Columns

That frantic 9/11 day!

I have watched through a window a world that has fallen. – W. H. Auden It has been twenty four years since terrorists attacked the Twin Towers in New York City. I was there last week to commemorate this terrible event in America’s history. The date, 9/11, turned into the frantic dialing of 911.

Did oysters on half shell lure ancients?

If we think at all about the earliest inhabitants of south Louisiana, we tend to think of them as living on the higher and drier places away from the coast.

The new golden age of the automobile

Flooring the accelerator of Donny Krieger’s ‘69 SS Chevelle was one of the great thrills of my life. I was only 15 when I slammed the Chevelle’s four-speed Hurst shifter into second and stomped on the gas.

Are you guilty of ‘weekend rentals’?

“And if it comes back the very next day, well, then I’ll go bankrupt…” — apologies to Elvis. It started with “wardrobing.” Unscrupulous shoppers would buy expensive outfits for a special occasion and return them to the store the next day. (“I guess I just trusted this once-great store too much.

Rocky Mountain sigh

(Warning: unfair, but hilarious, Colorado stereotypes ahead!) Well, it finally happened. My eldest and most expensive daughter truly left the nest this time.

Curtailing election fraud in Louisiana

Paper ballots and limited absentee balloting in our election? That’s what the president is calling for. Does he have a point? The overwhelming majority of democratic countries require paper ballots in their elections.

Shall we welcome back fall 1975 TV?

“Welcome back, your dreams were your ticket out…” —John Sebastian The fall 1975 TV season remains special for me for several reasons. For one thing, it’s when I began my life’s mission of collecting Fall Preview issues of “TV Guide.

Real crime in the U.S.A. : fatherlessness

In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan was roundly criticized for predicting the violent, hopeless future millions of children from broken families now face.

Instead of dying, he changed face of farming

When the railroad crossed the Louisiana prairies in 1880, land thought only suitable for wild cattle became accessible to farmers from the Midwest who flocked here to firmly establish Louisiana’s rice industry. One of those emigres was Seaman A.

In Minneapolis, ingrained hatreds rise again to violence

The first comment I heard after the attack on Catholic schoolchildren in Minneapolis last week was from the city’s mayor, Jacob Frey, who said: “Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers just now. These kids were literally praying.” Initially, it didn’t strike me as particularly problematic.