Get expos-ed in October
While the month of May is known as U.S. Older Americans Month, the month of October is the metro area’s Month of 50+Expos.Over a 12-day period this October, there will be 5 days of entertaining and informative events within easy driving distance of Howard County residents who are over 50 or love someone who is.In ColumbiaFirst, on Friday, Oct. 16, is the Howard County 50Plus Expo,... READ MORE
What could we have done?
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been going over and over in my mind what’s been reported about a recent murder on the Washington Metro.For those who didn’t hear about it, or perhaps missed the details, let me recap: A knifing took place in the early afternoon on the 4th of July aboard a train heading toward the National Mall for the Independence Day... READ MORE
Do we save too much?
Just a few years ago, before the Great Recession hit, economists were reporting a “negative savings rate” among Americans. That meant many of us were spending even more than we earned each year.How could that be? At the time, hard as it may be to remember now, the rising stock market and booming housing prices gave many Americans such a sense of wealth and optimism about the... READ MORE
Looking back and ahead
A reader wrote me recently to say she clipped and saved the “Man of Valor” column I wrote last year as a eulogy to my late father, and that she has read it many times since. She suggested I reprint it in our upcoming editions as a Father’s Day column.I was touched by the request. I am not reprinting it here, however, as the column is available on our website at... READ MORE
Plane thoughts
What I didn’t tell you in my column last month, about the future of print media, was that I wrote it partially in preparation for a speech I was to give on that topic at a national conference.It so happened that I flew to Chicago for the conference on March 24, the very day Germanwings Flight 9525 was intentionally crashed into the French Alps by its co-pilot.I fly on commercial... READ MORE
A future for print?
Sometimes it seems to me like the march of “progress” is so enamored of the bright, shiny future that it too readily jettisons the best of the past. This particularly feels like the case regarding the way many have dismissed the world of print in the face of today’s ever-changing digital devices.Now, I’m no troglodyte. I use a computer and an Android smartphone all... READ MORE
Should we spend it all?
For the past two months, I’ve been writing in this column about the financial pit that we are digging for ourselves as a country. At least, that’s one way of looking at the trillions of dollars of expanding deficits embedded in our federal and state government budgets.Our demographic trajectory (rapidly aging population, expanding longevity, dwindling proportion of current... READ MORE
Facing facts, part II
In last month’s column, I started to lay out some generally well-known facts in hopes they can facilitate an important discussion that I feel Americans need to be having with each other.To summarize very briefly: Thanks to modern medicine and healthier lifestyles, we are living longer. While that’s a good thing for the most part, more and more older Americans are outliving their ... READ MORE
Facing facts
Perhaps because so many readers have recently told me how much they’ve enjoyed my recent columns, I’ve decided to risk spending some of that capital this month by sharing a number of statistics that I think paint a rather troubling picture and lead to some controversial conclusions.Because I can’t possibly lay out all the pertinent facts, much less their ramifications, in... READ MORE
Credit where it’s due
In my column last month, I promised to share more about the awards our writers have recently garnered in national competitions. Each year, we enter a selection of our writers’ original stories in two journalism competitions: those of the North American Mature Publishers Association (NAMPA) and the National Mature Media Awards. This year, we received more than 20 awards at the annual ... READ MORE
