ArcaMax

Last week's Erma Bombeck Writer's Workshop in Dayton, Ohio, celebrated 25 years of the conference. The University of Dayton held the first workshop in 2000 as a one-time event to commemorate the Bombeck family's gift of Erma's papers to her alma mater. It turns out once just wasn't enough, and now there's no hint of stopping it. The conference...Read more

It's April 1, the day when guys my age finally stop writing 2025 on their checks.

I only wrote two checks this month. One was to my dentist because he still sends me a paper bill with a return envelope, and one was to a company that sells me sausage and cheese at Christmas. Once I pay them both off, I won't write another check until next year...Read more

Yes, he talks like a Brooklyn tough guy, but Sen. Bernie Sanders is a resident of Vermont, America's most rural and most white state. That he fled New York City nearly 60 years ago seems lost on the current Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his fellow socialists. Then again, Mamdani hasn't been around very long himself.

Sanders skipped out of town as ...Read more

It's business as usual -- almost -- in the midst of a war abroad and an affordability crisis at home and the longest partial government shutdown in history.

I say almost because last Friday, the Senate actually did something different. They did something extraordinary. Every Republican voted with every Democrat to fund the Department of ...Read more

I've watched the American triumvirate of leaders for a long time: principals House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Senate Republican leader John Thune and President Donald Trump.

The ancient Roman triumvirate of generals had one that was truly great: Julius Caesar, famous forevermore.

Pelosi, who turned 86 last week, is the truly great leader,...Read more

Our future was pronounced dead last week.

I mean that glorious future of "The Metaverse," promised to us by Silicon Valley's tech and financial geniuses. Just a decade ago, they were promising us that by now we'd all be playing, working and relating as digital avatars of ourselves, living out our lives in a phantasmagoric new world of virtual ...Read more

In Washington recently, the Foreign Minister of a Middle Eastern country under attack by Iran argued that Iran must at last be forcefully confronted by the international community, and that continuing to kick the can down the road when it comes to Tehran is unacceptable. "You have to be clear-eyed about the risks that this regime poses," this ...Read more

Sure, the "No Kings" marches drew millions rightly protesting Donald Trump's assaults on our democratic institutions. But Democrats must dig deeper and ask how Trump could actually win another term after trying to overturn the 2020 election results with a violent attack on the Capitol. It wasn't as though most Americans adored him. Gallup's ...Read more

Across the country, brave people are out in the streets observing and recording immigration enforcement interactions to support people who are being targeted and to hold the government accountable for its abuses.

The First Amendment protects your right to take photos and videos of anything in public view, including law enforcement officers at...Read more

The costs of this war are becoming, painfully, clearer and clearer. The Friday headlines of The New York Times capture part of the picture: "Global Food Supply Faces Dangerous Bottleneck in Strait of Hormuz (that's the skyrocketing price of fertilizer at work); "Diesel Is a Bigger Problem for Consumers Than Gasoline" (hitting everyone from ...Read more

I could be wrong. I hope I am. When it comes to political predictions, my pattern recognition skills usually win. I predicted America's defeat in Afghanistan, its failure to find WMDs in Iraq, how Donald Trump would drive Americans crazy, and both of Trump's wins, all long before anyone else. There was, however, my mistaken belief that Bernie ...Read more

What does it mean when a snow leopard, important to species survival, is deemed effectively sterile? That was the topic of conversation at the Louisville Zoo last week after a reproductive assessment of Meru, an 8-year-old snow leopard.

The Louisville Zoo has been hoping since Meru's arrival in 2018 that he and their female snow leopard, NeeCee...Read more

Forty years ago, if you wanted to sound smarter than your stupid buddies, you looked thoughtfully at the football game on the TV over the bar, and you got a profound beer-related look in your eye.

"Ya know, soccer is probably going to be the next big American sport," you said. "They play it all over the world. In most countries, they don't ...Read more

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are running content very harmful to children. So said a jury in New Mexico that just slapped their owner, Meta, with a $375 million fine. The state accused the company of spreading pornographic images and helping adults contact vulnerable children.

Meta faces thousands of suits, but in a landmark case decided ...Read more

The Republicans are determined to pass it. It's their Hail Mary pass for the midterms. If you can't win an election fair and square, then suppress the votes. Disenfranchise those who aren't likely to vote for you. Create a phony problem that you then have to solve. It's an outrage. And it's happening in real time.

"The cheating is rampant in ...Read more

"Fight for our rights, fight for your rights," is probably the most overused phrase in American politics. In this desperate moment when American democracy -- and world peace -- is in peril in one man's cruel chokehold, it's time to retire that jersey.

"Resist for our rights" is the right way to approach the national plight.

Nonviolent ...Read more