Columnists

If you had asked me when I was in high school back in the 1990s.I’d have told you I was born during one of the most boring moments in American history. But then the world changed, and I can’t say I think much of it has been for the better. Five years after I graduated,…

I talked to the new director of the Missouri Department of Conservation this week, and he gives me some hope. He hails from Ozarks country, the small community of Lincoln Missouri, where he and his dad kept coonhounds and hunted coons and sold their pelts. The former director was a lady who I interviewed for…

You may know someone who gets a monthly Social Security benefit or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payment and who also needs help managing their money. We can appoint a person or an organization to act as a “representative payee” responsible for receiving and managing a person’s Social Security benefits or SSI payments. When we assign…

I occasionally need (and generally receive) a reminder that the American people are still the American people. Too often our people’s narrative is one of online bickering, media tug-of-war and letting the idealogues tell us which extreme is the best extreme. But then something happens. It is usually a crisis – a conflict, a depression…

As we head into another Presidential election, political lines are firmly drawn for either side, perhaps more so than ever before. Calls for unity are often drowned out with divisive rhetoric. And as the recent assassination attempt of a presidential candidate highlights, this division has now reached the point where someone would consider murder to…

Last election Joe Biden was viewed by the left as the sure-fire solution to the horrible, awful Donald J. Trump. Biden was the second coming of Obama, the torch bearer of liberalism, and the senior Democrat most deserving of reward. The party got behind the old boy and pushed him over the goal line. Uncle…

I hate to be laughed at! But I know a bunch of you folks out there are going to laugh at this. … In southern Bangladesh there are native people who live along the rivers that feed the ocean, who train otters and use them to fish in those tributaries. Those otters are bred in…

When I was 19 years old, I remember feeling frustrated that the people in charge, society’s powers that be, never seemed to care much for the ideas being postulated by folks my age. The years have passed – quite a few of them, actually – and now I believe I can say with confidence that…

For over 10 years, my Social Security has helped many people access our programs and services online. Soon, we will change the way you sign in to all our online services ─ including my Social Security. You will no longer be able to sign in to your personal my Social Security account using your username…

You often wouldn’t know it from what we see on TV and social media, but the basics of a healthy lifestyle can be pretty straightforward. Try to walk or do other physical activities, eat a healthy diet of mostly plant-based foods, limit alcohol and, of course, don’t smoke. As we know though, putting these into…