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Columnists

BOB BROWN: “Portraits of the Human Person”

On the night of June 21, 2025, President Donald Trump said all seven B2 Bombers had safely returned from an unprecedented successful attack on Iran’s fortresses of nuclear weapon...

BECKY MAUPIN: The After Bedtime Search

Picture this: You manage to get everyone fed and the dinner aftermath cleaned up. Then...

ROBERT L. MARONIC: Israel’s Second Sum Of All Fears

I first heard about a dirty bomb in early September 1993 when an IBM coworker,...

BOB BROWN: What Happened to Happiness?

We can quibble about the origin, even the definition or meaning of “happiness,” but I’m...

FRED FIRST: Homeward Bound

It would happen: the trip back to Floyd. And then it wouldn’t. And then it...

When the “Children” Come Home to Roost

What form does empty nest syndrome take when the flock comes home to roost? This is a question I murmured to myself over...

Wandering in Shanghai, Jewel of the Orient

Street food is always a good bet, so I try some more. The grinning vendor/cook is baking a tortilla-like pastry on a half-meter wide...

Between Nothing and Everything: A New Year

January takes its name from Janus, the Roman god of portals, of comings and goings, beginnings and endings—an odd-looking, two-faced deity who looks...

Consider The Twelfth Night

by H. Bruce Rinker, Ph.D. I don’t know about you, but I’m repulsed every Fall when I see Halloween witches, Thanksgiving pilgrims, and Christmas Santa’s...

It’s The Holidays When All Thoughts Turn To South American Polo Players, Bathing Beauties, Xavier Cugat And Mistaken Identities

How's that?  Here's how:  It starts with all-American beauty Esther Williams and Latin lover Ricardo Montalban.  In the 1940's Hollywood paired them in...

“Until One Has Loved an Animal . . .”

I was using my lathe in my outdoor wood shop when McChesney came to call. He sat first here, then there, I fed him...