Columns

How to renew the dying art of romance?

The day my Mother and Father met, he was arguing with some high school friends about whether a slice of lemon would corrode the coating on a porcelain sink. “I never came across any man quite like your Father,” my Mother says, still happily befuddled by the stubborn old fellow.

Do greeting cards face a St. Valentine’s Day massacre?

Spending a rainy Saturday afternoon reminiscing over congratulatory keepsakes stored in the attic. Clutching vintage Valentines purchased at an estate sale. Sorting through all those shoeboxes of yellowing mementoes in your late great-aunt Sadie’s House Where Time Stood Still.

Clarity’s cost: The $5 million comma

Clarity is in short supply across America, but no longer at dairy farms in Maine. In 2014, you see, drivers for a dairy company in Portland, Maine sued their employer for overtime pay because a state law pertaining to overtime-pay exemptions failed to include the Oxford comma.

I can’t endorse the Times’s approach

The New York Times provided lessons in both journalism and television Sunday night, by way of bad examples. First: If a newspaper believes in making political endorsements it shouldn’t balk when a tough call comes along, leaving voters more mystified than before.

Should older people be banned from church?

Just because a mentor starts unconsciously humming Motown tunes during a heart-to-heart talk with you about temptations, that doesn’t mean his advice is irrelevant.

I don’t like Meghan Markle, that doesn’t make me racist

When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced that they were “stepping back” from their duties as senior royals, it triggered a number of interesting reactions on this side of the pond.

Family landlines better than smartphones for teens

When my childhood home got a phone call, it was an event. That was partly because my father, a longtime phone-company employee, installed four brass-belled phones throughout our home. The phones rang so loudly it sounded like crooks were breaking into Fort Knox.

Eunice Police dispatch radio logs

The following are excerpts from the Eunice Police Department radio dispatch logs. January 17 04:36 Truck broken into in the 1100 block of Sittig. 05:02 2018 white Expedition stolen in the 600 block of West Peach. 07:04 Vehicle broken into in the 200 block of Rodney. 08:12 Male left hospital.

Traveling debate show fatigue

Tuesday’s event was supposed to be the big one, the final showdown before actual voting begins. If, like me, you’ve watched every minute of every Democratic debate so far — and here’s wishing we’d all get a life — you know the unfortunate truths: — The candidates are what they have become.

Loss turns into a win for liberal Hollywood

As comedian Ricky Gervais said so pointedly during the Golden Globes, Hollywood is full of people with no experience in the real world who think they should tell the rest of us how to live.