Columns

My son Gideon certainly had a high-octane understanding of the THEORY of driving last winter.

The domestic terrorism that we witnessed Wednesday was always bound to happen. The feral creature who nurtured it had long signaled us that it was coming.

I love the Daily Courier. I love it despite dueling letters to the editor and the potpourri of Rants and Raves. Maybe especially because of those things!

The events in Washington, D.C., have been called “insurrection,” “failed democracy,” “Capitol siege” and “democracy attacked,” among others, in newspapers across the country and the world.

For many of us, thinking about renewing our driver’s license rarely crosses our mind. Sure, we update it with a new address when we move and some change their name after getting married, but the first time most of us will actually renew our driver’s license is when we turn 65 years old.

The Citizens Water Advocacy Group (CWAG), as a water sustainability organization, is often asked how long our water supply will last.

If you reside in the Quad Cities, you are likely to be an unknowing participant in a great domestic battle that currently engulfs us all!

There are yet more crazy, and bad things going on with Prescott city government and water.

My father had terminal lung cancer. He fought like a Spartan at Thermopylae, his body riddled with chemo and radiation, his stomach filled with macrobiotic foods lovingly prepared by my mother, his mind steeped in the defiance of death as exhibited by Dylan Thomas who wrote the words that were buried with him, in his coffin:

I was not a very honest child. I can confess it now, but at the time I thought I was clever when I cheated on book reports. I fooled teachers for years — but at what price?

My new puppy entered the world on Christmas and he’s already bringing incredible joy into my family — just as many dogs, cats and other bundles of joy are doing for millions during these unusual times.

“Guess what?” a friend who works in healthcare asked as we talked on the phone.

Ok, let’s get the obvious out of the way. 2020 was the year of COVID-19, also known as corona (minus the lime), the plague, the super crud, or, as my dad calls it (and most other contagious illnesses), “the rooty-gootus.” But what else happened in 2020?

Bad drivers are among us, we all know that. They drive too slowly, don’t signal, pass when they’re not supposed to … it never ends.

Happy New Year! 2020 was certainly not the start to a new decade that we all anticipated and it presented many challenges and difficult times....

Psychology Today defines cognitive dissonance as “a term for the state of discomfort felt when two or more modes of thought contradict each other.”

Nobody deserves to die in a pandemic.

By RICHARD MACLEAN Special to the Courier

The older I get, the more I am turning into my father.

As we prepare for the promise of a new year, I know many of us are leaving behind a year filled with professional and personal challenges.

In case you (expletives deleted) missed the marketing campaign, on January 5 the noble public servants at Netflix will launch a six-episode series, “History of Swear Words,” hosted by actor Nicholas Cage.

It never fails — no matter where you go, that’s the place with the “worst drivers.”

I like to think of a new year as a clean slate.

Of the 42 Major League baseball players born on Dec. 25, three are enshrined in Cooperstown’s Hall of Fame.

A Christmas Catchall (in lieu of the normal Friday Catchall):