Columns

Zero tolerance summer camp

Dear Mom and Dad, It’s only been a few days since you dropped me off, but you better come get me. I’m writing to you with a pencil I swiped from the office, because the camp director confiscated my iPhone for watching funny dog videos during her “Camp Inclusion and Behavioral Expectations” speech.

Ready for competitive eating?

Long ago, I learned speed-eating to fit junior high yearbook editing into my lunch break. My first two dates with my wife featured the Bonanza Steakhouse buffet. I’ve gone “plague of locusts” on deviled eggs and pimento cheese sandwiches at countless church potluck dinners.

Mouton’s cane syrup took the prize

Alexandre (Aleck) Mouton, grandson and namesake of Governor Alexandre Mouton, made the best cane syrup in the world. At least that’s what the judges at the St. Louis World’s Fair said in 1903, giving it their highest award. That’s how the syrup came to be named Mouton’s Gold Medal Syrup.

Searching for the right America

There are four holidays that occur in quick succession and symbolize our love of country: Memorial Day, D-Day, Flag Day and July Fourth.

The benefits of presidential uncertainty

It could just be me, but 2025 is starting to look like 1980. If you’re old enough to remember back that far, my father was campaigning against Jimmy Carter and Iran was in the headlines.

Let’s return to comfort food

My favorite summer comfort food is the fried chicken and potato salad dinner my mother made throughout my childhood — one I’ve spent three years trying to reinvent. It turns out I’m not alone.

Suffering from a kitten shortage?

“Rescue me/ Ah, take me in your arms…” — as performed by Fontella Bass. As luck would have it, exactly two months after seven-year-old Moggie cat had to be euthanized (incurable tick-borne cytauxzoonosis), the Tyree family discovered three flea-ridden, emaciated kittens outside the church building.

Barking dogs, roaring lions brought onlookers

When Ambaugh’s Great Menagerie and Circus visited south Louisiana in 1878, newspaper ads promised that “you will see many strange animals never before on exhibition, and in the Circus many daring acts by the Best Performers ever congregated … in the history of American Amusements.”

L.A. riots bring out another show of doublespeak from the left

I have watched with bemusement as some Democrats have excused, justified or otherwise supported the so-called “peaceful protests” in Los Angeles and elsewhere around the country.

From ‘Rocket Man’ to ruins: Between the skies of Tehran and Tel Aviv

“It’s a little bit funny… the feeling inside.” I found myself humming Elton John’s “Your Song” as I watched the first videos of Israeli jets bombing the homes of the Islamic Republic’s top generals. Honestly, like many Iranians in exile, I felt a flicker of joy.