Columns

The danger of silencing words

I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, some of them endearing, most of them not. When Barack Obama referred to conservatives like me as people who cling to our guns and religion, I was offended.

Health care insurance confusion

I’m confused. I got the flu a few months ago, the worst flu I’d ever had. It wasn’t COVID — I have never tested positive for COVID — but it was a humdinger. For more than a week, I was a lump on a bed, completely unable to move or do anything.

Give me a news break

It wasn’t exactly breaking news back in June, but it did stir interest among journalists when CNN’s new boss, Chris Licht, conceded, “Something I have heard from both people inside and outside the organization is complaints we overuse the ‘Breaking News’ banner.”

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.