http://www.tribstar.com en-us Copyright CNHI All Rights Reserved. 5 Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:24:00 +0000 http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_183212341.html http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_183212341.html The funniest thing happens when you drive the speed limit: You notice all the people who don’t. You also save a fair amount of gasoline Sun, 29 Jun 2008 20:18:00 +0000 http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_181201915.html http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_181201915.html For years now, folks who know a lot more about it than I do keep telling us that newspapers are going to die off soon. They say that the rise of the Internet, like Chicxulub, the meteor that helped wipe the dinosaurs off the planet millions of years ago, eventually will kill the desire for the newsprint that many of us still crave. Sat, 28 Jun 2008 20:51:00 +0000 http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_180205148.html http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_180205148.html Some evenings, students saw Richard Landini picking up a stray piece of trash off the lawn. He hated litter. He loved Indiana State University. The students knew that, because he lived there, literally. Sat, 28 Jun 2008 20:43:00 +0000 http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_180204313.html http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_180204313.html George Carlin died last Sunday. He deserves an appropriate headline akin to his own spoof headlines like: “Jacques Cousteau dies in bathtub accident.” Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:25:00 +0000 http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_179222538.html http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_179222538.html After weeks of rough news, the town could use a few laughs. Wed, 25 Jun 2008 22:07:00 +0000 http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_177220748.html http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_177220748.html I remember scanning the audience as my wife and I found our seats for George Carlin’s performance in Tilson Auditorium back on Sept. 24, 2000. Sat, 21 Jun 2008 21:48:00 +0000 http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_173215025.html http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_173215025.html While Barack Obama and John McCain are working out the ground rules for the next four months, it would be so great if they would agree to a moratorium on religious pandering. Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:56:00 +0000 http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_169195900.html http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_169195900.html The woman behind the desk was uncharacteristically tight and terse. If I didn’t know her, if I were some stranger who’d just come into her workplace for services, I might think, “Geez, what’s with her? Would it kill her to smile?”But I do know the woman, so I asked a question that’s fairly common around these parts just now: “Did you get any flooding?” Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:49:00 +0000 http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_169114920.html http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_169114920.html I think it was last fall when Joe lost his dog companion of many years.Joe, one of the regulars at the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center, was pretty broken up about it. My Best Friend and I urged that he get another dog — immediately if not sooner. But Joe had valid excuses. He wanted an outdoor dog and didn’t want to break in a new puppy during the winter. Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:12:00 +0000 http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_166221404.html http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_166221404.html Those of us whose fathers have left this mortal world can feel sort of useless on Father’s Day. No cards, gadgets or after-shave to buy. No heart-felt poem to deliver, no brunch to host, no Dad’s cheek to plant a kiss upon. Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:02:00 +0000 http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_166213954.html http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_166213954.html My Little League and Babe Ruth League teammates assumed I copied my batting stance from Pete Rose. Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:26:00 +0000 http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_163222611.html http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_163222611.html When all your belongings are piled in a soggy heap outside the front door, statistics and history mean little. Still, as flood waters made their unwanted invasion into the lives of Wabash Valley residents last weekend, that year kept coming up — 1913. Wed, 11 Jun 2008 06:19:00 +0000 http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_162231153.html http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_162231153.html Sometimes I have this fantasy when I hear yet another smug know-it-all talk about the “irrelevance” of the mainstream news media — or “MSM,” as the abbreviated slur goes. Sun, 08 Jun 2008 00:22:00 +0000 http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_160002234.html http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_160002234.html America changed. For the past year, those questions got beaten around — “Is the country ready for a woman president?” and “Is the country ready for a black president?” Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:46:00 +0000 http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_156215537.html http://www.tribstar.com/opinion_columns/local_story_156215537.html Even in an agricultural state like Indiana, a lot of us go to the supermarket, troll the aisles looking for dinner fixings, toss plastic-wrapped foodstuffs into our cart and think nothing more about our choices than their bottom line at the checkout.