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Why Dems need an ‘Operation Kibble’

Editorials

There's an ancient, almost surely apocryphal, story about a dog food company executive convening a big sales meeting. A very short version has the exec running through all of the company's advantages: the best sales team, the best advertising, the best packaging, etc. He then irately asks, "So why aren't we selling more dog food?" After a long silence, a small voice from the back ventures a guess. "Maybe the dogs don't like it." The story is a cliche, but a useful one, in business and politics. For instance, the pre-launch internal name for "Netflix" was "Kibble," as a reminder that ...

Sonny Rollins knew not to die young

Editorials

How is it that the “Saxophone Colossus” Sonny Rollins lived to 95? Aren’t jazz musicians supposed to die at tragically early ages? Actually, that’s a myth that Rollins and others proved flawed. It’s true that Bix Beiderbecke, king of the cornet, was gone at 28, Charlie Parker at 34, Dinah Washington at 39, John Coltrane at 40. Billie Holiday made it to 44 — not young, but an age that should have been before her time. Some musicians, classical and rock, as well as jazz, reach especially advanced ages. The music stimulates their mind, connects them with others and lowers ...

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Letters to the Editor

Schools are out and many grandparents will enjoy summer with their grandchildren. Perhaps spending a day with them at the beach or at a park or having a picnic together at a park. Perhaps teaching the grandchild life skills such as cooking or baking. But I can only wish for those days as a misguided Family Court magistrate has decided my grandchild’s father has all the power. My dream is that my grandchild will not forget me. — Howland Kudos to Louisiana, where balloon releases will be illegal beginning August 2026! Balloons cannot reach departed loved ones in heaven; they cannot ...

Fraudsters run amok

Editorials

At first, it didn’t sound right. Someone must have miscalculated. How could there be so much fraud that has robbed taxpayers of billions of dollars without anyone seeming to notice? Worse, it appears they didn’t seem to care. Vice President JD Vance convened a meeting on Tuesday of his Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. Fifteen Republican attorneys general showed up. Almost two dozen Democrat attorneys general didn’t come, citing short notice. Their invitations went out on Friday, so they probably had a good excuse. Vance urged all of them to help in rooting out more fraud than has so ...

Truth about Trump’s big birthday bash

Editorials

In light of my recent Substack post about Trump’s plans for a Trump rally on the mall to celebrate the start of America’s 250th birthday festivities — designed, in his words, for “patriots” and promising to be “wild” — several of you wanted to know more about how it’s being planned and paid for. This year’s 250th anniversary events, commemorating America’s founders’ refusal to be bound by a tyrant, were supposed to be planned by a nonpartisan, nonprofit group created by Congress in 2016 via a bipartisan congressional caucus of more than 350 members. That ...

Artificial intelligence: A modern Tower of Babel?

Editorials

On May 25, Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.” This pastoral letter has been much anticipated by the Catholic Church, and immediate news headlines expressed intrigue that the pope addressed the moral dilemma of AI and compared it to the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis. He also discussed Nehemiah, the cupbearer to Persian King Artaxerxes I during the 5th century B.C. In a detailed breakdown of the pope’s central points in “Magnifica Humanitas,” Our Sunday Visitor ...