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Weapons Of Mass Distraction

Local Commentaries

The president who dodged the draft 5 different times during the Vietnam War has no problem sending Americans to fight and die in the Middle East. He did not bother to make the case for the urgency of Operation Epic Fury to the American people beforehand, announcing the attack at 2:30 Saturday morning on his social media site. No official address till 3 days later. He did not consult with Congress, much less get authorization as required by law. The only justification for a president to unilaterally start a war is if there is an imminent threat. But there was no such threat – as he, ...

We Should Know Wars Are Hard To End

Local Commentaries

It is easy to start a war, but very difficult to end one. That has always been the case and still is. If you are in doubt, just ask Vladamir Putin how things are going in the war he started in Ukraine four years ago. Think about the Iraq War. We invaded Iraq in 2003. Saddam Hussein was finally captured and eventually executed. But here we are in 2026, having lost 4,500 American lives and having spent a trillion dollars or more, with troops still in Iraq, a country with a weak government trying to rebuild itself. The war I was involved in, Vietnam, started in 1964—but, at least, ...

March Is A Sweet Month

Local Commentaries

In March, winter’s pact begins to weaken, no longer a treaty anyone or anything cares to oblige. Sometimes in the morning you hear the birds have returned—at least the brave ones, and on a warm March day you spy buds at the tips of trees, and you hear the collective sigh of humanity ride out on the northeast wind. In March, we are done with winter, even if winter isn’t done with us. Sugaring season has begun about now, the sap is flowing and the first sign of something sweet has emerged, as if winter is trying to show us he’s not all bad. Maple syrup is proof something ...

How Far Is It Going To Go, Part 2

Local Commentaries

Last week this forum took on something happening in many professional sports, specifically in my favorite sport, dubbed the “American Pastime.” Unfortunately, the buck, or in many cases not, the bucks, doesn’t/don’t stop in with the pros, it seems to have (and is seemingly increasing in volume, as it has) made a splash in college sports, and is even trickling down into the high school sports programs. It is a two-fold problem, one being the huge influx of gambling on sports, and the other being the increasing instances of cheating in the sports world. Welcome to Part 2 of this ...

Voting Rights Act Is Before High Court

Local Commentaries

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is before the U.S. Supreme Court again, this time in Louisiana v. Callais. After extensive back and forth among the state Legislature, the governor’s office, and the federal judiciary, Louisiana—with its six congressional districts—drew a second congressional district in which a majority of the residents are black. Drawing such a district would be one thing if the district—to put it in colloquial terms—were a normal-looking district. But this district isn’t a normal-looking district. Instead, it looks like a Rorschach test. To put it ...

Capital Handouts Keep Cities In Crisis

Editor's Corner

Somewhere in Albany, there has to be a money tree. How else can a state, with a proposed budget of more than $254 billion for the next year, keep doling out funds to fiscally strapped entities with absolutely no repercussions? That is exactly what happened less than a month ago when the ...