Columns

Airing of grievances: Smollett, swimmers and headphones

Back by lukewarm demand, for all of you Festivus enthusiasts, it’s time for the annual airing of grievances. Let’s get right to it. I have to get back to training for the feats of strength. For Jussie Smollett and anyone else contemplating staging a hate crime, you really need to do better.

The AOC’s of student loan debt

‘Tis the season for giving — or, for some legislators, a good time to demand that the government force taxpayers to give others a large gift. A few weeks ago, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to the house floor to issue another plea for the federal government to cancel nearly $1.

Does baby New Year give you the creeps?

Perhaps one reason I never get invited to New Year’s Eve parties is that I tend to overanalyze things. Take Baby New Year (a.k.a. “Bundle of White Male Joy”), for instance.

Steamer ran ‘between death and destruction’

In the middle 1800s the main route from New Orleans to Bayou Teche, Bayou Courtableau and other points in south Louisiana took steamboats up the Mississippi River to Plaquemine in Iberville Parish, where the boat made a sometimes-treacherous turn into Bayou Plaquemine and followed its winding,...

Are you too old for Santa Claus?

Children all over the United States are currently wringing their iPhone-calloused hands over the possibility that Santa Claus might not make it this year because he’s trapped in a delayed shipping container somewhere off the coast of California. The situation is a little different at my house.

How is your self-image this Christmas?

I distinctly remember what I ate for supper on Christmas Eve 50 years ago. Not the entrée perhaps, but certainly the vegetable. My mother served stewed potatoes (“potato slopters,” as she dubbed them).

A silent night to remember

The Abbeville Progress reported the sorry news on Dec.19, 1914. Pope Benedict I had worked for a Christmas truce to at least interrupt the fighting during World War I, but unsuccessfully.

Be color blind to the racial differences of dead bodies

Politics inevitably seeps into any discussion of crime and punishment, of justice, of anger at the system, and of desperation.

The merry return of Christmas cards

Christmas card trends are telling — they speak to the mood of the country — and this year’s trend offers some positive news.

The best Christmas gift is time

Our time is the best gift we can give to our friends and family this Christmas. Nobody knows how much time we have on Earth — nobody knows when our time will end. We all have friends and loved ones who were claimed way too early.