Columns

Could we survive as they did?

Published on Fri, 05/31/2019 - 4:28pm

Lost for 17 days in a Hawaiian jungle, all alone in only a tank top and capri yoga pans, I’m not sure what I would do. Would I work past my fractured leg, blistered wounds and terror to survive? Would I eat mystery fruit and moths and sleep in the mud or a wild boar’s den? Would I do the things Amanda Eller did, or would I go crazy after two weeks and throw my emaciated body into a ravine?

Don and Kim in 2020

Published on Thu, 05/30/2019 - 12:00am
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WASHINGTON — As the 2020 election gears up, it seems apparent that Mike Pence’s days as vice president are numbered. Trump’s preference is obvious: Kim Jong Un. The vice-presidential candidate

T-ball is free for a reason

Published on Wed, 05/29/2019 - 4:13pm

Mike Trout signed a contract that will pay him $426.5 million over 12 years. That’s about $35.5 million per year to play baseball. To a sharp-eyed lawyer with a bent for litigation – the Trout contract is more than that.

It is proof my granddaughter got cheated.

Oh sure, Mike Trout is a good baseball player. He has a .306 lifetime average, has more than 250 home runs and a slugging percentage near .575.

Decent numbers – but they don’t compare to the numbers amassed by my granddaughter when she played t-ball.

‘Victims’ dictate

Published on Wed, 05/29/2019 - 4:11pm

“I don’t feel safe,” says a Harvard student in a video. 

What threatens her? The dean of her Harvard dormitory, law professor Ronald Sullivan, agreed to be part of accused sexual harasser Harvey Weinstein’s legal defense team. 

Sullivan and his wife were deans of the dormitory for years, but no matter. Now the professor is apparently an evil threat. 

A group calling itself “Our Harvard Can Do Better” demanded Sullivan be removed from his dean job. 

The missing option in American politics

Published on Fri, 05/24/2019 - 5:03pm

WASHINGTON — In a country that spans a continent, in a party that produced Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, there is still no serious political challenge to the ideological supremacy of a corrupt, deeply prejudiced conman who cares nothing for democratic traditions, constitutional limits and moral norms. Donald Trump’s reelection would entrench a particularly vicious brand of Know Nothingism, advocated with tireless arrogance, combined with resolute ignorance, enabled by steadfast sycophancy.

Campaigning at a prison near you

Published on Thu, 05/23/2019 - 4:25pm

The good news is they stopped yammering about abolishing ICE.

It may be a reach to blather on about illegal immigration on the pages of a newspaper that is some 1,250 miles from the southern border. But being boring never stopped us before.

Ever since Trump arrived on the political scene Democrats have gone gonzo over illegal immigration. Anyone who suggests the flood of illegal immigrants crashing the border really is a problem is said to be a really rotten racist.

In money we trust?

Published on Thu, 05/23/2019 - 4:20pm

Look at the dollar bills in your wallet. They say they are “legal tender for all debts.”

But are they? What makes them valuable? What makes them worth anything?

Each bill says, “In God We Trust.” But God won’t guarantee their value.

The $20 bill depicts the White House. Congress is on $50s. But neither guarantees the value of our dollars.

IN-HOUSE: Our little piece of May has been stolen from us

Published on Wed, 05/22/2019 - 3:51pm
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We are used to it around here — the cold, wet springs and the stinging May snowstorms. But they usually come and go. 

However, this recent nearly monthlong spell of wintry conditions, the endless rain and snow, the temperatures in the low 30s, the gun-metal gray clouds hanging low and sullen on the mountains for weeks on end, the cold east wind, the invisible sun, is different — it has not been coming and going. Just coming.

No, abortion isn’t a constitutional right

Published on Wed, 05/22/2019 - 3:48pm

In the past several weeks, a bevy of states have passed extensive new restrictions on abortion. Alabama has effectively banned abortion from the point of conception. Georgia has banned abortion from the time a heartbeat is detected, as have Ohio, Kentucky and Mississippi. Missouri has banned abortion after eight weeks. Other states are on the move as well.

Bats in the belfry

Published on Tue, 05/21/2019 - 4:35pm

WASHINGTON — When author Mark Childress penned “Crazy in Alabama,” he wasn’t just whistling Dixie.

“I haven’t been quoted this much since Roy Moore,” Childress recently told me, referring to last week’s coverage of Alabama’s passage of a law banning abortion in nearly all circumstances. Moore, of course, was an Alabama U.S. Senate candidate who lost a 2017 race after accusations surfaced of past inappropriate sexual conduct with underage girls.