Opinion

We all live in a brainiac world, to be sure, but the heart remains the emotional, spiritual center of our being. It’s still such a symbol of love and emotion, with our language sprinkled with metaphors invoking the heart as the source of empathy,...

Way back in the mid-60s when just a lad in Greenfield, I owned a “skurfboard”; you read that correctly, a skurfboard. This was one of, if not the, earliest skateboards sold to an unaware public. The name an obvious combination of “skate” and “surf,”...

I love this time of year, when the “storm window” opens, the water possibilities increase ten-fold and the population of our desiccated West Coast becomes transfixed by weather and all her whims. “We are on the storm watch,” the forecaster whispers in spooky tones....

I was going to finish my traveler tales this week — my account of when we went to pay homage to the Queen of England and then what we did after that — but I got distracted. No, I felt the need to paint...

It was simply one of those days. A wake-up call that didn’t involve coffee or soft music, let alone the sound of little birds singing to herald the dawning of a new day. “This is Bank of America. We have reason to believe that...

To the Editor: One of the default solutions offered for countering an active shooter in a school is arming teachers. Thus, ensuring that “the school” can push back on an intruder rapidly and lethally. At first glance, this solution rings true; but is it really? Like...

I have been working out of my house for the past few weeks, and like the promises of AT&T the entire internet has gotten to be very sporadic in reception. I was mumbling to myself when I was asked to go to the store...

I remember when the wall speaker above Mr. Spears desk made that squawking, scratchy noise it made just before a voice came over and said “Mr. Spears, please send Steve Wilson to the office.” Great, now what? The “office” was of course the office of...

Sometimes it is a hard old universe to still be in old-style media, as opposed to social media that most people are familiar with in this modern world. I’ve been in, on or around newspapers most of my adult life and I still love...

Below is what happens when a writer is somewhat confined to his immediate surroundings; that writer reads a lot of books and views a lot of documentaries and then sits down at the keyboard and just lets the fingers go where the imagination, and...