […]

Love Them Anyways We all have that friend, colleague or family member that drives us absolutely insane.  I’m not talking just a little bit cornbally- you know, humorously eccentric but lovable for all of their adorable quirks.  No, I’m talking about those people who truly make it difficult at times to accept them for just […]

Monogamy Doesn’t Have to Mean Just Sex With Yourself Let’s face it- fidelity and monogamy aren’t nearly as common as we might like to believe.  We all know the statistics: Half of all marriages end in divorce.  And that’s probably just because many of the others end in death before reaching the same demise.  Meanwhile […]

I Just Can’t Listen Anymore As I drove my kids to school on Monday morning, I turned the radio to the sports talk station so that I could hear about the keys to the Broncos victory over the rival Oakland Raiders, but somehow that was not all I heard.  Even the airwaves of sports media […]

The Politics of Fear I’m a sports fan and a fantasy football junkie who also happens to write frequently about the current state of politics and social news stories, so the president’s recent comments directed at Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players who have used their stage to protest against the racial injustices of our […]

Everything I Know About Life I Learned from Playing Golf As a kid, I must admit, I hated the game of golf.  It seemed to me to represent the height of pretension, the type of self-centered jackassedness best embodied by Ted Knight in the seminal classic Caddyshack, and so I eschewed playing the sport until […]

Tragedy Brings Us Together I must admit that I have never been a fan of organized religion.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with anyone believing whatever the heck they like.  Shoot, you can put your faith in whatever crackpot religion floats your proverbial boat.  We all have the right, after all, to be wrong. […]

I Hear Guam is Nice This Time of Year Do you remember those old videos from the 1950’s in which schools went through regimented nuclear war training with students, teaching them how to huddle beneath their desks in the case of a nuclear attack?  Yeah, they might want to bring those back.  Because shit with […]

Non-Affirmative Action I seriously cannot believe I am about to type this sentence, but here it goes.  I actually agree with a major policy decision of the Trump administration.  Ok, there, I said it.  Now please excuse me for a few moments.  I think I need to go scour the stink off myself for the […]

Let Them Eat Cake Funny, when people mention a Colorado baker, they are usually referring to a shaggy dude wearing a tie-dye t-shirt and baggy pants who came here on vacation shortly after the state legalized marijuana in January of 2014 and then somehow never managed to leave.  But in the case of this week’s […]

The Freedom to Tell Others What to Do In last week’s installment of TRUTH: In 1000 Words or Less, I promised you, my loyal readers, a two-part explanation of why I felt compelled to move from my current home in the Denver suburb of Highlands Ranch to an abode in the foothills West of town.  […]

Qdoba, Starbucks, Target.  Repeat. When I moved from Breckenridge to Highlands Ranch, Colorado, a remarkable phenomenon started to occur.  People stopped coming to visit.  Back in the days when I lived in the scenic Victorian enclave right at the base of the mountain resort that consistently logs more skier visits than any other ski area […]

The Attention Span of a Goldfish Awhile back, I wrote an installment of TRUTH: In 1000 Words or Less on the topic of the continual and pervasive migration of people to Denver, Colorado, the place I’ve called home since 1999.  Shortly after publishing that column, I received a comment from a realtor friend of mine […]

Making Someone Your Bitch, Literally…. You ever see something out in public that is simply so disconcerting that you just have to avert your gaze and hope that the recurring image doesn’t haunt your dreams for the next several weeks?  And no, in this case, I am not referring to the corpulent woman you know […]

Moonlighting in La La Land Admittedly, I am often late when it comes to the Oscar party.  By that, I am not suggesting that I even watch the Oscars themselves.  I’m sorry Hollywood, but I have no use for a self-indulgent love fest that strokes the ego of a bunch of narcissists consumed by their […]

Political Correctness- It’s All Greek to Me Any of you happen to remember Jimmy the Greek?  Now not much more than a footnote in the annals of sports history, James Snyder was once a legendary sports broadcaster best known for his work on the CBS Sunday morning show NFL Today where he would provide prognostications […]

The Republican Party Has No Soul Over the last two decades, we have all witnessed the discernible dissolution of the integrity and morality of the political sphere.  Often that erosion has been so incremental in nature as to seem vague and uncertain in its progress, but then something unbelievable happens, and the shift seems seismic […]

This week in TRUTH: In 1000 Words or Less, I am going to be completely up front with you right from the onset: Some of you are going to be raging pissed at me this week.  Even some of my regular TRUTHERS out there, the real die-hards, even some of you are going to cringe […]

Get What You Deserve In last week’s TRUTH: In 1000 Words or Less, I came to a startling revelation: Professional athletes make way too much money.  I know, truly groundbreaking journalism, but I like to think we also examined some of the fiscal ramifications of these exorbitant salaries for grown men playing sports.  Perhaps we […]

