As I was watching the news this morning, there was an item that reminded me of the Old West. I’m not talking about wagon trains and dysentery. I’m talking about an attempt to take the law in your own hands. What if we didn’t have police officers to keep our streets safe? What if we…

The civil rights struggle has been a long one for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. To move forward and find common ground, it’s important to not be judgmental of the other side. For the longest time, religious organizations were the biggest impediment to equal rights when it came to marriage, adopting children, etc….

Growing up on a farm, I was constantly exposed to animals. Dogs and cats roamed through the house. Chickens wandered through the yard, rabbits were resting in cages, and horses made their paths in the pasture. One thing I never saw when I was growing up were lambs in the house. Under most circumstances, they’re…

It’s not always easy to come up with a headline for a newspaper story that will grab people’s attention and make them read the story. You know you’ve failed if the headline is interesting. If it’s racially offensive, however, that means you’ve really screwed up. The Antigo Daily Journal, a newspaper in northern Wisconsin, had…

There’s just more than a week remaining until the 51st Super Bowl, a time-honored tradition where two football teams compete to be the best in the land—and companies spend big-time bucks to come up with the craziest commercials imaginable to get you to buy their products. If you’re living in Georgia or the New England…

When you go in to get your hair cut, you’ll tend to get someone who wants to chat. Sometimes, the discussion will be interesting, but there are times when you feel the barber is chatting just to fill the air with noise. When Birdie spoke, however, it was usually wise to pay attention. With the…

In America, we take freedom of speech very seriously. It’s what the country was founded on, and whenever anyone tries to tread on our civil liberties, we come out swinging. Many of those strike-backs are justified, but some are not. The Daily Courier, the daily paper that covered where I grew up in Chino Valley,…

You have to wonder how screwed up someone has to be in order to prey on someone weaker than them. You also have to wonder how stupid they are in order to film said predatory act and run it live on Facebook for the whole world to see. America got to see the latest effort…

When Donald Trump was on the campaign trail, one of his campaign promises was to “drain the swamp” in Washington. It looks like he might want to start in his own house—that is, the House of Representatives. Republicans met prior to the start of the 115th Congress this week and voted, over the objections of…

I’m sitting here early on Christmas morning, darkness still outside—except for the ever-glowing string of Christmas lights on the tree and fence at my next door neighbor’s house. Every Christmas is a little different, but I was a little surprised to be conscious before 5 a.m. I finally got all the presents wrapped. It’s ironic…