Presidential speech isn’t what it used to be

December 20, 2025

Some of President Donald Trump’s supporters like to compare him to another two-term Republican president — Ronald Reagan. I’ve never seen that, I suppose you could find some common ground in their philosophies, but their personalities — at least as they appeared in public or on television — couldn’t be more different. Reagan could deliver a political jab at 1980s Democrats, who didn’t care for his policies any more than today’s Dems care for anything the Trump administration has done, with charm and a smile. I don’t remember Reagan suggesting that his political ...

College football has changed, but The Game still means plenty

November 29, 2025

While you’re reading this, I’ll be working my way through some Thanksgiving leftovers and watching the Ohio State Buckeyes beat TTUN, 103-0, as Michigan fans go back in time to the Jim Tressel-Urban Meyer years. OK, so no one — even the most rabid Buckeyes fan — expects that kind of score. But after four consecutive losses for Ohio State in the best rivalry in sports, most of us will settle for any kind of victory in The Game. The Buckeyes are the defending national champions after storming through last season’s playoff by manhandling Tennessee (42-17), Oregon (41-21), ...

A real column about AI and its pluses, minuses

November 8, 2025

One of my favorite online videos of recent vintage explains the FAFO Principle — fool around and find out. Just for the record — and to save everyone the trouble of dashing off a snarky email — I know that’s a sanitized interpretation of FAFO as most of us have come to know it. But this is a family newspaper, and we adhere to certain standards. As I once told a young reporter who had a penchant for including even the most sordid details of courtroom testimony and police reports, “If you wouldn’t be comfortable relating these details to your mom or grandmother over ...

Another season ends with a Cleveland World Series win

October 25, 2025

Now that the Cleveland Guardians are long out of the playoffs, I have to admit that I had a bad feeling about their wildcard series matchup against the Detroit Tigers. Sure, the Guardians’ epic comeback from a 15½-game deficit to win the division was historic and called to mind the New York Yankees’ rally from way back to catch and pass the Boston Red Sox in 1978. But the Yankees went on to win their second World Series in a row that year, while the 2025 Guardians couldn’t duplicate their late-season mastery of the Tigers that helped Cleveland win the American League Central. ...

Grand theft auto or something more comical?

October 11, 2025

We all seem to have that one friend who always gets into weird, sitcom-like situations. Their lives seem like an episode of “Three’s Company,” with all kinds of hijinks and misunderstandings. Their theme song should be “Yakety Sax,” the 1963 novelty instrumental most closely associated with the long-running UK ribald comedy series, “The Benny Hill Show.” Sometimes, I’m that friend. Who else but yours truly would order Door Dash at work, leave his phone on silent, forget about the order and then suddenly remember … only to discover a big, fat raccoon feasting on ...

Suddenly, we’re all spouting off on free speech

October 4, 2025

EDITOR’S NOTE: This From the editor’s desk column was not published in its entirety last weekend, so the full column is being republished today. Free speech has been on the minds of many in the two-plus weeks since the assassination of conservative Christian firebrand Charlie Kirk. Fellow conservatives have framed Kirk’s murder as an act designed to chill free speech by those who shared his traditional values of God, family and country. The motives of the coward who took Kirk’s life aren’t yet fully known, but he clearly did not appreciate the message the Turning Point USA ...