Columns

Iran’s water crisis is a mirror and warning

I hate being right about things that only lead to disaster. It’s not flattering. It’s not vindicating. It’s just deeply, depressingly familiar. Right now, in July 2025, millions of Iranians are struggling to get clean water. Sanitation is collapsing under sweltering heat.

Opelousas WW2 B-26 gunner survived fall

George Lewis Moscovis was known to his fellow World War II airmen as a hard-working, clean-living, God-fearing man who carried a Bible on every combat mission. He was not prone to salty language, but I wouldn’t blame him if he had been tempted to use one or two off-color words on Aug.

Will alcohol-free weddings catch on?

“For whenever two or more of you are gathered in His name/ There is booze, there is booze…” — apologies to Paul Stookey According to the Wall Street Journal, six percent of couples polled by wedding-planning website Zola will host a completely alcohol-free wedding in 2025.

What would Johnny Carson say?

I wonder what Johnny Carson would say about the demise of late-night television. Carson was genuine and funny — at his funniest when his monologues bombed. On Bill Maher’s podcast, Jay Leno explained why he was so much better than today’s late-night comics: “Carson had class. He was gracious.
Christine Flowers

Christine Flowers

There is a genocide going on, but it’s not in Gaza

I have a very good friend who I’ve known for decades, and he posted something on Instagram the other day that shocked me. Apparently, there is an actual genocide happening in the world, not one that is fabricated for political reasons.
Michael Reagan

Michael Reagan

CBS execs wanted profits over politics

When Stephen Colbert became a financial disaster for CBS, its execs fired him. For good measure, they also killed the “The Late Show,” the network’s failing 33-year-old flag-ship late-night program.

AI is a 21st century ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’

My favorite horror movie is the original “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” closely followed by the 1978 remake with Donald Sutherland. The reason I still sleep with the lights on after watching them is the idea that we can live among facsimiles of reality, when it’s all fabrication.

Barbershop bones brought lots of speculation

Everybody who saw them seemed to have an opinion about the big bones on display at the Dupre Barber Shop in Eunice in March 1943. Delino Miller brought them to the shop. He said his grandfather found them about 1895 in the Atchafalaya Basin, but he didn’t know much else about them.

Are you clinging to ‘poor-people’ habits?

“And we was too broke to even pay heed/But that’s how it is when you’re po’ folks.” — Bill Anderson. I was intrigued by a recent USA Today article about “poor-people” habits (i.e. vestiges of frugality that persist even when a person becomes financially comfortable).