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Daily Horoscope

ARIES (March 21-April 19). Hands off. You’ve done all you can. Everyone will take away something different from today’s scene. There’s nothing you must do to improve the experience. TAURUS (April 20-May 20). The stars indicate a weak force becoming powerful or a meek person coming into a position of authority. There will be a reckoning. Those who would take advantage of the small will now have something big to deal with. GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Expressing emotions changes them. Many feelings cannot live out in the open. They only had power when they were contained. Free reign ...

Language and thought

Seventeenth-century poet and intellect John Milton predicted, “When language in common use in any country becomes irregular and depraved, it is followed by their ruin and degradation.” Gore Vidal, his 20th-century intellectual successor, elaborated saying: “As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate.” Sloppy language permits people to get away with speaking and doing all manner of destructive nonsense without being challenged. Let’s look at the concept of “white privilege,” the notion that white people ...

Dear Annie

Dear Annie: I just found out tonight that my brother’s second-oldest adult son passed away today. My brother’s oldest son passed three years ago. My brother has been estranged from the family for a long time, since he was in Vietnam. I have maintained a relationship with him by calling him a few times a year. He never calls me. I am the only sibling out of six who keeps in touch with him. My husband does not think highly of him, nor did he think highly of my nephew who just passed. The reason is there was not a great meeting, which took place at our wedding. So, when I broke the ...

Time to end activism

The passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg gives conservatives and Republicans what they claim to have wanted since judicial activism became the norm in the 1960s. From outlawing prayer and Bible reading in public schools, to the infamous Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion, conservative Republicans have yearned for a time when a Republican president and Republican majority Senate might put an end to judges making law and return to the day when Congress was the legislator. Yet, Republican presidents have appointed several liberals to the Court. President ...

Debate questions I’d ask

The political shadowboxing before presidential debates is cleverly choreographed. Take the 2000 contest between then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush and then-Vice President Al Gore. Before that year’s first general election debate, the Bush team did a superb job of lowering expectations for Governor Bush by emphasizing to reporters what an experienced and superb debater Gore was. So, when Bush more or less held his own in the opening debate, the Texas governor got a lot of the “better than expected” press coverage his campaign had all the time been angling for. But President Donald ...

Dear Annie

Dear Annie: My mother-in-law is a widow and lives next door to my husband and me. I never felt like we had privacy, as she’d walk over whenever she felt like it and visit without calling first. Even when we were newly married, she’d just walk over to our house without reaching out beforehand. My parents always told me to never live next door to your in-laws; it would only cause trouble in my marriage and I would not have privacy. However, when I married my hubby, he was already living next door to his parents, both in very nice homes. Now, don’t get me wrong, she is a very ...