Overpaid Athletes- Part I We all know athletes make too much money.  This is hardly a revelation, but somehow I cannot help but be startled each time I hear details of the latest contract another vastly overpaid athlete has just signed, presumably using ink made from the tears of the children that stitch the shoes […]

Truth: in 1000 words or less Steven A. Craig The Not So Friendly Skies When is a contract not really a contract?  When you are dealing with the airlines, of course!  Imagine for a moment that you and I enter a contract to paint your house.  We agree on a price and timing, but after […]

Don’t Shed A Tear for Bill O’Reily Ding Dong!  The wicked witch is dead!  After twenty years at FOX News that saw his ratings soar to unprecedented levels of viewership, Bill O’Reily has finally been removed from his on-air position by the conservative news network many credit him for brining to national prominence.  Turns out […]

Sign of the Times When I first started writing this little thing I like to call TRUTH: In 1000 Words or Less nearly eighteen months ago, I threw a challenge out there to my readers.  Send me a topic.  Anything.  You name it.  If enough of you wanted me to write on it, no matter […]

Republicans Just Screwed You (And they didn’t even buy you dinner)…. Do you feel violated America?  Well, you should.  While you were busy fretting about Trump’s lunatic Twitter rantings regarding Obama wiretapping Trump Tower, Republicans in both Houses of the legislature were busy defiling your rights without your knowledge or consent- sort of like that […]

Disney’s Gay Dilemma Openly gay men in a musical?  Who would have seen that coming?  In case you haven’t heard, or just don’t care because, unlike me, you do not have school-aged children pining away to see the new live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast, the movie has stirred up controversy recently for being […]

Truth: in 1000 words or less by Steven A. Craig Make America American Again After my response to Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election, in which I went to great lengths to describe just how Trump had hoodwinked an unfortunate part of the electorate who would be most disadvantaged by the very policies he […]

Truth: in 1000 words or less Steven A. Craig Pretzel Logic For those of you who know me, I’m scared to death of flying.  My girlfriend actually encourages me to have a couple of drinks before I get on the plane so that she won’t have to pry my firmly gripped hands from the armrests […]

Truth: in 1000 words or less by Steven A. Craig Let’s Start a Sessions If I was initially terrified of what a Trump presidency might mean for this great nation, I must acknowledge that those fears have subsided.  Since he has taken the reins of the executive branch, I have found something far more troublesome to […]

How To Make Your Kid Think You’re Cool This may be hard for some of you to believe, but I wasn’t always this cool.  Fact is, back when I was in high school, I was what the cool kids like to call a “nerd”.  I played Dungeons and Dragons, I was pudgy and unathletic, I […]

Put Down the Camera Well, the holiday season has come and gone, and hopefully you got everything you wanted for Christmas.  I know my son did.  In what I have to assume will be his last year believing in Santa Claus (c’mon, at some point, he is going to realize that even the Flash couldn’t […]

We Is Getting Dumber Are we human beings continuing to evolve as a species or have we reached a tipping point, a moment in history in which the equilibrium of nature shifts and we start perilously plunging down the backside of the course of human history without any hope of return?  Or to put it […]

The NSA is Watching I’m not entirely sure why, buy Yahoo seems quite concerned about my well-being.  Every few weeks or so, they send me an unsolicited note suggesting that I change my email password for security purposes.  For some reason, the prescient minds behind my email provider believe my password to be hopelessly inadequate […]

Alternative Facts for Your Alternative Lifestyle I must admit that as much as I do not like Kellyanne Conway, I honestly feel for her and admire her resolve.  Let’s face it: it can’t be easy having to verbally defend a con man who spews more indefensible  horse shit than a John Deere tractor.  It leaves […]

A Reason For Optimism Have we really gotten to the point that politicians seeking to run for office in November 2018 are already announcing their intentions?  Well, that may be maddening as all get out, but you’ll have to excuse me if I give a bit more leeway to the most recent candidate to jump […]

  A Brewery By Any Other Name Just Isn’t the Same Believe it or not, I still play hockey for an adult rec team in Breckenridge, Colorado that is sponsored by Breckenridge Brewery.  I do this despite the fact that I moved ninety minutes away from Breck down to the flatlands of Denver nearly three […]

This is the Way the World Ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. –T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men” If you are unfamiliar with T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”, a haunting masterpiece of 20th-century […]

I Hate You, Mark Zuckerberg Let me tell you why I hate Mark Zuckerberg.  It’s nothing personal, I assure you.  He did nothing to cheat me out of millions of dollars by stealing my business or ideas out from underneath me.  In fact, I’m not really sure he ever did those things.  But he is […]

