Back in the good old days of the pandemic, school systems across the country had to find inventive ways to make sure they kept their high school graduation numbers up while ensuring that those graduates maintained at least a modicum of proficiency in life skills basics. You know – reading, writing, ’rithmetic. Some districts waived [...]

Let’s see. Headlines of the day. Well, there’s the new mess in the Middle East. There’s the old mess in Ukraine. The United Auto Workers are setting up more picket lines. The moon blocked out the sun for a minute or two. New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez has some splainin’ to do about gold bars [...]

I’ve been very fortunate to set foot in all the lower 48 states of the Union. I use the words “set foot in” because there was one state into which I literally did just that. Once while driving in the upper reaches of northern South Dakota, I saw a sign that indicated the North Dakota [...]

Most people would probably know that Dianne Feinstein, who died this week at age 90, was a member of the U.S. Senate for a good long time (over 30 years). With her initial victory in a special election in November 1992, she became California’s first female to join that august body. But that wasn’t the [...]