Breaking News

Columns

Dealing with pedophilia

As I watch the news, there appear to be many people from other countries, in addition to our own citizens, who are in trouble for sexual crimes against children. It is a more prevalent problem than we would like to believe. It is, and has been, a problem nationally and locally. People who do these things frequently have pedophilia. What is that? Pedophilia involves a persistent sexual interest in children, up to and including the age of 12. That interest can include sexual thoughts, fantasies, arousal and also acting on those thoughts and fantasies. They may have no interest in ...

Love has no expiration date

Dear Annie: I’m 65 years old, and after years of focusing on everything and everyone else, I finally feel ready to date again. The only problem is -- I’m not sure how to go about it, or if it’s even realistic at my age. I’ll be honest: I have not been the best judge of character in the past. That makes me extra cautious now, especially when it comes to online dating. Every time I fill out one of those profiles, it feels less like I’m opening myself up to love and more like I’m filling out a job application. Between the high expectations, the endless questionnaires and the ...

A festival of sail

My wife and I knew we were in the right place because embossed on our hotel room’s throw pillows were the words, “I like big boats and cannot lie.” As if to drive that message home, a mighty air horn blared outside our hotel. Even though it was a quarter of a mile away, the horn was loud enough to loosen your toenails. I watched in awe as a 1,000-foot-long ore boat slid beneath the aerial lift bridge at a speed that could be nautically described as “super-duper slow.” Big boats indeed! And that was just an appetizer. We were in Duluth, Minnesota recently for the city’s ...

‘The centre cannot hold’

I have friends who say they try not to pay attention to the news, for their own sanity. I am a news addict, so I can’t do that. Some days I enjoy being informed. Then there are days that are overwhelming and make me want to crawl in a hole. June 14 was one of those. We were months into the chaos fueled by the election of a man who relishes disruption and anger. The military had been called to confront American citizens in Los Angeles, a step fraught with dangerous precedent. Masked agents were abducting people off the streets in something that felt more like 1930s Germany than ...

There’s a Bill in Congress to make voting harder for everyone

Under current US law, it is illegal for non-citizens to register and vote in federal or state elections. Additionally, we have robust processes already in place to ensure that only eligible voters are casting ballots. However, Congress is about to vote on a bill that requires all eligible voters to provide citizenship documentation to register to vote.  This bill is called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, and despite its innocuous name, it would do far more harm than good. This law would be both unjust and unnecessary. It is unjust, because it would deprive ...

What is the truth?

We live in a world where there may be 10 different versions or ways to describe or explain the same thing. I had never heard the name Fake News until recently. People have their opinions and preferences that they will voice as if it is the absolute truth. Advertisements may or may not be accurate. A political cause or charity may benefit no one but the people running it. How do we know what to believe? How can we identify misinformation? How can we know the truth? One truth is that identifying the truth can be rather difficult. One study suggested that in our computerized ...