ArcaMax

Spring is filled with dreams of locally grown food. Last weekend, my family volunteered for our local community garden, helping get beds ready and putting tomato and pepper plants in the ground. At home, we planted zinnias and sunflowers. My family also signed up for shares of Community Supported Agriculture from our local farmer.

I love this...Read more

The kid behind the counter, a kid with strong black dreads fountaining out of the top of his visor, says "That'll be $6.42."

I give him my debit card.

I went to bed last night with $0.65 in my checking account, but this column pays by the quarter, and it's the end of the month. Social Security, pension and investment income are on the way.

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Some years ago, I was president of an organization called the Association of Opinion Journalists. Every year we would run a convention in a different city and end it with a celebration in the hotel's ballroom space. Our speaker on that closing night was usually some well-known political opinionator.

Members often talked about inviting the ...Read more

When I was working my way through law school as a bartender, we used to "86" drinkers who caused trouble. The term has been around that long. It certainly didn't mean we meant to kill a problem drinker. It meant we cut him off -- that is, stopped serving him drinks -- or if he was really out of control, asked the bouncer to escort him out.

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The king came to town for tea, dinner and a little chat with Congress and the president. By the time you read this, Charles III's state visit may be a little piece of history.

The "special relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom could undergo a stress test.

For one thing, Charles is probably horrified and mystified at ...Read more

"Mingy" is a useful word. It merges stingy with mean, pretty well summing up the prevailing ethic of today's corporate bosses.

Take mingy CEOs of multibillion-dollar powerhouses like Amazon and 7-Eleven. They've been refusing to accommodate even the simplest needs of -- get this -- their pregnant employees.

As The New York Times reports, ...Read more

For Americans who have watched FBI Director Kash Patel slosh beer with the U.S. Olympic hockey team, proclaim that the FBI had Charlie Kirk's murderer in custody only to have to say "Never mind," and stand glassy-eyed at press conferences looking somewhere between an unhappy participant in a police line-up and an anesthetized deer in ...Read more

"Shots Fired at Correspondents' Dinner" dominated TV headlines following the gun attack at the Washington Hilton. Correction: Shots were not fired at the dinner but in the corridor outside. That's where security had pinned the accused gunman, Cole Tomas Allen, on his stomach and handcuffed.

Some journalists like to overdramatize everything, ...Read more

From Los Angeles to New Jersey, many of the United States' host cities for the 2026 World Cup are home to large immigrant communities. Though this year's slogan is "Football Unites the World," these communities now live in daily fear of racial profiling, inhumane detention, separation from loved ones and summary deportation because of ...Read more

These are troubling times for President Donald Trump. His poll numbers are in the toilet. The country doesn't trust him with the economy and doesn't support him on what was his favorite issue, immigration. The war he started is not going well and is not popular. He needs to "win" it and make it be over and the Iranians are not cooperating. ...Read more

The Left is extreme, the Right is extreme. In the middle lies truth and reason.

None of this is true -- but it is taken for granted, even by many of those on the Left and the Right. The Left is right about some things, as is the Right, and centrists are frequently, perhaps usually, proven wrong. But moderates control news and entertainment ...Read more

Somebody told me that journalism is dead. It is true that the industry has been struggling since the dawn of the internet and artificial intelligence seems to be poised to finish it off, but it's not dead. Perhaps this is our opportunity to see it meaningfully evolve.

Thanks to the internet, we have taught an entire population to read for ...Read more

I was lucky enough to be born at the intersection of three great pancake traditions. My mother made the American pancake from a box mix called Bisquick, which can also be used to make biscuits and dumplings. My mother made dumplings when she made beef stew. She did not make biscuits. She was not an airy, fluffy cook. She was a stodgy, starchy ...Read more

What next? The war is not going well. Already, there are loud whispers that President Donald Trump may be forced to accept a deal that is not much better than the one former President Barack Obama made with Iran, which Trump tore up in his first term, leading to the nuclear development that underlies the current crisis. Trump can call it ...Read more

The White House Correspondents' Dinner Saturday is the hottest ticket in town, but a tempest is brewing among journalists on Donald J. Trump's presence at the posh gathering.

This is a moment in the tales of our embattled city. It will be Trump's first time at the dinner, a chance for the Fourth Estate to speak truth to his power.

Two ...Read more

Even in this ugly era of political divisiveness under "King Donald," some things remain bigger than partisan politics.

Travel deep into Southwest Texas to the Mexican border and you'll witness two powerful forces of political harmony in Big Bend National Park. First is the true majesty of nature -- 1,200 square miles of high desert beauty, ...Read more