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A belated letter to Dad for Father’s Day

Because the dead don’t leave forwarding addresses, Dad, I’m not sure where to send this, but I’m writing anyway in celebration of Father’s Day. I’m once again proving your point: I’m relentless if I’m determined to make it happen. So you died a few years ago. So what? That doesn’t mean we no longer have a relationship. Life and death aren’t all that easy. I continue to talk to you in my head, although perhaps less regularly than I did when you first passed away. A dozen years ago, I saw you and heard you on every block in New York City. Every Italian or Jewish ...

How outrage should work in real time

Brian Boyle Los Angeles Times Jon Stewart returned to TV last week just as we left him: Sitting behind a desk, clicking his pen as he carefully crafted an argument and called for justice. It could’ve been a monologue aired on any episode of “The Daily Show.” Almost. But instead of Comedy Central, Stewart appeared on our screens via C-SPAN. Instead of laughter, he instilled despair; his one-liners now cutting to our hearts rather than our funny bones. He’s still angry as ever, but he’s moved from the peanut gallery into the front row. We should take notes: This is what ...

‘Economic patriotism’ gone crazy

Elizabeth Warren wants to put CEOs in prison even when they have not committed a crime, and here is a kick in the face of half of what we stand for, although a matter of minute media concern. Reporters, of course, may get more interested if she decides they should be incarcerated for innocence. Warren is not yet Joe Biden when it comes to polls, but when it comes to craziness she is Bernie Sanders. This thing about CEOs has to do with a company doing some wrong as a consequence of the deeds of other employees and the top guy therefore being held negligent, not as a civil but as a ...

It’s swampier than ever

Now that we have absolute proof Russia interfered in the 2016 election and knows it is free to intervene in the 2020 U.S. elections with impunity, let us turn to the stunning amount of old-fashioned corruption going on in your nation’s capital. The number of top administration officials who have left their jobs in the past two and a half years because of malfeasance is far higher than normal. (It must be made clear here that both Democrats and Republicans in office throughout our history have taken advantage of their positions to make themselves or their families and friends ...

Teacher’s immigration tweets unfairly hurt conservatives

There are a lot disappointing elements in the story of Georgia Clark, the Fort Worth Carter-Riverside High (Texas) teacher whose recent social media tirade about unauthorized immigrants prompted FWISD’s board of trustees to recommend that she be terminated. Clark, an English teacher, was apparently quite concerned by the number of students at the high school where she teaches (whom she believed) to be in the country illegally. She was so alarmed that she personally took her pleas that these students be “removed” to President Donald Trump, via her Twitter account, and even ...

Social media users are our state’s best marketers

BY CHELSEA RUBY Destination marketing is a competitive industry. That’s the reason the state Tourism Office works every day to spread the good word about vacations in West Virginia. Personally, I think it’s an easy sell. This state is magnificent. But the fact of the matter is ...