Columns

Dealing with Alzheimer’s disease

I returned a message from my friend I’ve known for many years. He was calling to tell me goodbye. He told me he was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and didn’t know how his memory would hold up in the weeks to come. What do you say to a colleague in such a condition?

Hard landings v. soft landings

It is important to know the history of government spending, supply and demand, economic growth, and debt as they are all connected in controlling “Price Stability”—which avoids inflation and/or deflation.

Just how clean is your vehicle?

Who needs forensics and gunfire? My wife and I have been catching up on episodes of “The Mysteries of Laura,” the 2014-2016 NBC series starring Debra Messing. Forget murders and chases.

A distinctive sound of history

If I had to nominate one sound that epitomized the history of south Louisiana, I would be mightily tempted to suggest the chuff-chuff, chuff-chuff, chuff-chuff-chuff of a steam locomotive leaning into its load as it pulled out of a depot or freight yard.

Abortion never ceases to be an issue

I’m sure that regular readers of this column think all I ever talk about, write about, ruminate on and care about is abortion.

We all need heroes in our lives!

I’m a Tina Turner fan, but she got it wrong in her hit a few years back called “We don’t need another hero.” The song goes on to say: We don’t need to know the way home, ooh All we want is life beyond Thunderdome.

Grateful for National Freedom Day

It’s one of the best days of the year and we owe our gratitude to the remarkable man who made it possible. Feb. 1 is National Freedom Day and its origin is as wonderful as is freedom itself.

Ready for history’s Valentine hall of shame?

Not everyone does Valentine’s Day well. A significant number of people are too unromantic, lazy, cheap or unimaginative to make the best of the occasion. Don’t despair if you fall into one of those categories. Some of the most prominent people in history have been romantic duds.

When Charlie was right, he was right

When Charlie was right, he was right Charles Langlinais, who over decades of public service led the transformation of the quiet village of Broussard into a dynamic city, quite often sought my opinion. Most of the time it was on some version of the question, “Have you absolutely lost your mind?

Contrasting two protests in the Cradle of Liberty

It’s always good when people take time out of their busy schedules to protest what they believe to be an injustice. And the Cradle of Liberty, good old Philadelphia, is the place to be for protests of all kinds, as we saw last week.