By BOB URBAN

rurban@tnonline.comAs tragic as Whitney Houston's sudden death was, I thought the national media overplayed the story. I counted four different TV networks broadcasting her funeral service Saturday, and her demise dominated the national news all week. American soldiers are dying almost every day in Afghanistan. Yet those tragedies don't get one percent of the attention that the singer, whose life was dominated by self-induced alcohol and drug problems, received.Baseball players are in Florida and Arizona getting ready for the season. Seeing pictures of them, and reading Spring Training stories warms me up and energizes me to the fact that spring will soon be here.The news that Iran soon will have the capability of building a nuclear weapon scares me.The way things are going, gas prices will exceed $4 a gallon long before Memorial DayAnd now, some additional thoughts provided by a loyal reader.1. The best way to get even is to forget.2. Feed your faith and your doubts will starve to death.3. God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts.4. Some marriages are made in heaven, but they ALL have to be maintained on earth.5. Unless you can create a whole universe in 6 days, then perhaps giving advice to God isn't such a good idea.6. Sorrow looks back, worry looks around, and faith looks up.7. Standing in the middle of the road is dangerous. You will get knocked down by traffic from both ways.8. A skeptic is a person, who, when he sees the handwriting on the wall, claims it's a forgery.9. It isn't difficult to make a mountain out of a molehill, just add enough dirt.10. A successful marriage isn't finding the right person, it's being the right person.11. The mighty oak tree was once a little nut that held it's ground.12. Too many people offer God prayers with claw marks all over them.13. The tongue must be heavy, indeed, because so few people can hold it.14. To forgive is to set the prisoner free and then discover the prisoner was you.15. You have to wonder about humans. Some believe God is dead, and Elvis is alive.16. You are richer today if you have laughed, given, or forgiven.And now, some thoughts for lexophiles (that's people who are lovers of words).1. A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.2. A will is a dead giveaway.3. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.4. A backward poet writes inverse.5. A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.6. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.7. The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.8. You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.9. He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.10. A calendar's days are numbered.11. A boiled egg is hard to beat.12. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.13. The short fortuneteller who escaped from prison: a small medium at large.14. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.15. When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.16. If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.17. When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.18. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.19. Acupuncture: a jab well done.20. Marathon runners with bad shoes suffer the agony of de feet.