Opinion

The ‘straw man’ argument Mike Rowe is one of my favorite humans these days. People often write letters to Mike, complaining about something he’s done or said. I love it when that happens, because Mike will sometimes write back, and with a friendly, logical, laid back attitude, rip them to shreds.

‘Besmirching’ on the Rise… Roger Summers, one of the all-time great writers for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, has long had a way with words. My late mother would have said he “wrote a blue streak.” In retirement, he still takes spells of prolific writing between periods of “hibernation.” (Or maybe it’s the other way around.) Whatever, his current writing--some on the Internet and some in old-fashioned books that require “page-turning”--remains excellent. Here lately, ...

I hope you have been as excited about the rain as I have. I have been driving to Kerrville most days to visit John. The weather is scary but I have persevered. Within 24 hours of rain, dead grass on the side of the road is coming to life with a tinge of green.

[It’s become a tradition to run this column every year before school starts] Last week Mason County News published the School Supply List for Mason Elementary and Mason Junior High. You can probably find most of these items at Dollar General. Anyway, I was so intrigued I just couldn’t put it down. The list began with Pre-K. Merely three items required. One large box of crayons. One box of Kleenex. And a rest mat. Ain’t life grand? You can color. You can cry if you ...

Sweeping Away Cobwebs - Some Random Thoughts When you write a weekly column, you often find yourself mulling over topics that, while important, just don't seem to inspire the words to fill up a full week's worth of space. However, until I can get some of those thoughts out of my head and on to paper, they will continue bouncing around cluttering up any reasonable thought process.

Simple Dinner Rolls courtesy: Tasty.com This is a very good dinner roll recipe that produces 8 fairly large sized rolls. It’s very easy to double the number of rolls by simply making them smaller; I’ve made as many as 16 and they work very well, particularly for the lighter eaters in the groups that you feed. Ingredients: 1 cup warm water 2 tablespoons olive oil 2 tablespoons honey 2 teaspoons salt 3 ¼ cups all-purpose flour 1 ½ teaspoons yeast 1 egg for egg wash P ...

If you like to color—and this goes for children or adults—then be sure to enter our coloring contests. Two groups will be judged in the children’s contest—Pre-K to Grade 2 and Grade 3 to Grade 5—and ribbons and cash prizes will be awarded. For the adult contest, the prizes are tickets to a Charlie Daniels concert on August 24th in Dallas (tickets courtesy of Charley at Lone Star 102.5).

Strawmageddon National Geographic’s Laura Parker reported, in a timely and well-written article published 23 February, 2018, that there is a new catastrophic threat to planet Earth that dwarfs all previous catastrophic threats, including, but not limited to, ozone depletion, global warming, global cooling, global preheating, global rinsing, Russian election intervention, the Kardashians, and reruns of the Friends sitcom.

Whistle-Blowers Fading Away… “He ‘takes after’ his dad,” old-timers used to say about young boys in their formative years. I didn’t hear the expression often, because much of whom the late T. J. Newbury was, I wasn’t. Limited to an 11-year public school education, he was a common laborer, spending most of his adult life in helping folks “stay connected” to natural gas in their rural Brown County homes.

Welcome August, the last month of summer when school starts and life returns to normal for most families. Hopefully, the early summer heat will give way to early fall. Mark Tax Free weekend on your calendars. August 10-12 is the time to avoid all retail merchants unless you love crowds and tired crabby children crying. The Art United Methodist Women will meet August 14th at 2:30. Happy Birthday to Kenneth Durst and Mitch Jordan on August 1st, Lincoln Calhoun on August 4th, Sam Jordan on ...