Columns

Our holidays, history are under attack

This should be my favorite time of year. The special season begins at Thanksgiving and extends through the Christmas holidays. But there are disturbing signs of change and not for the better, as a movement continues to grow disparaging our holidays as not being politically correct.

Tips for out of control tipping

Tipping demands sure have gotten out of control. With every purchase you make — at coffee shops, fast food restaurants, chain stores and more — you are presented with a digital payment screen that asks you to leave a tip.

A thing of beauty and good cheer

Make your guess: Where was the largest decorated Christmas tree in the world in the 1950s? Hint: It wasn’t in Paris, New York or Washington. D.C., at least according to Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

Would you like to sleep through Christmas?

It was never as high-profile as “Rudolph” or “Frosty,” but it’s worth noting that the animated special “The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas” turns 50 on December 17.

Fed up? Yes. Nasty? No.

If you listen to pollsters and politicians, or consume heavy doses of social media and cable-TV news, you might come away thinking the nation is in a collective bad mood. We’re said to be irritable, even hostile.

Pope Innoceant, my grandmother, and fruitcake

This is the time of year when people love to malign fruitcakes. I am not one of those people. For more years than I care to remember, I have made holiday fruitcakes that have turned even hardened naysayers into admirers. (It’s not bragging when it’s true.

President Xi makes our homeless disappear

Here in sunny Los Angeles, it’s raining. It’s too bad it didn’t rain real hard last Saturday. It might have helped firefighters put out the enormous fire under the 10 Freeway near downtown before the heat weakened the pillars and forced the highway to be closed.

No more Mr. Nice Guy on trashing Louisiana!

Big news about all the trash in the Bayou State. Government is going to study the problem. LSU is going to take the lead according to an announcement, made last week, to “help find ways to rid the state of all that trash.” That’s just what we need, another study. Right?

Footing our growing debt service bill

Well, that didn’t take as long as expected. In case you missed it, our federal government is now estimated to pay more than $1 trillion a year to service just the interest on our national debt — about $200 billion more than we spend on our military or Medicare. Why are we suddenly paying so much?

Good food, good cheer are long tradition

When I was in school, this was the time of year when we learned about the Pilgrims and the Mayflower and how they held the first Thanksgiving feast.