How IKEA Sucked My Soul This story all begins with a table.  Well, a table and chairs, really.  You see, I’m set to move in a few weeks, and I recently found myself in need of a breakfast nook table and four matching chairs.  Normally, I could give two pimples on a rat’s behind as […]

Standing With Standing Rock Well, call me a skeptic.  I’ll be the first one to admit that I didn’t think the Standing Rock protestors had a snowball’s chance in Hades of getting that pipeline blocked.  Don’t get me wrong- I was all for their protest- I just didn’t think it would work.  When the Army […]

I apologize in advance if I am not exactly humorous today.  Sometimes you’re just not in the mood.  There are plenty of times I write for the amusement of others.  Sometimes I write just for myself.  I get to have one of those every once in a while. Stephen Adly Guirgis once famously proclaimed that, […]

What I am Even More Thankful For Last year right around this time, I penned a column entitled, “What I Am Thankful For”.  Eschewing the typical prattle of self-involved lists of people and interests that everyone wants to write but no one wants to listen to, last year’s edition was a farcical send-up of the […]

Some days I wake up and wish I could just crawl back under the covers and sleep away the stupidity I see all around me.  I really should watch less of the “news” on television.  I, for one, will be glad to stop watching all of the coverage of this carnival sideshow parading itself around […]

Alright, I promise this will be the last piece I write on this preposterous election, that carnival sideshow that feels like it came straight out of some sort of 20th-century absurdist drama.  And no, I’m not going to pout like a whiny little brat because we lost or pull some “Not My President” nonsense because […]

The 21st-Century P.T. Barnum You have no idea how painful it is for me to have to admit this, but I underestimated Donald Trump.  I underestimated him and the blind rage he was able to tap into on his way to an unforeseen victory in the 2016 presidential election.  I failed to acknowledge Trump’s uncanny […]

Sequels are Stupid….Part II In case any of you were wondering, I write this column for a reason.  Beyond just amusing myself with witty banter and inane observations, I use TRUTH: In 1000 Words or Less to draw people to my website, www.waitingfortoday.com, in hopes that they will peruse excerpts from my best-selling debut novel, […]

A Piano and a Goat Walk Into a Bar Say it ain’t so, Joe!  The Chicago Cubs are finally back in the World Series.  Well, that didn’t take long now, did it?  Only 71 pain-staking, gut-wrenching years of devoted fandom.  But hey, what’s a few decades when we’re talking about one of the most beloved […]

Well, that got ugly quick, didn’t it? A couple of weeks ago, we all thought this was going to be a real election. We saw the poll numbers and believed that this one might actually go down to the wire. Many of us were hyperventilating into brown paper bags to relieve ourselves of the fear […]

Wipe that Stupid Smile Off Your Face So it appears that a group of maniacal lunatics dressed as evil clowns have been terrorizing the country recently, scaring the literal crap out of children in the woods, sending vague threats to local authorities, and forcing school closures nationwide.  And this time I am not just referring […]

    Damn it Feels Good to Be a Hipster We’ve all seen them.  Our neighborhoods are being overrun by a new demographic, a group that continues to propagate and spread its cultural impact like a plague that infects the multitudes and then lingers without a cure.  In recent years, their numbers have grown dramatically, […]

Them’s is the Facts, Kid…. We are a politically divided nation. Duh!  I guess that’s hardly a shocker.  We’ve been grappling with the malaise induced by a full-on political stalemate for at least a couple of decades now.  So tell me something I don’t already know. The thing is, though, it’s gotten worse.  I don’t […]

Take ‘Em Kicking and Screaming I’m not going to lie: I love the scheduling flexibility and freedom that my writing vocation affords me.  Now don’t let that concept fool you; I work my tail off, and if you don’t believe that, I suggest you try writing and editing ten thousand words a week.  I put […]

Old People Just Don’t Give a Damn!!! We have all had that moment.  You are driving down the left lane of the two lane road near your house, heading to the store in a hurry to pick up some appetizer you told your partner you would get before your party, but you somehow forgot the […]

An Olympic Debacle C’mon, just admit it.  You know you tuned into the Rio Olympics this past week at least in part to see the disaster it had all the potential in the world to be.  You know that like Heath Ledger’s Joker, you wanted to see the dumpster fire this Olympics was supposed to […]

Please, Pokemon Stop It didn’t take long.  No, this Pokemon Go craze was upon us quicker than flies buzzing greedily around a fresh pile of dog crap.  Before you knew it, there were digital creatures all around you and hordes of mindless zombies roaming the streets in search of their virtual battle and entrapment.  Suddenly, […]

Believe it or not, Keith Richards truly is my role model. And yes, I mean the Keith Richards that is rumored to receive regular blood transfusions in order to detoxify the chemical waste dump he has turned his body into. And yes, I mean the same Keith Richards that once, by his own confession, snorted […]