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Feeling bad about dumb injury?

National Columnists

I hurt my knee taking a step onto a riser in a performance at my kids' elementary school the other day. I'm not sure yet how serious the injury is, but it's the kind of incident that makes you feel about 100 years old and like a complete moron. I mean, who gets hurt taking the stairs? So, after it happened, I decided to make myself feel better in a manner passed down through the centuries as a sure-fire method for dispelling shame: Find someone who did something even dumber than you did. With that, I commenced to furious googling, turning up tales of some of the most ...

Think Israel dragged Trump into war?

National Columnists

"It's Israel's war," our collection of smooth-brained podcast class declared as they rushed to pump out as much propaganda as possible in the aftermath of the joint American-Israeli strikes on the Islamic Republic of Iran. The range of arguments we're seeing from this less-than-serious crowd is impressively broad. Some argue that this war is entirely unjustified, as if Iran never hurt a hair on an American's head. Some argue that this war will only incite further terrorism, implying that we should just accept terrorism in order to escape terrorism. Then there are those frothing at ...

Trump avoids repeating history in Iran

National Columnists

History doesn't always repeat itself, or even rhyme. People sometimes learn from experience, their own or others'. Example: Woodrow Wilson, a stubborn Southerner, refused to involve any Republicans, all Northerners in those days, in treaty negotiations after World War I. His treaty ...

Masculinity has returned

National Columnists

One of the most pernicious and destructive cultural trends in the United States over the past 30 years or so has been the demonization of men and masculinity. This has taken many forms. Take, for example, the medicalization of boyish behavior in schools, which resulted in widespread diagnoses of "attention deficit disorder" and "attention deficit hyperactivity disorder," and overprescribing of drugs like Ritalin. Saner voices who insisted that boys simply needed more physical activity throughout the day and could not be expected to sit quietly for hours like girls were ...

Can't stop war but can help community

National Columnists

While President Donald Trump initiated war against Iran last weekend, my family was out volunteering at our local community garden. Another war weighs heavy on me, but I know I do not control military orders. I cannot make Trump adhere to the Constitution and get a proper declaration of war from Congress. Nor can I control how Congress responds, or in this case, chooses not to respond. But I can pick up a rake and help my community prepare a garden for spring and feed our neighbors. Trump, with the help of a GOP-dominated Congress, has stripped billions of dollars from ...

Trump is great man of history

National Columnists

Most students of history have likely pondered the question: Is it the times that make the man, or is it the man that makes the times? The question, though superficially intriguing, seems to have an easy enough answer: Sometimes it is the times that makes the man, and sometimes it is the man that makes the times. Rarest of all is the man who is both summoned and elevated by the times, on the one hand, and who has the courage and conviction to shape the times in return, on the other hand. It is this lattermost group of men who we might refer to as the truly great men of history. ...