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Columns/Opinion

Watering plants isn’t hard and it’s good for you

I know this is an outlier story. It’s about Brooklyn brownstone couples who pay over $2,000 for professionals to choose and care for their houseplants. Houseplant designing is actually a service being offered to the urban and suburban gentry. One such “Plant Doctor & Stylist” charges an hourly rate between $125 and $175. Those are psychotherapy prices. What I see, sadly, are busy careerists outsourcing basic acts of living. It’s one thing to pay for child care. But indoor-plant care? Is carrying a glass of water to the ficus on the windowsill such a time-wasting, big deal? ...

Rush to defeat greyhound bill a sad occasion

By Mary Ann McDonald The board members of the Federation of Humane Organizations of West Virginia (FOHOWV), a grassroots animal welfare organization, are saddened at the recent defeat of SB 285, which would have ended the subsidies to the greyhound racing industry in West Virginia. We appreciate the support of Senate President Mitch Carmichael, who was the lead sponsor on this bill. He cited the treatment of the dogs as one reason to end greyhound racing, since the dogs suffer injuries and die. He said that death of the industry is inevitable and noted that across America, this ...

When it comes to coronavirus, we’re all in this together

There is a disease going around, and I’m not talking only about the coronavirus. It’s a political disease, and it seems to be spreading, especially among certain politicians who are looking for another way to expel President Trump from office. Last week on the ABC program “The View,” co-host Meghan McCain responded to applause from the audience after another co-host, Sunny Hostin, suggested that Vice President Mike Pence is being set up by President Trump to be the “fall guy” should the response to the coronavirus turn out to be inadequate. McCain responded: “I ...

Does Sanders relish a feel-good defeat?

Even with the no-longer flailing Joe Biden finally coming back in South Carolina’s primary, wise Democrats are looking warily ahead to the uncertainties of next week’s 14 state Super Tuesday primaries. And what they are seeing frightens them. They see that Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont still remains best-positioned, in terms of contributions and a robust campaign organization, to score significant gains in the coast-to-coast contests. Biden is severely understaffed and underfunded in many major contests. Mike Bloomberg must hope voters have paid attention to his massive blanket of ...

Wood mill proves ‘an undertaking’

When my sister Lina told me she’d gotten a wood mill to make boards from trees on her property, I was pretty excited to see the operation. Then I learned it was a comparatively cheap and portable version of a mill, and was even more stoked — you know I’m all about the DIY and budget options. On a visit to her home, I had the treat of watching her use this Alaskan chainsaw mill. When she started, I thought, heck, maybe I should get one and see if I have an undiscovered passion for woodworking and carpentry. Set up looked relatively simple; basically the saw mill is an all ...

A eulogy for being equal to the situation

Consider this a eulogy for competence. It’s an appreciation long overdue, but then, competence — the quality of being equal to the situation, of knowing what to do — was easy to overlook. You learned to expect it, to take it for granted. Another reason this eulogy is overdue is that the loss of competence — meaning federal government competence — is not recent. To the contrary, competence has been gone since January 2017. But the events of the last week make this an especially appropriate time for a eulogy. Seldom has the absence of competence seemed more glaring. Seldom ...