Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ

close

Columnists

My New YearÄ¢¹½ÊÓÆµ resolutions didn’t resolve anything

My New YearÄ¢¹½ÊÓÆµ resolutions would have already been broken if I’d decided to make any. Eight days into 2024 and poof! But I didn’t make any New YearÄ¢¹½ÊÓÆµ resolutions, because by Dec. 31, 2023, I’d resolved not to make any more of them. So I didn’t! MEMO TO SELF: Try to find out ...

The states stated their cases in 2023

The states really are the "laboratories of democracy." Despite frustrations expressed from time to time with good old American federalism – the idea that the 50 individual states have a sovereign stake in this vast continental country of ours – there's always a light at the end of the ...

Beat boredom during school break

Q. I think I’m the only kid in the world who is in a hurry to get back to school. I’m so bored during this break. ItÄ¢¹½ÊÓÆµ too long. I just live with my mom and she works two jobs. I don’t connect with my school friends when I’m not in school because I don’t have a phone. Is it weird ...

Wright, Pittsburgh and Fallingwater

The greatest living architect poured scorn on the idea. Frank Lloyd Wright, famous in these parts (and elsewhere for that matter) for Fallingwater, his iconoclastic residential design set off in the woods of Fayette County, criticized the notion of saving the Pittsburgh "Triangle," as he put ...

A hope for tolerance at Christmas

The idea that the past has something to teach us is time-worn: we say it, but do we really mean it? Mostly, the answer is no. However, this particular moment in our national history may be, could be, the exception. If it happened once, it can happen again. Fingers crossed. Eleanor Roosevelt, ...

Year-end honors for 2023

We’ve made it! We’re at the end of 2023. ItÄ¢¹½ÊÓÆµ time for various entities to hand out their annual awards for the year. Time magazineÄ¢¹½ÊÓÆµ 2023 Person of the Year was a no-doubter – Taylor Swift. I’ll be honest. I can’t remember the last time I heard a Taylor Swift song. Or, if ...