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The pocket change of my youth

I grew up in a world of ubiquitous corner stores ëƵ forever beckoning me to spend my pocket change on penny candy, and stuff.ThatëƵs how it was. IëƵve never regretted it.On the East End of Uniontown in the 1950s, there mustëƵve been a dozen family-owned stores.I think I visited all of them, ...

The lies Republicans tell one another

Campaign themes are frequently fragile things that shatter the moment they encounter reality.IëƵm thinking of the Eisenhower-Nixon ëƵmissile gapëƵ falsely promoted by John Kennedy in 1960. Then there was the matter of a convicted murderer being handed a get out of jail card by Massachusetts ...

The kingmaker speaks

ItëƵs as if Donald Trump never left the presidency.He still holds those exuberant campaign rallies with a not-too-carefully concealed eye on an attempted return to the White House.And he still holds court by becoming quite the kingmaker.Something for which he seems to be well-suited.Many ...

Here dissent is good, there, nyet

Widely speculated on in the press and elsewhere is that Russian president Vladimir Putin governs largely in the dark. Ruling the Kremlin with an iron fist, Putin, so the thinking goes, hears only what he wants to hear about Ukraine and much else.Bad news is filtered out. Only good news finds ...

Spring and renewal!

Mondays after Easter Sundays were always special to me when I was a kid.That meant if there were any playgrounds or empty fields within scurrying distance, theyëƵd soon be populated by after-school kids indefatigably engaged in all manner of exuberant activities.Allow me to unravel that. ...

Baseball: national pastime or a sport gone bad?

As for saving the national pastime from tedium, hereëƵs the bottom line: ItëƵs going to be tough.Tough because there are considerable differences between baseball today and when it rode atop American sports. As for some of those differences, we might consider the performance of Yankee great ...