Columns

Learning to look and act your age

On my birthday this year, I’ll turn 55 years old. I’m not sure that’s an impressive milestone, but I do believe it’s the average shelf life of the bottle of Worcestershire sauce in the back of most American refrigerators.

70 years ago, science defeated polio

She came home with a high temperature, feeling very ill. The next morning, her legs gave out when she tried to get out of bed. By that evening, she was so weak she could barely move. It was 1951 when polio struck her. She was 12 years old, just starting eighth grade. The nation was in a panic.

Trump’s plan of reorganization

The U.S. has a spending problem and everyone knows it. Moody’s, the last of the three rating agencies maintaining a AAA rating on U.S. sovereign debt just issued a warning: The outlook is now negative as “Moody’s expects the country’s deficits to remain huge and expensive”.

Do you spend 138 minutes every day worrying?

Surely I’m not alone in the phenomenon of dutifully paying my credit card bill by the deadline and then, two weeks into the next billing period, abruptly freaking out with self-doubt. Did I pay it or not?

Misery, hardship, then tears of joy

Some tangled genealogy and a few narrative gaps are involved, but the true story of the Prejean sisters who were separated during the Acadian exile is every bit as tragic and compelling as Longfellow’s imaginary tale of Evangeline, and it has a happier ending.

Noem should look right for her job

This might appear to be a frivolous observation, given other issues that have hit the headlines over the past few days, but I have a big problem with the secretary of Homeland Security’s wardrobe.

Bennett Johnston was a special politician

As is the case in just about any profession, you will find members who are either work horses, or show horses. That is certainly true with those who go into the field of politics. Particularly those coming from the state of Louisiana.

Is life better with limited choices?

Here’s something that can make us miserable if we let it: too many decisions! Social scientist Barry Schwartz says Americans are becoming less happy because we’re allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed by too many choices.

Is Microsoft really turning 50 years old?

The world was changed forever on April 4, 1975. (Don’t get a swelled head if that happens to be your date of birth. I’m writing about a business/cultural milestone, not providing PR for any individual’s decades of leaving a carbon footprint. On the other hand, you really are rockin’ it for near-50.

Good habits and a lot of gold served Lastie well

When Lastie Dupre died at his home on Prairie Plaisance in 1886 at the age of 91 his obituary said he was “known far and wide as the wealthiest stock raiser in the Attakapas region” and a man “whose hospitality was commensurate with the large means at his disposal.