Columns

How will you celebrate Magellan’s 500th anniversary?

When does a 500th anniversary require an asterisk?

Digging a cold, cold shaft

It’s not very often that the ground is frozen solid on Belle Isle, the salt dome just a stone’s throw from the Gulf of Mexico. But it happened in 1962 — in the summertime, on purpose.

Student loan forgiveness shifts money to wealthy

My roots are blue. Not the political blue of the current climate. Blue-collar blue. My maternal grandfather had a third-grade education and spent almost three decades picking up trash for the city of Philadelphia.

The elephant in the college classroom

“Half of that goes to the bank for your college fund!” That’s what my father told me in the 8th grade, when I got my first paycheck for waking up at 5:30 a.m. to ride my bike a few miles to Cool Springs Driving Range before school, where I plucked golf balls for a dollar an hour.

Fantasy football’s reality check

One must be hooked on the NFL (check), entranced by football wagering (check), and champing at the bit for the season to begin (check) to join a fantasy draft that can take as long as two months to complete (oy).

Princess Di: Has it really been 25 years?

Believe it or not, August 31 is the 25th anniversary of the traffic accident that robbed the world of the effervescent Diana, Princess of Wales. Diana was a distant, distant cousin (my great-great grandfather Tyree married Mary Ann Spencer a century before I was born).

Last Island was to be summer paradise

Many of us know about Last Island because of the deadly hurricane that hit there in August 1856 and that is still listed as one of the strongest hurricanes ever to make landfall in Louisiana.

Is America a Republic or a Democracy?

Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers, told us we were given “a republic — if you can keep it.” However, our Attorney General Merrick Garland just told us his Department of Justice was trying to protect our “democracy.

Local journalists tell stories national media won’t

A lot of people think that the pinnacle of journalism is working for a publication with national exposure, like The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal or The Chicago Tribune.

When it comes to boys, schools are flunking

I trekked to St. Germaine School every morning in my sturdy Buster Brown shoes. Designed for rough-and-tumble boys, these heavy-duty shoes could take a scuffing and, with a good polishing, keep on shining — pretty much the way rambunctious kids like me were able to do in our elementary school years.