Thomas Sowell

                Syndicated writer Thomas Sowell is retiring to pursue photography. He has written a column for Creators Syndicate for a quarter of a century and has certainly earned the “right to retire” at age 86. I will miss him because I feel that he has a point of view that helps our world. Here are a few thoughts from his “Farewell Column” to illustrate why his point of view is so important. 

                “Being old-fashioned, I liked to know what the facts were before writing. That required not only a lot of research, it also required keeping up with what was being said in the media.

                “In material things, there has been almost unbelievable progress. Most Americans did not have refrigerators back in 1930, when I was born. Television was little more than an experiment, and such things as air-conditioning or air travel were only for the very rich.

                “My own family did not have electricity or hot running water in my early childhood, which was not unusual for blacks in the South in those days.

                “It is hard to convey to today’s generation the fear that the paralyzing disease of polio inspired, until vaccines put an abrupt end to its long reign of terror in the 1950s.

                “Most people living in officially defined poverty in the 21^st century have things like cable television, microwave ovens and air-conditioning. Most Americans did not have such things, as late as the 1980s. People whom the intelligentsia continue to call the `have-nots’ today have things that the `haves’ did not have, just a generation ago.”

                Thomas Sowell will be greatly missed by many people!