Columns

Have you hugged a bureaucrat lately?

As a longtime fan of Monty Python’s “Ministry of Silly Walks” sketch, I feel compelled to say a few words on behalf of much-maligned bureaucrats everywhere.

Are mastodon bones still hiding here?

Mastodons, those prehistoric animals that looked like fuzzy elephants, may have been among the earliest animals to graze the Cajun prairies, and there may have been more of them than we think.

We stand on the shoulders of others

I was watching TV the other night, and one of those ubiquitous campaign ads popped up. This time, it was a female candidate for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, discussing all of her accomplishments.

The pitfalls of daylight savings time 

Be extra cautious when you “fall back” on Nov. 7. That’s the date we must set our clocks back one hour in honor of daylight savings time. But watch out.

Where do you stand on leaf-raking?

If you don’t like my opinions this week, you can take a flying leap … into a pile of festive autumn leaves. (Skip the wet sucker – per Linus van Pelt.) In this great melting pot of a nation, people have many ways of handling leaves.

The lie about Border Patrol agents is still a lie

Simply saying something over and over doesn’t make it so. I know because I’ve tried it. No matter how many times I say, “I’m a good golfer, I’m a good golfer,” the reality is I still stink, as anyone who has seen me on the course will verify.

Fine art in a Franklin barber pole?

According to the old adage, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and there may be no better demonstration of that than in the adulations given by the editor of the Planters’ Banner when the barber in Franklin unveiled a new pole in front of his shop in 1852.

The anti-abortion movement is on the march

I remember when people were poring over photographs of President Trump’s inaugural back in 2017, trying to disprove his theory that it was the largest crowd in history. Clearly, it wasn’t. It wasn’t even close, which didn’t particularly bother me in the least.

The rise and fall of the shopping mall

My buddies Ayres and Klinger and I walked its crowded corridors for hours on Friday nights, hoping to meet girls. That’s what we did at South Hills Village Mall in the late 1970s, when we were teens and the American Mall was in its heyday.

Joe Biden versus the press

The White House press corps is in a snit again because President Biden, who many reporters openly cheered on in last year’s election, has stiffed them repeatedly, refusing to answer their questions and — most recently — and tossing them unceremoniously out of the Oval Office.