In my first newspaper job 30 years ago, I worked for higher-ups who were, to put it mildly, cretins. One boss, dead now, stood out for his screaming, insults, and the glee he took in being outrageously offensive.

It seems we are all thankful for the ability to get together this year. Last year we had to cope with words like “social distancing” and “nuclear family gatherings,” with suggestions of holding dinner outdoors. Well, good riddance to 2020. 

Have you ever wondered, what is the real purpose of the kitchen’s center island? Ponder this question no more, dear readers, as I think I have found the answer. It is a place to collect, stack, put, place, spread, leave, toss and lose things! It is a trap for all things unrelated to cooking.…

If you want to conduct an experiment in the sociology of pandemic behavior, try a quick jaunt to Las Vegas. Always a petri dish for freaks, Sin City has gotten stranger in these strange times since it continues to have a mask mandate for everyone, vaccinated or not, gathered indoors.

You might regard this column as a form of bedtime story, just devoid of the opening words, “Once Upon a Time.”

Whoever thinks there is no divine sense of humor may want to reconsider — especially after the latest occurrence of “the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November.”

Will you enjoy a Veterans Day parade? Nov. 11 is the one great day to honor our men and women who served, watch the bands, the flags and the display of pride as we are reminded just how much we owe those who wear and wore the uniform.

It’s a scary world out there. Sometimes, we just need a friend. A buddy who will walk miles through a scorching desert, escape the perils of predators, suffer through the wind, rain and dust of monsoons with no map, GPS or cellphone, just to make it up your driveway, saunter in through your …

Every story requires a headline, so when Grant Woods left us Oct. 23 at age 67, the headline writers called him “Former Arizona Attorney General.” This is absolutely true — Grant served two terms as AG between 1990 and 1998 — but also a wretchedly poor summation of everything he encompassed …

The city of Peoria has become synonymous with the idea of a great place to live. Residents across the city can expect a high quality of life in every aspect of their daily life. 

If airline and orbital miles were interchangeable, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) would never have to purchase a plane ticket. Kelly, who logged more than 22 million miles orbiting the earth as an astronaut, hopes voters will upgrade his status and grant him a full six-year term in November 2022.

It is time to get spooky. The approach of Halloween may cause a whole lot of ghouls and witches to come knocking at your door, and it also brings the joy of candy!

The first time I poked fun at the Rolling Stones for being too old to rock ’n’ roll was in 1997. The band, led by then-54-year-old Mick Jagger, was in Tempe to play Sun Devil Stadium.

Allow me to share a true story about the power of one person who was willing to step into an impossible situation. 

Do all dogs go to heaven? Yes, of course they do, along with all of our other beloved pets. Sometimes, they just get there too quickly, leaving us bereft and broken. Maybe we love our dogs so much because they love us unconditionally and completely — flaws and all. 

Call it “Build Back Bitter.”

Today’s revelation should surprise exactly no one: There is a difference between what each of us says in public and what we say in private to friends. 

Does “big government” come from small minds? Which might then lead to dumb laws? All over this great nation there are laws “on the books” that reflect just how much our legislators like to make up laws. 

You get a few years under your belt, you develop a few pet theories about how to live your life. One of my favorites concerns the avoidance of what I call “optional danger.” 

Last week, this column chronicled a curious confrontation on the Tempe campus of Arizona State University, involving harassment of two white students by Black students affiliated with the Multicultural Solidarity Coalition.

Dr. Michael Crow has completed almost two decades as president of Arizona State University.  He spent a portion of that time co-authoring a book that encapsulates what could be considered his mission statement for the institution: “Designing the New American University.”

Used to be, college was a place where new adults smacked face-first into life. You met people unlike any you’d known before. You confronted new ideas and cultures. You got challenged a little. You learned a lot. 

I found something. When my parents died a few years ago, I was left boxes of recipes, photos and papers to sift through. I have browsed through everything but recently came across a file folder of old recipes and found a letter my father had written to his mother. The letter was dated Sept. …

You may not recall the name Paul Greenberg, but you certainly recall the nickname he bestowed on a politician who became president.

There’s no telling what seizes our population’s collective imagination on any given day, what generates news headlines and clicks by the million.

Oh, Emma Raducanu, let’s count the ways we love thee. 

“As Maine goes, so goes the nation!”

Commenting on Leibowitz

One of my crowning achievements as an American is having never watched a single episode of any program involving a Kardashian. I have made a point of this for the past 20 years for three reasons.

How long will you live? Hmm, maybe you would prefer not to know. While there are many medical claims on how to prolong our lives, there also seems to be “predictions” on how to shave of a few minutes here or there by simply eating. 

The first plane, American Airlines Flight 11, hit the North Tower at 5:46 a.m. our time. I was at my desk, sifting through topics for a radio talk show that would never air. 

Twenty years.

Are you there, God? Just checking. We have troubles from the Afghanistan war. It’s hard to read about, much less comprehend what just happened.

If you go back to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, January of last year, you discover that in this state so far, we have lost 36 young people to this stinking virus. Three dozen in 20 months. Every loss like this is tragic, but such losses also demand perspective.

Time flies when you are having fun. Especially when you are stuck for four hours on I-17 on your way out of Phoenix. The hands of time move very slowly.

Barack Obama did not go gently into that good presidential retirement.

Most of us like to believe we’re decent people. We give a few bucks to charity, we volunteer, maybe even help a friend move. But be real: There’s being a decent human and then there’s going above and beyond.

Over 30 years have passed since “Clarissa Explains it All” premiered on the kids’ cable channel Nickelodeon. 

The scroll of the dead contains 49 names: 48 men and a woman killed between April 2004 and December 2014 in Afghanistan. To my way of thinking, each of these Arizonans is a hero — a neighbor of ours, a defender of freedom, killed nearly 8,000 miles away in a fetid foreign hell.

Newton H. Minow, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under John F. Kennedy, denounced television as a “vast wasteland” in 1961.

Oh, those Olympics. Inspiring, incredible, heartbreaking, fun and heartwarming. No other sporting event on Earth can produce so many plots, twists, turns and moments to enjoy and ponder as the summer games. 

I like that headline. Life can be about increasing your and others’ smiles per hour if you know who the accelerator is and where the accelerator pedal is. So let me explain using the following story by an unknown author. 

Don’t look for a Broadway revival of Irving Berlin’s musical “Annie Get Your Gun” anytime soon. New York’s “Great White Way” has become the “Great Woke Way,” so the show’s title would prove offensive to gun control advocates. 

America has long been a stronghold of freedom. The first few amendments to the Constitution guarantee freedom of speech and religion, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble, the right to bear arms, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, the right to due process, and the right no…

Mike Enzi was never too big for his britches, nor too small for his shoes.

Lord, could we get some rain? Our prayers were answered. OK, can it stop for a while? Because it was a doozy of a storm that trounced Arizona. The destruction to lives, livestock, trees and property that comes from a “100-year monsoon event” showed us that Mother Nature can be fierce. In Ari…

Missing a few neighbors and friends? We might all be in San Diego. San Diego locals call us “Zonies,” poking gentle fun at us. Californians claim that every other person in their state is a vacationing Arizonan from Memorial Day to Labor Day. 

The young family made quite a drive for this special summer vacation.