Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are sitting at a bar. Both look dispirited. St. Nick is idly sipping a Sea Breeze; the rabbit’s nursing a whiskey and Coke, lost in thought as he stares in the general direction of a college football game being broadcast on a flat-screen TV. There’s also a horse at […]

In September, I wrote a column telling you all I had been diagnosed with breast cancer. It was very early on in the process that plays out when you learn you have that disease.  I called it admittance to a club to which no one wants to belong. At the time, I said I might not […]

Few double-digit integers are more interesting than 26. Salaried employees who get paid every other week get 26 paychecks per year. There are 26 red cards in a standard deck, and oddly enough there are 26 black ones, too. There are 26 cantons in Switzerland. There are precisely 26 bones in the normal human foot […]

Sir, your piece on the Electoral College was on point and informative. I do wish you could have discussed some of the consequences that would occur if we did switch to popular vote for president. Our two party political system would crumble. Imagine a presidential election with candidates from California, the northeast, the south, the […]

I just want to thank you for the weekly column by Kathryn Lopez.   As a  conservative Catholic, I appreciate her opinions, and am very grateful to see  this column in your newspaper.   I have been subscribed to the JT for many years and will continue to do so with your openness to conservative […]

Whether or not you supported Question 2 this year, it appears it will go into  law. I’m writing this letter to make sure that people understand that sometimes tax revenue is directed into a “general fund.” This happens at all levels of government and is very common. The reason I raise this is that that […]

Everyone knows that relationships matter. But few of us pause to ponder exactly which relationships matter. Recently, I came across a study by the well-regarded Search Institute, a Minnesota research group whose early work identified a range of protective factors for young people—developmental assets—and has morphed in recent years to studying how to create resilient young people […]

With the election behind us, time to get back to civility in politics Now that the election season is behind us, it’s time to take a deep breath, relax, enjoy the season that is now upon us and see how events, both nationally and in the state, shape up. I do want to take this […]