Breaking News

Local Commentaries

Thinking About The U.S. Navy

Many years ago I was in the United States Navy, a junior officer on the deck of a small ship homeported in Japan. These memories never leave you and have been in my mind now with the recent naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. I can almost guarantee you that enforcing blockades was not a skill taught at Navy Officers Candidate School. Attacking, shelling, ship-to-ship warfare, amphibious landings—yes. Blockade enforcement?—I cannot recall that having ever been taught. Yet, I am not greatly concerned. I found during my 3 ½ years on active duty, including Vietnam, that ...

Ukraine: The Longest Day

Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Presidential candidate Donald Trump said at least 53 rimes in 2023 and 2024 that, as President, he would end the war in Ukraine “in one day.” Now well over 400 days since his inauguration as President, Russia’s war against Ukraine continues. Russia’s brutal, illegal war against Ukraine, illegal under international law as partly developed by Jamestown’s own Robert H. Jackson, Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals, has lasted longer than World War II for the United States (December 7, ...

Feeling Drained?

1+2=3, 3-2=1. Both of these are considered rather elementary equations as a reference to how one can add or subtract a value directed by which mathematical symbol is being applied. In a similar manner, life is a metaphor of “additions” and “subtractions” that shape the world around us by our individual contributions; symbolizing our true values through our positive or negative expressions. Let’s take this a step further and incorporate a plumbing reference for levity and clarity, where you’re either a faucet (positively) pouring value into the world or a drain taking it ...

Big Time Sports On The Big Screen

The Masters Golf Tournament this year was a doozy. For us golf junkies, the Big Kahuna of the season’s contests was incredibly exciting, especially for Rory McIlroy fans. I joined that fan club about 17 years ago when he was a new name on the PGA Tour. Rory (he lets me call him by his first name) is an up-from-childhood player like Tiger Woods. His dad bought him plastic clubs at age two and he never stopped swinging. I didn’t realize until recently that he was an only child born to working-class parents. Both of them worked second jobs, hardly seeing each other, so their boy ...

Thomas Celebrates 250th Anniversary

AUSTIN, Texas—The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is at hand. America needs history-rooted expositions of founding ideas to celebrate this semiquincentennial. It’s also called the bisesquicentennial, sestercentennial, or quarter millennium. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has ably provided such an exposition. You, faithful reader of this column, will recall the principle that in America, government has only those powers that We the People surrendered to government in the first place. This is the default setting. It’s like the default settings on ...

Getting Used To Getting Old

I think that you have to be in your 80’s before you get used to getting old. It takes a while. So, in that respect, I have arrived. Every morning, at around 6 a.m., when I limp into Hogan’s Hut to get the paper and the staff says: “Good morning, Mr. Kidder!”—I realize that my gait and gray hair have given me seniority. It is a part of getting used to being old. Of course, when I meet with old friends there is also that constant reminder. Someone is getting a new knee, someone else is getting used to their new hip, others are seeing an oncologist or orthopedist for ...