The jury returned today with a verdict of guilty for rapper Corey Miller. A couple of years ago there was some kind of scrape–I’ve consciously avoided the details of that–in which one of Miller’s fans was shot to death and he was arrested and charged with the crime. A trial resulted in a guilty verdict, but an appeals court ruled that the defendant’s rights were violated and he was given a new trial. Same verdict.

The absolute strangest aspect of this entire thing, however, is the stage name of the rapper: C-Murder.

If you plan to kill someone, I’d suggest you find yourself a benign name like Hep Y’Brother or Love1another.

Reminds me of the sports car that was scooting in and out of traffic on the freeway endangering everyone not long ago. As he flew past, I said to my passenger, “If that guy is in a wreck and it ever goes to trial, he’s guilty before it gets started. His personalized license plate says ‘Aggressive.'”

Speaking of irresponsibility, two items.

In a recent article on this website, I mentioned the time a speaker in Washington, D.C., began a message with, “As Elizabeth Taylor said to her eighth husband, I’ll not keep you long.” I said the way I got the story, Senator John Warner–her actual eighth husband–was in the audience, and I was mortified for him and wondered what the speaker thought he was doing.

A friend with a memory like an elephant suggests that this may not have happened at all, but suggested a conversation he and I had several years ago as the likely source of that false-memory of mine. I went on-line in search of the story as I reported it in the article and, while there are plenty of instances of people using that not-very-humorous line, none indicated that Senator Warner was in the audience.

Makes me wonder if I actually read it or heard it or manufactured it out of whole cloth, as the saying goes. Unless some reader can help me on this, I’m of a mind that the last is the correct explanation.

This week I was reading “The Handwriting on the Wall: Secrets from the Prophecies of Daniel” by David Jeremiah, the illustrious pastor from San Diego. I have many of his books and really enjoy his preaching.

In the book, Jeremiah gave a quote which I liked very much and planned to use. But before going any further, I checked it for authenticity on the internet.

First, the quote. Dr. Jeremiah writes: “When the thirteen colonies were still a part of England, Professor Alexander Tyler wrote about the fall of the Athenian republic over a thousand years ago. He said: ‘A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship.'”

His quote goes on, but that’s sufficient for you to see that I was attracted by it. It’s a strong quote with a powerful thrust, if it’s genuine.

So, I did what David Jeremiah was unable to do in 1992 when he published that book–checked the quote at www.snopes.com. The news was not good.

“Mostly false” is what the website says. The Snopes analysis is too involved to go into here, but here is the gist…

“The ‘Alexander Tyler’ quoted at the head of the article is actually Lord Woodhouselee, Alexander Fraser Tytler, a Scottish historian/professor who wrote several books in the late 1700s and early 1800s. However, there is no record of Tytler’s having authored a book entitled ‘The Fall of the Athenian Republic’…and the quoted material attributed to him is likely apocryphal.”

So, where did the material come from? No one knows.

One more.

The hills are alive with people bashing the proposed health care program being discussed in Congress. Facebook and email boxes are running over. No one has a good word to say about it.

A report on NBC this week looked at an organization called 60Plus.org (or maybe .com) that is filling the airwaves with tirades against government health care. Turns out it’s being funded by pharmaceutical companies.

Don’t believe everything you read. Think for yourself, no matter whether it’s the daily paper or the evening news, a sermon by your beloved pastor, a book by a respected preacher, or this blog.

I suppose we can say everyone is well-meaning, but not everyone is responsible or mature. And not everyone is as up front about his intentions as was C-Murder when he chose that as his name. Some people are not what they seem.

What was it Reagan used to say? Trust, but verify.